“I Will Be Here” November 30, 2006

Whew. The last wedding of 2006. But the first I’ve done for someone I hardly know. She’d seen my previous work and liked it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I did a good job on her’s, what with an impolite videographer always blocking the view at the last minute (so there was no time to manoeuvre into line of sight) and a very erratic battery.

This song was played at all, if not most, of the 10-15 weddings this year, and it’s finally gotten under my skin:

“I Will Be Here”
Steven Curtis Chapman

Tomorrow morning if you wake up
And the sun does not appear
I, I will be here
If in the dark, we lose sight of love
Hold my hand, and have no fear
‘Cause I, I will be here

I will be here
When you feel like being quiet
When you need to speak your mind
I will listen
And I will be here
When the laughter turns to cryin’
Through the winning, losing and trying
We’ll be together
I will be here

Tomorrow morning, if you wake up
And the future is unclear
I will be here
Just as sure as seasons were made for change
Our lifetimes were made for these years
So I will be here

I will be here
And you can cry on my shoulder
When the mirror tells us we’re older
I will hold you
And I will be here
To watch you grow in beauty
And tell you all the things you are to me
I will be here

I will be true to the promise I have made
To you and to the One who gave you to me

Tomorrow morning, if you wake up
And the sun does not appear
I will be here
Oh, I will be here

The sappiness still sits uncomfortably, and the 90s-type CCM rifts still bug me but the story behind it is interesting: this song apparently emerged from a very dark time when Steven found out his parents would be getting a divorce, and he wanted to assure his wife, Mary Beth, that he’d be there for her even through the most difficult fights and the times when she felt totally ugly; a vow of commitment.

Lawyerly senses prickle and warning bells ring: the promise of something you’re not sure you can deliver! Can you promise you’ll always be there? Shouldn’t there be a carve-out for kicking the bucket, for incapacity, for (hurhur) being raptured, for your innate sinfulness that might cause you to betray your spouse in the years to come?

“Force Majeure

The covenanting party shall not be responsible for its failure in the performance of its obligations hereunder if such performance is prevented by an act of God, fire, explosion, war, civil commotion, strikes, riots, acts of terrorism or any cause which is beyond the control of the said covenanting party, or its innate sinfulness”.

*Mulls*

Maybe only God the Faithful can, in full honesty, sing this song?

Clubbing November 24, 2006

From Urbanwire, written only a year and a half ago. How things have moved on:

NightLife
Written by Hajar Manaf
Tuesday, 05 July 2005

Clubbing now has taken a different spin. Hajar Manaf took a sample of this PopTart on its monthly gig at Home, and if you’re up for some pure unpretentious fun, you might just want to take a bite.

When you strip the frills of pretentious “clubbing dynamics”, you get,DJ Adrian Wee and his brainchild event PopTart, which will take you back to the basics. The indie revelry doesn’t ride on the hype and shoulders of superstar DJs or the cheap lure of a ladies’ night.

“It’s just a small party where everybody comes to have fun. It’s not a place where you feel really pressurised to look good. It doesn’t have your ‘sleazy vibe’ from clubs,” explains the 30 year-old Adrian Wee who’s spent 8 years as a professional vinyl spinner. .

The DJ at Attica started the monthly underground phenomenon last October. In its league are intimate, indie events such as the Eclectic Sessions at Cocco Latte, Drum & Bass heavyweight Subversive and House specialist Sonar .

Events such as these have created their own brand of clubbing waves. Adrian attributes the phenomenon to the fact that “people are getting a bit sick of [the] clubbing routine, people are not enjoying themselves in the big clubs, it just doesn’t excite people anymore”.

PopTart seems to have swum against the mainstream, and that wins it its fans.Adrian continues, “I think that a lot of people are taking clubbing too seriously.” PopTart, on the other hand, is “all about having fun”.

Not your archetypal independent clubbing event, PopTart is distinct in its spins. Drawn by the repertoire of 80s and 90s nostalgic grunge, brit pop, indie rock and punk, PopTart punters are those who come because “they can relate to the music,” Adrian adds.

PopTart avid-goer, 19-year-old Aisyah Omar, agrees, “I know I can sit and have my drink, and have a good time. The music’s ‘dead-on’, [you] can’t find this anywhere else.”

While keeping with the nostalgic PopTart sounds, Adrian says that “this is a good time for us to drive forward, to move on with new stuff to play [guitar bands like The Killers], instead of just looking at the retrospective”.

PopTart is not just about senseless partying and rave-like fiasco, especially when you double the decibel with booze; it’s actually “friendly and warm”. “It’s easier for the crowd to feel connected and to have their identity … [and] feel that they belong more. We don’t pull in a thousand people.” He also adds that the crowd is “nothing too atas [Malay for snooty], nothing to do with that ‘holier-than-thou kind of attitude’, nothing too poseur-ish”. Basically it’s just “a familiar ground for everybody to come together” and it makes it “more memorable”.

If you’ve taken a look at PopTart’s website , you’re bound to come across the almost philosophical input on what PopTart is all about. Adrian, who was responsible for writing it said “music has always given me a sense of time, where something meant something to me. Every moment has a song.”

If you’ve been nodding your head in agreement and are all for dressing down and having pure unpretentious fun, it may be time to sample this PopTart.

HOME is located at:
20 Upper Circular Road #B1 -01/06
The Riverwalk Singapore 058416

Cafe and Cake November 24, 2006

Perched on barstools under the strobe lights, drinks in hand, winding down after a long week, watching the dancefloor, he leaned over and yelled above the pulsating bass,”I’m opening a cafe!”

“A whaat?!” we yelled back, looking about him for some new packet of addiction.

“A cafe!” he insisted innocently. And so he was. And he looked meaningfully at us in the semi-darkness.

Some unrelated links:
http://www.hotfuchsia.com/
http://www.b-i-y.com/
http://www.bitc.com.sg/
http://www.phoonhuat.com/
http://www.awfullychocolate.com/

http://wineanddine.asiaone.com.sg/news/features/20051204_001.html
http://wineanddine.asiaone.com.sg/news/features/20060219_002.html
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1088439693584

Injustice November 16, 2006

I get really riled up over instances of injustice, even if they don’t concern me personally. I hate it when people are bullied especially by those who wear masks of godliness, who hoodwink those in authority (and so swing popular opinion) by their glib tongues and buttering up. I hate it when those bullied are then defamed by the very people who bully them and excluded from the group.

But the BF reminded me today that we believe in a sovereign omniscient God. And He knows and He judges all in the end. Do not presume to judge but leave room for His wrath.

Oh, to finally arrive on the white shores of that far green country under a swift sunrise…

*************

Pippin: I didn’t think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path… One that we all must take.
[Pippin listens and watches Gandalf curiously, as he continues. The battle around seems to quiet down]
Gandalf: The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass…
[a light comes into Pippin's face, as a small smile comes into his eyes, as Gandalf looks out into the distance]
Gandalf: …And then you see it.
Pippin: What? Gandalf?… See what?
Gandalf: White shores… and beyond. The far green country under a swift sunrise.
[they both smile as they look at each other]
Pippin: Well, that isn’t so bad.
Gandalf: [softly] No… No it isn’t.

The Cure November 1, 2006

I’ve been listening to my post-punk collection: Devo, The Fall, Gang of Four, The Raincoats, Wire, Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees…
How much I utterly <3 The Cure and Robert Smith’s unique lo-fi sound made, allegedly, by running his Fender bass VI baritone guit through an early ’80s Peavey Ultra head into a 4×12 cabinet. These guys say that his personal settings for the head are to remove the mids, set the bass half and the treble completely turned up.

If I ever lay my hands on an electric guit and a nice collection of pedals, how much I’d like to spend my nights playing in underground indie pubs to people who’d understand – not just the mod dressers in their polkadots and stripes and skinny jeans and bumblebee sunnies, but people who’d appreciate the textures and the layering.

How very postpunk revival. How very passe. Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, British Sea Power, Dirty Pretty Things, Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, Hard-Fi, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers, Le Tigre, The Libertines, Louis XIV, Maximo Park, The Strokes, Snow Patrol, We Are Scientists…

In line with my need to understanding the whys and whatfores of everything, am on the hunt for this book:

Boys in the Boardroom November 1, 2006

Quotable quote of the morning:

“They are trying to intimidate us. We can’t let them do it. Once you see an opening, go in and rip out their throats by the jugular.”