I believe, and still believing

Being in an indie band in this city is never easy, if you’re trying to kick some real asses it’s even harder. As an amateur band money is always a problem, and I’d say, a main one. The rent for studio, the transportation fee for gigs (with gigs mostly on the island side the tunnel has been charging us a lot), the recording fee, and the production cost for records (which reaches an amount of 5 digits) and more, are killing us, and have made us one of those who live under the poverty line. I know it’s discouraging to keep delivering our talents and at the same time keep giving out cash. Who’d love to make such a stupid deal?! Well, we did, we do, and probably we would be. We’re not dumb asses, we keep doing it because we all know how invaluable the intrinsic reward is. As an indie band, it’s never easy to be on stage, to be selling records and to be recognized. But things won’t be as treasurable if they come too easily. “No pain, no gain” It’s cheesy but always true.

Stress has been surrounding the band lately. The financial problems, the record progress, the bassist recruitment plus the daytime job stress have been tormenting everyone. You can say if you give up everything and stay ordinary, life will be easier. But at the same time you’ll be just losing an important part of your life, of your youth, and of your green days. Brothers, stay young and stay true. Remember what we said, “running smooth is never our style”. Take a look at what we’ve been working on, and what we’ve achieved. It’s not something very big but at least we’ve made something. Don’t ever think of giving up again, that’s an idea exclusive for losers.

I still believe some days we’ll be able to achieve something beyond our own imaginations, and what we have to do is to just keep working and keep trying. Things will come to us, as they’re meant to be.

The day will come, I believe, and still believing.

Mike Orange

"Never go smooth" has become our style

Things happened these days, with Miss Something leaving the band, the delay of the EP recordings, and the heavy workload of our day job, everyone’s totally exhausted. Other than record and music, there’re lots more to be handled and managed. Feeling pretty frustrated to accept the fact that many of our plans, goals and even our EP have been delayed, and there’re still, up to this moment, lots of uncertainties for the band.

"Things going too smooth" just isn’t our way. Believe it or not, this is destiny.

Mike is kinda Orange

time is running out

we are recording hard... ...we added so much "oil" into our machine. 

i used to be lazy and irresponsible but i remember yan said to me, "when everyone is running towards the dream that we shared, how can you be the one who is slow."

seeing mike, kitty, les putting so much effort into it, i can't be the black sheep.

i know yan is busy with a lot of things right now, can hardly see her,may her spirit be with us.

recording is almost finished, but still a very very tight schedule, but i know we will work it out.

song writing is going to be concentrated on soon, and that is something that need 5 people to do together, i hope at that time......we will be tight as we used to.

as the vocalist of D.M.C said "no music, no dream", i will say "no dream, no music"

love,

jan curious

home coming strawberry

a beautiful afternoon, soft green field, in the arm of love... ...that was my jam fest experience. seeing new and young talents inspired me to explore even more, satisfaction will only stopped the process of evolution. some of us grew up and stop asking question, cant be bother to think after a whole day of thinking at work. if those happened on a musician or an artist will be a tragedy.

i wish i never grow up or getting old, and start thinking about the past or the moment of my peak. life is a search of our own peak and there is no highest peak. when we reached a peak, we search for another higher one. that is the mission of being alive...and i remember my mom ask me, "your music is too strange, who will like it?" i replied, "my audiences are not born yet." i will keep on searching as body is still alive, when i m dead, my spirit will keep on observing what i did.

we played an old song "strawberry" in jam fest. a lot of friends want us to play it again as they said it was their favourite. but we dun wanna look back, so what we did is to recompose the song. that night in jam fest, i found a new n higher peak for "strawberry". 

love you all,

jan (is still) curious (about everything)

A memorable date!

3 years ago, it was the first show for us, CCM at Section 2 with our school uniforms!

Time really pass like the Toilet water (Ha.. I know this is not a cool metaphor), and we all still stick together, including the band members and also our lovely friends who are just like the members in the band. 

So we're hitting November soon, it is going to be a crazy busy month for us, since there's almost one gig a week, Jam Fest, Underground, Respect Live, the show with the Yours in the end of the month... Let's stay awake and enjoy all these moments together, from the past few shows, I think we all learned a bit about everything (the sound, the set...) and let's keep it on, because we all know how good does it feel after giving a good performance rather than just a "so so" performance. Remember the night at the Edge? (to Mic and Jan), it was the coolest feeling ever, I felt happy with what I did and also for how the audience react, so let's try to make all the gigs as memorable as we could and meanwhile, let's make our time more worth while, this is the youth!! 

Yanyan 

All in a day's life

Yesterday when I was walking with Jan to the Fringe Club before the gig, we were chatting all along the way, with Jan on my right side. There was one funny moment when I turned my head to Jan, I saw another Jan pointing his finger to me. That's how we discovered this big poster of Listen Up! 29. We leaned at the fence, kept staring at ourselves on that big poster over minutes. Well, one word to best describe, SICK.

Before the gig Jan and I went to Musicland, where we had our JAM2008 audition at, to check out the band kids over there. If we're not there watching and listening we won't be having an idea of how talented the kids are. We've met lots of young musicians, who're aged from 13 - 16, and are extremely talented. We're so impressed by many of the bands over there that I'd like to take this chance to introduce them a bit. Icarus Flight Plan, a 3-piece-band aged around 13, playing original post-rock music with complicated rhythms. Extremely talented drummer, who absolutely mastered rhythms beyond his age. Art of Ash, another 3-piece-band aged around 16, playing guitar-driven rock music. Vincent, the guitarist plus vocal gives out some catchy guitar riffs as well as tons of Hendrix-Kravitz-influenced solos. I'm already a big fans of these bands.

They'll be playing at JAM2008 this year, and I just can't wait to watch their performance.

Mike loves da Orange

Sad but true

Alright, I'm a live guitarist and absolutely not a studio one. I used to think I could rock the studio, but the fact is that, it's not working at all. I recorded over 20 times for a guitar riff which last only for 30 seconds, and it's still not up to my standard. Recording is like having sex with my band mates, it's like we're naked in front of each others. When the recorded parts are being played back, everyone can listen to it in a very clear way, for every orgasm in music and, sad but true, every fucked up note.

Les Hunter

self-expanding is a placebo of life

we lost GBOB, but we will never lose our determination. In fact, we won a lot of things from it, we won friends, fans and the appreciations from you all.

well, maybe Lester n Mike really lost something as they were so into it, they threw their guitars away at the last song...hehe. I was so touched by my bandmates' passions and these passions can conquer any obstacles ahead of us. And, i hope my arrogance can smoothen our rocky path.

lets rock the stage at Jam Fest. My mom is going as well, so hopefully we can make my mom hear the music when the lights go out.

One day, we will KO everything that meet us.

Jan I.M. Curious

Four recent main keywords in our googles

Recordings, gigs, practices and beers have become the four main keywords of my recent life, or probably our recent lives. Tho it's exhausting, it's a bliss to live a life this way, with tasks to be accomplished, stages to be rocked, goals to be chased, and dreams to be realized. It's almost 2 am, and this is the earliest night in a week that I stayed in bed, thank god.

Recording is always the hardest part of being in a band, it's not like rocking on stage, you'll never satisfy with what you've played after listening to the playbacks. The easiest parts have always become the hardest parts, and the hard parts would always become even harder. I have no idea why this is happening, but it just happened, yea, just happened on last Tuesday night. And probably would be happening again this Sunday, well, good luck.

Feeling so damn nervous of the Listen Up! gig while I'll be doing "1234567&U" on a grand piano. Shit, this is gonna be my first public piano performance, not sure if I can handle the grand piano well. Hope Jan would help me expand myself a bit more. But at the same time I am so excited about it as well, yea, life is contradicting, as always.

Mike Orange