Kento Anything

After almost 8 months of recording, gigging and touring without a bassist member, we're so proud to present you our new bassist, also a new member of the Chochukmo family, Kento Anything (Kento Kawamura).

We first met at This Music Studio, during the time we're recording our debut album "The King Lost His Pink". While we got stuck as the bass amp at the studio went wrong, our engineer Corey called up his friend to bring us another bass amp, who turned out to be Kento. Since then we've been working closely together. He also helped us out with the live recording of our unplugged live at kubrick in February.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the bassist who has helped us out thru our tough period, namely Carina Ho (FAD), Vanilla Lau (Tacit Closet, Noughts and Exes) and Lala Him.

The fastest way to scan our debut album

We know time is valuable, and it might be time consuming to preview our whole album on our myspace or at HMV, so we've come up with a way for you to scan thru our album "The King Lost His Pink" in less than 5 mins.

A night with a hundred of brilliant singers at kubrick

With one band (which is us) standing alone on a Friday night with an acoustic set, we could never expect a full house at kubrick on last Friday night. It's a wonderful night for us, with a hundred of people sitting so close together, sharing an hour of acoustic music. We'd love to thank those who've come to our little concert, for your supports as well as your singings. We used to think singing-along might be pretty cheesy, but it has turned out to be very touching. That's a night between only you and us, and for sure it has made one of the most memorable night for us.

Debut Album "The King Lost His Pink"

We're here to present you the release of our debut album "The King Lost His Pink", with album cover by Simon Birch, mixed and mastered by Kenneth Tse (The Invisible Men), and full supports from DIESEL and Time Out Hong Kong.

The album is now available at HMV, White Noise Records, Records Rendezvous, Zoo Records, CD Warehouse. Digital purchase is also available at iTunes Store, eMusic and Amazon.

The story behind the album cover

Some frequently asked questions these days are mostly about the album cover. Did you guys photoshop it? Did you guys paint it? No, we didn’t, we're not that talented to come up with such a beautiful painting. For those who've come to our album release party would have probably seen the actual painting, which is as huge as 8 feet talll. So who's the artist who turned our nude bodies into something beautiful thru his magic brush strokes? The acclaimed Simon Birch is the answer.

Thanks to Time Out Hong Kong for the hook up, Simon has then sent us the first email regarding the album cover, going straight ahead to explain to us his philosophy in his art. With the desire of expressing on self with absolute honesty, we've found ourselves so lucky and blessed that we've got Simon on board.

I forgot who suddenly rose "Let's paint us nude!" during a discussion with Simon about the album cover, with Simon replying a "Why not", the painting was then officially kicked off.

With not any further confirmation about what to do with the album cover, we went up to Simon’s studio on a Sunday afternoon. "Come on guys, clothes off." That's what Simon said when he got his camera in hands. Standing in front of the huge plain canvas naked, we got ourselves started to pose. Unlike posing naked in front of a mirror in your own bathroom, it isn't easy at the beginning to pose naked in front of a camera. Les and Jan's great efforts are inspiring, getting the whole team into the mood very quickly. With our clothes back on, the last step for us is to lie on the canvas, while Simon outline us with a chalk on it. It's pretty interesting that we are being outlined by a chalk while we're still in consciousness, as normally when you got outlined by a chalk you’d probably be lying in the middle of a highway, dead or half-dead.

In just 4 days, the painting was finished. We're all so amazed. This painting means so much to us, it has marked our debut CD release, our first nudity in public, as well as our friendship with Simon.

For the stripe over the painting, that is no one's idea, and that's nothing anyone wants. Big applause to the Hong Kong stupid censorship system for classifying the cover as "indecent content", in which if we don't put something to cover up our "painted dicks", our CD won't be allowed to sell to people under 18. We'll keep spreading the words to the world of how civilized Hong Kong is.

(We'll try to save money to run a limited edition with the original painting on the cover, to show our respect to the painting, and the artist.)

To know more about Simon Birch's work, please visit www.simon-birch.com or monkeymodified.blogspot.com

Go and take a look, we promise you'll be very impressed!

A short memoir

Only a week to go for our A*Fest Manila Tour, we’ve just finished our last gig before our break. Feeling pretty relaxed and it’s about time for a short memoir. It’s been 10 months since we had Chochukmo started all over, time flies as it seemed just happened yesterday. I still remember the night the 5 of us were having Curry at Chungking mansion, talking about how to start the band all over, and what goal to achieve. Tho most of the points we’ve discussed that night have been forgotten, the passions remains.

In the past 10 months, Chochukmo has taken over the most part of my life. Heavy gigs and interviews, recordings, promotions, and a lot of managing works have made my schedule terribly packed every single week. Tho sometime exhausting, it’s a meaningful life to me as in the end we’re working extra hard to try to at least achieve something. I’m glad I’m gonna be less busy as before, and would be having more time to relax a bit. At the same time I know I’ll miss the packed yet awesome life I was having in the past 10 months in Chochukmo.

Looking forward to start writing songs with the band, as in the end, the most satisfying thing for a band to do is always to write music.

We’ll soon be on a break, hope to see you all soon.

Mike Orange

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)