PAUL's Place in Damansara Utama was packed as music lovers, young and old, came in droves to enjoy a night of funky alternative grooves.Billed Next Stage Volume III, the event by Lemang Music saw young and old musicians showing off their talent with aplomb.
First up was an unknown band, Call The Paramedics, comprising Meng (guitar, vocals), Mulon (guitar), Sam (bass), Alda (drums), Rene (vocals) and Ajeep (keyboards). All of them were in their early 20s.
With muted strings on wah, running basslines and haunting keys, they managed to warm the place up with Easy On The Paramedics, Call Me and Repercussion. Although their music was good, their lack of experience really showed during their performance.
Soft Touch had older members and were doubtless the most experienced name on the bill. Founded in 1999, the band's line-up now comprises Peter Hassan Brown (vocals, guitar, harmonica), his wife Markiza (keyboards, vocals), Shahril (bass), Wong Lip Kee (lead guitar) and singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alex Ang (drums).
The Browns have self-produced two albums while Peter recently released his fourth solo album, Warm. That night, Soft Touch performed some new songs. One, Better World, is a plea for world peace. The groovy reggae beat invites the listener to feel the music and not just listen to it.
There was a guest band performing - all the way from Singapore. Zhen which is made up of Zeph (vocals), Flo (drums), Wendy Phua (bass), Riez (guitar) started off by playing the instrumental numbers Into The Storm and Feather In Cap, which gave a chance for the guitar, bass and drums to have excellent uninterrupted solos, something you don't see often from our local bands.
They finished off the night with a beautiful trippy instrumental number which was a mix of progressive rock, funk, classical renaissance and jazz.
Telebury with Adrian Alphonsus (vocals/ guitars), Awang Hisamudin (bass), Dzul Haswandie Taha (guitar), Haizronnaha Hasan (guitar) and Iskandar Mirza Omar (drums) sent up heatwaves with their energetic show and terrific originals such as Can't You See? and Overdrive with plenty of great guitar playing by Dzul and Awang.
Most of their songs are heavily influenced by Radiohead, Longpigs, Elbow, The Cure and U2. The band has also recorded an EP/Demo entitled Is There `US' In You?, released in October last year. Currently, plans are underway for a single with hopes that recording will happen soon.
Says Iskandar: "The local urban music scene is growing fast. Now companies and many groups are actively supporting the local young new musicians and bands to showcase their talents by organising gigs, contests and concerts.
"Even big companies such as Pan Global and radio stations such as Hitz.fm are showing interest in our local scene. That is what we call progress. Give another few years ... it will be even better, trust me."
"It is quite hard today to find good talented young musicians like the ones we have here tonight who play their own songs instead of doing covers of other people's work," says Peter, who, together with Markiza, are the founder of Lemang Music, a publishing, production and promotion company.
"What we do try to create here is a platform for this kind of raw talent to get noticed and to introduce their music to the public and, with the help of musiccanteen.com, to the world.
"As you can see from the reaction of the audience tonight, many of them are quite impressed with the performances." - NST 10/10/2004
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