Revisiting the Ballad of Bukit Brown

Wed, 30 Sep 2020
1 min read
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I’m proud to announce my collaboration together with my good friends from General Lee titled “Revisiting the Ballad of Bukit Brown”.

This is an interdisciplinary piece combining literary arts and music, in which I wrote “Revisiting”, a twin-cinema poem, in response to “The Ballad of Bukit Brown” by General Lee, from their eponymous debut album released in 2016.

We’ve also recorded a music video, which you can stream on Facebook and YouTube (videos embedded below for easy streaming).

From the blurb:

In this cross-disciplinary collaboration, both band and poet tell their stories in a new way and for a new age, brought about by the societal shifts and cultural changes of 2020.

Exploring the tension between conservation and progress in Singapore through the lens of the defunct Bukit Brown cemetery, the video contains images and footage of old and contemporary Singapore, sourced from both private collections as well as Creative Commons.

This includes scenes of Bukit Brown, pictures of historical figures, as well as modern-day Singapore.

This visual juxtaposition illustrates the various facets of the conversation on conservation and progress, and mirror the duality of the twin-cinema format used in the poem.

“Zoe Tay” by The Boredphucks (c. 2002)

Sun, 1 Sep 2019
2 min read
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While migrating over to a new computer, I discovered I’d transcribed the lyrics to “Zoe Tay” by The Boredphucks (c. 2002) some time back.

I can’t remember why I wanted to write them out in the first place. In any case, I’m posting them here for posterity.

Enjoy, and leave a comment if there are any typos.

Zoe Tay
By The Boredphucks (c. 2002)

Late at night, somewhere on Orchard Road
You can find a girl called Elizabeth
She’s so fine, oh with all those groovy clothes
Lipstick, mascara – she’s OK
Electrifying everyone that passes her way

Canto pop, techno bop, she’s a superstar
Riding on in her sugar daddy’s sports car
Getting everything she wants in her special way
Erotic, neurotic – she’s OK
She’ll suck you dry in every possible way

She speaks Singlish like Zoe Tay
She’s illiterate but that’s OK
‘Cos she’s living life in a TCS serial
She speaks Singlish like Zoe Tay

Late at night somewhere on Orchard Road
You can find a girl called Elizabeth
She’s so fine, oh with all those groovy clothes
Armani, Versace – she’s OK
Firing up the catwalk as she passes your way

She speaks Singlish like Zoe Tay
She’s illiterate but that’s OK
‘Cos she’s living life in a TCS serial
She speaks Singlish like Zoe Tay

ADDENDUM: Sanjeev Veloo, former frontman of The Boredphucks, left a since-deleted comment with corrections to the second verse. Thanks Sanjeev!

Nothing lasts forever

Sun, 26 Feb 2017
4 min read
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Last night’s gig by Guns N’ Roses marked the end of an era.

It was a great gig; the band was tight and everyone pulled out all stops to give their all.

Kudos to Slash, especially – he was holding the act together with his instrumental pieces.

However, Axl Rose’s singing was a stark reminder of how we are all mortal.

His vocals aren’t as good as they used to be – understandably so, because of age and a lifetime of various forms of abuse.

He demonstrated a much more limited vocal range and inconsistent singing quality e.g. songs like “Sweet Child Of Mine” were pitch perfect and performed to almost album-like quality, to the note.

On other songs it was especially apparent that he was masking the decreased ability to reach a certain pitch by slurring his words or taking tonal shortcuts.

I thought this mortality was most ironically epitomised during “November Rain”, when he sang the line “nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain” and “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”:

Mama take this badge from me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door

The performance aside, I want to detail some of the experiences for posterity, and also, in case it’s good feedback for anyone who wants to organise a concert:

  1. The drive there was terrible.At one point, the jam along Changi Coast Road got so bad that people started getting out of their cars and running to the venue.

    The organisers have to recognise that the venue has serious transportation limitations.

    First, there are zero public transport options.

    Second, there is only one two-lane road going in:

    My sister and I were joking that LAMC Productions should’ve just should’ve organised a ferry service from Harbourfront to Changi Ferry Terminal.

    With the coastal hook, it would provide gig-goers an alternative mode of transport plus get commuters there in a quicker time and with a more scenic view.

    While stuck in the jam, I also had some time to think about whether we should’ve taken the shuttle bus.

    Because it wasn’t mandatory, taking the shuttle bus wouldn’t have helped.

    So there’s a need to give a larger incentive to get people to take the shuttle bus e.g. disallow parking at the venue, give discounts for early birds, etc.

  2. The gig management itself was terrible.
    • No one collected our tickets at the door, which made me feel like we shouldn’t have bought tickets.

    • For Pen B tickets holders, part of the view was blocked; the organisers had erected some kind of barrier, for reasons I know not.

      If you buy a more expensive VIP or Pen A ticket, you pay more to be closer to the action.

      If you buy a cheaper ticket, you do so with the cognisance that you will be farther from the stage – but your view shouldn’t be blocked.

    • At some point in the night, they closed the token top-up counters (we could only pay using a token, which we had to top-up using cash or credit).

      I had $10 left in my token and the money was non-refundable. So if there weren’t any items with which I could spend the $10, I would’ve been shorted.

      I’m not sure if they had announced beforehand that top-up counters would be closed.

      Even if they did, who would remember/who would want to take a break from music they wanted to listen to, just to top-up their tokens before the counter closed?

    • Last but not least, it seems they didn’t check the tickets.So at a later point in the night, we managed to get into Pen A because no one seemed to care.

      That was the saving grace of the night – but it also made me wonder if I should’ve bought tickets at all…

UPDATE: LAMC Productions’ Ross Knudson breaks down what went wrong at Guns N’ Roses’ show in Singapore.