lollerskater

Zoukout 2006.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

This year's zoukout was pretty good. Well actually just ok by my standards. I was really looking forward to Steve Lawler's set, but sigh I came out dissapointed. The only Lawler gig I went to which was good was the first one. Live he just doesn't cut it for me. Much better on record. Ferry corsten was pretty good but music just a little too mainstream for my tastes. He spun your typical MOS annual tracks...total sian. Turned out to be kind of like my version of Mambo. But seriously speaking, I wasn't there this year for the lineup. More importantly I was there to spend time with Brother Avis, and of course Maddie. Probably the only surviving members of the super best friends club. I had super flashbacks of all the great times we spent together, rollerblading, hanging out, clubbing, drinking, etc. Sigh.

Speaking of drinking, here's the stasha-alcohola

Getting to the venue was an absolut bitch. Thanks however to my friend sniper rambo for his kind lift. I had to close both Island Creamery's before heading down, by the time I was on my way to Sentosa it was already 11-ish...Jeeebus! The queue into Sentosa was crazy! I probably spent 30 mins from the entrance of Sentosa sitting in the car till the actual zoukout venue. Thankfully brother Avis saved some drinks for me and fixed us up.

Sambuca still tastes like shit to me.

Captain Maddie and Valerie.

Us at our carpark pre-zoukout drinking area, same spot we used last year as well!

Well anyways we headed to the main arena soon afterward. I don't care so much for RnB so please don't ask me how it went. I was kinda dissapointed by the house/trance arena. I seriously miss Armin. Why the hell did you guys bring him in earlier and not for zoukout. It was hot, it was friggin crowded as well. Like super crowded. I had to keep watch and make sure no funny people were trying to grab our behinds. As well as keeping a tight grip on our nostrils from the killer B-O from the guy dancing next to us.

NO ARMIN, NO DEEP DISH, NO JAMES LAVELLE, NO PAUL VAN DYKE...LOL
Lawler was ok lah, I love his brand of dark house beats. But live, I don't think he felt the crowd very well. All in my humble opinion of course.

Me and Val @main arena.

Ok enough about music, djs and the like. The highlight of the night for me has to be Avis and his lightstick twirling skills. Like a true blue, full moon party raver, Avis borrowed a pair of sticks from some guy there and decided to have a go. There he was twirling away, creating beautiful swirls like a ribbon gymnast at the olympics.

THEN....the lightsticks get tangled! SUPER TANGLED!

We spent about 15-20mins trying to get them untangled while the lightstick owner stood there watching in disbelief and regret. Actually Avis and Maddie did, I just stood there in glee taking pictures with my handphone!

Soon afterward we headed back. I'm seriously getting too old for this. I got a really bad headache halfway through from all the B-O and smoke inhalation. Went back home and got to sleep around 7 in the morning. Only to wake up and head to work again!

I'm still feeling really disillusioned right now. I'm done with my exams, effectively speaking, I am totally done with uni. The next time I head back to campus is for my chance to wear a gown and a square hat, take some pictures, get a paper, and throw the hat high high in the sky. I know I need a job...damn I need a job. Sigh but all I can think about now is how crappy my guitar playing has become since my long practice layoff.

We'll see.

Christopher.

Deliberately Different.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Zoukout is coming.

I've been studying so much I've forgotten how to dance, or at least try to dance.

Thank goodness for Bubba Hog and youtube!

I remember the first zoukout I went for, I was so comforable in my own skin, I went shirtless. The second time round, thanks to the nutritious post-army dietary guidelines I felt the need to cover up and wore a singlet. By the looks of things right now, I'll probably wear a jacket and long pants to cover up all my blubber.

The last few days have been pretty challenging for me, the final exams, the projects, managing the store...I didn't even sleep at all last night rushing the project for this morning. I'm at quite of a loss as to what comes next for me in life. I guess the aspect of which that is holding me back, are the sacrifices which I will inevitably have to make. Relish the free time I have right now and just enjoy indulging in my passions, while I can of course. But I won't lose sight of the main goals which I have set for my future.

I've been offline for just a couple of days and my guitar buddy Brandon did his take of Allan Holdsworth's Proto Cosmos, which is incidentally my fave Holdsworth composition. Brandon is a killer guitarist. Do check out the video please.

Jealous I am.

Killer playing.

I just got the backing track from him over Msn, I'll mess around with it for a bit, and if I'm confident enough I'll post one as well. I hope.

ORD LOH!

Christopher.

My Gear.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

I've always wanted to a detailed run down of the gear I use, just for the sake of it or for me to play pretend rock star once in a while. Some folks have expressed interest towards it by saying "WTF YOU NEED ALL THAT SHIT FOR?", so I'll be going through the gear I use in the coming posts. They'll be accompanied by great pictures courtesy of Canon Photo Marathon Winner Valerie Lam.

Be warned if you're not a gear slut, I suggest you leave now.

This is my current pedalboard, I got it from Mr Misse at www.mrmisse.com . He sells two versions one large and one small. Mine is the smaller variant of the two. It's an extremely versatile pedalboard. What you're seeing right now in the picture is the bottom of it, the upper portion it actually a lid. Place the 2 together and the pedalboard boxes together to form a case. The board itself comes with a carpeted bottom, perfect for velcroing your pedals to the bottom of it. I use industrial strength velcro and change my order of effects all the time so the stock carpet has worn off. Right now I'm using some carpet that was left over from shop renovations I did. Does a great job.

The signal chain is as follows:

Guitar : Ernie Ball Musicman Luke/Ibanez Jem77FP
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr, tuner out to Boss TU-12
RedWitch Standard Moonphase
Xotic Effects Robotalk 2
Xotic Effects RC Booster
Bjfe Dyna Red Distortion
Moog Mooger Fooger MuRF
Boss DD-20 Delay

Everything in between is wired with Canare Cable and flathead plugs, all done up by www.mrmisse.com .

This is the first group, that shiny chrome looking box is the RedWitch, to the bottom of it is the Robotalk, the white pedal is the RC Booster, and the red one of course is the Dyna Red. I get all my swooshing lush sounds from the RedWitch Moonphase, it's does a really good job at it. Think guitar tone flying on the wings of wind. That's the Moonphase.

Next comes the Robotalk...

As some of you might know, I own a wah wah pedal but I don't use it. As a matter of fact I find it cumbersome to rock my foot back and forth while giving my guitar talking face and playing at the same time. I'm also some what dumbfounded without having an LED/Indicator light to let me know whether the pedal is on or not. Enter the Robotalk, it's the most vocal sounding Autowah I've come across. I got an extremely good deal on this pedal! It acts just like a real true to life wah pedal, but on the dynamics of your picking, pick hard and the WAH sound comes out, softly and the OOH sound comes out. Very nice. It comes with a random arpeggiator which I have not found a use for right now...play a chord and it turns the chord into EEEE DEEE AHHH OOOH WOOO AHHH EEEEH AHHHH OOOOH WAAA AHHH...etc etc.

This is probably the first pedal I bought from Mr Misse. I got it after Chinese New Year this year I believe. It's a clean boost pedal. It's especially great for use in a band situation. Say you've got a great rhythm tone going, but you've got a solo section coming up. The RC can act as a gain boost in pumping up the signal into your amp/distortion pedal...giving you sweet sweet gain you're yearning for. Placing it after your distortion pedals would make the RC act as a volume boost. Taking the original tone and just making it louder. Going straight into a clean amp the RC can give you a sweet subtle overdriven tone as well. Very nice versatile pedal...

Oh yeah...and Scott Henderson swears by it.

My main distortion pedal, the Bjfe Dyna Red. The whole interest towards this pedal stems from my late night conversations with my gear slut buddy Brandon. To him it was the distortion pedal to rule and end all distortion pedals. I was skeptical at first, I mean it's just a pedal right how damn good can something like this sound? But brother Roy got me a great deal on this pedal. The moment I tried it...my room with flooded with drool. They're not easy to come by, so if you do get the opportunity to get one, do it. It does not have that much gain though, but according to Brandon I'm able to coax gain out of it due to me picking so damn hard. So far the only distortion pedals I've found to have really liked are the Dyna Red, MI Audio's Tube Zone and also the Crunch Box.

The latest acquistion of mine is the MuRF, I was able to afford it having sold a whole bunch of old guitar books, CDs and DVDs I placed online for sale. Words alone cannot describe this pedal. The possibilities are really endless with this one. I've always had a strong fascination with Moog stuff. It's like a time based modulation, it can act as a sequencer as well. When you play a note, the MuRF turns the note into musical magic. You can also set the rate/speed and the type of pattern you want the animated notes to take. It's the bomb I tell you, I shit you not. However when I first heard it, I thought of it as noisemaker nonsense, but I've already used it with my band and have written quite a few songs and riffs based on the MuRF's tones. Used with copious amounts of delay and a deranged mine, it can do horror movie tones! Awesome stuff!

The pedal next to it is what I use for delay. Delay is basically something like echo...you play a note, it goes into the delay pedal and the pedal "Delays" the note a certain amount of time, and brings it back. Creating the illusion of "Echo". You can specify the number of repeats via the feedback knob, the amount of time you want the delay to be - The time taken between the played note and the repeated one, and the loudness of the delayed note. The advantage of the DD-20, I get to keep 4 different delay modes in one pedal. And I can switch between them midway into a song, or any time I choose to. The DD-20 itself has much more other stuff going on which I have not even checked out though...

And last but not least is my trusty Boss TU-12 tuner which I have owned since I was probably about 14 years old. Yes 14 years old. I've very much like to get a more accurate responsive tuner like the Peterson Strobostomp...but it ain't cheap. Probably take 3 weeks of ice cream scooping to afford. The Boss one fits in the crowded mass of my board which is good as well. It works fine but well...it ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

This is the amp I got at the Midyear Sweelee sale of 2006. Took me loads of saving to afford working part time and all. But it was worth it, it's everything I would want in an amp. A relatively small wattage, and a great responsive clean sound to die for. I changed the 2 pin power plug it came with to a 3 pin one, it's dead quite now.

Alright folks, that's probably about the end of the gear descriptions. If anyone else has any questions do let me know. I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Christopher.

Big 'ole Vivo

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

I haven't been keeping up with it lately. I'm so totally out of it. Even the other day when I went for a haircut at Pacific Plaza, I went over to Scotts for lunch at the foodcourt. Most of the stalls were gone, I only found out why slightly later when I bumped into a friend working at the way huge Nokia showroom upstairs. Which brings me to my next revelation, since when did they even put a showroom there!?!? What happened to the watch boutique?!?! I feel like a friggin' dinosaur confined to the fossilized boundaries of Bukit Timah. Anyways I decided to visit the latest phenomenon in Singapore shopping - Vivo City. Was a great opportunity for me to spend some time with Val. I needed that so much, especially in view of the events which transpired through the course of the day.

I recently sold away two of my most prized guitar pedals for a handsome sum...300 buckeroos a pop. I've been on some sort of Moog-like frenzy lately. WTF is a Moog? Check it here, www.moogmusic.com . Anyways back to the story yeah. As fellow GAS-heads (Gear acquisition syndrome) will know, one of the unwritten rules of guitar GAS is this. You only sell something to buy something else! Wah lan eh, I had my sights on another Moog related pedal. Or in the bigger scheme of things maybe a nice Mac for the new house. But my dad gave me a nice reality check and told me to go pay for my insurance premium on my own. And it ain't cheap mind you. Not one bit.

Best Buy.

Anyways back to Vivo City.

First impression, the place is bloody hell big man. Seriously fucking big. Large vast floor spaces, endless ceilings, shitloads of people even on a wednesday. If you just stand there and watch it all you'd think you're in some well oiled machine of a factory.
IT'S THAT BIG!

MY STOMACH IS THAT BIG!

Essentially everything is the same though. I did not come across anything worth drooling over during my visit. Everything you can buy there you can probably buy at any other urban shopping mall in Singapore. Loads of people, uncontrollable children, crying babies, the works. However just experiencing the sheer size of it and the marvel of civil engineering it is makes the trip worthwile though. And I'm sure that's what the rest of the folks there thought too. I hardly saw anyone carrying any shopping bags for that matter. There are pretty nice outdoor gardens and stuff, but by the time Val and I got to going there, it was already pitch dark. Well one thing great was this...

Loves it!

Yeah I make it sound like such a tough trip and all. Maybe it's just my inner sense of paranoia thinking out loud. But seriously folks I did enjoy myself. There's a certain sense of therapy one experiences when taking part in the whole consumerism thing. I did see a lot of stuff I wanted but I just couldn't bring myself to spend the cash after paying my mofo insurance premium.

Highlight of my day...

Val's rock god super power fearsome shredder impersonation at toys r us.

Rockin'!

Christopher.

Good blogs have pictures...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Yeah read the title, a good blog would have pictures. As a matter of fact, I believe all good blogs or more rather ones which were perceived good have pictures. And good pictures for that matter. Only with pictures or some other form of stimuli, would I be able to show you the things I've come across in my life.
How I went to school the other day to do my project with Lavinia with my unwaxed hair of floppiness, only to have our room filled with a full load of Indonesian students playing Warcraft provide us with surround sound in bahasa!