Double take

It's bad enough that I am missing out on Ash's only Asia stop in October - now I can't even find a copy of their latest album in the shops! *pouts* Have all the copies been snapped up by local fans who plan to head down SG for the concert..?

SG beer festival eh? Drink Baby Drink 

Which makes me wonder if the upcoming "1977" remastered deluxe edition will be available here? I wasn't planning on buying it initially as I've already the first edition and more than enough Ash CDs in my collection (I've 14) but they're throwing in the debut mini album "Trailer", a 34-track live CD and a b-sides CD = all in a 3 CD set!! There's also a 4-track demo version of "Girl From Mars" - can't wait to hear that :)

Weezer did the same a couple of years back with the Blue Album and threw in an extra disc of b-sides. I remember picking this up instantaneously at Gramaphone when I found it cos I wanted Susanne on CD so badly LOL - the song that was featured in the movie Mallrats.

Baskin 31

What joy! In conjunction with Merdeka Day and the long weekend, Baskin has extended their 31% off handpacked tubs for the entire weekend starting today :) Am gonna get my Peanut Butter Choc and Pralines tub tonight at 1-Utama.. yummm

And while I'm there, I'm gonna try to source that Twilight of the Innocents CD I've been looking for. I've not read the reviews.. wonder if it's as good as Meltdown?

Are you blue..or are you blind?

I found out about this CD last weekend - not too sure when it was released (after I stopped my weekly and monthly NME and Q purchase, I'm pretty much in the dark about what's going on in the indie music scene)

So The Bluetones released a CD of their early demo tracks - aptly titled "the Early Garage Years" and tracks include a raw demo version of "Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?" (this is a classic 'Tones track!) Also featured on the album are some home recordings and limited edition tracks.

I'm actually quite keen on getting this cos I ran out of new CDs to listen to LOL (lame excuse to buy a new CD) Afterall it's been awhile since I last bought a 'Tones album.... though I don't really see why they're putting this out now. This album should have been released 10 years ago. Poor lads must be cash strapped :P

"if you haven't heard of The Bluetones then you must be either wet behind
the ears or have been walking around with your head up your rear for the last
ten years or so! " Mark Moore @ Contactmusic

Playing doctor

The blog’s been a little quite lately as I’ve been preoccupied with the DS and watching Gallen Lo on old reruns. I started playing Mario Party last week and completed it in less than 5 days. No sweat – it was an easy game! Is it just me or are games getting easier these days? Or maybe I’m getting better at video gaming LOL

I started Lifesigns after I completed Mario Party. It’s quite similar to Trauma Centre (OK I admit that was not an easy game – I played that 2 years ago and didn’t get very far) but Lifesigns is far more entertaining. I killed my first patient when performing an appendectomy! Haha.

I’ve been told the game is made to resemble a trashy medical drama.. and oh, it’s got a whole cast of dodgy looking characters – including the “lady” boss who look like a man who wears a bell around "her" neck! (eikk.. is that bell really to hide “her” adam’s apple?)

Time off

I was planning my annual leave clearance this morning (: I've a total of 19 days left for the year (started the year with 28 days of AL) of which 7 days I will carry forward to next year leaving me with 12 days to clear for the next 4 months.

Since I've no major travel plans for this yearend (other than the 3 planned trips to SG), I'll probably take long weekend breaks starting October and start saving up for next year's travel.

End of the Olympics

Tonight the Beijing Olympics finally came to an end. Compared to the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony was nowhere as spectacular. The "performance" by the Brits was lame.. why did they get Leona Lewis to sing a contemporary pop love song at an Olympic ceremony?! And David Beckham.. oh please that man is a has-been! (never did like him and I can't fathom why his fans turned up early at Times Square recently to ogle at the unveiling of his Armani billboard featuring him in mini briefs and errm "enhanced" crotch *vomits*)

It was good to see Leehom onstage with Kelly Chen and oppa Rain (almost didn't recognise him - he had his shirt on for once! I guess the Beijing Olympic committee didn't want the millions of viewers around the globe to see his oiled torso :P)

Upcoming Mayday gig

Rock Records has announced their Lee Guitar All Stars Night concert in Singapore on November 29th and confirmed artists performing at the show include Mayday (of course), Emil Chau, Tanya Chua, Jonathan Lee and Zhang Zhen Yue. Yet another concert in SG.. ahhh looks like I will be making multiple trips down south this yearend!!

I haven't decided yet if I wanna go cos I'm unfamiliar with the other veteran Rock Record artists' songs but am mighty tempted cos Mayday will be there and I'm quite keen to catch Tanya and A-Yue live :)

When You're Gone

Avril Lavigne's concert on August 29th has been officially cancelled, much to the local fans' dismay. For the past week or so, PAS has been trying to get the gig banned, citing reasons that Avril's show is unsuitable for Malaysian culture and such. In yesterday's news, Galaxy, who are organising the event had confirmed that the show would go on as planned but the Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry finally stepped in and pulled the plug on the show. And the reason for the cancellation? "Avril's show may taint the Merdeka celebrations - her show is too sexy for us". Err.. Avril sexy??!

But local Avril fans need not fret as she is having a show in Singapore in early September (saw it when I was browsing Sistic the other day)... though probably all the good seats would've been snapped up by now. Bummer.

Breakfast of the champion

It was reported in yesterday's paper that Michael Phelps, who swam his way to 8 gold medals at the current Beijing Olympics, consumes an astonishing 12,000 calories a day!!! (the average man's daily calorie intake is 2,000)

Here's what the golden boy have for breakfast daily (that's more than what I have for breakfast in an entire week!)

Three fried egg sandwiches; cheese; tomatoes; lettuce; fried onions; mayonnaise;
three chocolate-chip pancakes; five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of
French toast; bowl of grits; two cups of coffee

The man sure eats like a pig but yet his intensive training helps him burn at least 1,000 calories per hour during swiming training - and experts say he burns more calories sitting at a desk than a lot of people burn walking. whoa!

I probably burn about 1% of what he burns during training - maybe it's not such a good idea to binge this Saturday at Jogoya :P

Indian summer

Today I received an email from Andy of Mister Jones Productions via my defunct Travis fansite informing me of an upcoming Travis event (hmm I think my old gigography is at least 6 years outdated :P)

Good Morning
I have just visited the site and noticed that the INDIAN SUMMER
night wasn`t on there
Please can you forward this to any Members or Visit http://www.misterjonesproductions.com/
Kind Regards
Andy

thanks Andy for the pic

Where on earth in England is Shrewsbury? Indian summer? Hope it's not a Bollywood theme summer festival ha ha ha

Crank text message

The other day I received a text message from an anonymous number (+6016 231 2719) on my mobile and it read “Hi how are you? Hope u are fine. Hows life?”

Out of curiosity I replied “Who’s this?”

The next morning I got the following reply “I’m shiva. We meet at KL Sentral”

I don’t recall having met anyone by that name and certainly did not give out my mobile number to any stranger at KL Sentral so that was the end of the text message conversation.

Year of the Rat

Whilst dusting off my Ash CDs, I rediscovered my Badly Drawn Boy collection (just so you know, I arrange my CDs in alphabetical order) Badly Drawn Boy aka Damon Gough was once described as the bloke who "looks like a dustman but sings like an angel". His first album won a Mercury Prize Award and he's currently working on his next EP due out by yearend.

I own two BDB albums - "Have You Fed The Fish?" (picked this up after "You Were Right" was nominated for a Brit Award) and "One Plus One Is One". I bought my copy in Singapore thinking that it was a UK copy (you wouldn't be able to find the CD here in KL) but it turned out the CD was released by Rock Records! I forgot this track - "Year Of The Rat" is my favourite track of that album.

i need a hug :)

Ash in Singapore!!!!

Dammit - why are all my fav bands heading to SG for concert this year??! I just found out that Ash are playing Fort Canning Park on October 2nd (hmm.. 2nd day of Raya) and I wanna go!!!! Seeing that I plan to be there that weekend anyway.. so unless I take the entire week off work and stay in SG until Superband weekend, I won't be able to catch them live :( Apparently suda51 isn't keen cos Charlotte is no longer in the band tsk tsk

I wanna see Tim Wheeler live!!

They were once voted #2 on Q's list of TOP 50 BANDS YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE.

So anyone wanna go?

Superband grand final

I've been seeking high and low for tickets to the Superband 2 grand final on October 5th and today I received an email reply from superband @ mediacorp:

Tickets for the Grand Finals will not be available till last week of
September. Therefore, we are unable to provide details regarding ticket
availability till then. Please email us again closer to the release date. Thank
you.

Ohh at least now I have an indication on the availability of the tickets :) Since the grand final coincides with my birthday, I hope to get a pair of premium tickets!

Olympic history

Since the Beijing Olympics kicked off last Friday, I haven't had the chance to catch any of the sporting events live. I only caught a couple of minutes of the men's singles badminton the other evening during dinnertime. I wanna watch Micheal Phelps earn his potential eighth gold medal and make history before the aquatic event come to an end but the swimming events start at 10AM in the morning when I'm at work!

And since we're on the topic of Olympic swimming heroes, here's another one - Park Tae-hwan. He's the 19 year old teenager from South Korea who won his country's first ever Olympic gold medal in the 400m men's freestyle. News report say that he look like Wang Leehom LOL!

Olympic Stay Real hunting

Since my last entry on Stay Real's Olympic design tee, I came to know that that tee is given away FREE with the August 2008 edition of COOL magazine! Sadly the freebie tee isn't available in KL.. all we get here is just the bare magazine minus the tee :(

i want i want i want!

Looks like this hunt is heading down another dead end, like the hunt for the Giordano World Without Strangers Project Tee bunny design.

Ober Jiang is here!

My Always Open Your Heart 7-11 album CD arrived today from Taipei :) Once again, thank you so much Mel!! *muaks* Sorry had to trouble you to order the CDs as they were only available for pre-order in 7-11.

The CD packaging is really cute - gosh it looks almost like a children's compilation CD and it's sooo pink! Sadly, despite the cute packaging, the album is crap. The only decent Mayday cover version of the lot is 終結孤單 by 831 (no wonder they are Ashin's pet band) though the Cosmos People did put up a good effort covering 疯狂世界. The rest of the cover versions are almost as bad as Fahrenheit's. haha. Ah well, at least I got the pre-order freebie =]

Travis in Taipei

Exactly a week ago today Travis played their first ever concert in Taipei's Hsinchuang Stadium (after the weekend Singfest in Singapore) I looked up YouTube in search of vids (I was curious if Fran attempted to speak Mandarin at the concert LOL) There were many vids and this one had the lads singing 'Flowers In the Window" together (who's that bloke in white with the tambourine?) They sound like drunkards singing at the pub in the last verse haha. What surprised me was listening to the crowd singing along to the song in unison! I've never heard so many Taiwanese singing in English :P It's so amazing.. I never knew they were so popular in Taiwan.

Check out the Taiwanese fan singing along to the chorus in "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?"

In a separate vid, Fran spoke of how he had never seen so many fans at the airport welcoming them when they arrived (he mentioned that there were 200 fans) He must be so chuffed :)

Music Man in Singapore

Fei texted me just awhile ago with news of Leehom's upcoming Music Man concert in Singapore on November 1st! Ticket prices are S$198, $168, $138, $108 and $78. Need to confirm by tomorrow to secure the ticket. Taotao and I have opted for the $198 ticket :) Wanna get a closer view of Bahamut LOL. Sigh..Taotao broke the bad news to me last week that Fatcat will no longer be singing back-up for Leehom on the new tour :(

Before the Music Man SG concert, I plan to travel down for the SuperBand 2 finale on October 5th (on my birthday!! =]) Anyone know how I can get ticket for the event?

Chinked-out vs Bollywood

I came across this news this morning - it's quite amusing. An Indian filmmaker has been accused of plagiarising one of Leehom's song in a Bollywood film and Mr Wang is taking legal action. Read on:

Taiwanese singer Wang Lee-hom has accused an Indian filmmaker of
plagiarising his music and is seeking $320,000 in damages. Lee-hom, 33, a
US-born singer popular in Southeast Asia, is seeking damages from Tips Films,
distributor of the Hindi film Race, which was released in March, Sony BMG Music
Entertainment Ltd said in a statement.“The lead song in Race - Zara Zara touch
me, resembles Wang’s song Deep in the bamboo grove (Chu Lin Shen Chu). Its
rhythm and tempo are similar to that of Deep in the bamboo grove. The similarity
is nearly 100 percent,” added the statement. Sony BMG said it reserves the right
to take legal action against distributor of Race for plagiarism.In the film,
Zara Zara touch me was picturised on Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif.Race, also
starring Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor, Sameera Reddy and Bipasha Basu, has been
showcased in India, the US, Britain, Australia and Malaysia and its original
soundtrack has also been released in these countries.Deep in the bamboo grove is
part of Wang’s album The Sun and Moon in My Heart, a collection of 12
Chinese-language songs released in Dec 2004. The song mixes a Tibetan woman’s
singing with hip hop and Chinese drums and flute.Source: Music NDTV

Everything Must Go

Having cleared the shelves in my room a few weeks back, I'm now trying to dispose some of my stuff. I managed to sell a stash of my CDs last month - thank you someone for helping to arrange the sale

Here's what I'm putting up for sale:

五月天第一張創作專輯

A copy of Mayday's first album bundled together with VCD - this is the initial Taiwan edition that was first released. Subsequent reissues are standalone CDs minus the VCD. Very rare and highly collectible =]

David Tao's first album Taoism. Yet another one of the many duplicate CDs in my collection..

Ode To J. Smith

I received an email from Travisonline.com today about Travis' upcoming sixth studio album release (thanks Village Man for the forward). Titled "Ode To J. Smith", the album will be released on the 29th of September (a week before Oasis' new album release) on the band's own Red Telephone Box label. Which reminds me, I own a copy of "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" 10" single on that label released before the lads were signed with Independiete. I bet it's worth a fair bit now.. I read from a Travis discography site that it was selling for about US$100 online :D

Travis had their concert in Taiwan on Monday and a number of Taiwan's indie artists were spotted at the concert including Shin, Sodagreen, 1976, Chang Chen Yue, Echo, Tizzy Bac etc. I had no idea they have a fanbase there.

9 years ago I started a fansite for Travis - I learnt HTML and built the site from scratch - and it was the 2nd or 3rd most popular Travis fansite back then. Sadly it's been idle since 2005 though it still draws about 100+ visits daily.

My old concert pics are still there! This particular one brings back memories of a really cold winter outside Brixton Academy, London after a Travis gig:-

I took that snap of Franny - I don't even remember that pic (cute pose though!) I posted this pic at Travisonline.com - wait till Fran sees it LOL

From Guerlain to Porter International

Last year Ashin was appointed spokesperson for Guerlain to promote their range of lipstick and lipgloss. Till today I still wonder why they appointed him for a women's beauty care product [though they do have a range for men] Hmm.. I think Richie Ren was a former spokesperson if my memory serves me right - I vividly recall Joyce telling me she bought the Guerlain lipstick set in HK for the limited edition Richie freebie some years ago..

will you buy a handbag from me?

Moving on, Ashin is currently part of Porter International's next design project which features a series of handbags designed in New York, Milan, London and Taipei. And yes Ashin is leading the design challenge in Taipei. Wow I'm awestruck! is there no limit to the guy's creative talent??!

Olympic fever

5 days to go before the grand opening of the Beijing Olympics!

To commemorate the Olympic games, Stay Real is releasing a brand new Olympics 奧運 design tee which features the Stay Real mascot in a suit that's made up of assorted sports equipment including a football, baseball glove, goggles, ping pong bats ...and a crown?

Also being re-released is the War Mask 毒氣 tee which previously was only available in white. It's now available in black

Reading 2008

I came across an ad in the papers last week - it was a contest by Tuborg for a chance to win an all expense paid trip for 4 to the upcoming Reading Festival 2008. The only catch is Hannah Tan will be tagging along.. hmm I wonder if the winners will have to camp out at the festival site for 3 nights and do they get to share the tent with Hannah? :P LOL. I've been to several festivals but have never ever opted to camp at the site cos there is no way I'm gonna share the portaloos with 50,000 other people and not shower for 3 days. Eww.

Am mighty tempted to try out for the contest.. it seems simple enough, just round up a couple of your mates and take a pic of you and your friends having a fun moment with Tuborg :)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the festival and it's gonna be a mega rockfest - I see Metallica headlining the final night (so the guys are still around - I finally have the answer to my question 3 months ago) and Slipknot!! The guys who dress up in freaky masks and jumpsuits onstage? I do wanna see Feeder (the last time I saw Feeder live was before their drummer committed suicide), Manic Street Preachers and the Plain White Ts live :)