Love this song!

The show, by Lenka. First heard it on TM advert on TV. And it immediately caught my attention. Finally downloaded it yesterday and it's been playing on repeats on my PC and my phone. Just love the simplicity of the song. The rhythm is so simple, yet catchy, with nice swingy feel at the chorus. Just can't help but to tap my feet along with the tempo everytime I listen to it. The singer also presented the song nicely with a cute & innocent feel to it. It proves a good song does not need complex arrangement.


Try to search the net for it. Sorry I won't put a download link here. It's illegal ;) BTW, I know all of you know how to get it anyway.

This makes me wonder, despite the number of so-called singers we have in Malaysia, why there's really rarely any song that's able to catch attention like the song above? A song that can attract attention at the first encounter. In my opinion, most Malay songs sound 'nice' because it's been forced onto the listener. The same song being repeatedly played on radio or advert on the TV, as time goes by, it becomes 'bearable'. Even if you just play the sound of a herd of cows mooing, with time that'll also sound bearable.

The last Malay song that caught my attention was Gemuruh by Faizal Tahir. And that's really some time ago. But in general the songs that attract my attention on first encounter are TM everyone connects advert song and the Kementerian Belia song played on ntv7, sang by a number of popular artists. But both are not recording songs.

And then I found this on youtube: Lenka? Not!

Just can't tell how much it sucks. For starters he wasn't even singing in tempo. As someone who plays musical instruments, it's really irritating to hear such a basic flaw. The voice is so flat I know of some LCD TVs more undulating than that. He doesn't complete full bars. In under 2 minutes and a half, the boy managed to ruin the whole song! But look at the comments. Some are really raving about him. They don't know any better. No wonder we then can have good entertainment with Simon Cowell demolishing these kind of singers on American Idol. Stupid Americans. But I do envy the recording facility the boy at his disposal. It's good, but it deserves better use, much better.

Search di Awan Biru @ Bukit Kiara

Was offered free ticket to the above concert. Since I have never attended a paid concert, decided to go. There was way too many people, especially worrying with H1N1 spreading fast. But some of them are quite young, which I would think are not really from the 80's 'rock kapak' generation. Quite surprised actually.

The concert started an hour late. Search themselves were caught in traffic to the venue. Lucky to the fans who were struggling to get in. Traffic and crowd management was very bad. Had to literally squeeze to get through the entrance. A lot of people were complaining about the congestion.

And in the first song itself, there was a 5 minutes blackout on stage. Preparation seems to be lacking. In fact, it was the bad sound system that was the highlight for the rest of the night. The guitars were not balanced. Bass guitar overpowered everything. And the guitars come and go as it wish.

Amy was just being him. OK, but not outstanding, not at his age now, but clearly still have a lot of influence with the audience. Half way through the concert, Kid joined the stage. So at one point, they tried to do G3-like guitar solo duel, but that immediately showed their lack of skills and quickly, they ran out of ideas and became boring shred show.

They seemed to focus more on the younger generation and play their relativly newer songs more. But it was obvious it's the older generation that is their bigger fans at the concert. Admittedly, I only knew like 1/3 of the songs played that night. But when the older songs were played like Isabella, Fantasia Bulan Madu, Gadisku, etc.. more people sang along, the screams were louder and the crowd responded better. Especially during their last song, Pawana.

In all, I would only give 5/10 for the concert. Due to the technical glitches and the songs selection. If not because I met another friend there, I would have left early that night. But then, I admit, I'm not really a die-hard Search fan hehehe

Mario!

Remember this guy? Children of the 80's would know this.

I still remember the character. Jumping over tortoises, ghouls, smashing bricks & collecting power-ups. Sometimes hidden brick may hide special points if you know which one to smash. It's so simple and easy to play, but yet, still very enjoyable. Until today, I still remember the backing tunes of the game which I think is very catchy and easily recognizable.

Why am I suddenly being so nostalgic? I just bought an emulator program for the PC to play Super Mario. And it's been faithfully re-produced I can't help but teleport myself back to the 80's. And it's nice to know I still remember some of the hidden passages in the man-eating sewere pipes and bricks with the hidden points.


Even though I do have PS2 at home and PC capable to play some of the recent games, but still I find Super Mario entertaining. I'm just attracted to the simplicity of it. No need to crack my heads solving complex puzzles, twist my head running around in virtual world killing scary monsters or need to use all 10 fingers to press on like a hundred different button combinations to enjoy a game. This game do not even need high resources for graphics. It's all about the gameplay and it's entertainment value. It's either that or I'm getting old already hehehe

X-men Origins

Went to watch this last night with Anis, after a quick dinner at Nando [thanks dear, belanja i :)]

Anyway, it's a great movie. Have watched the previous releases, but I think this is the best. From this movie I understand what's so great about Wolverine. How he get to become 'indestructible'. How and why he became the leader of the X-men.

The story revolves around Wolverine's life, back from more than a hundred years ago (*gasp!*). How his life went through until about now. How his brotherhood with Victor developed. His real character.

I really love the twist on what actually happened when they killed his wife/girlfriend, Kayla. It was totally unpredicted. And also some sense of humour with this character, Wade, who is a good soldier but can't keep his mouth shut. Later he became 'Weapon XI', with his mouth shut off.

I really suck at writing movie review, but this is really a good watch.

Death Magnetic

I'm back. It's been quite some time that I have not posted. Been very, very busy with BNM's internal futsal tournament. As I'm a team manager/captain/player, so had lots of things to do. The short announcement did not help either. More on that later.

This post is dedicated to all Metallica fans out there. I'm one, has been one since mid 90's when I was in uni and started learning the guitar. I guess, anybody who started playing guitar around that time just have to learn at least one Metallica song. It's compulsory I guess hehehe

For those who missed the release, they have a new album out! It's titled Death Magnetic. And for those who are still suffering from the trauma of something called 'St. Anger', fear not. That has been ditched into the drain and left behind to a slow death. Yeah!

This album is much, much better. Miles better. Not quite the return of Metallica to their roots, but close. And nobody wants to reverse back in time anyway? This album contains a compilation of all their music styles from Kill 'Em All right to St. Anger. Those who have followed them closely, can detect a hint of everything in this album.

But their music is so much more complex and matured now. With so many different riffs in each and every song. I'm still wondering how are we going to memorize the song progression for our jamming session. Kirk Hammet has shown that he has not forgotten how to shred fast solos. And Ullrich no longer play a marching band snare like he did in St Anger...

My current favourite is track 3, 'Broken, Beat and Scarred'. Try listening to it. A powerful song with the signature riff repeated in different octaves. The riffs are just amazing and very complex. That day I tried playing it, and failed miserably

If you go the music store, they may have two versions, one is the normal priced RM56.90 full album with free T-shirt and the other one is a RM29.90 Malaysian version. Just get the Malaysian edition. The full version has lyrics, but the disc sleeve have holes cut into it, so the printed lyrics are useless. And the T-shirt is just so-so. Locally printed, not official Metallica merchandise.

So for all Metallica fans, grab this album!

Black Water (movie)

Watched this yesterday. Wanted to watch Zohan, but last minute changed to this. The poster and site seemed impressive. http://www.blackwatermovie.com/index2.html

If you have any plan or even any twitch in your heart to think of watching this, I'll say, please don't. I can give you a full summary in a single paragraph. Read below:

"It's about a couple, Grace and Adam, and Grace's youngest sister, Lee, going on a trip. Adam suggested a fishing trip. They met Jim, who guided the trip in a small metal boat. When they stopped for fishing at a swamp area, their boat was overturned by a big croc and it took Jim. Grace, Adam & Lee climbed over a tree. Grace tried to traverse the trees to safety, but failed. Adam tried to salvage the overturned boat, but was eaten by the croc. Grace & Lee, tried to find way out to the river when Grace was attacked by the croc, but she survived. Lee then tried to get the boat but also taken by the croc. She was placed at where Jim was 'stored', but she was still alive. When she woke up, she took the gun from Jim and then get to shoot through the head of the croc, killing it. Grace however died from her injury. Lee took her sister's body out on the metal boat. End of story."

Actually, at the start of the movie, when it showed it's produced in Australia, already felt it was not gonna be an interesting movie. Then when it mentioned based on true story, just sealed it. And the movie itself was the proof. I saw people leaving after just 15 minutes into the movie.

The story line was so direct and predictable. And it was super damn slow as well. If we minus the shots of the trees and the empty water, it'll be way less than an hour. I had more suspense riding my motorbike to work everyday than watching this 90 minutes 'thriller' movie. In fact, I've watched 'school holiday special' on TV which are wayyyyy interesting that this. In fact, any of Steve Irwin's show seems like a 5-star movie beside this one. At least, much more informative.

I know, if I'm in that situation, it'll be a very scary and thrilling moment as well. But watching it on the screen? Nope. Maybe because I expected like a group of super-mega big crocs that can jump 10m high, or swallow a metal boat whole, or can chow down a tree, something like that. And then, the crocs started to attack the rescue team and it became a massive battle between man and crocs. Something along that line lah... hahaha

So pleaseeeee, I beg you all, save your money and skip this one. Just watch the school holiday special on Sunday morning.