the early years – central market, amerah, teh tarik and borrowed guitars
In 1990, Joe started a band with his friends who were living and hanging-out at an apartment in Jalan Scott, Brickfields. They were ex-Rator bassist Ogy, guitarist Bart Rulshah and Che Mat on drums. The band was called as “Carburetor Dung”, a name taken from the title of a book collecting the writing of music critic Lester Bangs called Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung.
The band jammed about 3 times, doing covers of Black Sabbath and trying to write own tunes in the style of Voivod and Die Kruezen, at least that was the idea! But the band never went further than the rehearsal studio at Wilayah Complex. Later Ogy left to Penang, while Bart formed a death metal band called Tormentor. Che Mat went on to play with many local underground bands including Silent Death and Naked Butterfly, and also doing sessions for big names such as Sheila Majid! The name was later used for Joe’s next “project”.
read more about Ogy’s previous band, the mighty Black Metal pioneers Rator here
Carburetor Dung MK I ’91-’95
The band started out as Stormfish in late 1991 with:
Fendi – bass/vocals, Azreen – guitar/vocals and Joe Mechanic – drums.
Later Joe Mechanic was replaced by Adam, an old friend of Fendi’s from Taiping. Main practice room was Amerah Studio in Ampang Park, the jam studio of choice for the KL scene then.
In early 1992, Joe Kidd, who at the time was playing with Deflowered, joined on bass and later moved to guitar duty.
Around mid-92, the band changed name to Carburetor Dung (a name previously used by Joe’s first ever band in 1990). Ex-Malaria and Stoned Crows drummer Shahlan joined in during the same time as Adam was not able to make it regularly while Azreen left due to his studies (he later formed Subculture).
The band at that moment was:
Joe – guitar/vocals, Fendi – bass/vocals and Shahlan – drums.
They carried on as a 3-piece before getting A.R.T.‘s guitarist Shahfari on lead guitar. By late 1992, Infectious Maggots / ABC… Dead guitarist Lan Bear joined as drummer while Shahlan became the vocalist.
This line-up recorded a song in January 1993 at FGM Studios for the Sonic Asylum compilation, A Circle Of Friends. (This song never end up in the actual release due to the band signing to VSP for two albums in early 1993.)
Carburetor Dung recorded their first album in late June to early July 1993.
The line that recorded the album was:
Joe – guitar/vocals, Fendi – bass/ Shahlan – vocals / Shahpari AKA Pari – guitar / Lan Bear – drums
NOTE: VSP put out a flyer on the band when they were going to release the album: go here to see it
The album Songs For Friends was released on September 27 1993. Just before that the band played their first ever gig at The Revenge Of The Rats (August 30 1993) at Garfunkel Pub, Life Centre, KL along with Subculture, The Splatters, The Pilgrims, Chronic Mass and Lovely Ugly Carnival. (*this is the first gig featuring an-all non-metal line-up for the Malaysian underground scene, before that punk bands were sharing stages with thrash/death metal bands).
From then on, the band played 17 gigs, all over KL, Ipoh, Penang, Kuantan and Seremban. The last concert for the line-up was the Psycho A-Go-Go concert at Fui Chui Hall, S&M Arcade, KL on April 1 1995.
Later that month Lan Bear and Shahfari left the the band and were immediately replaced by two new members who were actually veterans of the local scene: Lee (ex-The Pilgrims / Hijrah) and Ollie (then ex-Silent Death and ZAF). Shahlan ditched the singing and turned to playing guitar.
further adventures:
>> Carburetor Dung MK II to MK VII ’95-’03
>> Carburetor Dung MK VIII to MK XI ’03-Present Day
back to
>> Carburetor Dung: Brief History
