A few years ago we wrote and recorded a simple song; a short, fast burst of a dirty ditty, heavy with exasperate anger. It’s called simply Mata Buta or roughly translated as “blind eye”, basically it means “blinded”.

Many asked what the song is about. We believe it’s not something we need to explain, since everything is already laid out there in the lyrics:

listen & singalong!

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MATA BUTA

Ini memang cerita lama [this is truly an ancient tale]
Dari jaman dulu kala [from the days of yore]
Orang kaya cekik darah [the rich wrings blood]
Orang besar makan budak [the elite devours the young]

Gadis cantik dijadi gundik [pretty girls taken as concubines]
Patik rakyat ikut saja [we, the lowly citizenry, submitted and obeyed]
Bila kita akan celik? [when are we going to open up our eyes]
Cerita lama, cerita sama [ancient tales recurring]

Mata buta! [blinded]
Bukak! [open up!]
Bukak! [open up!]
Bukak! [open up!]

The truth is, we don’t really know how to explain it at length, other from the fact that all of us have been facing the same problems, over and over again, without learning from experiences and try to change the situation which brought all of us into this vicious cycle. We kept repeating it, allowing it to happen again and again, generations after generations.

In this instance, the situation related in the song is linked to our collective embedded DNA-memory of being a bunch of submissive cowards, bowed down and allowed ourselves to be subjected to abuses and transgressions by the powers that be, the elite, the orang besar, as if we are subhumans unfit to live with dignity and liberty.

Below is an article which somehow explains it better, or at least in parts of it, and features the same exasperation which we have and wanted to convey in Mata Buta. It is rather “academic”, but do read on:

Rethinking The Malay Problem
by Azly Rahman – as published on malaysiakini.com on the 18th of August 2009

“…the scholar is not he who gives the right answers, but he who asks the right questions…” Claude Levi-Strauss, French structural anthropologist.

Where does the predicament of the contemporary Malays lie? How must one study the ongoing crisis in multiethnic Malaysia? These are daunting and nagging questions for scholars interested in studying the complexity of race relations in this hypermodern country. Here are a few thoughts and suggestions.
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“It’s like you’re having a baby”, said Bullet on my anxiety over the mix we did last night.

Me, Fendi and him spent the Friday night and the whole of Saturday morning mixing the new recordings at our recently departed friend’s studio; a small room at the side of the AVXS office on Robson Heights.

Usually used for vocal recording/dubbing and video editing, it’s adequate for simple mixing sessions but too small to fit in a drum set to do a proper live recording. However, the room’s properly sound-proofed and features a decent pair of monitoring speakers and a small powered-mixer.

It’s a bit strange to be there without Jalil. But his legacy is all over the place. The left-handed Epiphone guitar he used to strum is still there, his reading glasses, his treasured Sony 3CCD video cam and banks of DV tapes and I bet there are his songs in the hard disk on that PC he always used.
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Dang! It’s 2.30am and I have to wake at 8 tomorrow.

Anyway, the band went for our first rehearsal since that Stick It To The Man show which now seemingly aeons ago. And for the 2nd time we again jammed at the super posh and snazzy AkarKarya Studio or Studio AkarKarya, which is located in the Uptown Damansara area and apparently run by the husband of Sheila Majid. Can’t remember his name, but we saw Mass Separation jamming there once and thought that we should check it out.

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“I invented punk. Everybody knows that. But I stole it from Greg Shaw, who also invented power pop. And he stole it from Dave Marsh, who actually saw Question Mark and the Mysterians live once. But he stole it from John Sinclair. Who stole it from Rob Tyner. Who stole it from Iggy. Who stole it from Lou Reed. Who stole it from Gene Vincent. Who stole it from James Dean. Who stole it from Marlon Brando. Who stole it from Robert Mitchum. The look on his face in the photo when he got busted for grass. And he stole it from Humphrey Bogart. Who stole it from James Crosby. Who stole it from Teddy Roosevelt. Who stole it from Billy the Kid. Who stole it from Mike Fink. Who stole it from Stonewall Jackson” – Lester Bangs

About 2 weeks ago I was interviewed for a new TV programme called Galaxy which will be out on TV9, the revamped channel which will back on air in a few weeks. I’ve been called up a lot of time to do interviews and even offered to do TV shows by all these stations for years but I have always declined.

This time however, they wanted to hear what’s happening with the local independent music scene after the Black Metal debacle. I tried to decline yet again but at the end relented. A fresh young crew came over to the house and we had a simple interview in my home office. I find it quite enjoyable and was pretty fired up by it all. I was supposed to speak in Malay but lost it altogether and started yakking in English.

I do wonder how it’s going to go on air though as I was pretty straight-forward.

Well, the band is still quite “dead” at the moment! But this site is up again after the quite disasterous change of server months ago. I somehow managed to reinstall the database a few hours ago but some links are still dead, while mp3 download links are still kaput. Will keep fixing this till it’s healthy again.

Dung played our first gig ever in Singapore in August (see the post below) and right after that it’s been on sleeping mode again. We are also supposed to be recording for a compilation but most of us are busy and we are also dead broke. The observants will notice that our new album is still no where to be seen! Oh, well…

I found out earlier today that my online zine ricecooker was empty of articles! and the forum page defaced. Both have been hacked with my database probably hacked too. This is really upsetting. There are years of articles, reviews etc on that and to lose it all will big a huge tragedy.

ricecooker is basically a documentation of the scene, at least an attempt at keeping a record of things happening, which I have always think very important. why would anyone want to harm it? I just do not understand.

anyway, one of the site’s subscribers told me:

“I checked out the site, and I have an idea how it got hacked. You were still running phpbb 2.0.10 which is vulnerable to an exploit that also gives access to the sql database. It’s advisable to update to 2.0.14 phpb”

so if you’re running phpbb 2.0.10, hear the warning siren.

It was just after midnight, I was playing with one of my 8 cats, Baby, on the sofa when I felt like the sofa’s swaying.
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