Sistem dua parti atau dua ratus buah parti ini tidak memiliki apa-apa makna yang hakiki jika kita masih lagi dalam sistem ekonomi yang berimankan keuntungan maksima. Apa yang wajib kita sokong bukan mereka yang berijazah, berdatuk, bertun atau berserban – ini tidak penting. Yang penting ialah mereka yang bangun berjuang untuk melahirkan satu sistem ekonomi yang berimankan kebajikan untuk manusia.

DARI JELEBU
Hishamuddin Rais

Pada tahun 2009 ini wacana politik dalam negara kita cuba menyebarkan berita tentang kemungkinan terwujudnya sistem dua parti – Barisan Nasional dan Pakatan Rakyat. Malah huh hah huh hah tentang sistem dua parti ini telah tersebar lama. Ada yang menyeringai gembira seperti di malam pertama bedua-duaan di bilik bersama kekasih bila mendengar kemungkinan ini.

Sistem dua parti ini adalah satu penipuan. Satu illusi yang dirancang oleh kaum pemodal. Satu pemesongan projek demokrasi yang amat terancang untuk mengkaburi mata orang ramai agar gagal melihat intipati politik dan makna hakiki demokrasi.

Lalu saya bertanya adakah sesiapa yang dapat membezakan Pepsi dengan Coke? Adakah sesiapa yang dapat membezakan Adidas dengan Puma? Hakikatnya – pemilik saham Pepsi adalah juga pemilik saham Coke. Hakikatnya – Puma dan Adidas adalah dua beradik yang membuka peniagaan yang sama – satu kedai di kiri jalan dan sebuah lagi di kanan jalan. Kedua-duanya mengamalkan sistem kapitalis yang berlandaskan keuntungan. Yang membezakan hanya ejaan nama yang bermula dengan A dan P.

Kita wajib sedar bahawa kaum pemodal akan terus merancang untuk memastikan kepentingan ekonomi mereka selamat. Apa yang mereka pertahankan bukan saekar kebun getah atau sebuah Kancil. Yang mereka pertahankan ialah sistem ekonomi kapitalis yang selama 150 tahun ini telah mengembongkan saku dan dompet mereka. Sistem ini telah menjadikan mereka senang lenang dan kaya raya dengan harta berbilion-bilion dolar dan ringgit.
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I saw KARAOKE at its press screening about a month ago and I think you people should check it out for its beautifully shot and poetic meditation upon the slow death of a kampung with its lives and spirit lost in the wastelands of a palm oil plantation.

Take note! KARAOKE is screening for ONLY one week, and get this, it’s showing ONLY at the GSC International Screen. Yes, “international” screen for a movie shot in Ijok, Selangor and made by a largely Malaysian crew! Only in Bolehland!

One of Chris Chong’s previous films, the short Block B (written by the late and missed Toni Kasim) will screen with the feature on 28 & 29 November only.

gsc.com.my / 03 8312 3456
Facebook event: here
website: tanjungarupictures.com

check out the specs and ordering info: Dung T-Shirts

The plan is now in motion. Hopefully it’ll work out! We gonna visit our friends there and play a few shows all around the state. It could be for a few days, or it could be 7 to 10 days, depending on where we’re playing. At this point we are looking at heading there in early December. Fingers crossed!

So we did the show. Played first on the list and did five songs. How did we do? Needs work! The two rehearsals we had were not enough to get us up to speed with the tunes. We faltered on The Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen in Love, and The Adverts’ One Chord Wonders lacks the spirited headlong rush into the ether.

Other songs we did were Chelsea’s I’m On Fire, The Professionals’ Black Leather and Generation X’s Ready, Steady, Go; all of ‘em coulda been much better. Me and Alak were much too shy to rawk out as we should!

There’s a video of the whole set and maybe I’ll post it up soon. Meanwhile, if you have a gig coming up, do call us in! We wanna play!

By the way, we are now know individually as: Seednee – guitar + vocals, Alkee – guitar, Kiddnee – bass & Tommee – drums.

About one and half month ago a laughing banter among friends about forming a “real punk rock band” became quite serious when The Ricecooker Shop regular Seed (of Defeat, Skullcrusher and many old “chaos punx” bands in Penang) suggested that we should start jamming and play gigs!

So how do you kickstart to life a brand new band? Force it upon yourself. First step, find a gig to play, even when your “band” is still a “theory”. Second, make the date of the gig as near as possible, so the “band” has to become a real band quick and start jamming in haste.

And that’s precisely what Seed has done.

So yeah, say hello to The One Chord Wonders! We play covers of obscure old-school punk rock, sticking to the time period of 1975 to 1979 stuff. At the moment we will be covering The Buzzcocks, Generation X, The Professionals (Jones & Cook post-Pistols band) and Chelsea. The theme song is our namesake, One Chord Wonders by The Adverts!

We’ve been to two rehearsals, one last night and the first one a few days ago. Both at the Pertama Studio in Cheras. And TODAY is our first show! It will be a gig full of crust bands from Apparatus to HellExist and two Indonesian bands.

The One Chord Wonders:

Seed – Guitar + Vocals, Alak – Guitar, Joe Kidd – Bass & Tom Bollocks – Drums

Do check us out!

UPDATE: June 21st 2009

Just checked the file host page… lo and behold! There has been 9251 downloads of the song so far!! Dang! Crazy! This is beyond our wildest imaginings… thanks!!

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ORIGINAL POST:

Back in mid September last year we put up an unmixed version of Hanturaya Putrajaya for people to download.

This is basically a response to several arrests made by the government under the Internal Security Act. I posted it on the Ricecooker site with a streaming version and also the lyrics. Go here to see the article: Hanturaya Putrajaya Mengamuk Lagi!

Just now, I decided to check the download link for the first time in months and apparently there have been 6370 downloads!

To those who haven’t downloaded the song, it’s still available here: Hanturaya Putrajaya – Download Gratis!

Thanks to those who downloaded the tune! Now go support the Anti-ISA campaigns!!

The New Album:

On Sunday (January 27th), we again went through the process of mixing all the nine tracks recorded for our new album (all recorded in June 2007!). Actually this is the third time we mixed it. I was never happy with them, and I believe that’s why we have never released the album proper. I’ve been dragging me feet all this while.

So Alak, Bullet and me (along with friends Ahmad, and Seed who joined us briefly) took a final look at the previous mix and decided to re-level the tracks – we pulled up the snare sound and the bass guitar, open up Alak’s vocals a bit more, clean-up the backing vocals etc. All of this was done at The Ricecooker Shop on Bullet’s MacBook Pro and a pair of studio monitors. Today’s technology is really a far, far cry from the days when we recorded our first song in 1993.

Now, I think the whole project sounds much, much better; brighter, roomier and punchier, and at last, I am quite happy with the results. Today, we will sent the tracks to our friend Lasse in Sweden to tweak and master it. Hopefully in a month’s time we will start the process of putting the album out!

Chicken-Poxed!

Our drummer Bullet was hit by a double whammy recently. First, his right arm was in pain. mostly from muscle-strain (hopefully) and last week he was hit with chicken-pox! Yup, a middle-age man with chicken-pox is rather rare but it happened.

The pox is now gone but the arm muscle-strain persisted. Thus, we have been declining a few gigs offered to us recently. Bullet would need more a month rest and treatment before he can drum again. Sorry to the promoter friends who have been asking us to join their gigs. Hopefully things will go back to normal by this time in February.

Java TUA again?

We are in the midst of planning for another Java tour this coming May. If everything goes well, we’ll be in Jogja for the SEA DIY Fest we are organising with our friends there and after that we’ll go on a trip playing Semarang, Malang and more places until we reach Bali.

Before we board the plane we’ll have a split-CD with Krass Kepala, recorded specially for the tour. This means we need to brush up on our new songs very soon and record them ASAP!

Down-Unda…

I got a call from our ex-singer Lee from Adelaide last week and he wants the band to go and play Australia next year, with him singing and our ex-guitarist Pari joining in. That sounds exciting to us all but hell! that means the band will grow from five guys to SEVEN!

Anyway, we are now talking about it. No decision is made but we have more than a year to plan ahead. So you never know…

Okay, you have a good day! Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

Joe

Eversince we came back from the Java Tua last year (May), We have been selling a home-made CD-R EP called Macam Celaka / Hanturaya Putrajaya.

This release was never announced on our mailing list, myspace, ricecooker or even here! Why? I guess we never bothered to make a big fuss out of it. After all, it’s just a stop-gap release, something to sell at the gigs we play.

The CD-R EP (it’s burned on a CD-R and features 4 songs, hence the “CD-R EP”) features two roughly-mixed songs from the “upcoming” album (Macam Celaka & Hanturaya Putrajaya) and two songs from two different compilations a few years back; Johnny (from limited The Dude Puked On My Lap compilation) and Mari Nyanyi Menjilat (from the Radio Malaya compilation).

It comes in a full-colour printed CD envelope, with a photostated A4 lyrics sheet (includes explanations on the songs) and also a black & white vinyl sticker. Sold at most of the gigs we’ve played since June 2008, it was priced at RM10 and I think about 100 copies of it are now gone, with a lot of them given away to friends near and far.

Sometimes the CD-R EP would be on the racks at The Ricecooker Shop (especially when there are leftovers from the shows we played) but at the moment it’s all gone. But if you guys and gals want it, please email the band here: therealcarburetordung at gmail. I’ll do another stack of it if there are enough orders.

BTW: there’s also a t-shirt of the CD-R EP, and again we never announced it before.

This t-shirt has been selling at the gigs and also at The Ricecooker Shop. It features the CD-R EP’s sleeve design on the front and a line from Macam Celaka’s lyrics at the back. This one is only available on black t-shirts with sizes ranging from S, M, L and XL. Each one is going for RM25 each. Again, if you want it, do email us, and tell us which colour you want: red background or grey background.

cheers!

Joe

Our friend Syukree died yesterday. Read more: here