A Songwriter's Anguish - Part II

You know I like to make my own decisions
I need to follow my inner vision
I can't slip my life to someone else
That would be denying love myself

But there are times when I need support
When I got problems of a certain sort
People at work and the family
Make it so hard for me to be me

At times like these well I admit it's true
I'm just a tiny bit dependent on you
Yes where would I be without
A little bit of your love


Peter Brown & Markiza Halim © Lemang Music 1996

Peter Brown met Markiza in London where she was studying. They moved to Malaysia in 1984 where they started playing in nightspots and also for charity. They formed Lemang Music in 1993 to publish their first album “Open Secret”. They called themselves “Passion” after Markiza’s name which means passion fruit in Indonesian. It was the first English Pop album that was independently produced and released in Malaysia. The passionate inseparable duo have been part of the independent music scene ever since.

No one in the independent music scene in Malaysia do it for the money for there were none to be had. Saying “they do it for love” sounds so cliché but that is what these musicians do it for. At least in some countries, they get respect for it. In Malaysia, they will be lucky if they don’t get scorn. They are the troubadours of the modern cities. They consume grief for breakfast, sorrow for lunch and sing away the blues when the night deepens.

Only someone who understand sorrow can write lines like these –

Been wandering the streets kinda wasting my time
Feeling in the need to commit some crime
And if you don't think I've got a damn good excuse
Wait til your baby tells you you're no further use
You'll have a breakdown, a breakdown
You'll have a breakdown, a breakdown

For their sacrifices, all they get is a raw deal. Someone weaker souls would have a breakdown long ago. He just feels so frustrated sometimes that he had to shout it out and get it off his chest before he starts singing again…

Peter Brown: And now for the self-indulgent ego trip stuff:-

Yeah, It has to be said. I have to get this off my chest. What's the matter you ask? Well, it seems that, looking back over the months (not to mention the years) singer-songwriters have a lean time when it comes to press coverage and reviews of their shows and general respect from the media. I mean to start with, what is a singer-songwriter? Someone who is a singer which is a difficult thing to do well, and also someone who writes songs, which is probably even more difficult - unless you count those non-songs written for certain occasions. How many good songs do we hear on the radio today that were produced in the last three years? Well never mind about that. Also singer-songwriters, in order to actually showcase and perform their songs need to be able to accompany themselves on an instrument of some kind - usually a piano or guitar, and that's the hardest thing of all and takes many years of learning and practice, particularly if you are going to play one thing and sing something else over the top of it, and also connect with the audience. And then there are the lyrics. These can be (I'm not saying necessarily are) real poetry. They usually say something, describe some achingly painful love experience or focus on some evil like the abuse of women or children or the destruction of the environment, inequality, poverty, not to mention the horrors of war and other such human perpetuated evils. There are thousands of such songs written by sincere and earnest SSs who have a gift not only for music but also for poetry too. In other words these people are POETS but they do three other highly skillful, entertaining and thought-provoking things too.

Yet somehow, when you put on a showcase of singer songwriters, no-one - at least no-one in the media gives a monkey's. You won't get it mentioned in the press either before or after the event (unless of course there is a FOREIGN - particularly WESTERN SS appearing). But if only Malaysian SS forget it lah! No-one cares. Yet stage a POETRY event and you can be sure that there will be a FULL PAGE in the daily press after the event and most probably a write up about it before - complete with photographs of the poets. In other words the poet who merely gets up and reads his poetry gets the full respect that should be accorded to all artists including SSs.

I'm sorry poets, I know you are sincere and honest struggling artists like the rest of us. And many of you have real talent for the word and something really important and deep to say and an ingenious way of putting it across. And sometimes the poem is so funny that you laugh out loud (at least I do, embarrassing everyone). But the point is why do you get so much more attention than us? That's what I'm feeling aggrieved about. To take an example, there was a fantastic good show staged at the KL PAC called the KL SING SONG. More than 200 people per night emerged out of the wood work to watch these brilliant showcases of brimming-with-talent MALAYSIAN (repeat Malaysian) SSs. But was it in the calendar of events in the July leaflet put out by the KL PAC management and sent to all their enthusiastic supporters, who come regularly to their shows? NO SERI it was not. Neither was the regular bi-weekly Sunday acoustic show that happens at lunchtime mentioned in the brochure (well it is now, after a long time).

When I put on an Acoustic Jam at the Actors Studio Bangsar in 2003 starring some quite well-known figures on the SS scene, trying to get a feature in the press was like licking the **** of a dead horse. Yet a show that came soon after featuring Songs From The Shows (ie Broadway) got pages in the press of celebratory publicity. Similarly a SS show last month at No Black Tie 2 nights running with some of the finest SS including Pete Teo, Karen Nunis, Zalila Lee and Reza Salleh and other artists got nothing (correct me if I'm wrong but I saw nothing about it), whereas a POETRY reading show the following week - well that got a full page review in the Sunday Star and other mention too in the press. The fact that 2 SSs also performed that night was not even mentioned in the review. What injustice!

But still the passion! Let's be calm and collected and ask ourselves what can be the reason for this blatant discrimination? Is it the fact that SSs are musicians? But classical musicians (both Western and Eastern) get into the press (and in the KL PAC newsletter). World musicians do too, and any traditional forms like gamelan or African drummers or the like. So it must be the WRONG KIND OF MUSIC. That's right, I've got it, I think I've got it, it's because SSs are lumped with Pop Music. In our snotty bourgeious society Pop Music, Rock n Roll or even worse BLUES is dismissed as sort of sub-art - even though it is more than 40 years since the release of the Beatles Sargeant Pepper there's still this notion in the minds of - but anyway you get my point. I suppose that since blues, from which it all comes was the music of a downtrodden oppressed minority, this identity still taints the music and makes it a social pariah. Like this guy who is a well known blues and rock artist in the Klang Valley who lost his regular spot in a pub the other week because, as the landlord told him, "you play too much blues". My God what a crime! Almost like exposing yourself in public!

Or maybe also it's because we SSs play OUR OWN SONGS. Another offence maybe in the book of snotty bourgeious law. It's alright to play Eric Clapton's songs or Bruce Springsteen's? Is that it? But to play your own half baked compositions? You've got a nerve my friend! But wait... the POETS read their OWN POEMS. What's wrong with that? You tell me. What's going on here? To paraphrase comedian Rodney Dangerfield's catch phrase - we don't get no respect!

Please, I've er... got this guitar and er... this is a song I wrote -

Get off the stage. We want the Bee Gees. Or Ted Hughes. Or Shakespeare. Or something from Mali. Or you, over there, if you have some poems. Yes, please get up. TAKE THE MIC!

This ramble or any part of it can be reproduced without per from the author. Please support Malaysian singer-songwriters and keep turning up for their shows, you might be in for an unforgettable experience.