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.

A Songwriter's Anguish - Part I

LLeft to Right: Wong Lip Kee - lead guitar; Shahril Eashak, bass; Peter Brown - harmonica, vocals, guitar; Markiza - vocals, keyboards; Alex Ang - drums.

(Click on the photo if you can't view it)

Soft Touch

The lowest paying job in England is a writer. We are talking about poverty rate. Forget about JK Rowling. She is an anomaly. She too was a starving writer before Harry Potter’s magic saved her. A poet does not fare better. Singers and songwriters belong to the same category. That is why pragmatic Asian parents forbid their children to be an artist – it is a life of struggle for their “art”. So few made a decent living off it. It is almost easier to strike the lottery and less grief.

So is there any different between a poet and a singer-songwriter? The poignant outpouring of frustration of one singer songwriter (Peter Brown) in Part II of “A Songwriter’s Anguish” suggested there is. One gets respect for the sacrifices he made while the other doesn’t. Because one is considered to be producing or attempting to produce “art” while the other is not (even if he is).

What is “art” then? Britannica stated it as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". I’ll put it simply as “any creation that moves heart and soul by its beauty”. And beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder. If comic moves me more than classic literature, then to me comic is a work of art. Pop songs moves and influences more lives than classical music but pop song and comic are rarely considered as work of arts.

I do not believe art belongs only to the elites. I do not believe art needs to be difficult. I do not believe art cannot entertain while it stirs. I do not believe what is easily accessible is not art. I do not believe what is easily understood is not art. I do not believe art cannot be main stream. I do not believe art should not be fun. I do not believe I need to know what art is from pretentious experts. I do not believe art need to be dead before it is considered art. I could go on all night but I will say I believe I can know what art is from the way it affects my heart. If I have to choose one word to describe what art is. I’ll choose “love”.

I believe art is intuitive as love is intuitive. I don’t have to know how or why it affects me. I don’t have to understand it. Most of all I don’t need others to tell me what should affect me. You do not need others to tell you who or how to love. Why should you need others to tell you what is art? If it is boring, it may be art to others but it is not to you. Don’t impose your values onto others but also don’t allow others to impose their values on you. Be free. Be bold.

If you love it, it is art to you and don’t be ashamed of it. I love classic literature, I love comics, I love poetry. I love classical music, I love sentimental songs, I love canto-pop. Simon Cowell may not understand country music but I do. I’m blessed.

Dare to appreciate the things that move you. Dare to love. Don’t listen to others. Listen to your heart. But you have to expose yourself to as many “art forms” as possible for a closed mind and a closed heart is the greatest enemy of art, of love too. You may not have found your true love yet. So go outside your comfort zone, expand and explore.

I do not know Peter Brown personally. But I had watched him performed in “No Black Tie” before. I had bought a couple of his CDs. He does what he passionately believes in all his life. That is the first sign of a true artist. But whether what he produced is art or not, that is for the audience to decide. He only asked for the chance for you to hear him sing.

Don’t put him in a little box and label him before he is heard. Don’t belittle his art form because the intellects considered it beneath them. Intellectualism is not art. In fact, you should never approach art with intellect. All you need I reiterate, is your heart. Throughout history, the intellect had been more wrong than right about what is art. The common man had never been wrong. They only need time and history to prove them right. But the intellect never learned. They continue to assert their role as the final and only authority on art and impose it on others.

Too many of us have been intimidated and brainwashed into accepting these values forced upon us by ‘higher’ intellect. The media is the greatest culprit and victim. They are only comfortable to recycle worn ideas because these are the accepted norm. So poetry will be promoted because it is art. There is nothing wrong with that except good poetry is art but bad poetry is not worth the paper it is printed on while there is a lot of good music going round. There are arts floating among them but will never have the chance to find their home because they are discriminated against. It is amazing that this generation that grew up with John Lennon’s “Imagine” still has not seen the light. This is the injustice Peter Brown is lamenting against. This is the injustice by which he is a victim of.

I want you to read this first and reflect a bit before you read the raw outpouring from his heart. For I fear you may not understand where he is coming from if you read him first and judge him too harshly for his outburst. I may not agree totally with the way he says it (but we need someone like him to every now and then shout it). You can feel his frustration in this lyrics from his “Better World”

I wanna make a little point
To the people up there in power
That life on Earth is being destroyed
Hour by hour
'Cause it gets so frustrating
When there's nothing you can do
You wanna tell these guys the truth
But you can't get the message through

Listen to his songs in You Tube & MySpace including “Better World” though this link www.myspace.com/lemangsofttouch

He deserves to be heard.

To be continued...