[interview] An Oral History of Powerviolence

WHERE'S THE UNITY? Virtually everyone cites Infest, from Valencia, CA, as the primary influence on the sound that would become known as powerviolence. Infest fused the youth crew-styled hardcore of the time (1986) and the proto-grind fastcore of Siege, Impact Unit (with a pre-Mighty Mighty Bosstones Dicky Barrett), Holland's Pandemonium and Vancouver's Neos into short, undeniably violent-sounding bursts. Towards the end of Infest, guitarist Matt Domino started playing with Eric Wood of Pissed Happy Children in Neanderthal, the band that would first coin the term "powerviolence."

Eric Wood (PHC, Neanderthal, Man Is the Bastard, Bastard Noise): Living in southern California, I was lucky to get to see [Infest] tons of times. They were fucking blitzing power. Their first demo was a primitive recording but you could feel that everything was there, the emotion and the speed. They were a great band; everyone loved them. It's a shame they didn't stay together.

Chris Dodge (Spazz, Despise You, Slap a Ham Records): I saw Infest for the first time around 1988. Nobody knew who they were and I think a lot of people were confused by them. They were harsher and faster than most bands, even in '88. I really liked them, and tracked down their demo soon after.

Wood: Me and Matt Domino kinda came from different backgrounds. I'm a little older than Matt and I was raised on things like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, early Alice Cooper, then I was into Raw Power, Zero Boys, Toxic Reasons, then Infest. In Neanderthal, we didn't take a lot of direct influence; we just tried to vibe it. We tried to be freaks in our minds and develop our own thing. I was right out of PHC and he was still in Infest; at the same time I was doing an instrumental bass and drums thing called Cyclops. There were a lot of influences in what we were doing at the time and in what we grew up with.

Parts of Neanderthal's "Fighting Music" 7-inch hit grindcore tempos and song lengths ("Built for Brutality," 16 seconds), but without the overt metal influence of the Earache grind bands. The fast stuff owed more to hardcore punk, while metal influenced the sludgy breakdowns and progressive flourishes.

Evan Garner (Burned Up Bled Dry): I think that powerviolence represented the DIY punk side of grindcore, bands like us that grew up listening to Black Flag, old D.R.I., old C.O.C., things like that, while grindcore represented a more death metal, Napalm Death side of the coin—not that Scum isn't one of my favorite records ever! I think it goes deeper to intent and lyrics and such. More of a punk approach than a metal one: basement shows, DIY ethics, less than perfect records.

Wood: I was never anti-metal. I really liked early Prong, Primitive Origins and Force Fed. Early Obituary is fantastic. Even something like Bathory, him being a one-piece was fascinating to me because he was not being suppressed by anything, including a lack of personnel. I would put things like the Crumbsuckers from New York City. Actually, the Liberty and Justice-era of Agnostic Front, to me, was the most progressive era of their writing, and it was when they had moved into a metal-ish environment. They were written off as being followers but that fuckin' record has phenomenal composition. That was a big influence on me.

Chris Dodge, formerly in Berkeley funny-punks Stikky, started up a DIY label, Slap a Ham, after leaving the melodic hardcore band No Use for a Name in 1989. Records from the Melvins and Fu Manchu were among early Slap a Ham releases, along with Wood's PHC and Neanderthal. Soon, Slap a Ham was putting out records from almost all of the bands associated with the burgeoning powerviolence movement.

Dodge: I started the label to help out bands that I liked who I didn't think were getting the recognition they deserved. NUFAN was one of them. When I put out their 7-inch, at that point I was out of the band but I still wanted to help them because I thought they were great. They didn't have any interest from other labels at all. Same with the Melvins; I became friends with them when they moved to San Francisco from Washington. Besides Boner [Records], there wasn't a whole lot of interest; they played a lot of crappy local shows to a handful of people. My primary focus became what turned into the powerviolence scene. I loved the music and the people in the bands, but again, there wasn't really anyone else interested in working with them at the time. Some of the bands, like Capitalist Casualties and No Comment, were around for at least five years without any label interest before I put out their records. I couldn't believe how great these bands were and I was stunned that they couldn't get anyone to help them release anything.

Wood: The Kubby Hole in Pomona, CA, where Neanderthal practiced, was where "powerviolence" was said for the first time in late 1989. I must give Matt Domino 100% of the credit. We were talking like, "We need to come up with our own trip. We don't want to be lumped into hardcore, punk, any subgenre." We wanted to come up with our own description of our sound, and out of the blue he just said "fuckin' powerviolence." Then it was "west coast powerviolence." We were trying to give it a sense of humor, like "our geographical location is better than yours," and give it a serious brutality.

Neanderthal eventually morphed into Man Is the Bastard, a massive conglomeration of multiple bassist and vocalists, electronic noise, iconographic imagery and slogans, and a radical pro-animal, pro-nature, pro-female platform.

Wood: It was a fluke that I met [Henry] Barnes [MITB noise/electronics]; we worked different shifts at this same bakery. I remember going to his house and seeing these boxes, which were the caveman electronics, and as soon as I heard them and he told me how he was attempting to simulate nature or bird sounds with them, I was like "you're fuckin' in our band, dude. This shit is sick." I had to steal him from anyone who would ever hear these boxes. Luckily no one seemed to understand it. Our whole thing was like: mellow human, ultra-megaton brutal music. Progressive brutality.

Professor Cantaloupe (Gasp): MITB had an artful take on the dichotomy of powerviolence, in that they embraced peace, love, equality and respect to all living creatures as priority number one while belting out burly, complex prog-punk in an I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass kind of way. They encouraged the blurring of gender roles and generalizations of all kinds—I mean, teenage boys all across the globe were turned on to sticky sweet Hello Kitty imagery. How righteous is that?

Goretex (Non-Phixion): MITB are one of those bands like Crass or Black Flag to me, not only for how brutal they were—you really felt like they believed what they were talking about. They were all about getting free. Whether they were talking about an elephant on a rampage or San Salvadorian drug dealers getting a thumbs-up from the President, they delivered the goods.

"H.S.M.P." ("Hispanic small man power"), from a split with Aunt Mary, recounted the events of MITB's first-ever show and officially name-checked powerviolence as a movement.

Wood: That night, there was a lot of shit-talking and fighting going on in one area of the crowd. This little Hispanic man, this little Ranchero dude at the bar, totally mellow, stood up and walked into the crowd and said "Please! Please! We must all be friends!" He reached out to this violent air in the room in an attempt to calm it, and actually did. He really dropped the tension in the room by being an outsider inserting himself into a foreign group and spreading goodwill. When [Aaron] Kenyon witnessed that, he completely tripped out. On that track, Kenyon cites the premiere powerviolence quintet that shaped that movement: Crossed Out, No Comment, Manpig, Capitalist Casualties, Man Is the Bastard. Those were the bands that existed that were powerviolence.

LET'S KILL FUCKIN' EVERYBODY
Through the early '90s, new labels like Six Weeks, Pessimizer and Sound Pollution joined Slap a Ham in putting out records from new bands that were inspired by the first wave of powerviolence, including Dodge's own contribution, Spazz. Slap a Ham released several of the classics of the genre, including No Comment's vicious "Downsided" 7-inch, the truly bizarre Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo People by Gasp, and the Bllleeeeaaauuurr-rrgghhh! series of compilations that crammed 70+ bands onto one 7-inch record.

Dodge: [No Comment] were an enigma. I think they started around '87 or so. I got their demo by chance and it was one of my favorites, but I figured they had broken up. Several years later I was reviewing stuff for Maximumrocknroll and a copy of their self-released first 7-inch came in. I couldn't believe they were still playing, so I wrote to them immediately because I wanted to help them put out more. "Downsided" was supposed to be an LP, but they only ended up writing six minutes of material, so it became a 7-inch instead. It's one of my all-time favorite releases. Andy [Beattie] was later in MITB. He's been involved in a few post-MITB projects, but I haven't seen any of them in maybe five years.

Professor Cantaloupe: It was interesting watching the cross-pollination of genres at the time. Emo was merging with hardcore punk, folk with noise; Men's Recovery Project were twisting the perceptions of Born Against fans. And we were just exploring stuff that was exciting to us. Now flash forward nine years and you've got all kinds of crazy hybrid subgenres with more than just a few bands operating in each. I mean, in 1998 would you have predicted such a huge acceptance of noise like we have today? It makes me wonder what would have happened if we had done another full-length with the material we were working on just before our demise. That stuff was pretty far out and varied and didn't get recorded. In early 2006 we made an attempt at picking up where we left off in 1999, but those creative differences reared their ugly heads and pretty much closed the book for good.

Dodge: [Drome Triler was] another unappreciated album when it came out. It seems like people are just now showing an interest posthumously. Their early stuff was more straightforward grind, and they eventually progressed into whacked-out psychedelic noise. They broke up soon after the LP was released. Cynthia, who was the original Gasp bass player, is doing vocals for Despise You now.

The first of six annual Fiesta Grande fests took place on January 2, 1993, with a lineup of Assück, Man Is the Bastard, No Comment, Crossed Out, Capitalist Casualties and Plutocracy. Subsequent lineups would include straight-up grindcore (Phobia, Discordance Axis) and sludge (Cavity, Noothgrush), but always featured powerviolence bands. MITB played the first four; Capitalist Casualties played all of them.

Dodge: Most of the powerviolence bands didn't really have places to play and were usually out of place on a lot of other punk shows. I think Capitalist Casualties played with Green Day a few times, if that gives you an idea of what the climate of the punk scene was like at the time. Assück was touring and Ken Sanderson was booking Gilman at the time. I was talking to him about getting some of the SoCal powerviolence bands up to play with them, and I think he was the one who suggested making it a Slap a Ham label showcase of sorts. It was the first time all of those bands had played together, and they were all finally starting to create their own scene.

Wood: The first one stands out in my mind because it was the first, it was a new concept, and I don't believe there was ever a better lineup. I had to pull double duty with MITB and Crossed Out on the first one, but it was the most pleasurable double duty I've ever had.

Richard Johnson (Enemy Soil): Fiesta Grande 5 was the first show we played with the new bass player that we had at the time. When we confirmed with Chris that we would play the fest, we hadn't practiced even once with the new lineup, but there was no way we would have said, "Thanks, but we're not ready to play a show of that magnitude." Fuck that! We had recently been fortunate enough to discover Excruciating Terror and we were obsessed with their Expression of Pain album. We were as excited about playing on the same day as Excruciating Terror as we were about playing the fest at all. In Berkeley, as we made our way on foot from the last BART stop to Gilman Street, someone unexpectedly walked out of his house into his driveway as we passed and gave us directions to the club. It turned out to be none other than [Dead Kennedys bassist] Klaus Flouride. This was after we ran into Slight Slappers from Japan at an earlier subway station. We exchanged band stickers, I opened my guitar case and slapped a Slight Slappers sticker on my axe, and the Japanese all clapped in approval. We hadn't even gotten to Gilman yet that night and were already having the time of our lives!

Finally, we banged through our set as best we could and hoped that we were at least half-decent in the eyes of the attendees and especially the other bands, not the least of which Spazz. We didn't want to look like a bunch of chumps in front of them, or Discordance Axis, or anybody else that took their grindcore seriously that night. We saw how much of a coming together Fiesta Grande was. I ran into a troupe of French-Canadian punks there; Bill Yurkiewicz, who at the time hailed from Relapse and Exit-13, was there filming. On the way back home, we met the guys from Hellnation during an airport layover. I could go on. A lot of good came out of that fest for us. Whatever you want to label the music on offer at Fiesta Grande, if nothing else it was a magnet that helped pull together a community.

Dodge: I'd been wanting to start another thrash band forever, but didn't know anyone who was free to start one until after the first Fiesta Grande. Max [Ward] from Plutocracy had mentioned a fastcore band he was starting with Dan [Lactose] from Sheep Squeeze, and he said they needed a bass player. Max and Dan had already written 10 songs, so we practiced once, recorded them, and put it out as our first 7-inch. A bit premature, but oh well. We were originally called Gash, but decided to change it. I suggested Spasm, but there was already an east coast band called Spasm, so I suggested Spazz, and it fit.

Spazz were every bit as brutal as any of the other powerviolence bands, but instead of MITB's politics or Crossed Out's personal rage, they loaded their records with references to kung-fu movies and skateboarding, cameos from Kool Keith and a banjo player, and tons of inside jokes.

Dodge: The fact that my label was called Slap a Ham is proof of what a goofball I am. When I was starting my label, I remember thinking how funny it would be if some of the world's most brutal bands all wanted to be on a label with a ridiculous, non-brutal name. A lot of the humor in Spazz was the result of boredom. We were pretty sick of how generic everything was in the scene, so a lot of our lyrics were pop-culture references and jokes about our friends and came out sounding like gibberish because no one but us had any clue what we were talking about.

As Spazz became popular and Fiesta Grande became a yearly event, powerviolence bands began to appear in other parts of the country and, eventually, other parts of the world.

Garner: The west coast powerviolence bands weren't as much of an overt influence as they were sort of kindred souls—like, "Oh, other folks who love the first D.R.I. record." We thought that we played hardcore punk, just like all the bands that were part of the scene that we were a part of: Man Is the Bastard, Capitalist Casualties, Copout, Los Crudos and all the other bands that we enjoyed.

Steve Makita (Apartment 213): You always hear these stories like, "Oh, Cleveland, those guys are all mean and terrible." If you come to Cleveland for 15 minutes, you'll know why we're mean and terrible. I can't believe we don't have the highest suicide rate in the country. It's the most mundane, boring, backwards city. It's home and we make the best of it, but it makes us angry so we write songs about it. Our good friend Chris Pellow, who was in Ringworm and was in Apartment 213 for a while, turned me on to PHC, MITB, No Comment, and I was like, "This is it." I liked that it could be noisy and sloppy, it wasn't like, "Hey, let's tighten it up and try to get on Victory." Keep it loose and go nuts. When we started 213, it was to kill the boredom that comes from Cleveland.

Andrew Orlando (Black Army Jacket, Monkeybite zine): Our original influences were more towards early Napalm Death, Discharge, Septic Death, Infest and NYHC. Once we started touring a little on the west coast, we got heavily influenced by [west coast powerviolence]. Just meeting some of the amazing bands and people like Spazz, Benumb, Noothgrush and Man Is the Bastard had a strong influence on all of us as people. We got to play many shows with great Japanese bands: Slight Slappers, Senseless Apocalypse, Corrupted, Hellchild. It was cool to see underground hardcore music blossoming in all corners of the earth. Gary from Noothgrush and I started Monkeybite to document this scene of bands that we felt were ignored by some of the more "established" zines at the time like MRR.

SWEATIN' TO THE OLDIES
If a movement that wasn't really a movement and only officially had a handful of bands can come to an end, then powerviolence came to an end in the late '90s. Man Is the Bastard broke up in 1997. The next year marked the final Fiesta Grande, the final Slap a Ham release (Otophobia's Malignant), and Spazz's final show. Gasp, Black Army Jacket and countless other bands broke up around the same time. Post-Spazz, Chris Dodge has been making experimental music, collaborating with Dave Witte in East West Blast Test, and recently joined reformed grinders Despise You. Eric Wood plays in Bastard Noise with Henry Barnes and Bill Nelson.

Dodge: Spazz called it quits officially once I knew I was going to move to L.A. The timing was good; I think if we had kept going, we would have just released the same-sounding record year after year. Everyone wasn't quite sick of us yet, so I think it's best that we quit while we were ahead, instead of having everyone think, "Oh my god, finally!" The same with Slap a Ham. I couldn't afford to run the label any more. It was close to bankrupting me, and I had gotten so far in debt I had to stop. But at the same time, I had started the label to help out all of these bands who weren't getting the recognition they deserved, and by the time I quit the label there were more than enough grind/thrash/hardcore/powerviolence labels out there who were competing to release stuff, so clearly Slap a Ham wasn't needed like in the early days, and it had served its purpose. I don't miss it at all, so that tells me it's good that I stopped when I did.

Wood: A lot of bands that think they are [powerviolence] today—they fucking are not. The two that exist today, because they get the psychological aspect of it, are Apartment 213 from Cleveland and the Endless Blockade from Toronto. They totally get it. That is powerviolence. And that's where I draw the line.

Andy Nolan (The Endless Blockade): [Powerviolence is] the music that really drew me in during that early- to mid-'90s black spot of DIY hardcore, when faux humanism, tolerance for morons, celebrations of inadequacies and screen printed manila envelopes were de rigueur. It cut through the bullshit and laid waste to everything in its path; it synthesized Heresy, Neos, Ripcord, Larm, Impact Unit and many other greats perfectly, updating them for a new era and always keeping an eye on the roots that grew before. As for being aligned with powerviolence, I'd say we're a powerviolence-influenced band, or a neo-powerviolence band. My favorite record of the era is definitely No Comment's "Downsided." You can't fake that despondent rage.

Beau Beasley (Insect Warfare): Of all the first wave powerviolence bands, No Comment has had the biggest impact on me. They took all the things I loved about D.R.I. and then completely blasted them into lightspeed. Of the big four they are the least discussed, but they will always be my favorite. Well, them and Crossed Out, of course. Crossed Out are the dark lords of powerviolence.

Wood: The title "Fighting Music" says it all. It was about musical fighting. Treacherous examinations of humans defacing themselves or injuring their psyches. Powerviolence was hyper-driven violent signals with human freak subject matter. Powerviolence is up to the determination of those who listen to it, but those who have an intellectual interest will understand it more easily than those who don't look at lyric sheets. In "Fighting Music," the insert wasn't actually the lyrics; there were statements or descriptions concerning the tracks which tried to force you to listen to the lyrics. In Neanderthal's case, and maybe the early stages of MITB, we were about humans desecrating their very Garden of Eden through psychological torture of themselves. Powerviolence is kind of a weird moniker. I believe there was power in the documents that we recorded, and we did kind of get off on the violent hypothetical-ness of it. Power with hypothetically violent subjects.

[interview] Post-Tour Retrospective w/ RAIVORAITTIUS (hardcore-punk from Turku/Tampere, Finland)

It's been more than half a year since RAIVORAITTIUS were on our shores, and they might already be a distant memory in some of our minds, but as that old adage so omnipresent in DIY-punk goes: "better late than never"! This interview is the first of its kind to be featured on LIONCITYDIY, although we're pretty certain it's been done before elsewhere (although we are unclear exactly where... so if you DO know, show us, and make us feel very unoriginal). Expect more of these where they came from in spits and starts over the next months.

Introduce yourselves, please. Folks may have forgotten about you already!

Tuukka: My name is Tuukka and I play bass. My biggest interests are comics and music.

Jussi: Hi, my name is Jussi and I play guitar. I like riding my bike in the night time. Lately I've been really into R.A.M.B.O, HIS HERO IS GONE, and CATHARSIS (all American, hmm...), but generally I have a diverse taste in music.

Timo: Hi, folks! I'm Timo and I do vocals.

Janne:  Janne, I play drums. It's a new band, we just started to play with the current line-up beginning of 2011. I play in a couple of other bands too: guitar in d-beat crust band VELOITUS, vocals in grindcore band BÜFO and keyboard & drum machine in 1980's inspired synth-pop group PLEASE YOUR KNEES. Beside playing music, I'm a film director and producer. I study media management and work in a theater as a lighting and sound engineer.

The 4 of you did a month-long SE Asia tour in June last year. How did that come about? How did it fall together?

Jussi: Janne found the contact to 7x0x7 through Yeap from PISSCHRIST I guess. From there on, we can thank 7x0x7 and especially Cher for everything. And of course all the people who put up all the shows, gave us food and a place to stay or helped us in other ways. The whole thing was just a huge casserole of international punk-solidarity. Dodon, who came along with us in Java made touring there a lot easier. Without him, we would never have known when to get off the bus or which bus to get on. He also told us when to take a shower (yeah, thanks for acknowledging our maturity, D!) or when we needed to dress better in order to not get into trouble in malls or such. In the end, I'm rather surprised at how smoothly everything went. We didn't have any major problems I think.

Janne: I've always wanted to tour outside of Europe and as I had travelled in Southeast Asia before, I was thinking that it could be a interesting region to tour with a band.  My other band BÜFO was touring in Poland and Czech with an Australian band PISSCHRIST in 2006 and we also played a show with them in Germany in 2008. During the tour I got to know the guys from the band, we kept in touch and about a year later I asked Yeap, the singer of PISSCHRIST, if he had some contacts in SE Asia. I knew that they had done some shows over there and Yeap is originally from Malaysia. At that time, RAIVORAITTIUS, as it is now, didn't even exist, Jussi and I had just been jamming together a couple of times. Anyway, I was planning to tour SE Asia with BÜFO in 2011, and Yeap asked me to contact the 7x0x7 collective. So I did, and they promised to organize the tour for BÜFO. Schedule for the tour was almost ready when BÜFO's drummer Ilmari left the band. I think he wanted to concentrate more on his other bands: THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION, 1981 and XSPECIESTRAITORX. This was the beginning of 2011 and we didn't know who could replace him at such short notice and learn the songs before the tour. I thought that maybe a new band that we just started with Jussi, Tuukka and Timo would be able to do the tour instead if we had more material and more practice. Everyone in the new band was keen to do the tour and folks at the 7x0x7 collective were okay for changing BÜFO to RAIVORAITTIUS.

Tell us one highlight of the tour. Was it [the tour] like anything you ever expected?

Tuukka: There were many highlights, but for convenience I'll mention just one: dancing to local pop music with the crust-punks in Medan. Everyone was all smiles and we had a great time. Sounds corny but at the moment I felt like we were all one. It would have been impossible to expect the tour to be the way it was. The reception in all the cities and venues were just amazing. The hospitality and excitement the people showed was exceptional.

Jussi: One of the highlights for me was a solitary moment in Medan, Indonesia. I had been sleeping in this big room with a concrete floor and big windows. It was late afternoon when I woke up and it was completely silent. The sun was shining in low and I was lying at the edge of a shadow. There were a lot of wonderful moments and many of them were a bit more exciting than this one, but this was the first one to come to my mind now. I was really excited to see people in the punk scene who are also politically active. I'm a lazy sod, so I greatly admire people who get shit done. Oh, and I'm still proud of my one-hand-cartwheel-basketball-whoop I did in Pati, Indonesia.

Timo: It's really hard to choose just one highlight from the whole month of highlights. I guess I'll have to go with the honor of meeting with the Kendeng mountain resistance in Pati, Indonesia. Visiting the people living from and with the ecosystem of the mountain, whose lifestyle has been compromised by the greed of the cement companies. Check it out and show your solidarity!

Janne: The highlight was making friends with people and eating Indonesian food! That's two already!

How did the general response differ in the different countries/cities? How did kids react to your music, and to you, as people?

Tuukka: Generally, Indonesians were most excited about us both as people and as a band. I think the other countries had more opportunities to see touring bands so it wasn't such a novel experience for the people in those places. At some shows we didn't get any response besides some lazy clapping, but at other shows the whole crowd was a screaming moshpit. It's good to remember this if the first couple of shows happen to be really good -- the band shouldn't expect the rest of the tour to be the same throughout.

Jussi: Tuukka pretty much nailed this one already. In smaller places people were apparently more interested in us as people and as a band. In a lot of places in Indonesia, people were stopping us on the streets to take photos with us. I don't know if it was because we are white or if it was because we look like punks. It was weird. Pretty much everywhere we went the hospitality was overwhelming. The standard of hospitality was very high, which kind of made the places that were slightly less overwhelmingly hospitable seem not that good, but that's just psychological.

Timo: The people in Indonesia were mostly really curious about us as people and as a band. The "modern" style of hardcore is really big there and our blend of the 80's Finnish and American HC seemed to be something else. Some loved the rawness and others seemed disappointed that we were not playing metalcore. In other countries we didn't have the exotic value we had in Indonesia, but everywhere we went, we were positively surprised by the feeling of solidarity and equality in the DIY-punk scenes.

Janne: All the places were nice, but the Indonesian crowd was the best and they seemed to be the most interested in us too.

There are obviously a lot of complex race and class dynamics when a Western band tours SE Asia. How do you think you navigated that?

Tuukka: Because we are from the West, people seemed to be very curious about us, but only in a positive way -- no one was hostile towards us. I guess people also thought we were rich because we could come all the way to the other side of the world, but the truth is almost all of us had to borrow money to go on this tour and we were on a really tight budget the whole time. It felt bad to say no to some of the people who wanted to trade their own shirts for our band shirts, but we really needed the money from the shirt sales.

Jussi: It was weird, being the white minority. I mean, it was weird that being white accounted for getting special treatment in some places, like not being security-checked in the promised land of security checks, the Philippines. Our Philippine friends were asked if they got paid for hanging out with us or for being our guides. I hope we navigated this and all the other situations without doing any harm. I think what is needed is just respect for other people. In the end, we are all equal, even though in the present (and past) fucked-up situations, we don't get treated that way. Equality should be obvious. That's my compass for inter-human-navigation and I'd recommend it for anyone and everyone.

Timo: A hard question! As a political-punk band we obviously had something to preach about, and our cultural background was vastly different from the crowds. We thought about the perverse situation of Western people coming to SE Asia to "spread the word", but I guess there are no clear solutions to the problematic dynamics of the whole thing. Luckily we had a friend touring with us with the most of Indonesia, helping us understand local customs and ways, as well as helping us out with our poor language skills. Without Dodon, we probably wouldn't have had nearly as much understanding of everything around us. I guess the key in approaching the race and class (as well as other) dynamics is to listen and to try to understand, to communicate equality in as many ways as possible.

Janne: Realizing that despite us being poor students back home, we still had a chance to travel to the other side of the world. The awesome people we met and the bands that we played with in SE Asia might never have enough money to do that, and it made me feel guilty sometimes, especially when travelling in the countries that have been in their history colonized and exploited by Europeans and Americans. Even now the exploitation continues, except that colonialists have been replaced by multinational corporations. I'm not a big fan of our destructive Western culture that has spread all over the world like cancer, but unfortunately I'm part of it whether I like it or not. I hope that people wouldn't see the materialistic Western lifestyle as something desirable. Even our DIY punk rock movement has its own idols that are looked upon. I guess I'm just trying to say that we should be aware of this kind of cultural imperialism even in the punk community. I hope we can get SE Asian bands to play in Europe sometime soon – punk rock cultural exchange!

Other bands have said that touring SE Asia is an experience in and of itself which is unlike any other. What do you reckon? Are there any differences between touring here and elsewhere, and how so?

Janne: The crowd in SE Asia reminded me of the Russian audience during BÜFO's tour in 2009. Everyone dancing and having good time with the music. In most parts of Europe it's more of people standing and watching the show unless it's a big and popular band. In central Europe like for example in Germany punx are spoiled with heaps of touring bands that go there, so it's not a big deal for them to see a foreign band. Financially, touring SE Asia was hard because we did not cover our expenses at all, but despite that the experience was worth it for sure! In my European tours with Büfo we almost always covered our travelling costs with the ticket income from the shows.

Were there any experiences that were particularly unpleasant that occurred while on tour?

Jussi: I was going through some emotional stress while touring. At home, I spend most of my time alone or with my wife, so it was tough not being able to do either. I snapped a few times and raised my voice. I'm sorry about that, for anyone concerned. I have trouble controlling my impulses when I get irritated and pissed off. One thing that wasn't really unpleasant for me but might be something to consider for bands who are considering touring in SE Asia: the sleeping conditions vary hugely. A lot of times we slept on the hard floor or shared a bed between the four of us. A lot of nice spooning there! The most usual thing was sleeping on a rug on the floor. So if you need somewhere soft to sleep, bring a sleeping bag with you.

Tuukka: Travelling on a train for four hours without the possibility to sit down and a ten hour bus ride that was supposed to take six hours and nobody spoke English so we were constantly thinking that we had already passed the city we were supposed to go to.

Timo: The most unpleasant experience was probably the bus that broke down in the middle of nowhere in Indonesia, with no one around us being able to speak English. As we had no experience of the buses or cities there beforehand, we spent the whole ten-hour bus ride trying to ask people if the next stop was ours, and if the bus that we got into after the first one broke down was the right one. Haha. Our Indonesian language skills were also a bit lacking, so we probably pronounced the name of our destination really funny as well.

Janne: I love touring life but some of the band members couldn't handle stressful situations too well and were time to time physically and mentally worn out during the tour, which led to unnecessary arguments about stupid things. There were also some losing of tempers and mental breakdowns even. Seeing this side of the other people was surprising.

Favourite country/city to play in, and why?

Timo: I can't really choose. People were great everywhere and I love doing gigs. Hell, I'd even go to the "20 beatdown bands and us" gig (where the crowd left as they got a whiff of what we were about) again and love it!

Tuukka: My favourite cities to play in were Bekasi and Bandung in Indonesia. Those were our first shows on the tour and the people in both those cities were super nice and the crowds were really active and seemed to really like the music.

Jussi: I liked Pati, Indonesia most, because the show had an inspiring political agenda. It was part of a protest against companies trying to exploit the Kendeng mountain range. The audience consisted of not only young punks, but also a lot of farmers and their families, who came to shake hands and talk with us after the show. And also we heard later that some young punks had become more involved with the struggle after seeing and hearing us talk about it. Hearing that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Janne: It's hard to name just one place -- every show with an insane moshpit was good. Maybe the first show in Bekasi, Indonesia because I didn't know yet what to expect and then when we started to play it was just total mayhem, with people falling over the drum set, stage diving and all.

In your tour blog, Jussi wrote that there may be something that you had learnt at the end of it all. The blog has left us with a cliffhanger of sorts so we're clearly in suspense. What is it, what are they?

Jussi: It's not like I hadn't figured it out before, but going somewhere so far that's supposed to be so different made it clear, that it's ridiculous to be afraid of cultural differences or to protect national interests or to believe oneself to be better than others. We're all just people from the same planet... fuck, we aren't even that, we're just energy packed into a physical form. It makes greed look ridiculous. "I want to pile these shiny things into this area, which is mine, so they can't be used over there, which is theirs." It doesn't make any sense. And the world is dictated by that. I've always had the feeling that everything is going to end. But not now. No matter how bad the situation, we're not dead yet. There are still species not extinct, though they are getting scarce. There's still friendship and resistance. There's a tiny speck of hope, and I guess that makes living worth all the pain.

Janne: I've been setting up shows DIY style for more than ten years but I still learned a lot from the kids. Some of the venues where we played were totally random, and it made me realize that shows can be be organized almost everywhere. Something that we should try here in Finland too.

Timo: I guess that the biggest revelation to me was that punk and DIY is truly global. That people and cultures may be different, but that the struggles to do things outside of global capitalism and to treat others as equals help us connect with each other.

Tuukka: I have learned that people are 95% the same everywhere. The remaining 5% counts for cultural differences. I also learned how little possessions one needs to be happy. Travelling for two months with just a backpack with some clothes in it is a good experience. Also seeing how little material wealth some of our hosts had, but at the same time seeing all their social and mental wealth, it was easy to figure out which one is more important.

Thanks for letting us have a chance to do this retrospective with you. First of its kind, it seems! Or at least on this portal. Any last words?

Timo: Thank you for doing this! Peace, love and anarchism! Up the punx and all that!

Janne: Huge thanks to everybody who set up shows for us, hung out, gave us food, place to stay and danced the night away with us! Stay vegan and smash the state!

Tuukka: For bands, I'd like to say if you get the chance to go on tour in SE Asia you should do it! I also want to thank all the people who were involved with our tour, the aspect of the tour I think about now in retrospect were the people, not the places.

[interview] NIGHT HAG (blackened hardcore from Adelaide, Australia)

South Australia's hardcore workhorse NIGHT HAG are set to tour SE Asia in January 2012. The first trip overseas for the band will see them bring their brand of blackened hardcore to Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, in support of their debut album Gilded Age. Gilded Age is the band's most consistent work to date, venturing from anxiety-inducing black metal to threatening doom, the only constant being the hardcore energy.

2011 has been a huge year for the band. Relentless Australian touring and multiple releases have seen NIGHT HAG develop into one of the most exciting heavy bands around, with a live show not to be missed.

We're going to cut the shit now. Check out the interview (originally posted on The Ricecooker) and hold your breath! We're anticipating this tour as much as some of you are.

I must admit, I’ve never heard of NIGHT HAG before, so help me out here and do tell a little something about the band. It would be great if you could add in on how the band came about, previous bands and what other things the band members are doing, jobs/hobbies etc.

Joe: There are five people in NIGHT HAG. Dave and I play guitar, Nathan is our drummer, Mark plays bass and Dale sings. We’ve been playing shows for about two years now. When we first jammed we wanted to make a dark but melodic punk band.

When the band started I had known Nathan for a while. We’re both the same age and we both played a lot of shows together while we were growing up. I knew Dave and Dale also from playing with bands in Adelaide, it’s not a big place really. It’s quite a small-knit music scene compared to bigger cities. I even met Mark by chance in a university lecture- in only minutes we found out we possessed many mutual friends and were even employees of the same bookstore. Not a big city. It was at this lecture that Mark schemed the first jam with this line-up. A few weeks later we got together.

We all play in a lot of other bands, and we collectively wanted to make something we weren’t used to doing. Dave and Mark used to play in a band called THE RIVALRY, Mark plays bass for another sludge band called SEX WIZARD, Dave also plays with bands SPACE BONG, GOD GOD DAMMIT DAMMIT, DEATH CULT JOCK (and close to a dozen more). Dale used to have a band called LASER DEATH RAY, he sang. He also played trumpet for GOD GOD DAMMIT DAMMIT for a while. Nathan used to play in hardcore band THE WEIGHT – they’re still going strong, excellent Adelaide band. I play guitar for another band HYDROMEDUSA and sing for a band called PRISONBITCH.

Through all of us there is lot of bands. I think we all wanted to do NIGHT HAG as a side band for a little while before we started getting organised. We realised we could do a lot as a band if we all kept the momentum up and kept constantly writing. With that, our sound has evolved since our beginnings. I think we come across as more of a metal band now, I think Dale hates this but that keeps me amused. We’ve all kept a big part of our normal lives open for whatever this band will throw at us.

I work two jobs, I sell books and soap. I used to take my clothes off for an art school. It paid alright.. Dale is a researcher/computer, he also works for the university. Bright fellow, he’s the real organizational brains behind us. Mark is a student (homeless person), Nathan is a businessman but still poor like the rest of us. Dave bangs furniture together, I think. You can also catch him playing high-paid gypsy jazz gigs.

There’s a distinct mix of harsh black-metal sounding guitars, drumming and a maelstrom of power-violence in your songs; do tell where are all these influences coming from; what are the lyrics about?

Joe: We all do different things in writing the songs. It can be a bit retarded. For instance we’ve done things very quickly in the past. I learnt the song Cynic from Gilded Age the day of the recording. As a credit to the hasty succession of the recordings it’s everyone’s style mashed up together that makes NIGHT HAG sound like it does. Dave and I write most of the riffs. We listen to a lot of metal and punk but just as much as anything else. We didn’t really take any direct list of bands we wanted to sound like when forming the band. Any creative vibe for the band is best cooked up with us verbally discussing how we want an overall release come across as. Such planning is most fluent in the album. Dale’s vocals run almost independent to the songwriting phase however. He’ll normally practice with pre-prepared lyrics- work he’s done at home. His lyrics are a bleak look at the present and the future. I’d let Dale give you a better run through on his writing though.

Can you list out how many releases have Night Hag put out and where to get them?

Joe: So far we’ve released a Demo ourselves in 2010. Then we did a lengthy EP New Tourists at the start of 2011, before releasing our debut album Gilded Age in July 2011. Demo is sold out. The other two can be sold through Capitalgames Records. You’ll also easily find all three releases for free download on the Internet, we 100% encourage this free listening*.

And how is the Adelaide or South Australian punk/HC scene nowadays; compared to what’s happening in other big cities in Australia?

Joe: Adelaide is slowly becoming an interesting place for bands again. It seems the few venues that are keeping their doors open to live music are being well received. I’ve been running a DIY warehouse venue called Animal House for over a year with a few friends. It’s also our home. We’ve tried to facilitate a space that’s helping bands rehearse (including NIGHT HAG) as well as serving as a DIY venue. For a sometimes sleepy city I’m enjoying myself here.

I’ve been to Adelaide a couple of times and went to a few shows, but where would a DIY hardcore punk band play over there nowadays? How often are there shows there and how does it work, in terms of getting the venues and such.

Joe: I’d recommend Animal House to anyone. Getting venues has gotten trickier in the last half a year even. A lot of new bands, a lot of gigs, a lot of sub-genres are getting their own following and it can all cause a few months wait in trying to book anywhere. More bands is still a good thing.

I have seen Adelaide change quite a lot these days; from quite a warm, sleepy, art-friendly little town with a lot of excellent bands, to a rather indifferent, consumerist place with lots of the old, homely hang-outs turned posh streets. What’s your take on that?

Joe: Adelaide is a bizarre place to live at times. It’s probably the most boring place to live if you can’t entertain yourself or you don’t smoke pot. There’s a lot of pot. A few arts festivals too – they’re ironically held at the same time as V8 car races. There are also a lot of old people. I think our average age is 60… Friendly people at times, cheap place to live, a little over-fed and conservative in places but equally poor and isolated in other areas. A lot of suburbs, a lot of boring people.

Are there old punks there still active? I don’t mean the usual fashion-punk horde but the ones who worked hard in the scene since the days of yore.

Joe: There are always old cunts. A lot move to Melbourne and a lot become social workers but there’s still a few. A crew of them run a pub together in Adelaide called The Squatters Arms. Great food.

Give us a list of local bands which we should check-out.

Joe: There are too many, ROBOTOSAURUS, THE WEIGHT, VAGINORS, NO ACTION. The rest of Australia also has some awesome bands going on at the moment – SUFFER, EXTORTION, WARTHREAT, DROWNING HORSE, ENCIRCLING SEA, LOOKING GLASS, KROMOSOM…

What compels the band to do this upcoming tour; what have you heard about touring SEA and what are your expectations, if there are any?

Joe: We want to play to another part of the world. SE Asia is an awesome place, and the people are cool. We’re all familiar to various parts and are feeling it’s the next step in this year’s heavy touring. We’re riding the release of Gilded Age and look forward to playing some heavy and energetic shows. I hope this trip will bring a lot of experiences I’ll keep forever. We’ve all seen it as a great honor to play this tour.

Anything you wanna say to the locals here awaiting the storm that’s coming?

Joe: I look forward to meeting a lot of new people, making friends and seeing new places. Don’t be a stranger, say hello and please show us around. 

--

*Yes, that's right -- it's FREE listening, you poor punx! Download the New Tourists EP here, and the much-raved about Gilded Age full-length here.

For more info, please check out Night Hag on these platforms:

http://nighthag.tumblr.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Night-Hag/148355551854563
http://soundcloud.com/wearenighthag
http://www.myspace.com/nighthagband

Tour brought to you by 7x0x7.

[interview] Shock&Awe! (zine from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

The Shock&Awe! team is something of a phenomenon. In the past year, they have worked tirelessly to churn out 3 issues* of a beautifully designed and smartly written (it is also offset-printed, no less!) zine that has taken the DIY-punk world in Malaysia by storm. Effectively gaining fans by the day and also trodding on a few toes along the way, that storm is slowly turning into a tornado. Which is spreading to us here in Singapore and then further afield: in Australia, France, Indonesia, and the Philippines where they are distributed and also in the States where they have recently been thought worthy of a review by the almighty Maximumrocknroll -- you know you've made it in the punk rock world when you make it into the pages of that rag!** Being the clever opportunists that we are, it was only natural that we ride the wave ("jump on the bandwagon", so to speak) before it dies down, by speaking to the 3 main cogs in the machine that is Shock&Awe Media on their inaugural interview. There is no hierarchy except a self-serving one in a world of lazy punks; sometimes we all need a push and a shove in the right direction. Remember, you read it here first!

First things first, how did the idea for Shock&Awe! come about?

Yuen: Well the idea has always been in a way floating around before. Alak and I had planned to make a zine way back in 2004 – more a perzine than anything else – but it never happened. However, when I was back from Sarawak for my sabbatical, I wanted to do something, and since I suck at playing musical instruments, I decided that a zine was the way for me to contribute to the scene.

Alak: Yes, earlier in 2004 we did have some rough ideas that never did happen. When we reunited recently last year, we had a serious discussion about making it happen, as we were getting bored and had some serious shit to complain about.

And how did Ci Chaan come into the picture? How many people do you have on your "team" or is the number more organic?

Ci Chaan: Because I'm good-looking?

Yuen: It's like the open-source operating system Linux: we provide the template and we look for interested collaborators – organic might be the word to describe it. So there are no actual numbers – people can come and leave as they like, which is relatively low commitment and therefore low pressure, but of course we do have core members who help to oversee the whole operation. Ci Chaan has stunning looks and excellent PR skills, so his addition to the team was very strategic and indispensable for our expansion. ;)

Alak: Well, doing the zine with only the 2 of us would result in another boring self-absorbed personal zine, which would only portray a one-sided view. So the bugger came along as the third opinion.

As we all know, zine culture is pretty much dying on a global scale, and is considered dead in this part of the world. So why a zine? Why not just a website?

Ci Chaan: You know, the vinyl industry is dying too but bands are still unrelentingly releasing records on that format. There is an essentiality that you can't explain.

Yuen: We all know that punks are always nostalgic towards the traditional format: vinyl and tapes for example. So here we are expressing our own nostalgia for the paper and ink format. It is interesting to observe how many magazines have gone online to remain "relevant". However we still relish the full sensory experience of reading a magazine: the crispness of the paper, the smell of the ink, the pleasant feeling of reading from paper and the non-ephemeral feeling of print. Try reading on your iPad at the beach.

Alak: I have always been fond of that fresh smell of print and being able to read something that I can hold in my hand. I'm pretty sure that are still some people who do think alike.

Ci Chaan: Plus, people wouldn't give a fuck if Maximumrocknroll was just a website, don't you think?

Kudos on the great job. I'm sure there are a lot of people who appreciate the effort put into the printing, design, and layout (and of course, the thought-provoking articles!). What do you hope to achieve with Shock&Awe!?

Alak: A better one than the last issue.

Ci Chaan: Freebies?

Yuen: It is so not punk to have “objectives”! What are you asking, Cher?! Well seriously, we do hope to stir shit up so more people would want to do zines again while also raising the bar on the quality of output. The “official” objective is to showcase the Southeast Asian scene to the world, yadda yadda. But then again, we might just shut this operation down after 12 issues – we are not lambs for the illusion of longevity or any sort of permanency – and move on to other projects. True story.

Ci Chaan: The magazine is a physical manifestation of the voice where you can put in your respective opinions and get heard. Subjectively speaking I don't intend to impress anyone, plus knowing the fact that I don't possess a degree or whatever shit in journalism; I just wanna write.

On the subject of stirring shit up, you HAVE been. How have responses from punks in SE Asia and the world been so far? Tell us the gossip.

Alak: You have to get the next issue I guess as we're trying to compile some shit-stirring.

Yuen: Well, we wish that people would write longer (remember e-mail, people?) than those Facebook one-liners. We have had three proper (read: not of those one-liner quality like previously mentioned) responses and it shows that people are actually reading and taking us seriously. Other comments are either just “Good”, “Keep up the good work”, or the pun-ny “Awe-some”. Oh yeah, and there is a review on MRR which I have yet to read. It was a good review, I was told. I have also recently discovered that Shock&Awe! is used by Malaysian kids to trade with overseas zines, so I guess that is some sort of non-verbal approval.

Alak: Yes, Facebook conversations are somehow killing the real conversation on issues, especially with the invention of the "like" button. People seem to be lazier to give opinions and seem to be giving less of a damn about things.

Ci Chaan: So far, I did manage to score a few hate mails and I'm very proud of it. You know, it's not easy to wake people up to say that I'm wrong. All of this seems to open up a healthy (I hope) discussion which I think is a very good sign. But it’s not healthy to use a fake email yo.

What would you say about the punk community where you live in Malaysia? What kind of changes has it seen over the years? How strong and important is it?

Yuen: Well everybody thinks their era as the salad days. We ourselves see 2010 as our very own Year Zero. I've heard some stories that the 90's was pretty exciting with the number of mushrooming collectives at the time. But WE, today's surviving people, have Pustaka Semesta INFOSHOP! Take that old tymahs!

Alak: With the cheap AirAsia flight tickets, gigs are becoming more often than not nowadays – local bands are flying out of the country while we're also seeing lots of foreign bands coming in. Even bands that we've never heard of! Also, it's really good to see venues opening up in small towns. Kids are getting more empowered to do things themselves.

Ci Chaan: Changes? Both. How important? May vary. Lots of shows, yes. Lots of people coming, no.

Alak: Actually there has been a lot of divergence within the scene itself. More sub-genres are blooming and kids are scattered all over. And one of our hopes with doing Shock&Awe! is that we might bring everyone together.

Ci Chaan: Maybe I should stop being sentimental. If we want to talk “scene”, the scene itself consists of people, so naturally it depends on the direction that provides. If they want the entire “scene” to happen for real, they should work on how they want it to be. So the punk community in Malaysia is all what you see now. It’s how the people themselves who generate the “scene” want it to be (despite how good or bad it is). It’s never important, you gotta believe me.

Now that we are talking about "scenes", how would you juxtapose the one in Singapore to the one in Malaysia? What kind of differences do you see?

Yuen: Do you recognize the differences in political border construct, Cher? (Interviewer's note: Yes, I do, but it is interesting nevertheless to hear what your views are about any perceived differences.) Haha. Well, for myself, I can't say that I have seen enough of the Singaporean scene to comment. The difference is that we have more "real" punks compared to the Singaporean scene – as much as not having a job is being a “real” punk is concerned because I guess some of us in Malaysia can still afford (won’t die starving) being that, running punk-related initiatives full-time. But even then, individuals here still have jobs on and off. In terms of political awareness, same-same but different – some get it, some don’t. Our numbers may be larger, but percentage-wise, it might be similar.

Ci Chaan: What do you have in mind? Are we talking about physical appearance? If we're talking about that, the Malaysian scene kids would obviously win.

Alak: Pretty much the same I guess, except for how most of the Malaysian Malays in the scene view punk and religion. In the Malaysian constitution, Malays have to be Muslims and it is stated in their ID. So most of the Malay kids have certain conflicts within themselves about being non-conformist towards religion and such.

Yuen: Alak has a good point there, I wish I’d thought of that. Yeah, religion seems to be a bigger issue among the punks here – sort of a thorn in the flesh – which has been that way since the 90’s. And with that it shapes different opinions on sexism, homosexuality, abortion, pre-marital sex, alcohol consumption, and so on and so forth. We are more diverse in that way I guess.

Ci Chaan: I see no differences at all. Same shit, different assholes.

As we all can see, SE Asia is currently on the map at the moment as the destination du jour for Western DIY-punk bands, with as many as 3 touring bands a month sometimes. This may go back to Yuen's article about “punk rock hospitality” in Shock&Awe! #3 – but how do you think this benefits/affects the scene in general? Not to mention the whole business of too many touring bands and not enough organizers? How do you think we can navigate this?

Yuen: This is a double-barreled question. People may be spoilt for choice now than ever before as touring bands are becoming a common thing. The benefit is of course the possible collaborations, networks and exchange of ideas that could result in the bigger picture of human mobility globally – but deep down, who can go where and who is more prone to receive whose hospitality? To speculate, this might be a subtler neo-imperialist phenomenon (oooohh...). I have no answer to the second part of your question, but I do think that if the kids want to do it, you can throw whatever to them and they will manage.

Alak: All I see is that we really do need to establish more venues and continue our diverse activities to ensure that things don’t get stagnant and boring at the end of the day.

Ci Chaan: Well, as a passport-less punk rocker, this is quite beneficial to me. I can catch DIY-punk bands live without the hassle of crossing borders and having to get my passport (ahem!) stamped. Plus, it is always fun to meet new people especially punks from other parts of the world and have conversations with them. But unfortunately, not all punks think like you. For some of these touring bands, touring another part of the world (read: Third World Country/ies) makes them forget that they’re DIY-punk bands. DIY touring bands should mentally prepare themselves for whatever that is necessary before they come here, unless they’re hosted by Universal Music. Don’t expect that these little organizers can and will provide the Hilton for you.

How do you see Shock&Awe! evolving in the near (and possibly, far) future? We know that Yuen is returning to Sarawak soon, how do you think that will affect the zine, especially since it is obvious that most of the work is distributed (out of necessity, I'm sure) amongst the core members?

Ci Chaan: Sigh. That will not affect us at all. No. We could talk to each other still. We could set teleconferences for meetings and for anything else, Gmail is always there for us. I don’t see any reason for us to be worried all of a sudden – Yuen won’t be around forever! What we need is commitment and anything else is just excuses. Ok, I’m kidding.

Yuen: Of course it will affect the zine in some way but I guess we have to adopt the mobile-worker model for the management of the rest of the issues (who knows we can afford to give a Blackberry each to our people in the future? I’m just joking, for those of you who take all the things you hear seriously). Only Alak and I live in the same house together, and we have been doing most of the work online anyway – from the submission of the articles and artwork, editing, promotion, etc – with the rest of our team. Plus we have more people helping us with Shock&Awe! now so it just lies on the acu(wo)men of task delegation.

Alak: It will affect the working process a lot. To be honest, I am kind of worried about being apart from Yuen and doing things online. It works better to discuss things over beer or coffee. All I know is that once Yuen goes back to Sarawak, it will be much more of a hassle for me to coordinate things alone and I do hope Ci Chaan will always be available to lend a hand. We can hope for other people to help, but at the end of the day it basically all goes back to ourselves to run things.

Ci Chaan: I just hope that Alak won’t call me often.

Perhaps this is a spillover from our dominant culture, but what is your opinion on most punks lacking the initiative to do things themselves, instead only waiting for a leader's (i.e. authoritative) direction before doing so? How do you think we can all start empowering ourselves to start doing stuff on our own, without merely consuming the fruits of others' labour? Or is that an utopian ideal?

Yuen: This was mentioned in Rupert’s article in issue #1. I think in every scene at any time, you have only a handful of people who are dedicating their 100% for any initiative. It finally dawned on me that it’s funny that most of the people who work on DIY-punk projects expect other punks to do something too, that punks expect so much from other punks – be it to appear at a mass rally, to participate in collectives, etc. I guess on a personal level, what each person can do is to share, inform, and hopefully inspire. It struck me recently that what we take for granted in the DIY circle, like producing our own CDs for example, is not even a fathomable idea for non-punk independent musicians. What I realized from that point on is that there will always be ever-relevant things like workshops on how to print CD sleeves yourself, so people will feel empowered to produce things and to work on projects. With this I would love to thank Mr. Talib Revulsion publicly for helping us so much especially for the printing of issue #3.

Alak: It is so not punk to not get self-empowered and not do things themselves. Haha.

Ci Chaan: I have no opinion on this but you know, laziness is still a disease.

What can we expect in the next few issues? Are you going to piss more people off? Inspire more people?

Yuen: Pissing people off is a side effect as it was never intended. People can expect better output and constant innovation from the zine. We are still experimenting with a lot of things, taking cues here and there, from the layouting to the textual content, which is apparent from the lack of a certain style or identity in the present. So, new surprises for every new issue. We are now working on a few new things for the upcoming issue, but it’s still a secret as of now. We hope to inspire, if that is a punk thing to say.

Alak: I just hope every new issue gets better and better overall (writing, issue-wise, design etc). We’ve always talked about how to escape that stereotype of always being the same so we try to make things as different and as attractive as possible. We hope to live by our name in getting people to feel Shocked and Awe’d!

Ci Chaan: I think I should piss more people off. Somehow it seems like the only way to pull the trigger and inspire more people to write. You see, without a ridiculous statement people won't bother to waste their precious time and write back (fueled with anger, sometimes) to contradict that statement. Even if it isn’t assured that the feedback would be helpful, it would still certainly excite me.

We have come to the end of the interview. Thanks guys! Any last words?

Ci Chaan: It’s a secret. Sorry Cher, but I can’t tell you what my last words are going to be.

Yuen: “Support” is a weak word used to oblige friends to buy your zine, so no “Keep on supporting us” or “Thanks for the support” (at least for this interview, ngeh). We welcome collaborations from mobile independent workers everywhere. It’s the age of the Internet, so no need for geographical proximity. We hope that this project would be a good platform for collaborations within the Southeast Asia scene. Do contact us: drop us a word at shock.awe00@gmail.com if you have something to share.

Alak: Up the Punks and more Power to the people! Cheers!

Ci Chaan: Discharge.

--

*Their fourth issue is currently in the works. So keep your eyes peeled! 

**To quote Yuen somewhere in this interview, "I’m just joking, for those of you who take all the things you hear seriously."

Shock&Awe also has an online arm, which is a focus on regional DIY hardcore-punk media production in electronic form. You can check it out here: http://shockawemedia.wordpress.com.

For queries, ideas for collaborations, contributions, or just to say hi, Shock&Awe can be contacted at shock.awe00@gmail.com.

[interview] INJAKMATI (grindcore from Jakarta, Indonesia)

Originally published in issue #11 of Ploppy Pants, this interview is with Dolly, guitarist and mastermind behind the Indonesian crust/grind outfit INJAKMATI. Scottish fast-hardcore band ATOMGEVITTER (whom Roddy, the interviewer is a part of) will be touring with them in July through Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia so it seems like a good time to republish their chat from late 2009 - enjoy!

Dolly, my brother how are ya? How is the Indonesian summer? We’re freezing our asses off over here right now!! So let's start with introductions, who are INJAKMATI, when did you start, who plays what and what does the band name mean in English?

Dolly: Hey Roddy my blood brother! ciamar a tha thu?! How's BLACK SISTER and ATOMGEVITTER doing? I'm good. Summer has just begun here so get ready to feel the most extreme heat as hell! INJAKMATI started in the middle of the 2000's by me on guitar and insults, Benny(vox), Gamebell (bass), and Ade (drums). Today the line-up is me/Dolly Patchaos (guitar + insults), Adit Riot (bass) and Ranggaukkus (drums).When the time most people read this we will have a new singer. The band's name means step/tread you till death. It is supposed to have a space in between the name: Injak Mati, but that doesn't look cool hehe...

Injakmati is based out of Jakarta, Indonesia so tell us a little about the scene over there, How did you guys come to be exposed to punk in the first place? How and when did the Indonesian scene develop?

Dolly: The scene here existed in the early 90's. At that time only a few local bands were playing but there were a lot of squats and kids who were into punk and hardcore. The scene is getting bigger everyday, especially when we become more connected to other punks around the world via the internet (MySpace?). We can get more info about punk activities and bands, so the communication is stronger. All of these things are easier compared to a few years ago, and the good news is that there have been many good responses about Indonesian punk.

What does it mean to be a punk in Indonesia, do you get a lot of trouble from ‘normal’ people on the street? Does playing in the band help you guys deal with your daily lives over there?

Dolly: I think every one has their own opinion on why they decided to be a punk, but for me punk is a place where I can get more freedom, happiness, love, peace and comradeship/brotherhood; that has all contributed to my attraction to punk. All the shit things I see in this shitty world -- war, lies, repression and greed, I don't want any of it. So it is through the band where I feel I can spread and scream our anger and peace message to the world and hope to make a change. I know it's hard work but at least we can contribute a little. Most people who don't understand yet about what punk is about might think and see that punx are just a bunch of scumbags. That is such a big mistake when they only judge a book by its cover. So I think as long as we maintain our attitude without harming anyone else we will never get any trouble because that was never what we wanted.

You describe yourselves as old grind/fast punk bulldozers and I would definitely agree that you manage to create a pretty raw assault that sounds like a bulldozer crushing your house but what does this slogan mean to you, who were the bands that you had in mind when you started the band, were you aiming for a certain sound or did it all happen organically?

Dolly: Well I used this slogan after I heard the result of our first recording in 2009. Old grind/punk fathers and some freaky bands I have in mind like NAPALM DEATH, TERRORIZER, HERESY, ASSUCK, PHOBIA, CRIPPLE BASTARDS, GRIDE, UNHOLY GRAVE, AGATHOCLES, FIGHTING COUGARS, DISRUPT, MINDFLAIR, etc has really influenced me to get on a ride on an old bulldozer with full speed and then crushing/destroying all the shit things in sight, while keeping the DIY punk flag flying high! The music created at the time simply flowed with our minimalist skills and instruments.

The lyrics of INJAKMATI cover typical punk topics like war and the DIY scene but the lyrics to the song Disgrace where you seem to be attacking students really stood out for me. Could you please explain what this song is about? Are there any issues in particular that you feel strongly should be represented in your lyrics?

Dolly: Disgrace is a portrait of some stupid Indonesian students' behaviour who engage in a kind of barbaric entertainment on the street or at their school/college. You can see it almost everyday! They fight each other for irrational reasons. This is ridiculous to me! I don't discredit them but I just don't understand why the so-called intelligent people like them act like they have no brains. And ironically when some of them go into power after they have graduated, they use that power to fool other people. They only think for themselves as a result of their greed and never gives a fuck about the poor who is supposed to be supported by them. This is so sad! Education in here is so expensive and so fucked up! My only message of this song is: please stop this madness!

Your first release was a split 7” with BLACK SISTER and I know you have a few other releases lined up. Is this an important part of the band for you guys, to be able to release a lot of different records in different countries? Have you had any feedback on your releases so far?

Dolly: This is exactly what we wanted as a DIY underground band! By sharing records it can be help us connect with other DIY bands/punks around the world. Creating communication and doing a trade which can definitely result in a beautiful friendship! That is what I'm feeling. And yeah, so many trade and split requests coming to us since our 1st release with our metalhead brothers!

INJAKMATI has only just played your first live show and as I understand it ended in a drunken riot. Why did it take you so long to play a live show and what was the trouble that night? Is this kind of chaos typical at shows in Indonesia?

Dolly: I think this can happen at gigs anytime, anywhere. Actually, riots at shows almost never happens here. We were just the lucky bastards who got thrown a boot from that fucking drunken master when we played that night, haha... Line-up changes and other activities outside the band such as earning money to take care of our arses and family have make us progress slowly so we have to look for the right time to play shows.

And speaking of live shows a lot of DIY bands from Europe and the USA seem to be touring Southeast Asia these days. What has been the reaction to this within the Indonesian scene, are folk happy to see these foreign acts coming over?

Dolly: Yeah, touring bands from abroad has always gotten a good welcome from the kids here and we have really enjoyed the shows!

Ok, this one is for you Dolly. We first made contact through your patch-making business and I think this possibility for 2 people from opposite sides of the world to build a relationship is one of the best aspects of the DIY underground. What do think, have you had a lot of positive experiences through your patch business?

Dolly: I get a lot of positive experiences through this which I don't only consider as a business but also a true friendship. This is also the way for me to know/meet other people from other parts of the world and create a brotherhood. This is amazing and beautiful for me! I remember the first time you contacted me when you were in FIGHTING COUGARS and played a show with AVSKUM; you got a patch from them with my DIY handwriting on the back. It's been a long time ago! From patches to our split 7” to this interview! Wow! We've had a fantastic relationship until now! And finally to be meeting you face to face in 2011!!

There seems to be a hell of a lot of bands in Indonesia right now (I certainly get enough messages coming to the Problem? Records MySpace looking for a record deal!) but the quality of a lot of these bands is not exactly the best... which bands should we be looking out for from Indonesia right now? Which bands are setting your stereos on fire?

Dolly: Yeah, lots of new bands are born almost everyday here! Some of them are really dead serious to play! This sounds stupid because I don't know which bands I should recommend since we have different tastes. My tape and CD player has been broken for a long time already so I am unable to play a lot of records these days. I also don't really have the time to check out bands properly. Sorry!

As you guys know, in Ploppy Pants zine we want to hear your stories of pant shitting disasters so please, I hope the INJAKMATI boys will not disappoint!!

Dolly: Hahaha! This one I like! I'm happy to get my turn to tell my own. Well, I had diarrhoea a few years ago. On the last few days when I was feeling better, I ran to the toilet but I didn't make it fast enough to get my underwear down so the shit came out faster than when I saw it! I was really happy! You know why? My shit was normal again. :)

Ok guys that’s it, thanks for answering my questions and please take this space to add whatever you like!!

Dolly: I thank you so much for doing this interview with us. I hope you understand my English. I also wanna thank you for all your kindness, help and support to me and INJAKMATI since the beginning. You are my DIY hero, Roddy! I've learnt so much from you about true friendship, DIY, English and whatever else that I can't say here. Thanks to the people who read this! Please get in touch for INJAKMATI merch, trades, split requests, friendship, insults or to get some patches done or T-shirt printing from me, Just write for my DIY price list! Friendship gu brath!

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Check out INJAKMATI at www.myspace.com/injakmati or email injakmati@rocketmail.com

Dolly can be contacted at www.myspace.com/dzpatchaos or at dpsprinting@ymail.com

Interview conducted by Roddy of Ploppy Pants zine/ATOMGEVITTER, who will be touring Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore this July with FAMILY MAN (German old-school hardcore), INJAKMATI, and MICHAEL CRAFTER (Sydney posiviolence). Tour brought to you by the good people at Revulsion Records and 7x0x7 -- keep your eyes peeled for more info out soon!

ATOMGEVITTER news can also be seen at atomgevitter.blogspot.com.

[interview] Picking It Apart: w/ Playfreely I participants Mish'aal and Isyraf (The Psalms), Az and Phid (Stellarium)

Cross talk. From left: Horacio Pollard, Mish’aal, Reggie Perera, Darren Moore and Phid / Photo by The Observatory

"Play Freely" means exactly like it is. Pretensions cast aside, the six-part series organised by The Observatory sees a convergence of musicians from diverse backgrounds bringing in their own unique elements to the mix. With the first instalment held just two weeks ago on April 15, instruments as atypical as the stick, veena, and didgeridoo were matched with more “conventional” offerings of guitar, bass and drum – pushing all involved out of their comfort zones. The result: an improvisational cacophony that was split into four separate sets, each delivering something distinct, yet feral and discordant. Therefore, it would seem apt to speak with some of the musicians involved that night, to get a sense of their perspectives and perhaps, to make a tentative grasp of what unfolded before us in the audience.

First things first, introduce yourselves.

Mish’aal: Mish’aal, bass player from The Psalms.

Phid: My name is Firdhaus, a.k.a. Fid or Phid, whichever. I’m one of the two guitarists for Stellarium.

Az: Az Kadir, I, Noiseferatu, 32, male, outer rims of Orion’s Belt.

Isyraf: Isyraf and I play drums for The Psalms.

Reflecting prior to Playfreely, how did you feel about getting invited to be a part of it? What role does improvisation play in your usual band practices/arrangements?

Isyraf: When Mish’aal told me I was going to be playing with a bunch of musicians I’d never seen or heard of prior, I got all juiced up. Add a veena player into the mix, and immediately I knew that the entire event was going to be interesting and fun; a real eye-opener. In The Psalms, we rarely improvise due to lack of time. Usually one has a song or riff in mind before practice.

Phid: I think me being in Stellarium got me invited to Playfreely. I had mixed feelings, both honored and unsure – mostly honored to be in the mix with talented musicians. Improvisation usually takes place during live shows for Stellarium, making noises and guitar feedback which I did during some parts of my set.

Mish’aal: Initially, I was pretty excited when The Psalms got invited for Playfreely thinking that we’d be collaborating with other musicians as a band. Later, I found out that the band members would be separated, which I was fine about at first, but the closer the event loomed the more nervous I became. It didn’t help when the first thing I saw when I walked into the Black Box were Andy’s effect pedals which I thought was on an epic scale. Regarding the role of improvisation within the band, I’d say it’s pretty much on a “safe” level where we’d come in with a song or basic structure ready, which we’d try out before making any changes. The entire band has an input on everyone’s parts, thus improvisation is kept at a minimal since we’re helping one another out.

Az: It was great in a sense that the people behind Playfreely made it such a fun thing to explore. It’s different than say, being invited just to session or play something as is; this is definitely well thought of and considered and planned. In Stellarium, we don’t require much improvisation really, it’s always diagrams and structures and sounds in my head prior.

Did you “cheat”? Did you do anything to prepare for your part(s) during the set? If so, what?

Az: Yes, some honey, and I took a rocket-ship first to my home planet near Orion’s belt.

Isyraf: No. Basically whatever that comes to mind will automatically go into my drumming. All the preparation I had was to keep telling myself to maintain eye contact with the other musicians, and also to really dig in and listen.

Mish’aal: Didn’t have the chance to cheat or come out with parts before the set. Sorry.

Phid: Nah! There’s no way one can cheat or prepare for such events. That will only backfire.

Starburst: Az (left) and Isyraf / Photo by Andy Yang

What kind of feelings did you experience during your set(s)? What did you find coming out? Were there riffs or chord patterns that you were familiar with? Did interacting with the other musicians push you to places you hadn’t been before?

Phid: Mine was the first set, with Darren Moore, Mish’aal, Reggie and Horacio [Pollard]. So it was pretty awkward for us I guess. No one knew when to start and what to expect. Not sure if they had eye contact but not me. I just looked down and did my thing using what I heard as a guide. I’m not a very good guitarist so I mostly did familiar things which I’m used to with Stellarium while accommodating to the other musicians.

Az: I felt a clash of elements, it was like an amalgamation of chaos, bliss, harmony and conflict. What came out was a kaleidoscope of thoughts and uncertainties, as well as aggression and reluctance. Also a tinge of frustration, maybe ‘cos some of us failed to gel while some did; and when given room but not having the opportunity to, I found that I had to take the lead, which I think was the main brunt of this element of tension coming about. I kind of enjoy playing and exploring different areas musically with other musicians, regardless of the outcome. It’s good for growth of abilities and also widens the perspective.

Mish’aal: During the first session I was in my comfort zone – I was basically playing droning riffs which I was used to without really pushing myself. I was worried that if I tried to do something different, I would spoil the set, especially when I didn’t know the other musicians at all (except Fid whom I went to secondary school with and finally got to see/play with him after all these years!). However, the last session really threw me outside of that aforementioned comfort zone, as there was no sense of common rhythm that I could fall back to. Plus there was no communication between the four of us which then required full concentration.

Isyraf: It was awesome! I wanted Arun to kick off the set and he really did. I didn’t even tell him what I had in mind! That was really weird. When everyone came in after he gave count, that was it. I can’t tell you how much fun it was. Everything sounded great from where I was. We were playing as a unit, we weren’t playing individually. I could hear the guitarist (Az) pulling his sound back a bit to give way to the veena player (Arun) and also vice versa. I tried my best not to overplay but then again I don’t even know how to overplay. I love beats that are plain and simple. Anders and Az made the whole thing sound sick and twisted. It was suh-weet! It felt like I was in an asylum but in a good way. Then again, I’ve never been to an asylum before… hahaha. Plus I totally lost track of time. The melodies which came from the veena really got me hooked. Arun was like the pied piper slowly reeling me in.

Search & destroy: Isyraf (left) and Anders Hana (MoHa!) / Photo by Andy Yang

How was it collaborating with the other musicians during your set? What did you think of them?

Mish’aal: Collaborating with the others was pretty awesome, especially knowing who they are (I’m not a groupie but I’m usually in awe of musicians or performers with talent). I thought each and everyone of them came in with their own definition of “play freely” and applied it during their sessions, which was rather varied.

Isyraf: I don’t know any of the musicians personally except for Mish’aal but I’m more than willing to work with them in the future. I’m really curious about their thought processes when it comes to music.

Phid: From where I was, I couldn’t hear what Horacio and Reggie was playing but a friend watching said our set was really good. Darren Moore was great on drums and Mish’aal was spot on at getting the groove going. There was a lot of respect amongst us. I felt a great sense of accomplishment after our set. It felt great.

Az: It’s always great to collaborate with people, albeit the negative results. It’s a matter of luck, chance and chemistry, despite existing talent and skill. I think everyone had their own contribution from whatever musical backgrounds they came from.

What did you think of the other sets? Of the entire event in general?

Mish’aal: I really enjoyed the whole event, it was fun watching individuals who had never played with each other prior get thrown together. I really liked how the veena player blended in nicely with the drums during the second session. Also, the event allows musicians to interact with those whom they may not have a chance to in regular circumstances.

Phid: I loved the sets featuring Mr Arun Kumar on the veena. I was sure he was nervous based on his body language during the briefing by Dharma before the show. But he kept his cool and played like a true master. Andy’s “stick” was very interesting – I didn’t know of its existence till that day. The event itself was well-planned, and the turnout was good. I applaud the idea and I’d love to witness the next one. I personally wish to see more exotic instruments at future shows.

Az: I think some of the sets were better and had more tandem chemistry, but I also thought that it was leaning too much in one particular area. I think it’s best to try and step beyond yourself and connect, and not stay within one’s own boundaries.

Isyraf: In general, the entire event was very memorable. I miss it already. Loads and loads of thanks to Dharma and the rest of The Obs for giving me an opportunity to be a part of the event. I really appreciate it.

Phid slinging it low / Photo by Andy Yang

How much of a challenge was this for you considering how you are not “improv” musicians in the specific sense of the word?

Az: Everyone does some “improv” unconsciously, when they are tuning up their strings or noodling at home, composing, etc. I guess as a songwriter I’m inclined to improvise? Yeah.

Mish’aal: I think most of the Psalms would know that I pretty much suck at improvising, as I’m very bothered by criticism or what people might think. Therefore I hardly step out of my comfort zone and venture new styles. So participating in something like this without knowing at all what to expect was something really nerve-wrecking for me.

Isyraf: I didn’t take it as a challenge in the first place. This may sound cheesy but it was more like self-exploration for me. I wanted to know if I could gel with players coming from different musical backgrounds. I seriously have no idea when I’ll “graduate” but I’m still learning and exploring. The best way is to just keep playing/reading/listening and learning from other players.

Phid: Yes, I’m not really an “improv” musician per se. I tried to make some improvisations at times during my set but I was more focused on blending with the other sounds. The challenge really was to get out of my comfort zone, play the guitar unconventionally, but what IS the conventional way?

Can one make mistakes in an improv set? If so, what constitutes a mistake in such a performance and did you find yourself making mistakes? If there are no such thing as mistakes, why not?

Phid: Yes definitely. When one gets carried away trying to outshine the others instead of working together. I can’t tell but I really hope I didn’t make that mistake. Which reminds me of what Dharma said when he noticed that I was nervous: “there are no mistakes; there are only good and bad choices.”

Mish’aal: I don’t think you can say mistakes happen in an improv set, because I think when you are improvising the lack of a template or structure allows you to basically play off of other musicians, against the backdrop of what they are playing.

Az: Well, I don’t think there are mistakes in the avant-garde doctrines, but as far as me – being purely a musician – yes of course. I can’t say much about this as I’m not schooled well enough in its concepts and frameworks; I’m from a place much more primal than that. In the end, does it matter whether what a heart and soul expresses is a mistake? I think not.

Isyraf: I don’t think one can make any mistakes during an improv session. Music has this weird way whereby everything will just fit in nicely. You just have to follow the flow.

This one is for Mish’aal only. Elaborate on how the two sets you played in juxtaposed against each other. How were they different?

Mish’aal: The first set was pretty straightforward. It was something I was very comfortable with, compared to the second one which literally had me going through a whirlwind of emotions just trying to anticipate what was coming. During the first session there were a lot of points where the each musician kept the structure consistent.I usually play through drummers but for session two, there was no common rhythm or direction that I could fit into (except during one part where the drummer slowed down his beats as if he was following the bass line, but only to shift to patterns that took me by surprise). Each of us were just playing on our own and I was just struggling trying to think of any riffs/things. The two sessions put together really showed how different each musician interprets their idea of improvisation jam.

Mish’aal sh’miles… at Dharma (The Observatory) / Photo by Andy Yang