Punk rock music was the genre of the years 2000-2010. Many record labels looked to sign punk rock bands during that era, and those years produced many legendary bands making infectious pop-punk music. Among those bands are Sum41, Boys Like Girls, We The Kings and many more. This era was the era of making rock music radio friendly and mainstream, and those that hopped on that genre made it big during those years in the 2000s and enjoyed plenty of commercial success during that time period. In this post, we take a look at two of my favourite bands of the 2000s which I'm sure many of you would resonate with. Here are the bands :
Simple Plan
Photo taken from Simple Plan website
This pop-punk outfit rose
to fame with their debut album, No Pads, No Helmets…. Just Balls in 2002 with
hit singles “Addicted” and most popular anthem of our generation called
“Perfect”. The band consists of Pierre Bouvier, Jeff Stink, Sebastien Lefebvre,
David Desrosiers and Church Comeau. They are basically a French-Candian band,
which gives them an interesting cultural heritage having made it big in the
United States of America before breaking out into mainstream international
radio. They followed up their debut album with Still Not Getting Any in 2004, a
self-titled Simple Plan Album in 2008, and recently Taking The One For the Team
this year. Started in 1999, Simple Plan doesn’t seem like slowing down, as they
have slowly evolved from a pop-punk teen angst band to a mature punk rock band
singing about life and its adversaries.
Yellowcard
Lights and Sounds (2005)
This band was one of the biggest
bands in the 2000s. I’m pretty sure every person who was born in the 90s will
be familiar with the song “Only One” by this band as the song we would listen
to when our world fell apart (at that teenage years it was most probably a
break-up) and the song would hit right home every time. The band was formed in
Jacksonville, Florida in the United States in 1997. They have then went on to
produce 10 records to date, with albums Ocean Avenue in 2003, Lights and Sounds
in 2005 being the peak of their success, being signed to Capitol Records in
2002. The band slowly faded into obscurity after their album Paper Walls in
(2007) and made a comeback in 2010 with a new line-up. Their signature sound
was alway a pop-punk sound with a distinct violin playing most of the hooks of
the songs, which made their pop-punk sound even more emotional with the added
strings. Sadly, Yellowcard has announce that they will be producing a final
album and go on a farewell tour to close a chapter of a brilliant run of music
in the music scene. They will be missed. Farewell, Yellowcard.
Now, the world of music is dominated by EDM music and Hip Hop, coupled with the commercial pop music. Do you think there is hope for the pop-punk scene? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!
Good Vibes Festival 2016 was a weekend long music festival with a big mix of local and international artist gracing its stages. The location was perfect for a hot-weathered, summer all year Malaysia, where it was held in The Ranch, Genting Highlands. The festival attracted people from all around Southeast Asia and the world and was pretty well run overall.
Festival Grounds set-up :
Image taken from GVF website
The festival space was very well utilised, with two main stages, Red and Blue Stage, set up side by side, and acts playing on each stage every hour while the next act sets up on the other stage. This was brilliant transition from one musical act to the next, where the festival go-er could enjoy the acts they came to see easily. There was also set up in the middle of the festival grounds, an alcohol section called the Star Club, where only non-muslims were allowed in.
Behind the Star Club, there was the Electric Fields, where prominent local DJs played their sets. Scattered around the festival grounds were also plenty of activities and different booths set up. There was plenty of food vendors, a super big and giant trampoline, a Topshop/Topman picture booth with popsicles. The slight downside to it was that most of the goods sold at the festival was pretty expensive than usual.
Day 1 :
The first day was probably my most anticipated day because it featured some of my personal favourite artists. Sibling duo Juno and Hanna, from Johor kicked of the festival with their experimental electronic music which pulled in the early festival go-er arrivals. The Fridays and Toko Kilat continued the local flavour with local legends Sevencollar T-Shirt being the highlight of our local musicians. Ta-ku chilled the night down with a surprise appearance from Wafia, and Purity Ring took it up a notch with some of the best lights and visuals, followed by Aussie boys The Temper Trap rocking the stage with ’Sweet Disposition’ capping of a brilliant set.
The 1975 at GVF 2016
The 1975, who was arguably the biggest crowd-puller for the festival rocked up on stage with a few thousand screams as they began their set with hit single ‘Love Me’. The bands solid groovy tunes coupled with next level drumming by drummer George Daniel and the suave of frontman Matt Healy sent the crowd crazy with every hair flick and bad joke thrown from the stage. The crowd went into a frenzy during the last two songs, ‘The Sound’ & ‘Sex’ cementing the band as one of the Malaysia's newest favourite british bands of year.
Two Door Cinema Club however, took it up a notch. Their appearance was highly anticipated because 3 years ago, their performance at Urbanscapes was cancelled due to a member’s case of laryngitis. This time, no sickness to hold the guys back, as they rocked out songs from their hit album ‘Tourist History’ and upcoming album ‘Bad Decisions’. The crowd danced all night and when we thought the night had reached its climax, enter : Mark Ronson. The DJ killed it with his set as he kept people dancing from 11.20 all the way to the early morning (1.30am to be exact). He pulled out old-school hiphop tunes remixed with modern day EDM dance music which left audiences wanting for more. He brought the house down when he play his hit song 'Uptown Funk' and ended the night with a bang.
Day 2 :
I only managed to stay for awhile during day 2, but I will have to say, Day 2 didn't have a good flow for the entire night. The festival started off with Mutesite taking the stage with their instrumental progressive rock followed local indie boys Jumero got everyone moving to their chilled out tunes. +2db played next, doing their original tunes and also covering a song by Malaysian songstress Yuna, called ‘Crush’. Froya got everyone dancing to her adorable indie-pop tunes, while Subang Jaya based Enterprise got all experimental taking the audiences to another planet. Kyoto Protocol capped off the local bands leg by rocking their hards out and the crowd definitely rocked out with the band to hit songs ‘Jelita’ and ‘KL I Love You’.
This is the part where the flow of the night wasn’t very good. Ryan Hemsworth, a Canadian DJ took the stage at a early 8pm. His set was cool, but it was a little early to try for hard dance music as the next act was Alina Barez, a soulful R&B singer with a very sultry voice. She had a nice set, but the mood at the festival took a slight dip as a consequence from overhyped dance music to chill tunes. Tokyo Police Club rocked out the stage after that set by Alina, and they were my favourite act of the night and a new discovered band for me to add to my Spotify playlist. Australian indie-folk group Angus & Julia Stone was next and so breathtaking, with the duo having such soothing voices. And DJ brothers Disclosure closed the night with what i hear was an energetic climax. (i missed their set cause I had to leave back to KL) For me the transition between genres from EDM to R&B, to Post Rock then to Indie-Folk left festival go-ers a little fatigued and confused at the end of Day 2.
Having said all the festival was a success, improving on previous years with a stellar line-up and a well organised festival.
Malaysia has been graced with a bevy of talent over the years, with more and more artists breaking out from through the wonders of the internet, and others are just making waves by putting out big shows at indie music venues around the bigger cities in the country like Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Penang.
Meet Nicholas Ng, a 23 year old R&B singer personified as NYK when he steps on stage and he does his thing. He is a current rising star in the Malaysian indie music scene with plenty of potential. Officially starting his music career with his band, The Nicholas Ng Project (TNNP), the band packed out their first feature at local indie venue Merdekarya. They arranged plenty of smooth silky R&B covers and tunes with a cool set up with a raw, simplified acoustic sounds. This project eventually grew bigger and better together, until recently Nicholas decided to rebrand to NYK as a part of a new direction and a solidification of him as an artist.
Photo taken by Roshan Menon, concept by NYK, design by Kenzo Yeo
I managed to sit down with Nicholas on a cozy afternoon at Bean Brothers Kota Damansara, where we talked about his music journey, the ups and downs of the industry and his future aspirations for 2017 and beyond. Here is how the interview went down.
How and when did music making become an
important part of your life?
October 2015, when I arrived back in Malaysia and
entered the music scene. I got to know a lot about the scene: what worked, what
didn’t. Then I met a bunch of friends who taught me how to produce by myself,
and that made transcribing the music in my head into sound that much easier. So
yeah, I’d definitely say I met the most appropriate group of friends that
jumpstarted my songwriting.
Making music can be a hard thing to do when
you’re out of ideas. What inspires you to write even through those
situations?
You can push through. I know some people do that;
they just force themselves to carry on writing until they strike gold. Not
wrong at all. I prefer to take a break; in can be in the form of a coffee, or
it can be as big as a random trip up to Ipoh and Taiping to reset. I think that
depends on how you write, too: I tend to write when I’m in the mood; it’s
inconsistent, but when the songs do come out I end up being very happy with
them. Others literally churn out dozens of songs a week, and I’d think they’d
cope with a lack of inspiration with the former solution.
What are you views on the state of our local
music scene as an upcoming artist?
I think it’s going through a renaissance for
sure… You’ve got acts like Talitha Tan and Paperplane Pursuit really getting
themselves out there. I’m also a big fan of the Asian Century, and I think it’s
really coming into play now; Asian culture including music is starting to take
off, and we’ll only have ourselves to blame if we don’t ride it.
I’m more pessimistic about the local gigging scene in Malaysia. In all honesty
I think the cycle of going to small bars and pubs and playing to the same group
of people – people who usually happen to be fellow musicians or friends – is
poisonous and deceiving. Musicians are lulled into an assumption that people
care and that they’re being known when it’s essentially a group of musicians
giving each other Facebook likes: valuable in the hundreds or thousands, but
meaningless in the tens.
Photo by Axam
Best show so far? Tell us the story of that
favourite gig(s)
Oh man, I’ve got two. First is the recent Tiger
Jams show where I opened for The Sam Willows and SOAP. As an opening act you’d
think the crowd was just dying to see Benjamin Kheng, but after I finished my
set they were asking for an encore. I think that was insane of them, that kind
of support was unexpected. Forever grateful for that one.
The second one is back in 2011, where I played
for a freshies night at Taylors, myself being one of the freshies. There were 5
of us, amateurs who didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t arrange anything;
we just did It’s My Life by Bon Jovi, and the crowd went wild. There were easily a thousand 17 year olds there just scraming
out the lyrics and jumping; it’s easily the best gig I’ve been to. I feel like
that euphoria I got playing for such a big crowd at such a young age fueled
that high even further; I can’t get that same innocent thrill anymore.
You started out as TNNP, rolled with Nick
Yungkit and now NYK. Could you share briefly the transitions between the brand
names and the process of solidifying your artist brand?
Right, that’s pretty straightforward. TNNP was a
band, and we were gonna do R&B, but it’d be R&B in raw, acoustic form.
You would hear a bass, a guitar and raw drums. Nick Yungkit was almost an
accompaniment to that; initially it was my stage name when doing solo or
acoustic shows. But chiefly it served as an awkward, unsure transition towards
being a solo artist where I was looking for the sound I wanted to do. NYK is
(at least I hope) me as a confident, matured solo artist. My sound’s shifted as
well, I’m totally all in for electronic sounds, synths and Ableton, with huge
African American and Korean R&B influences. Although sometimes for work
purposes and other intimate shows I’ll put an acoustic guitar on, and be plain
old Nick for half an hour or so.
What are your plans for NYK in the future?
What can we expect from NYK in 2017?
I might be signing onto a record label
owned by a friend of mine, or I might consider other options. But the
short-term goal is to get an original called FWB produced and out for everyone
to listen. I’m hoping for it to blow up, I quite like the tune, and if that
goes alright, we’ll carry on with more singles and possible an album. By the
end of 2017 NYK should hopefully be a household name in Malaysia, or better
yet, Southeast Asia. Watching him live many times, I would say he's one of the future artist that would definitely put Malaysia on the international map. I'll let the music do the talking on his talent and potential. Here's a video of NYK covering Snarky Puppy's Free Your Dream :
No Black Tie, is arguably KL’s pioneer jazz bar
where countless prominent performers and musicians from around the region have
performed. The bar was founded by Sarawakian born-US trained classical pianist
Evelyn Hii in 1998, and was 5 doors away a few years ago before they moved to
its current venue. The bar is approaching its 17th year of establishment, and
has become one of the most premier spots for a musician to play at and has
captured the heart of Kuala Lumpur and all it embodies. Young indie and jazz
musicians aspire to play at a No Black Tie show, where if you managed to play
at the venue, you have ‘made it’ in our small local music scene. Prominent
visiting jazz performers also from international shores entertain play at the venue as they tour around Asia/Southeast Asia. Among famous local artists to play here are jazz singers Dasha Logan, Evelyn Feroza, jazz pianist John Dip Silas and his trio, and many more.
Beside jazz performers, No Black Tie also host other genres and
events, like the classic Chopin to African Samba. They also host an Open Mic
for indie bands every once a month, giving the untrained jazz musician (albeit
talented musicians) an opportunity to grace No Black Tie’s classy stage. The
sound system and acoustics of the venue is top notch and anyone looking for
good music on a chill night would definitely enjoy any show on any given day.
The venue boasts a classic 1920 American look, with plenty of black
and white photos of jazz legends, with the wooden wall and polished, teakwood
floors being my favourite part of the ambience created as you enter. It does
give you the feeling that you’re a part of the music that is happening on
stage, as it is being played. Tables and chairs are classy and simple usually
set up for two or four, with a candle at every table to give a romantic feel,
perfect for a classy Tinder date. Food will be slightly pricey compared to the
other bars along the same stretch, but the entertainment and standard of music
will definitely make a trip to No Black Tie, worth it.
No Black Tie Opening Hours: 17:00 – late Monday – Sunday (closed on random Sundays)
Address: 17 Jalan Mesui, Off Jalan Nagasari, KL (a few streets away from Changkat Bukit Bintang)
Chance the Rapper, whose real name is Chancellor
Johnathan Bennett was born on April 16 1993, in Chicago, Illinois. He is an
independent hiphop recording artist who has taken the world by storm with hit
mixtape ‘Acid Rap’ & his latest project, ‘Coloring Book’.
Chance the Rapper
Chance started his career when he was suspended
for 10 days from school, for possessing marijuana on campus. Instead of moping
around for the 10 days at home, he started working on producing his first
mixtape, which he titled “10 Day” and uploaded the 10 tracks of his
mixtape onto Soundcloud in December 2011, where it was widely received by the
independent community there. This venture led him to appear on American rapper
Childish Gambino’s sixth mixtape, ‘Royalty’ on the track “They Don’t Like Me”
and later Chance joined Gambino on tour in North America as an opening act in
2012. Around this time, Sony Music and a few other prominent music labels
offered him record deals, but he would soon turn them down due to his views on
creative control that did not flow well with the music labels.
He then release “Acid Rap” independently, his
second mixtape on music sites DatPiff and Soundcloud in 2013. This mixtape when
on to put Chance as on of the biggest rappers in our modern era, and he wasn’t
even signed to any labels! ‘Acid Rap’ was then nominated as Best Mixtape at the
BET Hip Hop Awards as one of its biggest highlights. His record collaboration
with Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment in 2014 was a huge success with
songs like “Sunday Candy” topping charts across America. His latest endeavour,
his 2016 “Colouring Book” mixtape has over 36 million plays on Spotify, which
also features big-hit rappers and producers like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West.
The most impressive thing about Chance is that he has accomplished all this
without the help and power of a major music label.
Coloring Book Mixtape
When someone listens to Chance The Rapper, he
resonates so much to a generation looking for positivity in an already negative
world. He not only acknowledges how run down the world is today, but chooses to
respond to adversary with positivity and honesty. His gospel influence added
with his brilliant producer mind, incorporates sounds that would keep you
humming along to his tunes and feeling assured that everything is going to be all
right. Stand out singles from his latest record will be “Blessings” and “No
Problem”.
Rappers used to look to music labels as the Holy Grail to making it
in the scene. Sign a multi-million dollar deal, cash in and make records by
selling of the rights to their songs. Chance The Rapper, on the other hand has
done it his way, without selling away his creative rights to his songs and
earns every single penny earned. He has definitely announced his arrival as a
big player in the international music scene, and he is changing the hiphop
game.
