Suburban Dammit

Recorded at TNT Music Studio, Singapore March 1999.

Mastered at Mastering Suite Pte. Ltd, Singapore June 1999.
All Songs by Suburban Dammit. All rights reserved.

We Nearly Killed Each Other, 1999

1. From the Moment
2. Get in the Backseat
3. Tripping
4. Katy Wants to be Everybody's Best Friend
5. Simon's the Captain of our Hards
6. (She's Got) Something Wrong
7. Why Aren't They Deaf?
8. Cheezecake Pufface
9. Mirage 2
10. Commander Kitten to Herr Carpet
11. Weirdo
12. Andre and Anthony's Life-long Enrichment Programme
13. Retarded for You
14. We Nearly Killed Each Other
15. I Don't Mind
16. She's Gonna Break Me Into Pieces
17. Unlisted Track

*Justin - guitar, vocals; Aaron - drum, vocals; Louise - bass, guitar, vocals

We finally got this done, taking the better part of 4 months. I can't remember how much it cost us in total but I do remember being at Parklane alot during the recording days. It became routine for me to head for TNT about an hour earlier, grab a pack of takeaway chicken rice from the coffeeshop in the same building and meet Aaron and Justin at the studio.

TNT was fortunately situated right at one end of a corridor that loops around that half of the building, in a 3-sided square shape that brings you right back where you started. We used to sit in the blind-spot of that loop to have our food, smoke, tune our guitars and go over the session's recording material. It is important to have your lunch earlier and get it digested so you don't feel it trying to leave your body via your throat while you are recording energetically.

More so if you're doing vocals that day.

All of us wrote songs and we practised the very democratic process of allowing the song's author to dictate how it turns out. Suggestions and recommendations are made in the course of day-to-day jamming but the final word rests with the songwriter.

It is a familliar feeling of mad rush once the recording sessions are booked. We would each be individually working and reworking our songs at home to make them 'as nice as possible'. Added to that would be numerous normal jamming sessions to make sure we all knew the songs inside out. You will realize this is necessary when you're in there and trying to lay your tracks individually.

Setting up the studio for recording seemed almost an art form by itself. Optimal placement of microphones, distance of mike to drum, special mikes for special drums, even how hard the drummer can hit would be controlled by Ah Boy. Then came tuning the drumset, testing the patchbay and sounchecking each skin and cymbal. It is not an unfamilliar sight to see Ah Boy scratching his head in frustration and muttering curses whilst he went in and out carrying mikes, jacks and whatnot.

I always thought percussion is the most pressured of all. The drum track is usually the first track to be laid. The studio would be eerily quiet as only sounds from the drums are to be recorded. Yup, no coughing, no talking and especially no laughing - which at times was most impossible to control.

Bass normally accompanies the drums for recording but it serves only as a guide. What I play in there gets streamed to the headphones that Aaron will be wearing and he'll have to bang to that. Without vocals, there is a tendency to get lost in the song, unsure of where in the song we are. Thats why numerous routine jamming sessions are necessary before recording.

Aaron would have to listen to my bassline streaming through the headphones and make no mistake playing against it. It is almost impossible to punch in for the drum track. The only option is to record all over again, right from the top.

Ah Boy would be seated at the patchbay and we'll see each other through a large glass plate, which is a section built into the wall. Hand and head signals is the only form of communication once the record button is pressed.

Through the Large Glass Plate
I am laying a track for Let's Cross, glass plate bordered by the yellow frame;
Through the plate we see Aaron pointing at Ah Boy who is seated at his precious patchbay.

Of interest was a weird-looking device used when recording vocals. A round shape, like a magnifying glass, covered over by a billiard-table green, cloth-y mesh and secured just in front of the mike for vocals. We were supposed to sing through that to the mike.

According to Ah Boy, this strange thing is used to prevent specks of saliva spewed whilst singing from landing onto the microphone itself, causing tiny, almost inaudible, unwanted 'blop' sounds.

He assured me that based on my singing style, I will surely need it.

Contrary to popular perception probably garnered from watching concerts and MTV, we were not supposed to sing into the mic with our lips barely touching it. In fact, we were supposed to observe a distance of a palm's length between our lips and the mic. For backup singing, we stood even further back to reduce vocal prominence.

Vocals is the most sensitive part of the recording. Most voices cannot last more than 7-8 takes per song before involuntarily slipping or cracking. Out came Aaron's honey drink and funny throat stretching, pitch-reaching exercises just before going into the studio. We couldn't book sessions too close together for vocals either, we needed time to recover our fragile voiceboxes.

Also, singing is the funniest part. Watching each other's faces struggling to hold or hit certain notes was an awesome comedy. There is no doubt that we have had to do many retakes because one of us just starts giggling or laughing during recording and couldn't stop.

"Oui! You all want to come out and laugh first or not?" would be something we hear from Ah Boy quite frequently. Laughing is contagious and sometimes Ah Boy joins us in spasms too.

Once the tracks are laid, we listen through it several times to catch any mis-timings or mistakes we may have made. This results in punch-ins and in bad cases, complete re-recording of the offending instrument.

Then the vocals are run together with the instruments and the song is mixed, basic idea being so that the complete sound is balanced and each instrument can be heard clearly etc, etc.

Finally, the mixed DAT is sent for mastering. And here we are.

At TNT; sometime around 1999.
Is this the only picture of the 3 of us left in existence?
Found in very old sticky-page album.