Suburban Dammit

Justin in studio.

Calvin was someone who appeared out of the blue.

Short and plump, it would be cruel but not inaccurate to describe him as somewhat stumpy. He sported a very curly mop of hair that rested between the boundaries of natural and permed. He is very fair and always wore his purplish-red sunglasses whenever he went outdoors and had them on most of his time indoors too. You see, he has a condition known as compound eyes (or something like that) and cannot look at strong sunlight or bright lights.

When we met Calvin, he was the owner of a record shop named Wax Records. It was located at Peninsular Plaza, a common hangout for the bits and pieces of society’s fringes, which we were a part of.

Calvin managed to trace down Aaron, whom he called and planned a meet with us. Apparently, someone had passed We Nearly Killed Each Other along to him and he must have liked it sufficiently to smoke us out.

We trooped into the then Wax Records, which I vaguely remember was painted in a dull pink, with the rest of the furnishing in black. Of course the lighting was dim. Wax Records was basically a music shop and it had CDs, tapes and even 7”/12” vinyls. Its niche was in the obscure bands and genres not normally found in neighbourhood music stores.

“When I put the disc on in my car and heard the first track, it immediately reminded me of the Stray Cats.” Calvin said. Obviously he was a fan of Stray Cats and apparently we sound like an 80’s band. “Furthermore, you’re a 3-piece, just like them!”

Calvin made his proposition plain and simple. He wanted to groom us, whatever that means to a punk band.

Aaron in studio.

It was interesting, what I learnt from Calvin.

He took a special interest in spending time with the songwriter and since we all write, he naturally gravitated to the one who wrote the most. And that was me. I do remember Calvin trying to prop Aaron into becoming the super-cool eccentric drummer as part of the act.

Calvin pointed out the chaos and indiscipline of how we wrote. No unifying theme, he said, and pulled out an album by I can’t remember who and showed us the song progression – it was uncannily interconnected. Each song was a story on its own and when the album was threaded together, each song was a part of an overall epic.

Also, Calvin pointed out that we didn’t have anything stage-special. No punch. Slim Jim of the Stray Cats played drums with only a snare, kick, high-hat and one cymbal. And he plays standing! And instead of a normal bass guitar, the bassist plays with a double bass, something which is of the look and size of a cello! These are stage things that would give a band the oompf. I told him quite firmly that I am not going to play an oversized violin standing upright.

And of course there was song content. We were writing stuff only we can relate to. It is not uncommon to mask our stories with ambiguous lyrics and often, we had no clue what each other’s songs were about.

I didn’t quite agree with everything Calvin said, although he made sense. Stage sense, that is. I silently preferred to write whatever I want to write.

Soon after, Calvin invited us to his home to get further acquainted with what it means to be a rock star.

We arrived at his Punggol flat in the mid afternoon. The balcony overlooks a soccer field and as the estate was in its infancy at that time, it was all quiet and trees and sterile-looking blocks. Calvin showed us his record room and there against the walls were rows of shelves containing what must be thousands of music media. In addition to CDs and tapes, I am talking about loads of 12” and 7” gramophone vinyl records packed tightly together.

Calvin pulled out a Stray Cats video and we proceeded to watch the 3-piece on TV. The first time I ever saw a drummer playing standing. Amazing. The music wasn’t exactly my cup of tea but nevermind that. Then we watched some rockabilly band play in a mental hospital.

I had thought it was staged but Calvin told us that the band wrote to the institution requesting permission to play for the unfortunate inmates for free. The band then came in with video cameras and started to play their psychedelic tunes as the cameramen went around capturing the expressions of these mental patients on VHS. We shouldn’t laugh but it was crazy-funny seeing the mad-eye rolling, hair grabbing and insane screaming of the patients as they got caught into a gig frenzy amidst the loud music and wildly changing multi-coloured stage lighting.

Having shown us what showmanship is, Calvin proceeded to explain his plan.

He is going to take 100 copies of our album and in his words, ‘dump’ them all over record stores. Not just in Singapore, he was thinking places like London, New Zealand, Australia and wherever there are people who didn’t just listen to cantopop.

We listened with mouths agape as he continued telling us that after spreading our album all around, he would take us on a roadshow to New Zealand, to keep the momentum going as well as get us seen and heard where the market was better for our sound.

We left Calvin’s place brimming with excitement. Wow! New Zealand! Next stop, Beverly Hills! And maybe we wouldn’t need to pool money for cigarettes anymore.

Time passed since we passed the 100 CDs to Calvin. Wax Records closed down and we never heard from him again.

As far as we are concerned, at $10 bucks a copy, Calvin still owes us a thousand dollars.

Louise in studio.

P/S:

Another guy that appeared out of the blue was Adrian. He wasn’t a musician but I think he deals in local/underground band music. Aaron had let him have several copies of the album and Adrian managed to get them sold…in Japan no less!

I remember Adrian dropping by so we could autograph on a few copies – special request from some of his Japanese customers.