Does it matter?

Does dressing up matter whatsoever in the music scene?

Is it supposed to?

Well, in certain perspectives, I believe that I have to myself admit that dresscode plays an important role to defining a band and recognizing certain genres. 

For example; Bittersweet and their forever smart dress-ups.

Take Komplot with their vests and hat.

Going far back, even The Beatles had their own suit and tie dressing along with the bob-hair that made them stand out from the rest.

Yes, fashion, in a way, does set its ground rules in the music scene, and of course has to be respected. But I am starting to be quite concerned with the way some people start judging and insulting people by the way they dress.

Just last week, I attended an event that was held at Bentley's Auditorium; a well elegant and sophisticated hall, carpeted and dimmed to fit a very hotel-like atmosphere. So, I walk in with a scarf around my head and the usual skinny jeans, T-shirt and converse.

And then I was bombarded with:

"Eh, sini tak de mosh la, balik rumah la."

Dude, just a few things you might want to realize -

Sure, I may be dressed a little more rocked up for an event like this, but that doesn't determine that I was some person who was about to throw myself in a mosh.

Secondly, my dressing might not match the event, but at least my attitude did; what do you have to say about yours?

Yelling at somebody to 'go home' isn't exactly the kind of behavior you're meant to have at a place like that?

I could easily have said "Looks like you're the one who needs to go home, not me."

Seriously, he was both rude and hypocritical.

And also, this showed me that if one guy had that mentality, then surely so do a lot more others.

Is appearance really that amusing to pick and be used to judge people? He himself was dressed proper and well, but did he even possess the personality of a well and proper guy? NO.

So?

What I'm trying to accentuate is that you can walk into a hardcore gig wearing a skirt and still be a rocker at heart if you suddenly start headbanging and singing along to every word from Love Me Butch's songs.

You can walk into a moshpit wearing studs and chains and look like you're about to kill someone and be a total wimp when somebody knocks you in the head and you go "OWWWWWWWW... that hurttttttttttttt."

So no one has the right to judge what kind of person you are based on what you wear or how you look.

A music lover is a music lover. If you go to an event, and enjoy the right way, the way expected, the way you should, who the shit gives a flying fart if you decide to go in your boxers huh?

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With Love,

KL Mosher

Fakes and Originals

I was browsing through the band pages on Myspace when I came across photos from The Times' merchandise photo album (www.myspace.com/timesmovement), and saw that they had uploaded a picture of a guy wearing a fake pasar malam The Times Tshirt.

Of course, we've seen loads for other bands like Meet Uncle Hussain and Hujan.

Now. A lot of people are of course against the whole pirated merchandise/CD, etc etc, but hey doesn't that make us all a liiittle bit hypocritical? I mean, how many of us can actually say "Yeah I've never owned a pirated CD of an indie band or downloaded FREE MP3s off the net?"

No one, man.

And I was thinking about this point, and decided that what's most important is the passion and genuine love for the music being produced by the band - regardless of how you get their music and what merchandise you wear.

For example, it is pretty difficult to actually get hold of an original merchandise of most bands in Malaysia because we are so widespread that some merch are in Ipoh and some are in JB and some are in KL, so people from other parts just cannot get hold of the clothes.

So wouldn't it be unfair if a major fan of The Times was to buy the fake shirt purely because he wants to have something that reminded him of the band and someone turns to him and say "Hey you, you're not a fan, you're buying pirated things, you're not supporting them."

But he's one of those huge fans that manages to go to many of the band's shows and gigs. Isn't that unfair?

What I really am trying to say is, we can have our own opinions on whether we wish to buy originals or fakes, but we shouldn't judge people by what they wear or how they get their music.

If people buy fakes and aren't major fans of the band, then yeah, lame. Hey if they buy the ORIGINAL and aren't fans, that's also lamer.

So you see, it doesn't really matter because what label you buy and what clothes you wear doesn't determine how much of a rocker you are.

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With Love,

KL Mosher