Thursday, March 11, 2010

Local Pride

Right, here comes a little Malaysia love from me. Not being patriotic or anything, but I was in the midst of a conversation with a new found friend who was into grindcore and we stumbled upon topics of Napalm Death and Suicide Silence (and the Suicide Death gig last week)

This was one of his comments about Suicide Silence:
"oky la suicide silence tpi byk retak sme la u try dgr btol2 cm sme je sume..tpi xbole kte ape la owg putih yg bwt sume gempak2..btol x.."

Well... Tak betul, my dear friend.

I believe that we, in order to support our local music scene, must fully and truly believe in our music, and the progression of it. Why do we have to be let down by the potential of the international bands? We aren't allowed to criticize the works of white people, eh? That mentality can't get us anywhere if we want to strive further with Malaysia's - in my opinion - increasingly amazing scene. Plus, criticism is not always negative. We can give good feedbacks, and learn from it, to build up on our own works.

Yes, I admit, we have crappy bands. But so does the U.S.A. So does England. So does France, Germany... whatever. If there are no crappy bands, how can there be good bands to compare with, right?

As a local, we shouldn't be afraid to compare our local music to international music. I can name more than ten groups from the U.S that can't compare with the likes of our own bands like Seven Collar T-shirt and Love Me Butch. Do you seriously think Boys Like Girls are better and more original than Seven Collar T-shirt? Seriously?

Think about it.

Every band is different, and I believe we should destroy, trash and burn that barrier that separates local and international bands, because the difference does not lie in the country or place we are from, but the music that inspires and the road we take in making music. We have awesome international bands, and awesome local bands, shitty ones from afar, and shitty homegrown ones. The thing is... it doesn't matter. Don't let the big world intimidate our own world to striving. Music is universal. There should not be a 'we' and 'they'. There should only be a 'we'. Us. Kami. OUR music. From EVERYWHERE. If we're always going to think 'We can never be as good as them', how the hell do you expect to kick ass? Many people escape from reality into music because it is in music where there is no superiority, no government, no power (except the power to make us feel good) and no differences (except in genres). So why should we feel like we are inferior even with music?

... Btol x?

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With Love,
KL Mosher

1 comment:

Azri Rotten said...

hahaha! cool. ok first just saying laa, suicide silence is deathcore, not even close to grind. napalm death is the grind pioneer. checkout wormrot, singapore brutal grind. dpt earache records!

ok then other than that i think its because of our culture. like "dorang band besa, kitorang kecik" kinda stuff. fuck that. hahaha! and i think malaysian music market pun mcm sial. "play like them or die". in uk, u got john lennon to make things stable. mcm theres media friendly music yg more than survive & back alley music yg still bleh gerak & go big. but independent pun bleh gerak and go big as long as u got money. thats malaysial. hahaha!