Live at the 2008 Festival...

The Bluestankers enjoying the festivities at the Alliance Franchise grounds...
Showtime: jeeby(drums), framus(lead and vocals), razer(bass and vocals), dark kai(rhythms)
After the gig, nicotine to the rescue... :-) look at jeeby... he pounded away... :-)

Thanks for all who came and supported us. We really appreciate the applauses and the yells... :-) Good gig, see you next year...

For a clip of the gig, tune in here :-)

Le Creme de La Bluestankers

Lend us your support for our maiden gig... Set list in honor of the supergroup Cream...

1. White Room
2. Badge
3. Outside Woman Blues
4. Crossroads
(5.) Sunshine of Your Love

Nostalgic and tragic drama... Age of Glory

This is my favorite prop photo - It has the closest to a Leica look of all - What do you think Debbie? :-)

The past months or so has been regimental to my tv watching habits. Never did I think I would have ended up glued to the telly at 945pm for an hour, mostly weekdays to catch the current local favorite drama. NTV7 and Double Vision's latest collaboration; Age of Glory tells the story of 3 local women and their struggles in the hard lifes of the 60s and 70s. It also portrays Kuala Lumpur's legendary BB Park from its prime days to its demise in the early 70s. Beautiful casts as well... led by Debbie Goh herself (a former beauty pageant queen), Aenie Wong, and Danielle Dai... Well done you gals! You rock! :-)

A good drama should always be accompanied by a great soundtrack... In this department, we had the local 988 host Lee Xin Yi providing sweet vocal duties for most of the tracks heard here. The opening and ending themes of this drama send shivers down my spine whenever I hear 'em... It's sort of haunting, perplexing yet nostalgic... The kind of strange vibes I'm into... la... :-) Love the antiquities presented in the drama too: vintage cars, furnitures, costumes, clocks, etc. Businessmen in their 3 piece suits... really regal and accurate in every aspect of capturing the era's environment.

So, since this drama concluded last evening, I'm gonna have troubles putting it behind me; anyone else who wants to appreciate a good drama should head to the NTV7 website for catch up tv... Trust me, it's worth it... :) t

Lurking With My Paul...

Courtesy of photo booth mac application, pose away and snap away in mirror rocking images... :-D

Sweet Home Alabama!

Our inaugural outing to the recently opened Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant at the Curve tonight... Shrimps, crawfishs, tasteful entrees, and deserts flavor our occasion to this new eatery. The place is a cosy one, housed on the top level of the Curve's row of cafes and diners, amongst them; Starbucks, Marche, Italianies, and TGIF. The theme: From Columbia's Forrest Gump movie, a so called extension of the movie itself, the restaurant evidently owned by Forrest (played by Tom Hanks) after scoring it big with fellow Vietnam veteran Private Benjamin Bufford 'Bubba' Blue as business partners.

The restaurant is opened by my good buddy as well, Rizal, who's clearly put in tons of effort opening it in such a short period of time after his stint in Long Beach, CA for about 2 months last year. An expert in the F&B industry with a wealth of networking leads got him to head the establishment after his departure from the TGIF chain which he's heralded for the last 12 years.

2 cents: Good atmosphere, home/country taste cooking (good control of sodium), fast service, friendly staffs, and extremely creative decoration all around. A highly recommended eatery if you like the homely and the 'forresty' ambience. Can't beat it for shrimps definitely... :-)

Strat Mania Kicks In!!!

I don't know what's gotten into me lately... Strats, strats, strats.... I leave you to the photos to decipher... :-), t

We are family... All My Brothers, Sisters, and Me...

Portraiture
1977 Fender Stratocaster
1966 Fender Stratocaster
1974 Fender Stratocaster

New Axe, New Vision...

The Skunk
She was definitely a whore once :-)
Endless bashing yielded these marks...
'The Skunk' is a common breed of a rare species: a vintage 1974 Fender Stratocaster in what used to be a 3-tone sunburst finish... Plays like butter, as most of this era's Strats are, and the tone.... my my, bright and clear as a bell, and wails like Billy F. Gibbon's Strats... Funky as hell, and the smell of the funk from the years played... 34 years in total of accumulated funk is no joke.. Took me like 4 hrs to give her a proper scrub she's been longing for all these years...Heck, it was definitely worth it... now 'The Ford' the other '66 Strat in my possession would have a 'Mustang' for a competitor eh...Naughty t just had to get him a torn down abused axe to justify for all the blues he's facing... :-P

Summicron 50 M from Bangkok!

O la la, another lens purchase... i need to refrain, really... ha ha ha. Above are a couple of shots with the 21mm and 35mm lenses along my travels there recently...

Snapshots off the Biogon...

Carl Zeiss 21/2.8 Biogon ZM lens

Got this as a standard wide angle lens for my M8. With the 1.33x crop factor of the M8, the perspective becomes 28mm on the M8. Razor sharp wide open, and great contrast. I think I prefer this lens over my previous Leica 21/2.8 non asph lens. For landscaping and interior photography, this is a perfect accompaniment to my current 35/2 asph and 90/2.8 lenses...

Pre dawn euphoria

Oh well, first photos of the candy itself... Plan to go do some sponty with it in the morning, maybe around the city area, while everyone's still asleep :-) Will post up some photies soon after!

Don C's burst (the holiest grail)

We don't call him Don C. for nothing... Don C; Don Corleone, right, of the Godfather fame he is modeled after. This guy's the man... Meet Michael Murphy, a vintage guitar enthusiast, dealer, and connesoir of everything fancy and fine in life. Take for example; vintage furnitures, mechanical watches, Leica & Zeiss cameras and optics (Yes!), sushi, curry, and what have you... vinyl records, etc. etc... Sounds like a perfect copy of me eh? Well, meet the guru himself... the man who mentored me the finer points of vintage guitars and amps, Eric Clapton, Michael Bloomfield, ZZ Top, Peter Green, Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. Most of you who know me well know that I went to school in Mobile, AL in the 90s. As a freshie there, I bought everything new; being Malaysian mah... I remember vividly the first time I met Michael was in a music store owned by a close friend and Mike (as he is affectionally known) bought a vintage tube radio there. It blew my mind that someone actually appreciates all these gears when they are virtually neglected and treated as trash in Malaysia. The camaraderie clicked instantly and we were suddenly hanging out together, searching for gears, good food, and women scouting :-)
I think we traveled furthest to the west Arlington, Texas where we had a blast of a time in the guitar show, rubbing shoulders with the likes of George Gruhn (vintage guitar pioneer) and Seymour Duncan (pickup maker fame), and to the east, Jacksonville, Florida in search for good old vintage stuffs. Although I left the US in 1997, we still keep in touch till today via the internet... I'm glad for this friendship :-)
So, what have we here on the title? Um um um, my old friend here found the holy grail of all electric guitars in the time of man. It's the Gibson Les Paul Standard in sunburst finish, often called the 'burst' by collectors and lovers around... A 1960 model and looking finer than before...what a good time for a Christmas gift! I leave you to the photos to appreciate the beauty of this burst. Congratulations and my hats of to you Michael, if you're reading this :-)

A digital M dream come true: the Leica M8 digital camera...

Near Pudu Plaza

Sri Putramas II
Christy Sew Joey
Corey Boy
Jennie 'NCP' Sew

My Little Workstation

I got the Leica M8 today... Am very pleased with the results rendered indeed. It feels like my analog M6, but slightly chunkier. Inevitable Solms quality and feel. No filters on the CCD sensor yields so much of photo quality difference. Compared to the Canon 5D, the Leica's output gives nicer, more natural looking files, and crisper and sharper (very much so), vs. Canon's already superb EF 24-70/2.8 L USM lens. I was in the initial digital camera stage influenced by the megapixel race and the no nonsense philosophy of workhorse-like automation, but clearly, optical superiority and good lighting in the environment play a major role in the comparison. I find with the Leica M system one has to have a photo composition in mind before shooting, unlike automatic mode DSLRs with hefty zooms. They are great for everyday work and great reliability. Look at all the pros... But deep inside, there's always a Leica M in a photographer's heart. So, back to manual focus and no frills automation for at least a couple of years to come... Will post more proof photos soon.. Photos made with the M8 & 35/2.0 ASPH lens... Enjoy...

New Loft

The past fortnight has been a busy one... it's all part and parcel of acquiring your very own place. I can finally breathe with ease now that it's 90% complete... Although much tough at first, I guess all burden can be overcome with a little extra effort and focus... I leave you all with 'the same old picture with a different frame.'

Weekend English Treat...

Well, an enjoyable weekend in London is all I got to say... The Mrs. and I got on a plane to Heathrow last Friday for a brief holiday in the English capital. Our first stop was at Fulham Broadway where we toured the Chelsea Football Stadium. Amazing blues indeed, fresh clean morning air coupled with a nice panoramic view of the stadium exteriors made the start to our short excursion a fun one. We stopped by Borders Express in the tube station and got ourselves the recently published memoirs of Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd at great prices. Kudos!!!

Next we hurried to Charing Cross Road, stopping over in Picadilly Circus underground and walked towards Totenham Court Road to the West End. It is here at a junction named Denmark Street where I took bout an hour to browse through the musical goodies I've read so much about from the net and the magazines. The only store which excited me however, was 'Vintage & Rare Guitars'; a nice cozy shop with tons of old and vintage guitars as the store name implies. Barely the size of my condominium's living hall, one could see a sea of old Fenders, Gibsons, and Martins, all stationary, and tempting as ever :-) housed in the old English building... The prices were, however, too extraordinary for a regular consumer like me... I reckon' prices are better in the States than in London.

The Apple Store in Regent Street is one of the nicest and biggest I've seen so far... My only complain would be the influx of people running in and out of the the shop and dashing to the next available macbook for a quickie wifi utilization. Sad to say, wifey and I joined in the mad rush as well... True what they say bout the Romans... :-) We also breezed through Berwick Street which runs parallel to Charing Cross Road in a desperate search for used vinyls... Not much luck this time, we however enjoyed the marche along the street.

Our evening ended with food from Bayswater and picnicking under one of the trees in Kensington park for lunch... it was the most serene sight, people walking their dogs, children playing with their parents, teenagers cycling, throwing frisbees, ducks having a great time at the lake... an almost nirvana atmosphere... I was glad :-)

Well, enjoy the photos taken at Stamford Bridge, Denmark Street in Charing Cross Road, Kensington and its vicinities, etc... Cheers!