Dan’s Bass Factory

Soulless gig at Top Room…1st night crowd=groupies (waiters & waitress and                                                                                                 bandmates girlfriends)
                                                    2nd night crowd= ………..

a peculiar conversation with a half an hour table of customer before we started playing that night.

(Group of mat sallehs, 2 asian women and 1 local man)

Asian woman 1 :  so there  is a band tonight?
Me : Yes… (smiling …. can’t u see the pno gtr and bass all set up..for exhibition is         it??!!)
Asian woman 1 : Who’s playing are u guys playing?
Me: Yes we are.
Asian woman 2: ( flirting with mat salleh 1)
Asian woman 1 : U all look so young….wat’s ur band called?
Me : (young?…ok  so are u into pedophilia?) hehe…yea. We’re currently known as             the Giant Timeline and have been playing around in functions and events.
Asian woman 2 : ( continues flirting with mat salleh 1)
Mat Salleh 2 : (Stares and smiles with dignified body posture)
Asian woman 1 : It’s so interesting to see young ppl playing jazz.
Me:   hehe…thank you.
        (See? playing? we’re about to start in 30mins so make ur comments then).    
Mat Salleh 2 : She didn’t say good…she said interesting.          
Me: Ok enjoy the night.   (you numbskulls…)

That table 7 pax left 5 mins prior to our drummer done setting up the cymbals after approx. 4 pints of beer.

Moral of the story: young ppl should stick to Click 5, Kelly Clarkson and ….hell i don’t even know who’s hot in the pop market lately.

This either means we’re old or too old for our looks or too young for our brains or too  confused about musical genre classification. Did i mention that they asked if we’re below 20 yrs old….oh such compliment……

"God Bless The Child"
by Billie Holiday

Them that’s got shall get
Them that’s not shall lose
So the Bible says and it still is news cuz
Mama may have and papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

Yes the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don’t ever make the grade cuz
Mama may have and papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

Oh yeah money, money you’ve got lots of friends
Hanging round your door
When you’re gone and spending ends
We don’t come round no more

Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don’t take too much cuz
Mama may have and papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

I believe i’ve been raised pretty well by my parents. Fortunate surroundings, good friends, many learning experiences and many opportunities. Once to many times i’ve screwed up and given a second/third chance. Chances it seems kept me alive and well. I know for sure that the One above has been gracious. Well, i try my best all the time, and i think it makes life worth it. Though many may believe in doctrines and whatever purposes there is to life, i sometimes hate to admit that these alignments of fate often place people like me into horrible judgments. Well perhaps i can be a very horrible person in the eyes of many and yet so fondly have others who still regard me as human. I guess everyone has to go through this certain phase in life where they start to question, doubt and face confusion. And at some point, we start to believe that we are what we aren’t just by circumstances placed by these judgments. It IS very very discouraging. Then there are also the judgments that say we push away our fate and our path, that we choose to separate ourselves and our desire from that of our Creator hence placing us into horrendous punishments in our daily lives.
We grow to learn, experience, and protect the ones we love. Even when we’re old, we’re still growing and learning to become what’s set ahead of us, to be bold to do what we are set to do. Hence, sometimes it may feel like our purpose in life will be totally an irony to our existence by mere accountability which connects us  by our perception of TIME. And TIME it seems , can’t never be of lesser importance. But let me ask: what is time but a mere reflection of a ‘now’  or a ‘moment’ to a human. To a certain person, TIME can mean so much yet so little.
We never asked to be in pain or sorrow. We were never meant to be lonely or feel weak. We never seek suffering nor torment. It is the expectations, judgment and opinions of men that we have become subjects of circumstance. This same law has come to judge what’s right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful  and ugly.
The road is long and harsh, unforgiving and dark. i know. I have been a part of the dues i have to pay now. And i will, cuz i love the mistress of the sea so much. She who is ignored will be the one sole purpose that i will ignore all pain and suffering that i am bound to go through for her. And i will take the punches because i’ve come this far and i’ll build something further for the both of us. God speed.

I got this of my e-mail…do take some time to read and digest it. we can’t never be too careful and we tend to take things for granted thinking dat we won’t be one of those or it won’t happen to any of us. But anything that can go wrong might go wrong.

A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were
>interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim and here are some
>interesting facts:

1) The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail or other hairstyle that
>can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long
>hair.Women with short hair are not common targets.
2) The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women
>who’s clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors
>around to cut clothing.
3) They also look for women on their mobile phone,
>searching through their purse or doing other activities while walking,
>because they are off guard and can be easily overpowered.
4) The time of day men are most likely to attack and rape woman is in the
>early morning, between 5 and 8:30 a.m. (personally, i think it’s important to be aware at ALL times)
5) The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and
>quickly move her to a second location, where they don’t have to worry about
>getting caught
>
>6) Only 2% said they carried weapons because rape carries a 3 - 5 year
>sentence but rape with a weapon is 15 - 20 years.
7) If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because
>it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you
>isn’t worth it because it will be time-consuming.
These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas, or other
>similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands. Keys are
>not a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use
>them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you’re not worth
>it.
9) Several defense mechanisms he taught us are: If
>someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or with you in a
>lift or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question, like what
>time is it, or make general small talk, "I can’t believe it is so cold out
>here, we’re in for a bad winter". Now you’ve seen their face and could
>identify them in a line-up, you lose appeal as a target. (personally, i think just tell them to F*** off if u think anyone’s following u)
10) If someone is coming toward you, hold out your hands in front of you
>and yell "Stop" or "Stay back!" Most of the rapists talked to said they’d
>leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would not be afraid to fight back. Remember, they’re looking for EASY targets. 

This is Haley Clare and me. I backed her up at Alexis Ampang in June 2007. She’s an Australian ‘jazz’ vocalist. She’s actually much taller than I am. haha

This is Steve the drummer. I did the Haley Clare gig with him. He’s cool.

                                 
               
These is my other band ‘Groovalistic’ under Sudin the drummer (guess who la he’s the only malay guy in the pics). We played our originals. Ee jeng with me on the left pic played a tune dat sounded like HIromi trying to play Just the 2 of Us haha. The right pic looks like sudin and ian in some cheap ass flat but it’s actually USM’s hostel. We did a gig at USM Penang sometime during March 2007.

This is USM’s Dewan Budaya where we performed. We enjoyed ourselves playin originals and ate mamak food everyday…we also saw many good looking girls dat didn’t think we’re good looking.

This is Vig an Sudin. Vig is a full time photographer and sound enginner www.vignesbalasingam.com
Sudin is me band’s drummer and me favorite drummer. He got banged by a 4wd after having a ‘good time’ in Thailand. But he’s fine now and back playin drums and probably having ‘good times’ again real soon.

This is Melissa Indot. We’re her party band known as the Misfits(not the notable punk band). All our faces in her gigs’ photographs are usually red cuz there’s free flow.

Our band with Ella and her sister/manager. from left:Sudin(drums) , Joji(Ella’s sis), me (as drunk & red as my shirt), Ella (rock queen Malaysia), Ian (gtrs) and Wei Li( keyboards). The sound crew behind thought it was cool to be in a pic with us. Wat’s cool is all these guys are so very talented and real fun to play with.

This is in Shangri La KL. I was playin with some NSO guys and a band that ICOM put together cuz they cheated thru some rich dato’s daughter’s wedding. I believe it’s one of Savy’s first few times being the arranger and music director. Well, at least I got paid really good.
Faz took some nice pics during soundcheck…  my first bass dat i won from Yamaha Asian Beat 2004. The signature is NOT John Mayer. IT’s Jackie Chan’s impersonator John Myung.

This is an event I did with some Canto pop fellas for their LampBerger event about 2 yrs ago(2005). It was the last thing I did with Canto Pop or mandarin songs besides ‘Yue Liang Tai Biao Wo De Xing’. The drummer’s Martin Ngim , he’s in the jazz scene too now with Eye2Eye Jazz Mix. The keyboardist is Sue Yi, it was initially she who asked me to join their band for club contracts while playing the bass about 4 yrs back. (i was a guitarist before)

This is me playing for Beatles tribute in ICOM 2006. I was a lousy band leader cuz all I ever did was bully the juniors and forced Farid Yahya to order Domino’s pizza everyday.

This is my lil cousin.

My first Fender Jazz bass thanks to Rozhan. Rozhan is a bass monster, my fren, brother and mentor. So is Fly cuz Fly drives a Nissan Silvia haha ;p

This is a tree in the surroundings of development.

This is Bangkok Jazz (Chulan Square). I miss playing there. It’s the REAL first placed that groomed me and introduced me to many other gigs. Jam sessions are still on every Thursday from 9pm onwards.

Groove Junction (Hartamas). I’m playing there on Thursdays now thanks to Fly’s recommendation.

There has been so many periods in my life that i wished i had done more or cherished more or things i did not do or could have done better. Well ‘regrets’ is just a word on how we look at wat we thought about our actions in perspective of the past to the present comparison. There was so many ppl i wished i did not hurt or let down, so many frens i wished that are still my frens and so many enemies i wished i didn’t make. It probably sounds unconvincing but i wish i had done things differently through the yrs. Many dates and relationships that i will not forget, many friends and people that i long to catch up with and many family times i had wished to be there and watch the younger ones grow up. Somehow, my musical growth has been amazing. I’m truly grateful to be given so much opportunity to play with many great musicians at many different places. I’m still learning.
By the end of the day, I learned a lot and and will always think about the past to be better in the future ; happy times, sad times, high times, low times..their all good.

..till i reach the point where i start to think that my bass is a viking axe.