skin tight tokyo II

well, the videos have been shared, and now we move on to the more plain text.

actually, i'm starting to wonder whether i have any more things to say. oh maybe i have too many things to say that i get a bit confused every time i come back here. to vent, to rant, to write. to listen to myself as i re-read the words i type for all to see

i've been working for the past three months, and it does feel like a long time. i'm thankful, very thankful that i have a job, something i used to be so worried about before i graduated, whether i would ever amount to anything, and now i'm working in what some would call a branded place.

but i think if you really look deep inside my heart, it's not thh corporate world that holds its allure for me, something else captivates my heart, and i hope i don't lose that edge, or lose sight of that which makes me different. it's not meant to be proud or boastful, heaven forbid, but i believe that despite working in the cogs of the machine, each and everyone of us holds something deep in our hearts that keeps us captivated, but usually, more often than not, we choose to ignore it, to pursue something else, to pursue a seduction of what this world has to offer, and not what is in store for us in heaven.

before you think i sound like some kind of a religious buff, well.. maybe you wouldn't be too far from the truth, i know what i believe in. daily, i struggle and i fight, to remind myself of just what i believe in. this world is so tempting to my flesh, but it is also transient. and i've been fighting the battles for many years. some days i fail, some days i'm kept strong, but it's only by grace that the new day comes, faith in something unseen that the sun rises tomorrow.

i really did wish everything my heart desired would come true, that i were stronger in many ways, or didnt have to feel so much. and yet, to turn away and not become, an eternity with no salvation.. can i expect you to understand? those of you who do, praise the Lord, but what about the rest? what can we say to convince you that it's not about religion, not just about right and wrong or checks and balances, but ultimately about an innocent man who was put to death and rose from the dead, and the free gift of salvation and eternal life?

some of us choose to believe we just fade back into nothingness.. is that scarier than believing in a hell? but here's a thought: we're just multiplied cells from our parent's sperm and ovum, and yet.. here we exist with a certain consciousness. we put our answer in what some scientists tell us, but all they tell us is that we exist, to exist, that we're part of the great primodial soup. so what purpose is there in life, if there is no value in death?

so i put this across to you, if there is value in life, than there is value in death. and we do not just "return to the earth"

but you'll ultimately have to find that out for yourself. my mute words fall on deaf ears.

skin tight tokyo

first things first, in preparation for 2007's compilation, this is my shortlist for song of the year so far. if you wanna have a vote, leave a comment -) but the important thing is to just enjoy good music when you come across it.

1. the klaxons - golden skans


if you really must know, it's the part that goes "ohhh ohh ohhh.. uh ohhh..", the fuzzy bass during the verse and the very catchy chorus.

2. stateless - prism #1


i just got to know about this yesterday when thomas introduced them to me. their producer is the same one produced dj shadow's seminal debut, entroducing. it shows in the production quality, but more than that, it's the haunting keyboards, ambient scratches, breakish bass, classic drums of death and that soulful voice that goes just a little scared of being lonely...

3. bloc party - uniform


this song stood out for me from a weekend in the city. the song is bleak, disenfranchised and utterly depressing. the sense of slow motion night clubs come to play, and you can almost see the people dancing in slow motion as we fill our lives with some noise to fight the silence. great guitar riff at the end as well.

Because we are so handsome and we are so bored
So entertain us, tell me a joke
Make it long, make it last forever
Make it cruel just make me laugh
We can't be hurt

yeah yeah yeahs - sealings


it's actually an old song, but was re-recorded for the spiderman 3 soundtrack, so it counts. to me, this is the quintessential guitar riff for 2007. i have no idea how he gets that hiroshima inducing tone, and the squelchy pixies-like firebursts during the chorus compliment the mad turnstile drums of brian chase's drumming and of course the ever drunk but syren-like Karen O make this my instant classic for 2007

There streets have a name

You're part of the flow, the machine, the cogs, and you're trying to find your place in this world while others look over you shoulder, smiling a wry smile to themselves, painting a picture with our lowly imaginings

i know it all

and all i know is that i don't have all the answers.

once again i felt like blogging, but my mind drew an absolute blank the moment i saw this white space. can't really wait for the weekend to arrive, it breaks the monotony up a bit.

songs in the process

you broke the night
into a million stars
and the world found it hard to breathe
and the sun, drew a frown
and it's crashing all around

and how does it feel to be the one?
that broke my heart..
how does it feel to be the one?
that broke my heart..

... and why does it always end like this?

What Strange Friend You Have Part III

He's made it into the hall of fame again. What can i say? I love my friends :)

two things i would like to see

after three months of experience navigating the Internet and developing outreach strategies, i'm going to pen down two ideas that i hope to see fulfiled so that i can do my work easier, and also to have a more rewarding experience:

1. if there's a desktop widget that tracks my all the websites i've visited in a day and compiles a chronological list of those websites, i can review a historical stream of everything i've done in the day and give myself a good debrief. extra points if this history page can be streamed to del.icio.us or RSS. i'm looking at full automation, and yes, i know it's called the "history" tab, but again, i want it in chronological and the times i was there. sometimes i feel as if i miss out on certain things and it would be nice to re-cap the day's activities.

2. if facebook application developers can come up with more applications that don't require your friends to have the same application to interact with you, it might go against the "networking" appeal of applications, but it might foster more interactivity. plus i'm sure we've all been app. bombed before, and it is irritating. as much as i am a zombie ninja, i don't wanna bother too many people or for too many people to bother me.

people on the same page as me, share your thoughts! comments below.

time

it has come to my attention (and observation) that blogs these days basically tell it like it is. it's been awhile since i've read some good personal stuff. plus, most of my friends just haven't found the time to blog, or i haven't found the time to read the ones that still blog. but all in all, as much as i'd love to write in a more 'professional' or 'journalistic' way, it really just isn't my style for a life blog like this.

if you're still reading this space after these past four years, good on you! maybe i am interesting at times.

i had a pretty massive day, yh and i went to get our tickets to watch tommy emmanuel and i got to really love one of his new songs, "questions" ALOT



getting to the Esplanade was no mean feat though, because of the national day rehearsals, we wanted to avoid traffic by parking one MRT station away, but we still couldn't find parking. so after a lot of driving and walking, we arrived at the show 45mins late.

it's official. i hate national day if it's going to clog up traffic and make everyone behave like morons within the central town areas of singapore.

went to grab drinks with vincent and joseph after the show and i return home close to 2am. understandably, i'm pretty bushed, plus i have an early day tomorrow cuz practice is at 8am and i'm playing for worship at 9.

i'm not complaining, it's nice to have a packed schedule because you feel like you're a part of something. but it does hit you when you go home, your folks are asleep, and you take your shower and prepare for bed, and then you finally lie down and say your prayers if you're not too tired, and sometimes you contemplate the things that are not going so great in your life, and it's just you. sometimes you feel alone, and sometimes you feel loved.

i come from a school of thought where everybody deserves to be loved, and i'll seek it out -)

A day in this office

Finally got round to adding some of my own decor to my table. Damn graffiti right?

and i'm afraid of changes, because a landslide brought me down

i've finally upgraded my blog template so that it's more up to date with current web technologies. it was nice to keep the old site like an old shop house amongst the ever-growing metropolis, but alas, i think i gave in to upgrades just to compete with the rest of the net proletariat. i will however, strive to bring all the charm from the old blog back to this one. rest assured, this blog remains your cathartic haven.

i've changed the colour scheme, though for what i reason i have no real point. it does remind me of national park colours though.

i'll tackle the technical issues in the next post.



some of you may have seen this picture already. but yeah, i got myself a new vest and three new t-shirts in the past two weeks. a bit of binge shopping or retail therapy, but yeah.. just felt the need for pampering. i really should be saving up for a rainy day though. but it's just too much fun.



i've also acquired a new addition to my wonderful low frequency family of four stringers. isobel, the one in the middle is a cream crafted in japan, fender precision bass from the fine year of '00. her name was inspired by bjork's medulla album because of the colour, but my brain latched on to the single from "post", hence isobel. just the strangest way my mind works. if it's even working at all. flanking her on the left is bb, and on the right is oren ishii.

lotsa new things, lotsa new things indeed. yay, new blog.. be excited y'all.. leave more comments, tag my stuff, take part in things.

i want you to watch videos

tool's cover of no quarter


mastadon, mother puncher


the dillinger escape plan, sugar coated sour


the dillinger escape plan, unretrofied

The air in between is a deadly chill

what in the world brian been keeping up to?
well, i've got about ten more minutes till the lunch hour is up, so i might as well use the given time to actually maintain the sordid purple space.

what has been keeping me busy? a good dose of work during the day time, and quite a fair bit of music related business at night. i just tracked a bass part yesterday for a friend's recording project which involves worship songs he's written a few years back and now, we're finally committing it to tape/hard drive because.. sharing is caring. -)

was also busy last week with the gig that happened on saturday, so that's two nights of practice, plus i had worship practice for sunday, so effectively that was six nights of music related activities after work.

we're playing this saturday again, so it'd be good if you could make it down to cineleisure at 9pm that night, we'll be playing originals as one point brilliance, and well.. catharsis and emoting do usually go hand in hand. expect a brilliant live performance, or at least listen to the lyrics, they get me in a frenzy everytime i hear them.

got a media event tonight, and probably a drinking session tomorrow night for a friend's last day in the office, saturday looks set for rehearsals, soundchecks and gigs. maybe my day of respite will be sunday -)

i've also been listening to a lot of the psotal service lately. there's something about their lyrics, the timbre of his voice and the strange bleeps that they put together to form music and melody. i'm a late bloomer to them, but i can see why the many folk hold them in such high regard. my favourite song right now is nothing better which has been arranged in a way of an arguing couple. the words become song, and a real conversation. sort of heartbreaking, and yet beautiful with it's fragile disposition.

Silence is still a form of talking

Silence is still a way of conversing

Tracking at 130 in the morning is hard work but rewarding. I hope the things that happen tonight have an eternal impact. We can dream right? Nice to have friends and music to help get things off your mind :)

Lunchtime is fun time

looking back when all was black
hey y'all. once again, this entry is really sort long overdue, and i hope you've been keeping well in the meantime. things have been rather hectic lately, which is why i chose to take lunch back to the office where it's quiet now, and actually, in a long while, have some 'alone' time.

the nature of PR is that, it's people, people and people, and all the professional and personal relationships that you strive to maintain with everyone. i've been at work and some form of band practice or musical hobby the entire last week, that i literally just went home to sleep, rinse and repeat to face the world again. am i tired? slightly..

and so i come back to this blank white space (if you could see the UI of blogger), putting out a bit of catharsis, filling the white with black squiggles that are really data bits of 1's and 0's, and it is particularly relaxing to just type here with no agenda, and no reason. hell, i'll bet you don't even know why you're reading this. in the light of everyone jumping on the bandwagon with something to say, i find myself coming with nothing to say.

and nothing, really is quite simply, simplicity.

One Point Brilliance live tonight outside Cineleisure @ 7pm! Spread the word y'all!

all the time in the world
and yet they don't give me enough. it's hard to blog regularly these days, i just don't have the time nor energy to maintain a professional life, bassplaying, church and my family and friends without giving blogging a miss every now and then. so you'll excuse me if this blog becomes neglected for a few days on end sometimes.

i'm taking the advice of one of my colleagues, jim, to blog at least once or twice a week in time set aside to do just that. i don't know why, but in my desperate bid to do everything, i just didn't think of organising my time to incorporate blogging. such a simple time management tool and yet, it lost its effectiveness on my thick skull.

jim's great, he's only in singapore for two days, and he really puts a lot of good ideas in your head and gets your brain chugging. awesome stuff. -)

it's also times like these that i love where i'm working. while some are wary of PR, it's probably because of the bad jobs it's done in the past. but also, there's a lot of good that happens in it. we get to share some really cutting edge and ground breaking stories. companies give us all these nuggets of information about their products and services, and really.. what we do in an essence is tell the general public what's hot and what's not. that may not sound like much, but that's because we take such information for granted. we expect to consume media everyday, we expect to know what's going on where, when and why.. and public relations really helps organise that information, and better yet, we can converse with you directly what you thought of such information.

it drives it all back to communication and conversation. listening to you, and recommending something that would be valuable to your life and your business. cuz we're in a business to know and share.

haha.. okay, i'm glad i took the time to type all this out, because i'm going to be headed into the studio for one of our church's recording projects. till the next post!

also, if you've noticed, i finally soled the problem of not having individual posts permalinks, but i solved it by copying the link generated by blogger, and just making my title a simple permalink. tada! now you can permalink my blog posts and use it in technorati or tomorrow.sg. i always had these problems cuz i'm actually running a pre web 2.0 template. so all the meta you see in the side bar is really just cobbled pieces of scripting that i usually don't understand. -)