Greetings from Sunny Singapore. In music news, there was this interesting and fairly high profile article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about sad music in Philadelphia. Denison is out on tour now with Tracy Shedd (Teenbeat Records) and they both played together with The Trouble with Sweeney and Reels of White Softly Flow on Saturday night at the Fire. I was devasted by missing the show, especially since no one worked it out for me to perform by cell phone. Amateurs. The Trouble with Sweeney are in Miner Street studios toiling away on their sophomore full-length with Producer Brian McTear. Jamie Hunt is slaving away over artwork for Unwed Sailor’s The Marionette and The Music Box. Artwork is also nearly complete for All American Radio’s Fragments Of release. Audio material is finished for the Damien Jurado pre-sub pop greatest hits vinyl only release. No official release date is set for that yet.
Last night, Brandtson headlined the Baybeats Music Festival here and shared the stage with several Asian bands of the emo, punk, or rock variety. It was very different to see my friends on such a grand stage and to see devoted fans taking their photos and asking for autographs. I was off to Thailand earlier in the weekend for a very brief visit to Bangkok. It was the King’s 75th birthday when we arrived, so there were many special events, including some huge outdoor concert with a million people (according to our cab driver) that my friend Mark and I attended. Lots of crazy things happened over our very short time there, too many to do justice here. Some of the highlights included Mark singing Tears from Heaven in some karaoke bar, which apparently melted a waitress’ heart. This led to us going to some techno club where there were maybe half a dozen Westerners in a sea of thousands of Thais. Very authentic and interesting experience. I attempted to get a tailored suit from a tailor advertising cheap prices. After some intense negotiations, we arrived at a price that I thought was fair and I’m sure made he and his friends laugh after we left. In any case, the final suit was the wrong fabric and they weren’t able to fix it before we left. I kept telling Mark that on the way to the airport, we would look over and see these shady tailor characters next to us on the highway holding up a suit and pointing for us to pull over. It didn’t happen and now I’m sorting out some messy details with my credit card. My DVD purchase was also very exciting. Needless to say, I’m now the proud owner of “Punk-Drunk Love” among others.
Things are very Westernized in Singapore, so there is much less drama here, but plenty of good food. I’ve been experimenting with a lot of my friends from work.
:::scott:::