Interview: SCENE POLITICS: STILL POSSIBLE IN CITY WITH NO SCENE:

Contents: Interview from a few years ago. Appeared in Singapore’s very defunct BigO Magazine (easily confused with X’Ho Fanzine of same name). Was possibly a set up to let editors vent their unspoken grievances about local music scenery, but being too diplomatic (read: chicken) to spout their own juices they left lippy ETC entertainer to call the spade a spade on their behalf. It got the headline GROW UP AND TAKE IT ON THE CHIN...

(Omitted: inaccurate intro w/ BigO-romanticisation: namechecking Newton Circus; suggesting Ben Etc stays up all night. It's never been known.)

BigO: What was your first encounter with Singapore pop?

Ben: Tokyo Square's Within You'll Remain on the radio.
Luckily, Zircon Lounge's Guide These Hands came next.


BigO: What excited you about Class Acts - the compilation these songs came from?

Ben: It sure as hell wasn't the music. It was the potential that something could happen. Then BigO took it to a new level with those early compilation tapes and gigs. You can't overstate BigO's contribution to local music. People might not appreciate what the environment was like then. The magazine and bands like Zircon Lounge, No-Names, Opposition Party and Corporate Toil were operating in a vacuum in the '80s. It was inspiring stuff. I don't know if the pioneers got their due - laying foundations that are probably overlooked today.


BigO: What's been the most overlooked Singapore band?

Ben: Most of them probably. Even names people might know still seem comparatively overlooked to me: Stray Dogs, Oddfellows, Stoned Revivals, Plain Sunset, Humpback Oak, Crack Healer, Force Vomit. And those that don't promote themselves as aggressively as others naturally appear overlooked, but that's no bad thing as it suggests they get on with the music. It's a long list of acts, old and new, with names like Audiojane, Transformer, Dongs, Raw Fish, Still, Fuzzbox, Rocket Scientist, Bruce Lee, Obstacle Upsurge, Self-Portrait, Disko Biscuit, Dyfectra, etc... People who make music regardless.


BigO: What Singapore music would you introduce to people in other countries?

Ben: Force Vomit's Up Goes the Furniture, is genius, good-time music and a great gift I delight in giving to all sorts of folk on my travels. They should have had a National Holiday to mark the release of that... Aside from that, in my experience, a lot of local music doesn't cut it abroad. It's not just my friends. When I played stuff (as a DJ) on the (British college) radio, unannounced, I'd get calls: "You're not playing that Singapore crap again are you?" They always spotted it.


BigO: It seems that most of the time, local fans can't discern the good stuff. Have we got shit for ears?

Ben: Don't blame the fans. It's the media, phoney DJs and record companies that have no idea. When stuff doesn't sell, isn't that people being discerning? They make they choice. Maybe they've been burnt too many times already - flogged something that is no good. It's unnatural, but some people force themselves to support- not enjoy - local music, like it's some duty.


BigO: Is that something you've encountered?

Ben: Oh yeah. Being told to "support" local music like it's a charity. But it'd be patronising if I did. It's not helpful. It stunts growth. What doesn't kill music, should make it stronger. And if it kills it, maybe it didn't deserve to exist in the first place. Musicians shouldn't think anyone owes them. You'd think that by now everyone ought to be grown-up enough to be objective and take it on the chin. But give an opinion and it's taken as a personal attack, going down like a declaration of war. If you dislike someone's music doesn't mean you dislike them. I don't have milk in tea. Want to hold it against me? As my drummer, Budi, says: "Make music not war."


BigO: What angers you about Singapore music?

Ben: It probably isn't worth getting angry about, but I'm riled by the same bad things that sadden me about anything, anywhere: stupidity, greed, lies, fakeness, bureaucracy, pretentiousness... and the originality drought where people put their energy into sounding like someone else. It makes me wonder what their motivation for doing music is. But it doesn't seem to bother others who applaud slavish covers and shameless rip-offs. Anywhere else a lot of folk would be laughed off the stage or publicly reviled, but I can't believe some of the stuff people stand for here.

Maybe audiences are too reserved. It's the Emperor's New Clothes scenario. Someone's got a lot of balls or is just plain stupid to say they write songs when all they do is facsimiles other people's. There's a difference between a piece of art and a kid who's crayoned-in the right spaces in a colouring book. The spirit of the bands that got the ball rolling into the '90s got seriously diluted a few years back when most local acts you saw did little more than copy.


BigO: Couldn't they write their own songs?

Ben: Why should they when covers get the loudest applause?
A band like Pagans stopped playing their songs to do sets of covers. That might be how some bands start out, but they did it in reverse - going from being a cool, original band to a sad-sack cover act like Velle. Is it an inferiority complex or just lack of imagination? Sideshow Judy's morphing into Portishead was just laughable. And still it goes on and people let them get away with it, like what's the deal with DJ Darkus? The name is already in use. He knows it, but he uses it anyway. That makes him a liar and a thief. Hell, why not just form a new band and call them The Beatles? Oh, I better watch what I say in case I get misinterpreted.... No mean feat that as I was even once freaked out at by one of the Padres for a review he thought I wrote. Paranoia or what? I eventually saw the thing in question and it was nowhere near as damning as they made out. His reading between the lines aside, why did he care what I think? Next to them, my own band were little league. No local record companies have ever approached us so we probably suck... to some locals. That's OK... "They get 15 minutes, I'll take 2,000 years".


BigO: Why is it that the hardcore/metal guys are more proficient instrumentally than the indie/pop guys?

Ben: Forget about genres - you can be as proficient as you
like but if it doesn't serve the music, if it doesn't breathe properly: forget it. A lot of bands try to rock, but forget to roll...


BigO: What was the peak period of Singapore pop?

Ben: "Pop" implies "popular" - a quality that local music hasn't enjoyed for ages. As for the "peak", I'd hope it's down to the individual. Why pinpoint it? A good gig, a good song or a good time is a peak. Anything that transcends the scene, but is in the moment. So much of Singapore's music story is in moments that go unrecorded, and scenes that only the people involved really know about - like "Forum Kids"; like what an amazing live act the No-Names were. So, it's up to the individual to be open to, and acknowledge, those magic moments. So the peak is always there... you just have get to it yourself.


BigO: Name some Singapore songwriting peaks...

Ben: Well, I have my own standards... I don't look to those who consciously set themselves up as singer/songwriters. It's usually wack-off, rich-kid angst - all convoluted literary allusions and a thesaurus-dependant vocabulary. It's anything that feels good constitutes a good song. Stoned Revivals' Goodil fits that bill totally. You can dance to it and it's sexy - not the usual fake orgasm. Force Vomit's Last Night I Said Goodbye gets me everytime... but then you're spoilt for choice with them. Same with Humpback Oak and The Oddfellows. "Half the world is out there... with the other half," from Driving in Your Car is one of my favorite lines ever.


BigO: And your definitive Singapore song?

Ben: I'm prepared to believe it's in a language I can't speak. Manifest's Budaya goes "Apa itu? Apa itu?" ("What is it / What is this?") - which is a question I often ask. But if you want a song appropriate to what we're talking about, we end up back to where we started. Zircon Lounge: "Guide these hands / These hands that give / These hands that take... that they should learn to hold / What is meant to remain...".