Staff Jamz 10: Mashed Up - Postlude

The 10th installment of Staff Jamz was indeed a blast, everybody — both the performers and audience (around 200++ turned up) — had fun, and you could see smiling faces everywhere and as the term goes, some even ‘went with the flow’ with the music performed, swaying their bodies from side to side as the NLB Band jammed the evening on.

With the 2 enrichment segments shared, I hope the audience brought back a few informative bits on music. Staff Jamz 10: Mashed UP! is all about medleys. Creating medleys involve creativity, you have to analyse the song structure, carefully break them apart and create a totally new piece out of the little little different valuable components.

Bear in mind, you have to include the essence of the song in — i.e. to include the best parts of the song into the medley. Well, it’s like playing with LEGO, it’s up to you how you want the structure to be. I really had fun doing that and I can see myself doing this sort of thing for more shows to come. Coolzzz!!!

Ok, enough with that. In this entry, I want to thank a few people who have greatly contributed their time and effort in making this programme a success — as always :-). Am really grateful to them and sincere thanks to these great musicians/singers. The list below is in alphabetical order. Here goes!

Anuar

This guys is a remarkable vocalist, he can take on Bon Jovi and Journey’s stuffs anytime! Oh, even Air Supply’s Russell Hitchcock stuffs. Actually the first time I heard him sing was about 3 to 4 years ago when he sang the song ‘Goodbye’ by Air Supply. His notes are spot on.

After hearing him sing, I told myself, hey I should invite this guy in for some of my gigs. After that, it’s all history. He is able to hit searing high notes and yet maintain his composure. Wow! His rendition of Skid Row’s ‘I Remember You’ by singer Sebastian Bach is truly awesome. His vibratos and steady holds really mimics Sebastian Bach’s style.

You Rock Brother! Stay cool Dude!

Faizah

Our own NLB singer from Jurong Regional Library… hey, from what I’ve heard so far, you’ve really improved tremendously Girl. Your harmony in ‘Always be my Baby’ is spot on, very nice.

Keep the music passion alive and sing more ‘adventurous’ songs — try those R&B divas, or Christina Aguilera stuffs, hear how they sing and hold their notes and harmonise, their breathing techniques and stuffs. With practice, I’m sure you can be like them someday, hey you got the lungs and the voice to do so… so, no reason to hold back.

And wait, from a certain angle, you kinda look like Jordin Sparks., So what are you waiting for, all the Way Girl! Yeah… :-)

Izryn

Unique voice and she is very committed to music, respect her for that. With her around, the tone pool for the singers expand. I really like the song you did entitled ‘Save Tonight’ by Mindy Abair, you sounded really rad. Something fresh out of the music oven…. wait.. that doesn’t sound right… ok, fresh out from the the tone port… yeahhhh…

And I have to mention this, the three part harmony you did with Ridwan and Faizah at the last part of the song ‘Hey Oh Tonight’, is simply Heaven. We should do more vocal harmonies in the future. POWER!

(Ed: See what Izryn herself has to say.)

Jonathan

What can I say…. a great musician, a great gentleman and most of all a great friend. You got a great heart Brother and that’s where the great qualities come from. And it is always good to have someone in the band that can play loads of songs.

You know how to play tones and tones of hits, maybe those accompaniment you did with the singers during the Open Mic session at your cafe made you learn all those hits in just a short time. Kudos to you Man! Will sure invite you to play the keys when I write my own songs.

You’re simply fabulous Bro. We’ll jam again for sure… Yeah!

Pye

 

We should call you the punisher I should say… sometimes I see you caressing the toms but at times, you attack the drums Man! Anyway, I have to say this again, you got great control on your hits. I always believe a good drummer has great control over his hits. You have that Man! Keep it on Dude!

Oh ya, you gave us great drama when you turned up right before we started the show…pheww… If I got high blood, sure die one…hehehehe… Nah, jokes aside, we understand, it was raining and all. We are just concerned about your safety riding in the rain. Anyway, thank you for your commitment Man. You ROckssss.

Raydza

 

Our guest singer, hey Bro, I didn’t know you can sing that well man! You’ve done it well, exceptionally good I should say rather. The first time I heard you sing during our rehearsal, hmmm, I said to myself, this guy is not bad, with his friendly nature, he has no problem blending with the rest of the members in the band….

You have a unique voice Bro, and you hit all the correct notes for David Cook’s rendition of ‘Always Be my Baby’ — the feel is dead on Man! Steady, steady….

Ridwan

 

Yet again, my faithful partner in crime, or music rather, my capable co-host to the show…  This is the man that not only performed well, but entertained us as well. His crazy antics made us laugh to the core, ya really, sometimes you get a stomachache laughing at his jokes and gestures… crazy fella.

Wan, you have showered joy to the band Man, once a while we need that you know. Sometimes rehearsing can be quite draggy, but hey, you came in and spiced things up Bro. Always happy when you’re around. Oh ya, you’re a great songwriter Man. You can push that further Dude, keep the creativity flowing Dude, it’s a gift. ‘Paddy’ is my favourite piece now.

Will sure call you guys down for recording soon. We need to get that song down on CD Man and write more original songs. Salute you Brother. Kudos. Broadrick all the way…hahahaha…

Thong Yang

 

Hey Bro, I hope you really got a great experience playing in a combo band. As a musician, we need to go out and rough it out Man, playing alone is different compared to playing with other musicians (I’ve been there), especially when they are playing different instruments.

We have to identify that space within the whole flurry of notes played, and identify the spectrum, the space that we can comfortably occupy. Of course balance is also an issue when playing in a band, we listen not only to what we are playing, but to the rest of the members as well.

I hope to trade solos with you in the near future Dude, so keep those nimble fingers hot as we scale up and down them fretboards. We should try out songs from ‘Saturday Night in San Francisco’, a gathering of 3 guitar virtuosos, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucia and John Mclaughlin, if you’re into Flamenco and fusion acoustic guitar fretboard acrobatics, then this is the ultimate album to play, I’ll do Di Meola stuffs, and if you can, take on Paco’s stuffs, take our time and take it as our own music project — a journey…

Glad that you’re in the band and work those fingers Man :-)

Wei Ye

 

The youngest member of the band, 1st year Uni student but yet, hey, very experienced in playing the bass. Your touches are great Man, sustain your notes when they are required to.

Maybe we should go on a step higher, playing R&B, funk and jazz music. How about that? Have you ever considered playing the upright/double bass, they’re really cool instruments that will give you another edge and great insights in bass playing. Maybe I should ask you to play songs with more bass lines and fills, cos I know you can do it Man. We start of with …Kenny Loggin’s ‘Footloose’???? — it’s Nathan East at his prime Man!

Haha, anyway, best of luck for your endeavours in music as well as your studies Man :-)

And last but not least, there are a few people I wish to thank, first of all to my colleague Peck Keong who maintains the library@esplanade’s blog and created great entries to it, and adding this one to it.

My boss Si Wei, for supporting my music endeavours here in the performing arts library and NLB as a whole.

Valerie Sim for arranging the cool tokens for the Q&A session during the programme and to our photographer Diana who has taken all these neat photos you see in this blog, thanks for capturing the moments in library@esplanade.

Sincere thanks to our Staff Jamz followers who always turn up to support the programme and also to our regulars who want more of such programmes.

Oh ya, how could I forget, you, the audience who attended the programme, those who stood by the stage and those who sat on the floor, sorry y’all, hope we could provide extra chairs for ya the next time round.

On behalf of the NLB Band, sincere thanks from us. Hope to see y’all in our next Staff Jamz, I promise you, it’ll be as equally great, if not, better. Take care for now.. Cheers….

Indrashah Isa
Senior Library Officer
library@esplanade
NLB Band Leader

PS: Stay tuned for the video snippets of the show, I’m finding some time to edit them using FCP, so do visit this site again :-)

Ed: Thanks for the following who blogged about the show:

[1] Ting.

[2] Touchthesky.

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