11 - 10 - 2008 [Dari Dewan Raya]

Thursday, 20 November 2008

On the 11th of october 2008 (Saturday night) we were given the honour to do a show @ RTB's famed Dewan Raya. It was a show in conjunction with Hari Raya 2008 and the show was performed by other local artist and bands that were highlighted as Pelangi FM's Artist of the Month and also Pelangi's Spotlite from the previous month. Here are some of the other performers from that event.

MC for the night Dj Ryan & Dj Aliff (MC = Mesti cali :))

Azeem from Project Tunes [He's one cool dude :)]

Pria Ikhlas Band [They perform superbly that night]

Klip [These dudes are the coolest band i've ever seen]

Sri Nazrina & Rosman Masri

Fairuzneezan [Great vocals!!]

MNC [They live up to their magnifique name]

It was a great night for us. We had fun and all of the other performers were friendly and supportive. The atmosphere was great from beginning till the end. These above performers were great in entertaining the audience. I could say on behalf of De Epitome that it was a great pleasure to be in the same show with these performers.

FROM MY POINT OF VIEW [DE EPITOME'S PERFORMANCE].

This is our first time performing in such a big place. This is also the first time we performed without Luffy..It is a personal dream for him to play at Dewan Raya, for that i would like to say that even though you (Luffy) can't be with us, we did our best and we dedicate our performance that night to you :)

We came early that day..because we were worried about soundcheck. so we did soundcheck and tried to calm our nerves by sitting down and talking with each other. We talked about a lot of stuff, past performances, our goals that night, how tonight will end..and alot of other stuff. But the one thing that kept coming thru our mind was not trying to fall apart, not to screw up like we did last time. So before we went to stage, we did some pep talk for each other. Some of it went like this.. "ok guys..iatah masa nya ni..iatah time nya tani buktikan not to others..but to us!! Remember that luffy wants us to be great..so we do this for us & him!!!" (That is the most empowering pep talk i've heard :P) and then we prayed that everything goes well.

Since we were the first to perform, the pressure was really enormous. I dont know about the others, but i was really nervous. But as soon as we went up to the stage, i saw a few things that made me calm 1) our picture on the screen (reminds me of my promise to Luffy to perform well) 2)my lil brother & sister (that are excited to see me do my thang~) and 3)my fiancee (she's the only reason i am what i am). With that in mind everything went well and surprisingly the others were great too.

We performed 3 songs..the first two were 'LaLaLa like i care & Saat terhapus' and the third was our newest single 'CandleLight'..we nailed all of the song greatly. What a relief...*sigh* and the audience were more than supporting. The best crowd i've seen so far. Here are some of our pictures from that night.

Deal [He means business when he's wearing those glasses :D]

Mr.Adul [Adorable in CaraMelayu :p]

Khai & G5 [Doing great bro..that goes for both of you!!]

Shukri [Our Drummer for the night]

De Epitome 11-10-2008
[We did it !!!!]

That was some of the happenings we endured during our show @ RTB's Dewan Raya (11-10-08). It was a lot of fun. Hope we have the oppurtunity to do it again next time.

Photos taken by : Adul's Apprentice (Thanks for the pictures)

Blindnecros,

De Epitome

04:47

Saturday, 15 November 2008

Assalamualaikum ladies and gentleman...

first of all im sorry to AMeen for the delay of the post cause ive caught up wv something.hehe.ok let me introduce myself my name is khai and the lead vocalist in the band call DE Epitome.and for this post i would like to share the experiences that have been shared since ive joined the band.it has been a lot with wv the band and its my pleasure to tell you people.ok here goes...

Let the story begins....

ok the story begun when i was hanging out with my tourism peeps at the serasa beach.we were making our own camp fire.hehe.biasa la chill2 minum2 tpi yg halal ah?hehe.then at the time Luffy the drummer arrived bacause he wanted to hang out with us as well.my brother was playing the guitar and i sang a song as i remembered was a song called "more than words" from extreme.wah specific jua tu ah?heehe.memory kuat kli ah.so he heard that i was singing the english song.then he told adul to make an audition for me.well obviously i did agree.hehe.well adul should know that i used to sing the "conversation" song in your car right?hehe.yatah jua kli kn mau mencuba menyanyi ani.mcm siuk jua ah.hehe.nda plg pernah tepkir la kn jdi cani.in a good way that is.hehe.ok moving on then i went for the audition wv adul he introduced me to luffy.sekali rupanya super senior ku bh yg nda ku kenal.hehe.the audition was simple plg aja back at his house i mean at luffy's house.he was with his guitar kapok ka namanya ah?hehe.he introduced me a new song he said which was called "moments of truth".well yes i was nervous at that time but i tried my best.Luffy was patient with teaching me this and this.hehe.it was fun.yes luffy if your reading this, i do still remember ok?hehe.ok thats the bit on the intro n all.hehe.

after that then i got to introduce to the rest of the members of the band.the meeting point was at a shop.mcm aku ani eh arh kadai?cna kn jamming tu ah?hehe.skali rupanya arh kadai bassist kmi.hehe.cali jua la.kinda wierd though for me at first but then cool jua ah cani ah.i met deal and G5.cause adul n luffy awal udh ku jumpa kn.ameen i dont think aku jumpa ko tu ah tyme atu?hehe.alum lgi kli or awal udah ah?hehe.anyway then d sna la bermula nya berkataan jamming atu ada pada ku.d sna la aku bermula berkecimpung d dlm bidang nyanyian ani.hehe.they introduced different kinds of songs that i tried to sing.well yes i admit it people that i have the problem saying the buuuuuuuut....haha! i remembered deal did laughed at me so hard.hehe.well guys first time bh nervous lagi ku tu.hehe.thats that.hehe.

then came the time kn recording the song called "moments of truth" after we have practised lama2 la udh.hehe.so kmi recording arh one of the local shop in brunei ani.should i mentioned the name?jgnth kli ah?krg iklan chia plg eee~hahaha.well yes the day came n again yes i was i can say hell nervous.hehe.mine my words but i did feel like that kli ah.hehe.the arena was set and cold.hehe.mcm wresling.the recording was done bit by bit meaning one person to one person.first up was luffy to play the drum and so on and so fourth.hehe.well i was the last one and it did make more pressure for me.hehe.bukan lagi mcm la tu ah well yg paling penting la tu.all the guys were in the room jua to witness the moments of truth for me jua.guys thanks for the support at that time.hehe.luffy asked me to sing part by part cause he understood that i needed my breaths to sing the song.hehe.

well in the end, we did a pretty good job.the song was nice i duno you people.hehe.then finally udh siap it was aired on the pelangi fm.i remembered i heard the song arh umah c adul tu.honestly guys mcm aku "eh sora ku ka tu?aku ka yg nyanyi tu?" c khai berkata.haha.apakn.hehe.so i thought to myself, wah bangga jua ku lah yg aku nyanyi atu ada dlm radio.hehe.it was so awesome.hehe.eh panjang udh ka aku crita ani?udh th kli ah?hhe.ameeen mun ku kn sambung byk kli eh.but nanti gi lah.sorry sir ah late ku antar ni assignment ah from the due date.haha!

well people thats about it all.nanti gi ku buat ah version crita ku.hehe.well since aku join this band the chemistry makin menjadi2 la jua.becali pun masuk apa smua and these guys rocks.hehe.kmu pham la tu yg lain ah.bh atu aja kli.n to luffy we miss u man. ko lah org yg selalu duduk d sebalah ku klu tni chill d branda c adul.n also i can say ur the glue to us all.hehe.

lastly KITA HEBAT! DONE BY KHAI73 (lead vocallist)

THE GOOD TIMES GUYS! HEHE

04:20

our (Moment of Truth)

Friday, 14 November 2008

Moment of Truth is our second single to be released on air. With the previous single still (conversation) lingering on air we decided to put in another one. Our second single. Like conversation have its own stories to be told and a lot of happenings behind the making of this song. So without wasting time, let’s dig in…

Moment of truth [literally]…

This song is composed by Luffy and the lyrics are done by me. Most of the lyrics I wrote into this song are personal. Most of it are my experiences from the darkest moment in my life. It’s really painful to remember it, let alone to write it down in a song. But I learned from a great friend that writing down what you feel can help you let go of emotional baggage and painful memories.

The story in this song centers on a guy that is having troubles in various aspects in his life (love, family, relationships and friends). This guy realizes that nothing in his life is worth living. Day to day he just lives as nothing is interesting anymore, nothing to look forward to. He hopes that he can just fade away from every problem and everyone before he loses his mind.

The making of…

After releasing ‘conversation’ we straightaway worked on this song with the aim of releasing it on air. If I mentioned in my previous post that there are only 5 of us at the time, for ‘Moment of truth’ we decided to take in another vocalist. It’s because De Epitome needed a versatile and more ‘radio friendly’ vocal. I don’t remember if we had auditioned anyone else for that position, but Adul told us that he had someone in mind that could very well be perfect for the post. So we decided to give it a chance and try this fellow out. I can tell you that the first time we tried him on, it was hilarious!! (Told you Khai, you should of written this post yourself). Remember ‘still holding on’ guys? The part with “but” in the lyrics..hahaha (good times). But seriously, his voice was ‘radio friendly’ and likeable. So from that moment on we are a six piece band, no more no less.

Since it was Khai’s first time singing for a band he needed to train his voice a bit more. And we did trained as much as we could for the recording. Each and everyday Khai gets more and more confident. And when it comes to recording the track, I think he wasn’t as comfortable. Maybe it’s the pressure of stepping into the recording booth, with its silence and big microphone that got to him (don’t worry pal, it happens to the best of us). But after we were done recording, I could say that it had better results than we had expected. The sound was clearer than conversation (That’s because we finally knew how to do it track by track).

On 24^th March 2006 ‘Moment of Truth’ was released @ Pelangi FM. Like our previous single, this one proves to be a hit with listeners. It went on to gain regular airplay for months to come. In my personal opinion, most people that like this song can relate to the message in the song, I guess most of us have our dark moments every now and then.

So that’s all I can post for our second single. This single coincides with the forming of a new De Epitome, with the adding of Khai. To khai, I just want to say that you did a great job in every song that we released. You are a great addition to our band and I personally think that without you, its hard to imagine how we would end up. So, keep up the good work and keep holding on. (Don’t say BUT though, hahaha..I’m kidding what?)

23:17

Conversation : A piece of us

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Conversation is our 1st song to be released as a single on air. There’s a lot of story behind this song and also a lot of memories. This song is the one that made De Epitome what it is today and the one that defines us as a band. So here it is the complete, detailed and utterly the most important turning point of De Epitome’s history. Get ready..Set..Go!!! (btw, u might want to hear the song while reading this post, it adds the dramatic effect..sort of :P)

About the song
The song is about a guy that is having the worst relationship ever. And he tells his friend about it, and then his friend tells it to the world. So in a way this song is told by a narrator within a narrator. There are 2 characters in this song. The first is about the guy that experiences the falling out with his significant other. The other one is the guy’s friend that he shares with the agony of his doomed relationship.

The Making of Conversation
As I mentioned earlier, this particular song is THE turning point of our band. And here is how it happened. Before making this song, we decided that as a band we should try our luck with the local radio stations. Because at the time (2005) I was hearing some of the songs by local bands and thought that we had a chance to be in it and believed we could do better. I shared this with Luffy and he agrees, the others also have the same point of view. So, with that in mind we started on a new song, ‘Conversation’.

Believe it or not…but we did this song in just (count it with me now..1..2..3..4) 4 days!! I guess it was the hype @ the moment that made us so into it. All of us were busy finding out what to put where and what sounded better. Luffy was finding the right beats, Adul & Deal were dealing with guitar issues, G5 (whom at the time was already a bit steady with bass) was as cool as possible with the bass chords (so as not to incur the wrath of his demonic sifus, Adul & Deal). I myself was busy fitting in lyrics and also trying to make sure I didn’t screw up the song.

The Recording (Part I)
After the song was done we decided to find a studio that could record our song. In this moment, we weren’t experienced about recording and its processes, so we decided to just try our luck at the place that we had been jamming for a while now (sorry I cant tell the name of the place). The experiences during recording were part hilarious part catastrophic. As I remembered it, we were recording during the night. We had discussed earlier with the recording technician about our plans and he agreed to help to with our recording. But as we went through with our recording, some other band came into the studio. We later found out that it was the recording technician’s band, and they had come for a jamming session (I believe they were practicing for some event). So, in a way our schedules were conflicted and this technician fellow decided to go with his band and rushed with our recording process. I was really..really..over the top annoyed with this, cause earlier we had high hopes about the recording process and now it seems that it was fading away. But we stayed cool and finished it, alas the end product was not what we had expected. The track that we had recorded was ‘ugly’ and the quality was really poor. But we decided to stay positive and go on with releasing it on air with the help of me & Luffy’s friend and former ‘mentor’ who happens to work at Kristal FM.

The Recording (Part II)
Weeks after we released ‘Conversation’ on air (Kristal FM), we received numerous comments from our family & friends. Most of it was good comments and positive. But I still can’t deal with the quality of it, Luffy and the others were also dissatisfied. But at the time we didn’t know how to fix the problem that we faced. Then one day, as I was strolling around in Gadong, I saw a poster. It was a poster of a local band named ‘Not Famous’. I heard of their songs before and really loved it. Then after seeing the poster, I had an idea on how to solve our problem. So I went into the shop and purchase the ‘Not Famous’ CD (it was for $15, which coincidentally the only amount of money I had left for the entire month). The next day I listened to it and was astonished by the quality of their tracks. So I decided to check out the albums leaflet to find out any contact information, and there it was, their email. I decided to try my luck and contact them about where they had done their recording. I think I received their reply right that afternoon. Their answer was somewhat disappointing because their tracks were done in Malaysia. Eventually we replied each others email and talked about some music related stuff. Then one of them (Adam of Not Famous) offered some help with the recording. He told me that he was currently working in a recording studio. So we decided to set up a meeting with Adam. A few days after that we went to Adam’s workplace and talked about our problems. I gave him our track, and he listened to it and said it wasn’t that bad (I believed he was just saying that as not to offend our feelings). He then said the recording quality can be improved, but the song itself has potential. So not wasting time we scheduled for a recording session and tried our best on improving the songs with a bit change to the arrangement and tempo. The outcome was not as crystal clear as we had imagined but it improved significantly than the previous. All of us got together and hear the track for ourselves. We were very pleased to hear the change in quality, though the quality wasn’t as best it could be, we were still satisfied.

The turning point
After the track was done, Adam told me of another contact for releasing our song. He told me that the person was really helpful in promoting local bands. So I wrote down the number and talked to Luffy about it. We gave it a careful thought and decided to go on with it. So I contacted the person Adam mentioned, this person’s name is called Aliff..and he is widely known as DJ Aliff of Pelangi FM. Subsequently we sent the song to Pelangi Fm and released it there officially (we even have to sign a release form). So ladies & gentleman, that was the beginning of our relationship with Pelangi FM. For months to come ‘Conversation’ was played regularly on air and we even started to gain fans and requests for our song (what a wonderful feeling it was..still remember it to this day!!).
So…that’s the story behind this song. It is the most important song that we had composed. I believe that without ‘Conversation’ there won’t be De Epitome it is today. To this day I still like this song and hear it occasionally just for the sake of reminiscing as not to forget where I was 3 years ago, with whom I was 3 years ago, and what we had achieved 3 years after CONVERSATION.

Blindnecros – De Epitome

22:18

Who, Where, How & What?? [ The beginning...]

Saturday, 8 November 2008

I believe it was in mid 2005.. it started out as a group of people that have nothing to do. At this precise moment there were four people in that group. Luffy, Adul, Deal and G5. These 4 people have been friends for quite a while and they lived in the same area. Lets just say that for some of us 2005 wasn’t the best and productive year. Some of us (or all of us) were having different problems in our lives. The best way to let time pass by is hanging out with each other. Being a teenager in Brunei can sometimes mean cashless :P so the best place to hang out is at G5’s shop (sometimes we have freebies for dinner). A lot of evenings were spend there . One night..as the cliché goes, Luffy was so bored that he decided to play some tunes on a guitar. Some how..there was this rhythm that was in a way outstanding. Not knowing what to do..he told the others. He told Adul, Deal & G5 (g5 wasn’t into music @ the time). After hearing the rhythm that Luffy had ‘composed’ all of them agrees that it had potential. Not sure what the potential was they decided to give it a try. One fact about the story above is at the time G5 didn’t know how to play bass.

The next morning, luffy told his unsuspecting friend about the song. This friend of luffy is me (Ameen), at the time I was into hip hop. I have been since I was a kid and loved the idea that words can be a magnificent and beautiful thing if correctly used and arranged. Anyway back to the story, Luffy told me that he needed me to make up some lyrics for his song. I hesitated, cause you see I was into hip hop and at the time the idea of a band was disgraceful and a betrayal to what I love. But seeing that Luffy was a good friend and in a way persuasive, I decided to give it a shot. Ladies & gentleman..this is the moment when it all started.

Once I was aboard of Luffy’s plan..we hang out regularly at G5’s shop. Still at the time we were not sure what we were doing. I don’t know whose idea it was, but seeing that we were already there trying to make a song happen, we should take the opportunity to make a band. Luffy was good with drums, Deal & Adul were good with guitars. So they decided to find a vocalist and play bass. The first choice to play bass was G5, even though he could not play a single instrument, the others persuade him to learn it. When I say persuade I meant they force him to play it, hahaha :D G5 when thru hell to play bass, he learned the basic chords with Deal & Adul on his back constantly screaming if he made a mistake. But im sure that it was that experience that made G5 good at what he is doing now J and also G5 was the first one to buy an instrument amongst the band members (you see what determination and a few sessions of torturing can do to the human mind..hehehe).

With a drummer, 2 guitarists and a bassist on board, it was now time to search for a vocalist. This part of the story is somewhat frustrating and tiring. We all decided to start with our friends, we found a bunch of people to audition for the spot. Its was a long..long journey to find the suitable one. Alas not one of them was suitable..some have an accent, some were not into it, some don’t have the voice for it. Then Luffy gave me the chance to try it out. Now, I have something to confess, I am not the vocalist type. I don’t have the voice range to sing. Im pretty much tone deaf (its when you cant differentiate the vocal range of highs and lows). So indeed we have a problem, plus I wasn’t into rock music. So I learned and learned to find my voice, with the help of Luffy & Deal and the rest was as they say history.(Thanx for giving me the opportunity guys).

So..we were all set and ready to go. The only thing left to do is find a name for the band. At this moment we were already jamming at a studio. Since we haven’t find an agreeable name we just called ourselves Bandana, this name was Luffy’s idea of a joke and it first came up when we were paying for a jamming session in a studio. The guy working there asks us to whom the receipt was made out for and Luffy wrote Bandana. Seeing that the name Bandana was just a joke we all agreed on the name of Circle of Emotions, as most of our songs are related to emotions. But we found out that there was a band that almost has the same abbreviation as ours. So we searched for a new name..again. This time around I was given the honor of doing it. So I turned to someone for advice on finding a cool name. At the time I was in a relationship with a girl that totally digs alternative rock music and has a vast experience and knowledge about it. So I asked her what would be a cool name that has an actual meaning but no one knows about it. She remembers a song title by Butterfingers that she used to hear..the song was called ‘Epitome’. I was astonished by that particular name as the meaning was the embodiment, an excellent example of something. So I came up with The Epitome of Tragedy. Meaning that we were the example of a tragedy, because that was how it all started. The others agree and it became official for a while. Soon after some of us had trouble saying the name, as it was a mouthful. So we decided to shorten it to ‘De Epitome’.

And that was our history as a band. It all started with a simple rhythm. Now we are still holding on to our dreams and because of that we had been thru a lot of difficult times as a group. I know for a fact that being in a band is difficult because a band consists of not only 1 person. So sometimes one can disagree with one’s idea. But Alhamdullilah we are still here doing what we love. 3 years, 7 singles and still 1 dream.I have a lot of story to catch up, but this is all for now.

(Blindnecros-De Epitome)

23:06