Adventures in Asia!

Burj Al Arab in Dubai

I know we said that we were off to Sydney.. but by some strange twist of events we ended up traveling across Singapore, Malaysia and the U.A.E for the past 3 months. It was a real eye-opener for me to pick-up and go from place to place in short spurts of time... we moved a total of 9 times in the last two months from dinghy hotels to the homes of friends and relatives.

Wants upon a time...

3 months back, Bobz and I packed up and sold out all our household necessities for next to nothing on www.gumtree.com(great place to sell your second hand goods real quick!)... we sold off all the stuff which we picked up off the streets when we first got here.. like furniture, tv, refrigerator, clothes, shoes... and real cheap stuff which we bought like our $900 car, and our $60 washing machine. We made a total of $400 and decided to travel once again with 2 knapsacks and his guitar to wherever life beckons.

And so it came to pass that we did exactly that!

Busking in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We did not manage to get any recording done as anticipated but what I had was a real enriching experience which taught me about the importance of making good judgment about friends, family and strangers. Our travels has demonstrated to me that no matter which part of the world we're in, we are always confronted by a wheelin' and dealin' maze of lies! And that in order to escape this maze, we will have to make certain choices which requires good judgment and the clarity to see through all the illusions; the Razzle-Dazzle, hard-selling, manipulative lies which enslaves us to material goods and attachments, which isn't necessary for our core happiness! Material things are great as enhancements of our experiences in this life, but too often it is sold as the basic need that will fulfill us beyond true interactions with our fellowmen.

Jammin' with the local crew

There is just so much that we have to share... and both Bobz and I are eager to finish our album and speak our experiences to you all. So, we're back and ready to work again. Thx for all your support once again and I'll end this update with a recent article by Bobz on the topic of judgment...


Judgment - simply a matter of choosing sides

Leaving on a Plane

Hi you all, this will be our last update before we leave for Sydney.

As some of you might be aware of, Bobz and I have been traveling and busking together around Australia for the past 4 years.

We kicked-off in Perth; in Northbridge to be exact. Back then we were alternating between playin' the Djambe and doing the acoustic sets unplugged. Perth is a steadily-expanding city... Bobz tells me that there was a time, as a child when it seems, it was a little place where he finds himself connected to every third person or so in some ways by jobs, schools or they'd be friends of another friend. However, people and places are constantly evolving and even from when we were last there, I've heard that much have changed since we left.

Anyways, after a year immersed in the vibrant little party suburb, we bid farewell to family and friends in Perth and we continued across to the Gold Coast where we spent the following year busking and gigging. Now the Gold Coast unlike Melbourne, is a party town where people are always in transit so it's very much fleeting and fancy-free. We don't party much so we spent a lot of time by the pool at the old Motor Inn(converted apartment), which looks more like an algae ridden pond; but the highlight of Gold Coast of course, had to be the endless beach that stretched on forever.

When we finally got to Melbourne, it was the winter of 2007. We were still tanning in the Gold Coast the day before, so you can imagine our shock when we got here and were chilled to the bone. However, as we performed through three chilly winters, we will always remember how you've all kept us warm with your open hearts and your radiant smiles. Sometimes, when we notice you all-collared up in the icy breeze, we wish that we were playing in a comfortable shelter where you can all be out of the cold!

Anyways, we love you all and attached is a little video to remind us some of the wonderful moments which we've shared here in Melbourne!

Here's the link for the video up top: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOY5hBiAjU

Till we return again,

Bobz and Candy


p/s: We're still steadily on the album. Please be patient with us..:)
--

Going gets tough!

At the moment, we're having all sorts of problems understanding the techno-jargon that comes with music engineering. If we had thought that music is a language on its own, boy! ..sound engineering is a whole new culture! Our minds are boggled by the amount of script we had to go through just to skim the surface of this small part of a whole movement in music making.

Prior to that we spent an entire 3 months troubled-shooting various music programs thinking that we have an incompatibility issue with our midi keyboard.. only to discover that our brand-new keyboard was busted! :(

Reading pages and pages of manuals and 'google help-pages' has gotten us all cross-eyed! Tell me why I have a strange feeling the both of us should have paid more attention in school when we were learning how to speed-read.

Anyways, I will not make you guys read anymore than we've had to. Here's a video of us on Swanston performing one of the crowd favorites... I'm yours!

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/lucksock

or: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Colorful-BLAC/6711360678?ref=ts


...and we're keeping at it! Have a sterling week!

Bobz and Candy



Hello and thanks!
A special dedication to our facebook fans: Bob Airol, Jyn Lui, Steven Phanvongsa, Meng Vang, Rachel Cain, Jessica Seah, Jareratt Poewsuwan, Pedro Rosas, Louella De Guzman, Listiyani Astuti , Venus Liao , May So, Arian Prabowo, Jimi te Nana, Yasmin Leila Rahman and every single one of you from across the globe. It is lovely to receive emails/messages from all of you. Enjoy the video!!!

Original Album update - to the Colorful Community.

Hello everybody,

Right now, we are working hard on our original CD even as we find time to reply mails and what-nots in between. Till now, we've finished writing over half the songs in the album. It's been a long process, over a year since we started writing the songs for this album - we have to juggle busking and gigs with learning and expanding our repertoire in between. We also spend a lot of time - in fact most of our days in contemplation - as we need plenty of time to meditate on our being and our words before we commit them to lyrics.

Please be patient with us. We promise that if you like the essence of our performance and our unique selection of hand-picked covers, you will love the original work that we're concocting right now! At the moment, we're not only finishing up with writing out the rest of our songs... we're also studying hard and doing lots of research, to source out and learn to use more up-to-date recording/arrangement programs to bring you the best quality sound possible. So please bear with us.

Thanks...
A special hello to Jackie Whyte, Simon Santoso and John Simpson. Thanks for your sweet sweet notes and for taking the time to send us your appreciations.

Bob Airol... we haven't got a copy of 'Run' recorded... but we will be posting a video of Jason Mraz's 'I'm yours' (courtesy of Irianto) on youtube soon... we'll let you know when we do - It'll be soon!

Robert Hock, Suisse Marie... Thanks for the offers you guys! We're glad you're looking out for us - and Sanjeev Veloo & gt23i too. Keep up the amazing work you people! If anyone's looking(or know of anyone who's looking) for a photographer... do google for 'Robert Hock'. He's Melbourne based and his work is highly commendable.

Rachel Cain for looking after Mifty(nuestro perro - our dog) - you're the best! We'll write you regarding your wedding in Perth in the next day or so...:)

To Pedro Rosas & Gloria Sanchez... gracias por tu notas dulces. Thanks Pedro for the video! Your camera's capture is delightfully clear! and yes... ¡Taco con las salsas, por favor!

Peter Kuttner for his wonderful video response... thanks for sharing the beautiful 'ant & cricket' moment. For those of you who appreciates biodiversity do visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/PeterKuttner for some of Peter's wonderful video captures.

A shout out to Bianca Hatfield! :D Woo Hoo! ..umm, sorry about the gig cancellation back in march. We hope we didn't spoil your plans for the evening.

Oh! And Mardi a.k.a. heatherhurricane for your eloquent compliment on youtube. Your feedback serves as dynamite fuel and is revitalizing to our labor of love.

Last but not least, we're so sorry about not being able to share the mp3 with those of you who requested for it. We weren't aware of the full extent of the copyright restrictions. Anyways, we're glad you like our acoustic version of Sway. Like we mentioned previously, we will promise to work hard at our original album so that we can share a small piece of our work with you soon.

A copy of this update is also posted on our blogspot. If you would like to get to know us a little more, go to: www.colorfulblac.blogspot.com

Okiez... that's all from us for now. We love you all. Pray for the bags under our eyes... hee!

Bobz and Candy

Original song: 33.Freedom

Scroll to the bottom of page for lyrics. Read along (recommended for the 1st listen).


 “33.Freedom” is written in response to the Virginia Tech shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 32 people in two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, before turning the gun upon himself.

The song attempts to illuminate the madness of what our insecurities and paranoia can drive us to do. It also suggests a flip-side to this madness, which is defined by our God-given choice to re-create our fears into a progressive unity with our surrounding.

This song is the first of many more to come that will attempt to illuminate the power of perspective in creating a unified world.

     -  In every tug-of-war there is the underlying fear that the opponent will get the better of us. So we struggle to win the tug. Strange, that it is the winner that usually ends up in the dirt.


The birth of 33.Freedom

The night after the news of the shooting, while chatting over the msn with a good friend of mine Ben Siow, we were both feeling rather disturbed and decided to vent our thoughts into a lyrical poetry. And so we wrote a line each across the continents. From that it turned into chunks of paragraphs each and by the time we had exhausted our passion it had settled into a mountain of words upon phrases.

We soon decided that there may be many people who are as puzzled about the madness that was, and who are as concerned about finding some kind of introspective lesson from it. We thought that how, by sharing our reflections upon it with the public could initiate a healing for the kindred spirit. We also knew that this has to be done quickly before this act of insanity fades into another statistic without the consolation of good counsel.

So he suggested for me to turn it into a song while he begin conceptualizing a music video for it. We toiled through the night and by morning Candy and I had completed the melodic arrangement in the Gold Coast and Ben had begun organizing the shoot over in Singapore. Meanwhile we had decided to give ourselves 2 days deadline to accomplish this feat. There was much work to be done.

For the next two days Candy and I attempted to arrange 6 guitar parts into the song before recording the vocals, then mixing and mastering the recording on our PC to the best of our ability in our noisy little ‘motor inn’ apartment.

We relay the song back and forth from Singapore where Ben had begun the tedious task of organizing the shoot on a very busy Orchard Rd. Whilst having embark upon this project with virtually ‘zero’ budget, he solicited the contribution of random passer-bys who were very graciously supportive of the cause. Now, each individual that appeared in the video were plucked out of the millions who were rushing by from their daily pre-occupations and after being briefed regarding our plight had agreed to lend a face to support the message that we were sending out. Blessed are we that even nature herself had conspired to provide perfect lighting for the occasion.

Next, comes the brain-wrecking part of pasting the pieces together. Synchronizing hundreds of visual frames to every little syncopated beat of the song - swapping the flickering images round and round, over and over in his mind and fitting the scenes together in perfect unity one after another. After numerous corrections on edits and re-edits we finally said enough is enough. We agreed that the moment has come to accept that we’ve done our best, given the time and resources that we had. It was time to return the focus onto our other daily commitments, our jobs and most of all, our loved ones.

And so, on the third day we posted it up on Youtube… spent, exhausted and happy to have abided by our higher calling.

The edit

The song is written as a rap mainly. However, since Candy and I are melodically inclined we can’t help but will to tonally re-create each line into a meaningful representation.

The hardest part of it was that there were just such a big chunk of lyrics involved. Normally as writers, we try to be selective of what we end up keeping in the songs. However, with this we felt that everything is so vital to the whole story.

Anyways, we still had to try to keep the song under 4 mins, which is considered way too long by radio play standards, which is 3mins.
So we decided to write it in a melodic “dribble”. Still it was too long which is when we decided to overlap our voices. And that did the trick! Well, sorta… it was still way over 4 mins!

Having explained all that, we would highly recommend that unless you have the rare ability to speed-listen that you have an eye thru the lyrics as you listen to it. It will give a more complete picture of the story. Imagine you’re listening to a rap song. There is usually so much to digest in so little time that unless you are a keen listener, you'd be put off rap forever. Don’t be. It’s just another form of story-telling… an acquired taste, so to speak… much like Shakespeare.



The lyrics
Man like a boy, using guns like toys
red in his mind, poppin' all those killjoys
Pop pop pop, carrying out his ploy
thinking all this rage is filling the void

Once pure and kind, but fear done its time
Over-thinking, saw a shrink but he didn't see the signs
He was shy, he would cry but his parents said he's fine
Now he's leavin behind a legacy of crime

Did he flip on a summersault on his way out of bed
33 dead, only God knows what he did
CNN's looking to blame, peers portraying the shame
Can't figure out the name of the game. Just a hell lot a pain

Answers are filtered by lies, how do you trace the truth?
JFK dies... and whatever happened to Bruce Lee?
Armed with questions, the powers turned to mute
But there's never a term for you to execute

Chorus:
33 dead they're still trying to beat
the systematic thinking that's weighing down on em 33... Why somebody gotta take the heat (take the heat)
Damn fanatic thinking that need somebody to blame

33 dead gotta let the love flow begin
Let the fears go - let your faith take a turn
33 gotta let the hearts go within
So that the people know that we're ready to learn

Yeah....Uh uhuh uhuh uh uh




Verse 2:
He's got 50 rounds of ammo and five minutes of fame
Today he is an animal that nobody can tame
He's cold and he's bold and he only shoots to kill
The college was in chaos but the aftermath is still

And in reflection, he knows he got no more
If he don't do himself, he's gotta deal with the law
Now nobody said they loved him, nobody seemed to care
He chokes his 9mm, no more crosses to bear

And I'm half way round the globe sitting in my bed
Viewing your world on my TV set`
There are times when I'm leanin too close, 2 closing my doors,
When I'm hanging by a thread(mad) swinging on the edge

We could point our fingers and call out names
Overturn tables and even end our own game
But did you serve your purpose? Is it like you rehearse?
When you look in their faces, did you get the end you deserve? Bro...
(Chorus)

Verse 3:
I know your frustration, but what you did is messed up
I can see your predicament but you need to wise up
To learn the game you need to take a step back
Look at the rules and the players, and why they play it like that

Sure it's hard when you've got a late start
But if you keep that in mind, it'll keep you smart
Cos winners may fall and losers may crawl

But where's the happiness underneath it all

At the end of the day when we lie to rest
Stripped of T-shirts and suits, and when we're all undressed
We got two hands, and two feet and two eyes and one nose
So god knows
We all got to start from scratch.. In the morning...


When we open our eyes, there's 24 ...hours
To choose an experience to do ...whatever
We can stress and hunt and kill -
Or we can come together to heal ...

Bridge:
set your mind free ah... -gotta live for freedom give for freedom

verse 4:
now loner or a groaner, he's got no sense of humor
When he saw those polo kids his mind was like a sauna
He didn't want to play, he didn't know the right way
And on the edge of depression he decided it’s pay day

And the people said they tried, they said he liked to hide
But when he came to seek, the game had turned to pride
What broke this camel's back, put him back on wrong the track
His brain was left to slack(sad) I bet it’s love he lack

It s the gun laws, character flaws, the education bore
It s the media, bad seed in ya,
It s the selfish lives we lead, the love that we need
Do we really take the time, put our pride on the line

The illusion is clear that the fact that you ain't here
You fear your past and you worry your future
But brother(sister) remember whether rich or poor
Each and every day there's only so much we-can store
Uh uh uh uh uh uhuh
Chorus