MASSIVE Jam Session for our last night at Frenz, Friday April 25 2008!!

RaggyProject@Frenz Blog

It was a glorious final night at Frenz, thanks to all the musicians and supporters who turned up. The music went on till 2.59 a.m.! And then there was still a lot of partying to do, the pub finally emptied at what, 4.30?

Photos, videos and a complete report on the night's happenings will be posted here soon (dammit I'm still groggy!). In the meanwhile, here's something blurry (I'm still trying to figure how how to do this video thingy) to mull over:

Musicians who turned up and jammed till wayyyyyyyyyyyy into the a.m. included:
The Moreiras, a singing father-and-son duo, Vincent and Adrian, who brought back some golden memories with their harmony-laden songs.
Rizal, guitarist and founder of Paku, Penang's top indie group. Rizal helped tremendously, bringing in amps and guitar and helping keep things running smoothly/ Thanks Riz!
Nain, guitarist and blues-harp player from Kulim.
Lan, drummer from Kulim too, who runs a jamming studio. Lan played some incredible drums througout the varied jam styles.
Ismail Bruno, bassist from Butterworth, whose vocals needed to be seen to be heard!
Ming, guitarist from Penang, a hard-rock freak who showed he has some mean and cool Blues chops too....
Tapa, Malaysian drummer based in Paris! Easily the youngest guy at the party!
Yek, blues-harp purist from Perai.
Richard, guitarist of the mainland-nased indie-rock group PODsiedon
Sam Ponnudurai, superstar solo artiste, who showed why he is the king of the solo guitarist-singer form. It took a LOT of effort to get guys to leave the stage, everyone wanted a chance to jam along with Sam. SAM RULES, OK!
Even Daniel, our DJ, got into the act and showed his stuff on the guitar!
Mark NotKnopffler, vocalist, stole the night with his rendition of U2's "With Or Without You"
Iwan, vocalist with Paku, jammed the DeepPurple set

An extremely-blurry and raw-audio (that means shitty!) came out of the combined talents of Eisubius and Adrian, with various drunken friends taking turns to attempt holding the borrowed (thanks Andy!) videocam. Hence the youtube videos ar of "it sucks" quality. Anyone keen on similar sux quality videos in DVD format can drop us an e-mail or ask Derek at Frenz....said shitty videos may still hold warm memories or at least remind you what you were up to before you passed out......cost is whatever it costs to make a copy of the DVDs (there are 2 1-hour-approx DVDs).

07 March 2008: Our 1st night at Frenz, our 1st gig as the RaggyProject band!! Did I sense some anxiety in the air when I told Derek last week that this would be this lineup's 1st gig, and that we had a drummer who'd been with us all of 3 weeks...poor Derek must have developed ulcers, but to his credit he kept a brave front. So, Opening Night, there we were with our repertoire of classic songs...eclectic, but classics, that would be what we play, folks, so sorry we're not doing Hotel Balifornia and Another Prick In The Wall and the like, but will the folks at the pub take to our music...???
YES!!! The night is a success! It's a great crowd, and they're having fun and we play an extra set to show our appreciation for the crowd's support.

14 March 2008: Another great night, at some point in time the place was so crowded some folks had to sit at the pool table! Song requests kept coming in for all sorts of stuff, who was it asking for Madonna's Like A Virgin, I didn't know whether to laugh or throw up, probably should have done both. Ended up doing a Blues-themed night, each set having a liberal dose of Blues songs. Let them Penangites listen to some real music for a change!

21 March 2008: It was a smaller crowd this night, what with the holiday weekend and F1 in Sepang and Good Friday and all, but it turned out to be a really great pub night and we finished extra-late! Why let them think they got you figured out, this time we shifted focus from rock/blues and did more Country, Pop and Folk songs, with the last 2 sets becoming huge sing-alongs, everybody (EVERYBODY) in the house was singing along to most of the songs.... it was a special night, only possible with such a sporting crowd.

28 March 2008: Big crowd. What would tonight's theme be? Pointless doing the same songs in the same format each show, so we try to highlight a different theme each week, makes it more interesting for the regulars. We had a whole pile of new songs, and also did Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade Of Pale", not without some trepidation as we're doing it without the signature organ, just our guitar-bass-drums format, and it could easily have fallen flat and spoilt the mood for all those who love/venerate this song, but it turned out well and YES! , seems like we managed to capture that song's essence.

Which would have been the highlight, really, except the last set ended up as a great big jam session with a whole pile of musicians who had the crowd (so nowadays at 1.00 a.m. nobody even looks at the exit, everyone's waiting for the "extra" late set, bloody hell we're spoiling you lot, aren't we, are you buying us drinks......). So anyway the last set was one of the bestest pub sessions ever for all concerned, lots of musicians having fun and the crowd being treated to some great musicianship and the sheer exuberance of the night was truly one of those memorable experiences. Thanks to Lan from Kulim on drums, showing the younger boys what great drumming is all about, also the Paku band who took turns to jam with everybody, Rizal doing some outstanding guitar work, Lina making jaws drop when she took over the guitar, Nain (from Kulim too!) showing his fretboard stuff. Paku's Alex on drums was in his element, as was Wan on vocals and Jewin on bass, we kept rotating the musicians so there was always someone playing with folks they'd never played with before. Just the happy looks on all the musicians' faces spoke volumes, it was a great jam session night! Another one for the record books :)

04 April 2008: Tonight was a mixed bag of events. We started off with that melancholy "Stormy Monday Blues", then did some John Mayall and Junior Welles blues covers, just to see how far we could push the good Penang folks :) The second set started with a request from BirthDay Boy James' group, they wanted rock, and well the second set ended up a full session of 70's rock. The late set was a complete turnaround: Calypso songs in 3-part vocal harmony, thanks to Vincent Moreira and Mark NotKnopffler. Eclectic or insane, you decide!

11 April 2008: Another crazy night! From the moment we walked into Frenz with our equipment, there was this big group of guys seated at the front who started asking us to play Hindi songs!! LOL! Durvan and me really came in for some plastering when we said hey we're a Blues/Rock band, we don't do Hindi love songs.....the guys just would not accept this, and they'd been drinking for over 4 hours already.....oh dear, oh dear.....trouble on the horizon, I thought, but they also looked like a bunch of decent fellows so maybe if we gave them a good Blues song during the soundcheck, they'd see our point....
And so for the soundcheck we did an extended slow-blues song. Nothing connects with whisky-soaked brain cells like the blues, I say......and I was right! Those guys well and truly connected with the Blues, and much to our amazement they stayed up right till the very last set, giving us lots of positive vibes and appreciative comments...THANKS GUYS!
The night also saw us do 2 all-time classics. Stairway To Heaven, in all it's glory, went down very well, but the one really special song was "Light My Fire" where we recreated the Doors' "live" version in our 3-piece format, again we managed to capture the feel of the song even though we have no organist/keyboardist. Wonderful and euphoric feeling, doing that song!

Rizal was around, so we got him playing the guitar for some songs, but the star of the night turned out to be Durvan, who sang his first song ever and it was "Sweet Child Of Mine" played in a higher key than we'd practiced it. The madman pulled it off superbly! Well-deserved rousing applause, and now to find him more songs to sing :)

18 April 2008: Our first quiet night. What with Jupiter in alignment with Neptune and Mars shining light on Pluto, it was a laid-back night. We even sang some Jim Croce and Neil Diamond. The highlight of the night was the new waitress, she turned a Whiter Shade of Pale on that Black Label......

Come See Us, Fridays at Frenz Fun Pub, Crystal Point, Penang.

Shameless plug here: If you want to support our music, you might want to buy my album or songs online. It helps keeping the project running!