[A letter to everyone of us in the group: please make sure you a ready to read a long writing]
Lawrence Lee / Drums
Paul Chiu / Lead Guitar
ArSing / Bass
ArKok Damon: / Vocal+Rhy Guitar
i'll send a list of mp3 to the sharedamon gmail soon, then we will choose 4-6 songs to play on this Sunday30-Oct2005, 7-9pm. Ya, ArSing's right that we really need to have a commited direction, here's some of my suggestions, please read & let me know what you think when we discuss later.
1/ Objective, what we wanna do: (why we gotta do this?)
• To create the sound of our band, making music as a group with attitude. (we must believe we can be a much cooler+better band around, to be one of the most important band in HK, Asia & later in the world)
• To publish our music in a way that people can listen & share (mp3, cd, radio, podcast)
• Seriously having Fun and Enjoy ourself, it would be lots of practice & hardwork (communication & patience between us are so goddam important)
• Live shows (to improvise the songs + interact experience, touching people with music rather than just doing our things)
2/ Time Planning 2006:
• if we're going to share that BandRoom (Diamond Hill) from 2006 January,
$2800 (2600+200 electricity) for 8 people = $350 each person for a month.
• Let say, we will be in the band room twice a week, 2-4 hrs, one in the weekday/another in the weekend, there be 8 times (16-32 hrs) to see each other per month, so, avoid playing covers (unless 1 or 2 when we feeling good) or hanging around doing nothing.
Jan: set-up/equipment & room decoration
Feb-Apr: Rehearsal; Making a 6-9 songs demo
May-Jun: Summer Live Shows; collecting advise/comments from expert
Jul: Cool down period, to listen, think & find out Mr.Right recording producer
Aug-Nov: Recording session
Dec: Mixing tapes, Advertising & Production Period
3/ Music Style & Direction:
Its not the limitations of our sound, its just the issue we got to decide and concentrate, I would like to divide our sound into 2 main direction, I will try to write all lyrics in Cantonese,
[A] Depressive Post Rock Moody, Slow/Dark/Sadcore, more arrangment, more than 5 minutes.
similar artists: Sigur Ros, Movie Soundtrack, Tortoise, Mogwai, Portishead, Pink Floyd, SonicYouth, YoLaTengo. (more emotional driven by paul solo, progress from Lee Drum)
kok song: Jack, Loud Hater, You've been Kissing Me, Pepper
[B] Easy Listening England Psychedelic Blues Groovy, nearly 3 minutes, Melodic.
Similar artists: Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Manic Street Prechers, Ben Harper, Soundgarden, TenYearsAfter, Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (LeeDrum/SingBass will become the main structure of songs, less freedom for Paul on this)
kok songs: Dollar Blues, Cigar Cracker, Flowers Mind, People to People, You got your Chaos Manner, Really Dig your own thing, the Beauty of your nothingness
Extra thoughts From your grandaddy Kok -
• Keep up with our inspiration, sharing music and thoughts
• Re-think and discuss at least twice a month. Talk about the weak or strong or new idea or improvements and seek solutions and solve the problems.
• Preview and get comments/suggestions from a wide range of people, friends, musicians, experts or anyone we think who are capable of doing so
• Listen to each other while playing, more together, avoid playing out of the tunes/rhythm/songs
• Push each other harder if possible, everyone contribution will make a glorious effort.
• we need to identify & understand each others point of views! For example: the term - success of this band, to me is definitely not about - being famous or making money -, its about being ourself, make an existing material (recording/performance art) for the people who love or interested in our stuff, which include myself.
• Name of our band: I used Deafhorse(DaFuHoSze) before, and later Chawoko(TeaRun), any other better one or what!?
• I know heres endless long-air kok talk now, hope u dont feel like a school project, But I still insist to keep writing this, coz nothings gonna happen if we just talk and play without OBJECTIVE. I feel Im so lucky to met guys like you. I wanna let you know what I think, & no doubt I wanna know what you think as well.
KokDamon with Passion & Heart, 27 Oct 2005
