ONE year ago today, I woke up to a cool, drizzling Taipei City morning as my bandmates scuttled from our 20th-floor Airbnb to catch a taxi to the airport.

Our noise-rock outfit The Maharajah Commission, which three friends and I co-founded in 1999, had just embarked on a four-city tour of Taiwan that started a week early, and it was the first time I actually went on tour proper abroad with one of my band projects.

My flight was the next day around midnight because I booked mine last and found a better, cheaper deal (a retractable seat that turns into a semi-bed – my first-ever experience!) than the rest of the gang. Plus, I always enjoy wandering around alone in a foreign city as it gives me ample time and space to reflect more deeply on the meaning of life. My attitude is that you never know when you’ll get to travel again, although the opportunity is quite frequent for me in my vocation as a touring musician.

To me, touring is not just an exercise in promoting a new work or performing in different places back to back. It is “hijrah”, a migration of not just the physical self, but also of character and values. With every tour I’ve set out on, I’ve changed. I may not be the most pious of characters, but I am a believer, and I see the spiritual in every human endeavour. And, making and performing music is spiritual to me, regardless of what anyone else says.

There is also a sense of the divine when one is onstage and in “the zone” (more on this next week), an experience most musicians share with one another after we finish a damn good set but which we keep just to ourselves because, well, it’s kind of hard to explain if you haven’t been there. Being in “the zone” in a foreign land is even more special if you consider the fact that your art has broken cultural and physical boundaries in an actual organic space (as opposed to listening to or watching live shows online).

One gains a very different sense of empathy from touring that is hard to describe unless you’ve done some touring as a musician yourself. It’s in stark contrast to the experience of filmmakers invited to or selected for a film festival; there’s always a degree of grandeur with the red-carpet walk, photo op, interviews, press conferences, afterparties, etc. Likewise for those in the visual arts who get their works exhibited overseas, which comes with its own fanfare.

The life of a band on the road differs greatly. You start to understand the hierarchical nature of playing music and how touring culture is still pretty much a domain of Western artistes since it is commodified to fit their pre-existing systems and structure. On our continent, musicians in East and South Asia probably have a better opportunity to make these jaunts a career option due to their population and audience reach. In Southeast Asia, only Indonesia and the Philippines have the critical mass and cultural literacy that allow single-minded independent (and even underground) artistes to stake their claim.

Unfortunately, Malaysia is far from these trends. We do have artistes and “artis” who go abroad, but seldom to tour or do any meaningful legwork. It’s not in their lexicon, cultural orbit and social network to think outside the box and plan performances at smaller venues apart from the fully funded showcase they’re invited to. It’s a luxurious, materialistic experience. All comfort, no soul.

It’s already hard earning a living being a full-time musician in this country, let alone a single-minded artiste with something to say. The aforementioned comfortable experiences can be considered a reward for you and your team’s hard work, but life is a journey, not a destination. How sustainable can this journey be?

To rub salt into the wound, the bureaucrats who are supposed to help relieve your plight are just seat-warming pencil pushers and opportunists bereft of expertise in the fields they’ve been put in charge of, with very little desire to understand and learn, most of the time.

The arts are still an afterthought in Malaysia, and while some of us use ingenuity to find ways to support our art-making and touring, the majority are caught in the middle due to economic disparities and realities. I’m encouraged to report that we on the underground music circuit regularly trudge the path off the beaten track with glee, keeping the fire lit for all. Not once are we ungrateful for such paths and the opportunities accorded to us.

Yes, it is a romantic notion, and if you’re not a romantic, the life of a wandering troubadour is not for you. Let the four walls, your fancy gadgets and the air conditioning be your companions. We’ll live for you. – May 1, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.