I PLAYED my first (standard operating procedure) SOP-compliant live solo gig on the night of Malaysia Day at one of my favourite live music venues, Merdekarya in Petaling Jaya.

The venue has gone through tough times financially since the start of the movement control order (MCO) last March until now during the recovery MCO period when full live music concerts are still disallowed and venues, such as Merdekarya, earn zero income.

Some venues have to adapt by expanding their food and beverage department to stay afloat, but oftentimes are understaffed.

This is the recovery period for Merdekarya. Unlike most live music venues in the Klang Valley, Merdekarya is unique as it focuses on featuring artists who compose and sing their original materials in contrast to most live music venues, which are often pubs, that tend to give attention to musicians and singers who play cover versions of popular songs and do not charge entry for patrons as their revenue stream comes from food and beverage sales.

In the seven years of Merdekarya’s existence, co-owner Brian Gomez – a brilliant topical singer-songwriter in the vein of Billy Bragg with generous dash of Malaysiana – has adapted an entry policy according to the changing attitudes and fancies of Klang Valley patrons, most of whom would pay to watch local acts playing original songs.

Venues such as Merdekarya and Live Fact in Kota Damansara do not fit into the conventional “entertainment outlet” category that city councils provide, which often lumps larger and commercial venues, such as nightclubs, and the aforementioned pubs together. This completely decontextualises the varied income streams and cultural purposes of the venues within the broad spectrum.

The nascent Malaysian underground music scene in the late 1980s and 1990s found home in nightclubs that opened their doors to budding semi-pro organisers during the daytime on weekends. This was how I got my foot in as an underground musician in Kuala Lumpur, playing underground shows organised by like-minded people who would eventually become friends and acquaint with the larger community of musicians in the “scene”. By “industry standards”, we are “part-timers” or, as I used the term earlier, “semi-pro”.

Musicians in the underground music scene usually have day jobs, often far removed from music-making as it is regarded as a hobby of sorts. Some choose to stay on the margins because of ideological reasons, like the punk subculture that is driven by the do-it-yourself ethos, often in line with environmental, civil society and anti-capitalist social awareness.

Some revel in being on the margins because the music they enjoy listening to and also making are just too extreme for public consumption. They find meaning and pleasure in such genres as they are not “integrated” into the larger mainstream popular music sphere.

As the decades go by, the term “indie” (initially short for “independent”) music became commonplace and a third space emerged – the binary opposition of commercial and underground music that includes the in-between liminal space occupied by “indie music”.

Musicians and music scholars define these categories broadly and based on different socio-economic factors.

What we have come to define as “independent music” also encompasses musicians and music as well as elements of satire and dissent, something sorely missing even in the “indie” music circuit although some forms thrive in the subterranean underground.

The discourse of “the music industry” that tends to capture public imagination is limiting, and is often discussed in treating music and music-making as mere economic commodities devoid of their richer cultural, social and political contexts. It is the kind of creative work that also sings the warts and all, and not just the beautiful and romantic.

The detrimental state of live music in Malaysia goes deeper than just about venues not being able to earn anything without live music and patrons. It also has to do with the cultural attitudes of most Malaysians who still do not see music beyond its entertainment and escapist values.

Social music that says something about us, that laughs at ourselves, and that makes us ponder who we really are now while also entertaining us with a good backbeat, is still uncommon. It is when one is forced to strip down a musician’s setup into solo singer-songwriter mode – one person, one instrument – onstage that we really test the content of our works and also the general public who may be open to new ideas and forms but just haven’t had the chance to encounter it.

This is the role that venues like Merdekarya and Live Fact play, i.e. fighting for and contesting a cultural space for its community in the face of crass commercialisation and conformity. Covid-19 has tested the resolve and resources of this community, as going through the rough is what it does best.

There may be a silver lining in this quandary we find ourselves in. But for now, the merriment is tempered with pensiveness. – September 18, 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.