THIS has been a busy month for me. Aside from the usual home and professional commitments and duties of a parent and academic, I was busy prepping for the release of my new solo album John Bangi Blues.

My last full album was 2015’s Was Was that was launched on Malaysia Day eve. 

As a one-man operation co-ordinating and poring for months over the album’s mixes and mastering (by my friend and singer-songwriter Ariff Akhir)  during the movement control order period and catching up on the album sleeve design (by my friend Joe Kidd of seminal punk band Carburetor Dung) after I slacked off and became distracted by other pressing things, I spent a lot of time reminiscing about the past decade and being perplexed at the volume of releases, performances and tours I did independently while also barely maintaining my sanity.

I am a social artiste: my work reflects the time and place I live in and is often informed by the socio-political tides of the period I write down my songs. Sometimes they are old songs I reconnect with and find some strange significance I had not noticed before.

As someone trained in film and media, I strive to apply social realism into my songs, which is not a very hip thing to do here, but something I also extend beyond the songs and into the album artwork, promotion, and banter during my live shows.

Back to 2015. So my bandmates and I in Orkes Padu launched Was Was at my “traditional” launching site – the venerable and probably the live venue with the best acoustics in the Klang Valley: No Black Tie.

I had my first paying gig here as a young troubadour finding his place in the circuit back in 2001 at its first location a few shoplots up Jalan Mesui. It now houses the Rainforest Bed & Breakfast next to Pisco Bar, which is another one of my stomping grounds in the mid-2010s.

Malaysia Day eve in 2015 was literally a hazy one – the annual haze that choked the nation was back with clockwork precision. And to add salt to the wound, there was an online threat of racial unrest by a group of so-called red shirted racist right-wing “nationalists” who issued a physical threat against non-Malays in Kuala Lumpur.  

This was the “wilderness years” post-2013 general election leading up to the short-lived “New Malaysia” of 2018. The neo-revolutionary spirit of the said election and the preceding landmark one in 2008 had dissipated and Malaysia seemed to return to business as usual and apathy re-emerged.  

Nonetheless, the band was in no way disheartened. The haze was thick and we expected a lower turnout than the ones at our last two album launches of Warga and Wilayah in 2010 and 2012, respectively, at the No Black Tie. The crowds, comprising friends and fans from the music subculture and broader performing arts scene, spilled outside the venue.

The combination of the haze and the right-wing lunatics deterred a lot of friends from going out and coming to the launch, but we nevertheless managed to pack the place indoors.

Five years later, on September 16, 2020, it was going to be an inevitably quieter album launch for John Bangi Blues. Not only has the live music circuit been debilitated and also unfairly dismissed by our leaders, the media landscape has also changed drastically with social media being the new short-term memory promotional battleground and opportunistic online streaming music apps replacing novel physical merchandise you could actually purchase.

Merdekarya in Petaling Jaya, my new stomping ground for the past seven years or so, blessed the album’s “soft launch” a.k.a. the online release on my Bandcamp page http://azmyl.bandcamp.com.

This was predated by several low-budget music video collaborations to entice audiences online. Even though the album is a trio band electric album, I could only perform solo with my electric guitar as the RMCO is in force.

The CD format of the album will be launched on Record Store Day on September 26 (I’m doing personalised home delivery of the album for pre-order to keep the rapport alive) – two months later than the original date I had planned in July before the Covid19 virus thrust. It will be available at only independent music stores.

Many friends and peers have not noticed how productive I have been unlike the predicament most musicians find themselves in. I owe that to the fact that I had already planned it in 2019 and no virus is going to get in my way of getting my social commentary songs out in time.

Songs in this vein are very time-specific and must parallel the current broader socio-cultural sentiments when unleashed into the world.

More importantly, as a writer I thrive creatively in the face of adversity because I live by the “If life throws you lemons…” principle: I compose as a way to cope and react to my external environment and stimuli.

Frankly, I’m making it up as I go along when it comes to social media and trying to second guess the evils of its algorithms. As much as we learn, we must also unlearn and relearn.

While I do believe most of us have done this since it is forced upon us, the people in power seem to never learn their lessons and are caught in a loop.

But fear not: their folly is fodder for my next creative endeavour. Nothing goes to waste. – September 25, 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.