ON January 4, I played my first show of the year in Batu Berendam, Malacca. I cherish the opportunity to perform outside of the Klang Valley (and tour when the occasion calls for it) – well, I have to make it happen as I am my own manager, tour manager, etc – which is part and parcel of the music culture and practice of the underground music community.

This January gig was a long time in the making. I had been requesting organiser friends for shows I could be a part of since sometime in July, but all the venues and events were fully booked all the way to the end of the year.

In fact, the show last Saturday was postponed from its original New Year’s Eve date when the organisers realised there was already another show (a free show, at that) happening on the same date. Not wanting to lose the audience for a free show, they decided to move the other one to January.

I was hoping I could bring my power trio Azmyl & the Truly Asia for this show, but alas, it was not to be, as my bandmates already had prior commitments during the January weekend. But the show must go on, as goes my philosophy.

This trip was particularly poignant because I decided to travel alone and stay at the less touristy side of the Malacca River in Kota Syahbandar, which is in essence borne from the massive land reclamation on the coast of the state.

After arriving just before midnight on a rainy Friday night, I decided to drive around the still-deserted west side of my hotel, which, according to Google Maps, is the area known as Klebang Besar, on a cool and cloudy Saturday morning.

To my dismay, as I drove past a still-closed funfair and Muzium Kapal Selam on the cool, cloudy Saturday morning, the road came to a dead end, next to a makeshift horse stable and an apartment complex under construction.

While I did walk past the barrier and noticed a group of people walking towards the reclaimed coast, I decided to just take some photos and abandoned my attempt to walk to the end of the dirt road.

This part of Malacca reminded me a lot about how pop music culture is – how the original, the authentic is often “mowed over” and “reclaimed” by industries that have little regard and no acknowledgement for history.

Far from being despondent, my underground instincts often elevate the mundane and embrace the small yet meaningful joys I find in my creative journeys.

What I love about underground gigs is the surprises one will come across as the acts performing are for the majority – and I hate using this term – non-professionals a.k.a. “real people” who are playing music because they want to, and are saying or emoting things because they mean it (as opposed to pleasing a crowd or venue).

My underground habits and working methods have gotten me in a fix in the past because I usually say what I want to say and call a spade a spade.

This is one reason I don’t really enjoy the mainstream or “pop” scene. I had given it a shot and I felt like an impostor even though it pays well. Plus, the genres that interest me aren’t commercial, anyway.

As I get older, I’m returning to my underground scene roots, playing smaller underground shows at music studios and such.

The only change now is that the underground music scene has grown exponentially in both the number of participants and types of spaces, but it is a grassroots-based growth, not a corporate one.

Take for example the humble record store and cafe. The entrepreneurial (I’m not a fan of this terminology but it’s the most apt description) nature of some of the music underground practitioners has conflated these separate entities into one.

This would not be the case with a commercial-minded entity as we have yet to witness such a phenomenon in the mainstream, as the mainstream still believes that recording formats (CDs, cassettes, and vinyls) are obsolete.

What’s interesting about my Malacca gig that Saturday was that the venue was a throwback to when I first started performing 20-odd years ago.

It was in a well-worn, grungy place called Adam Music Studio that is spacious enough to accommodate a live music event (it hosts shows regularly). I felt at home.

The underground and the subculture, unlike the mainstream industry, respects what is present because its practitioners and participants are a part of the present society and culture.

They aren’t there to make a quick buck and exploit. Subcultures reclaim the symbolic; capitalism reclaims only for its own sake. – January 13, 2023.

* 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.