LAST weekend, I played two different gigs – one at a venue at which I’ve been regularly plying my trade in Petaling Jaya, and another that I haven’t been to in Kuala Lumpur since they changed management.

On Sunday night, I played at the Live Space Jam Open Mic at The Bee in Publika.

The Bee in Publika – whose first, smaller outlet in Jaya One has since shut – has been housing local and international musical acts for the past decade or so.

Like most live music venues in the Klang Valley, it operated a kitchen and a bar as a business to sustain live music performances, the stage for which occupied a rather prominent space at one side of the establishment.

I’ve had many a gig there, all memorable (some I don’t really remember for various reasons), but the obvious difference is the upscale nature of Publika, which caters to upper middle-class patrons.

Most of the gig attendees probably only come to Publika for the gigs at The Bee when one is happening and don’t really shop at the mall.

Mind you, Publika also hosts several live music events – pre-pandemic, the large outdoor stage hosted all sort of live music events, in which I have played as a solo singer-songwriter, in a band, and even in an experimental group called Ciplak, which I’m sure would have left the regular Publika crowd bewildered.

Most of the live music concerts on the outdoor stage would eventually host more pop and jazz acts (read: family-friendly acts), which is increasingly the flavour of the moment for a lot of upscale live music venues in Kuala Lumpur.

However, Publika used to have the Black Box venue (which the pandemic has effectively made redundant) adjacent to the outdoor live stage, which hosted louder underground gigs and theatre performances.

Naturally, my noisier bands have played here countless times, but the anti-musical based on my life and songs by Five Arts Centre (directed by Mark Teh), “Something I Wrote”,  were also staged there 10 years ago.

For the uninitiated, Black Box caters to different forms of performing arts, something that was popularised by The Actor’s Studio, which now only runs the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre.

One of my first gigs in fact was at the original, now-closed The Actor’s Studio Dataran Merdeka, which hosted a lot of underground gigs in its heyday and was essentially the centre of activity until it was flooded.

Anyways, back to last Sunday. This open mic series was organised by a group of younger singer-songwriters who started it online during the pandemic. It was then called Virtual Space Jam via Zoom.

Most probably borne out of the frustration of being homebound and not gigging during the lockdown, this group slowly made a headway in the community, notably for young and budding musos, by organising it consistently – something our government and bureaucracy could learn from.

If there’s one thing about organising open mics, it is that it needs to be kept going consistently for a long period of time.

As someone who used to co-organise such open mics in the past, it is a task that can only be carried out consistently by people in a particular age range – late twenties to mid-thirties.

Oh, and you do it out of passion, not the money, because frankly, there’s not much and it’s beside the point.

I felt nostalgic performing and attending the gig on Sunday because aside from the varying open mic participants – who tend to be regulars and fellow performers – and the degree of talent they bring to the stage, it is ultimately the sense of camaraderie and community that trumps all else.

It’s not necessarily a place to be “discovered” – it happens sometimes and it did to me after Sunday’s gig.

Someone younger and probably not familiar with my body of work and philosophy, contacted me via my social media asking if I was interested in joining his cover band for pub or event gigs.

He liked my vocals, to which I cheekily replied, “I hope you also like what I’m saying”, which is something most people overlook when they are impressed by a singer’s voice.

Anyway, I had to politely decline as I would not have been able to commit, but it’s nice to be noticed for something you personally don’t pay much attention to – in my case, my voice.

My physical voice, not my inner voice – the latter I pay a lot of attention to and nourish. – February 24, 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.