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Good Vibes Festival 2013 : The Smashing Pumpkins, Modest Mouse, Ash And Japandroids

svanapaper — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:47:59 +0000

Future Sound Asia (FSA) today (12/06) announced that it will present Good Vibes Festival (#GoodVibesFest), Malaysia’s very own music festival for all ages on Saturday, 17 August 2013, fromv4pm to late at the Sepang International Kart Circuit. Headlining are iconic international musicians, The Smashing Pumpkins,(“1979”, “Tonight, Tonight”), Modest Mouse (“Float On”, “Dashboard”), Ash(“Girl From Mars”) and Japandroids(“The House That Heaven Built”, “Fire’s Highway”), who will play exclusively in Malaysia. The headliners will join a host of local acts and tastemaker DJs from around the region. More international and regional acts will be confirmed in a later announcement. #GoodVibesFest is supported by Ministry of Tourism and Culture and Malaysia Major Events, a division of Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB). “Malaysia is hungry for good major events and we hope to supply potentially Malaysia’s best home grown music festival by introducing Good Vibes Festival, with its smashing line-up and an entertaining outdoor festival experience for all age groups. We want to put Malaysia on the map and connect both international and local musicians to their large fanbase,” said FSA Director Ben Law. #GoodVibesFest will transform the Sepang International Kart Circuit into a lively outdoor landscape for a regional audience with discerning tastes for music, art, fashion and food. A celebration of great music, positivity, and creativity, festival-goers of all ages will be tempted to wander the landscape dominated by three stages, art installations, fashion exhibits and a food village. The festival’s three outdoor stages will emanate music for all appetites. The Blue stage atmosphere is laidback at first, showcasing the likes of Pastel Lite and The Impatient Sisters before morphing after sunset into the high-voltage sounds of They Will Kill Us All and Japandroids. The Green stage will feature local and regional electronic music such as Twilight Actiongirl and Deer Society, all known to draw crowds to their feet. The Red stage— the heart of every festival— will provide a continuous pulse of good vibes from acts such as local darling Liyana Fizi, Kyoto Protocol (fresh off the heels of TV9 reality show Versus), and the complex sounds of Monoloque, culminating in the highly-anticipated headlining performances of Smashing Pumpkins and Modest Mouse.To extend #GoodVibesFest’s creative experience, festival-goers in need of retail therapy will love Chic Vibes, a collaboration between fashion news portal Tongue In Chic and festival apparel sponsor Chic Yamada. Expect tosee the exclusive debut of Chic Yamada’s festival capsule collection as well as the designs of five local and five regional up-and-coming fashion labels. Offering respite to the ongoing festivities, Chic Vibes will house a beauty bar complete with a host of pampering services. Also at #GoodVibesFest, Malaysian artist Nini Ramlan will undertake the mammoth task of curating art installations to bring the festival venue to life. Integral to any festival experience, #GoodVibesFest will also present GoodBites, a food village that will house a tantalising spread of favourite festival foods dished out by local artisan entrepreneurs. Organised by Future Sound Asia, with support from Malaysia Major Events, #GoodVibesFest is expected to attract some 10,000 attendees, including 3,000 foreign arrivals from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. 2013 is an important year for Malaysia as the country gears up to usher in Visit Malaysia Year 2014 (VMY 2014). Themed “Celebrating 1Malaysia…Truly Asia”, VMY 2014 is the ministry’s timely endeavour to meet the country’s 2020 tourist arrival target. In 2014 alone, the ministry aims to attract 28 million in tourist arrivals. “Good Vibes Festival is the perfect example of a home grown creation that showcases Malaysia’s ability in producing an experiential event of international standard. Our support of the event is a testament to the commitment in making Malaysia the major events destination in Asia. This public and private initiative will increase Malaysia’s international profile and compliment Visit Malaysia Year 2014 promotional campaign,” said Mr. Zulkefli Hj. Sharif, Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB). General Manager of Malaysia Major Events, Mr. Tony Nagamaiah said: “We fully support Future Sound Asia’s efforts in organising Good Vibes Festival— a celebration of not just the music scene, but of its fans from all around the region. Malaysia has an irrefutable track record of hosting and creating major music festivals of world-class calibre. Looking at both market demand and FSA’s professional track record, we are confident Good Vibes Festival will be a great catalyst to generate momentum towards Visit Malaysia Year 2014.

Japandroids: First time in South East Asia

Faisal Nugraha — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:11:05 +0000

Japandroids is a Canadian rock duo formed in 2006, consists of Brian King (Vocals, Guitar) and David Prowse (Drums, Vocals). Although after their two EPs, All Lies and Lullaby Death Jam, by the end of 2008 the duo decided to disband, but in early 2009, the band decided to continue temporarily after signing a contract with independent Canadian label Unfamiliar Records to release their first full-length album, Post-Nothing. This album gained fame and good reviews from music’s most reliable media such as Spin and Pitchfork. In 2012, Japandroids released their sophomore album, Celebration Rock and gained wide praise. The album made it to Rolling Stone’s list of 50 best albums of 2012 and stamped “Best New Music” from Pitchfork.

Prior to their scheduled set at St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival on January 26th, 2013, we’ve talked to Dave Prowse about visiting new places, their love of touring, and their success in 2012.

Hello Dave, so, how are you?
Hi! Yeah, everything’s fine.

Straight to our first question of the day, Japandroids has been known for their love of touring, so what’s it about touring that you love?
Pretty much everything about it, you know. Well obviously getting to travel to many different places, but also to be honest, playing music in front of an audience who know your songs, and sing along, and have that kind of moment of connection with a huge group of people, That’s the best feeling that I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t really think you could beat that.

Celebration Rock has gained wide praise from Spin, Pitchfork, even Rolling Stone, did you expect those kind of reactions while making this album?
Um, no I don’t think you can make an album while expecting those kinds of reactions. You just hope that you could make an album you’ll be proud of. To be honest, the accolades and reviews for this record haven’t given us much surprise compared to Post-Nothing. At that time we’d never thought anyone would like it, but then a lot of people heard it and a lot of people liked it. So, yeah this time around it was a little bit strange, but yes, it was strange. Obviously it was very flattering to get all those critical acclaim.

What’s the difference between Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock from the process of the making?
Yeah, we’ve become a very different band by the time we made Celebration Rock. When we made Post-Nothing we were still a local band in Vancouver. So we made Post-Nothing in a very short time, because at that time we didn’t have a lot of money. So that’s the reason why we made this album very quick. When we made Celebration Rock, we just wanted to rebuild the vibe (of the making of the first album). So we decided to work again with Jesse (Gander, the producer of their first album) because he’s a fantastic engineer. During the making of this album, we’ve got a lot more of time, a lot more of money, and also an expectations of our fans, because at the time we made Post-Nothing, we’re just making a record for ourselves. So, yeah, Celebration Rock is a lot more stressful, that’s why it took so long.

Japandroids’songs contains a lot of strong rock n roll lyrics such as “Fire”, “Highway”, and “Adrenaline”. Could you tell us more about your lyrics?
First of all, I didn’t write the lyrics, it was all Brian. But I’m pretty sure he made the lyrics to be easy so all people could interpret it. Figuring the meaning of the song by their will, I’m pretty sure that’s the way we operate.

So, Brian wrote most of the songs, right? Why did you choose to cover (The Gun Club’s) “For The Love of Ivy”?
The Gun Club is a band that we’re really loved and we’re really respect. And “For the Love of Ivy” is a great song that we’re not really capable of writing on our own. It has a different kind of energy and wilderness that we’ve never been able to capture, and also it’s still fit to put it with the other songs in the album.

Have you ever thought about having another member in the band?
Well, you know you’re limited, knowing that you have only 2 people in this band. But I’m pretty sure there are a lot of bands that consists of 2 members and they made a really good music. So that’s why we never thought about an idea of having another member in the band, even though we once thought of having a vocalist because Brian and I loves the way we play guitar & drums, the way it blended, but we’re really struggled to blend it with a perfect vocal.

Lets talk about St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, it’s your first festival in 2013, and Singapore will be the first city in South East Asia that you’ll be going to. What can we expect from the show?
Hopefully it’ll just be a really sweaty fun energetic show, just like all other show. Playing our music as loudly as possible, hopefully having a really good time and hopefully the crowd responded to that and having a really good time with us too. Well, we’ve never been to that part of the world and we’re really looking forward to play in a new place, new country with these new people to enjoy the music with us.

Now, it’s our last question. Even though St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival was being held in Singapore, there are a lot of Indonesians wanting to fly overseas to attend the festival. So, is there any message to Indonesian fans?
Yeah, we wish we could make it to Indonesia sometimes soon, To be honest I didn’t know that people noticed our band in Indonesia, but we’re really love to play in a brand new place, with a brand new people as much as we could. So, yeah, if you guys in Indonesia want us to play with you guys, please let us know, we’re trying to make it possible.

For your information, Japandroids’svinyl were being sold at one of Indonesia’s independent record store.
Oh yeah? Really? Awesome. What’s the name of the record store?

It was Monka Magic.
Wow, cool, I never thought of it.

So Dave, that’s it for today, thanks for the interview, we’re really looking forward to rock on with you at St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival.
Oh yeah, see you soon, and we’re really looking forward to play with you guys.

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To find out more about Japandroids, check out their official page and to learn more about Laneway this year, check out our trivia article. (Faisal Nugraha)