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We Have Moved (Yes, Again)

Hello.

If you’re reading this. You’re one moment too late.

This blog is dead.

We have moved to this new address: http://cove2red.tumblr.com/

Come visit! We love having you around!! :)

xx

Rach + Yinky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

something brilliant

‎I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by
dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

- jack london

Hot Off The Virtual Press

can’t believe i’m back here in less than 24 hours.. “i’m chaaaaaaaaanging…”)

here’s a little interview i did with insing.com a day after yinky flew off.

http://events.insing.com/feature/up-close-with-cove-red/id-51922100

hope she won’t kill me for picking that really smiley/old photo of us. :D

cove

blogging is obviously not our forte..

well, actually, i (rach) suck at it more.

anyway, since yinky’s gone for the month (visiting family in the US. she’s an aunt!), i feel the need to revisit this space and do some housekeeping.

so what have we been up to.. let’s see..

• 12th June: Opening performance for Stellar Memory’s EP Launch (with Daniel)
• 4th July: Rock The Region at Esplanade Waterfront (with Zhong Ren and Daniel)
• 18th July: Loudfest at Ngee Ann City (with Zhong Ren and Daniel)
• Video shoot for “Mistakes” for Noise Singapore
• Recording of “Taste of Life” for Noise’s SYOG compilation CD

so yeah,  it’s been quite a busy period for us, but totally fun, especially during the world cup season. We hurried through most practices just to zip to the nearest German bar opposite Yinky’s place in time to watch the matches! :)

oh and we bought some new instruments!! our beautiful rainbow-colored glockenspiel (currently unnamed) and “Thunderella” the thunder tube – the SPG (sound-producing gizmo) that doubles up as a great 80s’ snare! <3 these two babies made our 4th July gig such a blast! :) speaking of which, it really is the best cove red gig we’ve ever had so far. we got to use an electric guitar + weird alien sounds +thunderella and glock + we had a full band + we got to do some cool covers like “go do” by jonsi! after the gig, we met this egyptian guy called Eray who told us that the music we played made him feel good. :) whoopee!

we also met these two new “fans”, Jenny + Jake at LoudFest. they first heard us at our 4th July gig. Then while shopping at Ngee Ann City, they heard us during our sound check, and decided to check in at our gig that was 2+ hours later. it was such a joy meeting them. they were a really happy and enthusiastic couple! :) till we meet again!

ahh…we’re both so pleased that we FINALLY got “Taste of Life” properly recorded!! :) mucho gracias to our dear amigos, dan, zhong ren and ian for adding so much to our song! :) the song will be featured in Noise SG’s YOG compilation album. more details to come!

we also had to shoot this music video for Noise as part of YOG. We decided to use “Mistakes” since  it’s the most upbeat song in our “Awaken The Dreamer” EP.  we got attached to a few NTU film students, Eileen and Nelson (and 2 other friends whose names I don’t remember! yikes) who were really nice. the video called for a morning shoot. yinky and i, two nocturnal creatures, were summoned out of our beds and onto the streets of orchard at an unearthly 6.30am on a tuesday morning! thankfully, all went well, albeit with some minor hiccups, like rain and an unfriendly security guard at orchard central. we’ll let you guys have a look when it’s up! and huge thanks to the crew! you guys rocked. :)

here are some snapshots from various events. :)

stellar memory, for this cycle, daniel and us!

dan, zhong ren and us after our gig at Loudfest last sunday :)

august seems set to be another pretty crazy month! upon touching singaporean soil on 11th august, yinky and i will have to meet up to practice for the following shows!

• 16th August – SYOG gig at *Scape
• 21st August – gig at The Edge carnival (another SYOG event)
• 23rd August and 29th August – Esplanade Concourse gig with Zhong Ren
• 31st August (TBC) – Esplanade gig with Kevin and Narisa

phew. tired just thinking about it. :P haha..

for more updates, follow us on twitter (cove2red) or search for us on facebook!

till next time! :)

rach

the day we sang miley

we did a little gig at camp rainbow this morning. i was so glad for the chance to be around these precious kids.. typically overlooked + misunderstood. i was grateful for a place they could be free to be themselves, among new friends sharing a common understanding..

liked watching the inspiring staff + volunteers + this dance group that did funny kiddie-friendly circus-like dances in wetsuits. the kids singing if we hold on together set my eyes brimming with tears more than twice. not sure why. i guess i see them as heroes in their own right.

ooh, and i ran into my sec2-classmate-now-turned-doctor.. who calls me by my full name. really funny. hardly anyone ever does that anymore.

Red

the summer approaches

i don’t really know what the summer has to do with gigs, but it seems like they’re all flooding in right around this time. here are some tidbits of what we have up our sleeves for this new season.. enjoy!

practice snippet #1: jonsi

practice snippet #2: future of forestry

newsong sneak preview

recording demos squish our brains

“a miracle, through & through”

backstage with the guys

what a treat of a lifetime.

ok let’s backtrack, for those of you who don’t know the story…

i still remember the moment in the car Cove sent me kevin mathews’ sms about *scape needing a opening acoustic act for copeland‘s singapore gig. bro was next to me. my eyes went wiiiide and showed him. “omg! omg! omg!” we went, half-stunned and laughing.

bro + friends (zhong, ian, matt) came over to my little non-soundproof studio that tuesday and we videoed taste of life at 11pm. can’t imagine the walls/ceiling were very thick and it’s a wonder no one came knocking on our door. matt went back to work @ faraway fusionopolis afterward : (

thanks to bro’s  genius, Cove formed this ridiculous FB group to promote the vid. a week later we were hard up against lovely zahidah (who i’d seen ‘live’ before + did like her sound a lot).. we were pretty much trailing and the day before nemesis i’d given up. haha. on the last day of voting tho, some mad friends of ours (you know who you are.. thanks from the bottom of our hearts) promoted us like siao + votes went crazy. it was a very, very close finish..

overawed.

the day of. getting to chat a little with the guys esp. stephen (guitarist) and aaron (frontman) backstage was prolly the best part of the entire 2 days.. they were really down-to-earth, nice, and encouraging.

invading the dressing room (politely)

got them to sign next to their profiles. felt a bit bad that stephen + dean (bassist) weren’t even on this album and they had to sign on the cover instead.

bryan (i think) to aaron: "wow, you look so clean-shaven in this one"

they kept saying “we’re really looking forward to hearing your set”… we’re like huh.. it’s kinda the opposite..

dreamer + taste of life

here’s a great shot (thanks to ong jiankai) of our little 10-minute stint which was rather surreal. btw we went about 20km/h faster than usual. oh, nerves. #1 thought running through my head: “what am i doing here??” #2 thought: “wow, people are cheering?” Thanks for the support, everyone!!

watching the show backstage was a dream + i even felt compelled to kneel during brightest..??!! songs from beneath medicine tree like california and testing the strong ones resonated like old friends. here’s more from the copeland shows.. great footage with clear sound! thanks tjbanks..

i was introduced to beneath medicine tree around the time in motion came out, in 2005, lent to me by my rapper/drummer friend B. i held the former captive for so long that he had to finally bug me about it, and i admitted that i’d been hoping he wouldn’t notice… At that time i was finishing the toughest semester in my years of college (a math class i could barely decipher and a 12-minute string quartet thesis) and i would listen to the same 3 songs (brightest, testing, she changes) over + over + over again to de-stress while pulling all-nighters.

B, another two dear friends, and i spent the last week of my time in the States jamming copeland and recording silly (and serious) covers of theirs (gosh, i nearly forgot that myspace page still existed. copeland fans, pls don’t kill me after listening. lol). Interestingly, i found out that they came to my little college-town in 2007 less than a year after i’d left the country. anyway. no complaints.

i cried all the way from charlottesville to phoenix (a good 7 hours at least). i remember the two ladies on the plane next to me looking really worried for me and trying to give me tissue.. bless their hearts. lol. i only stopped crying when i started listening to the CDs i’d brought back (yeah, i had a discman back then..). among which were copeland’s of course. in the subsequent 6 months that i suffered reverse-homesickness, copeland always felt like home again.

all that came to mind, by the way, when i came across this blogpost on the TWLOHA website. the last para esp. moved me so much that it’s stayed in my head/heart for 2 weeks now. i mused that if my music would do this, i’d have no regrets whatsoever, pursuing what i am doing now. and so i remembered too, why i had that heart connection with copeland.

the man himself.

“B! i met the voice behind brightest!”

yup. to meet + talk with the person/personality behind the voice i loved.. was a big ‘revelation’. as if opening for the band wasn’t enough, as kevin‘s (rach’s mentor) ‘media escorts’… … we got to witness in person the next day, his interview with mr. marsh in the *scape office. incrediblyyyy grateful.

aaron + authorised "media"

@ the acoustic gig that same day, we got to hear the you are my sunshine album tracks in stripped-down, sweet, gorgeous-to-the-core form. totally loved it. i’m admittedly not a big fan of the 3rd + 4th albums’ sound, but just acoustic, is amazing. here are some more vids that i really like.

i could actually feel my heart hurting after the last encore at the *scape lab + thought i might cry. lol. it was like having to say goodbye to new friends. or old ones.. lined up for the signing table for one last bye. i told aaron i was soooo sad to see them go and gave him my ‘media’ tag with a long note written behind it. he looked so serious; i thought for a moment he might actually be worried for me. lol. then it just became too awkward and i kinda trailed off to meet bryan (guitar) who was next in line..

awwww.

so that was it. two of the most amazing days of my life. THANKS again to all friends + supporters who made it possible!!!!!

it was your hello.. that kept me hanging on every word.

goodbye copeland. till we meet again.

<3 Red

first quarter @ the durian

In jan esplanade invited us to play for something called the “sofa sessions”. we totally wanted to lug a big sofa on stage and act out dreamer live. here’s a nice lomo shot from our friend euphe.

@ the waterfront with soaps + matt

our good friend soaps came along to share the load on keys this time.. helped us change the sound up a little.

zoom out.

random: as i speak i’m watching a charliehallband live feed from their studio.. live chat (we type and they talk).. dude.. so fun!! there are just 30-40 pple on here so they generally respond to what you say.. ok back to the update.

for this batch of gigs we learnt a few covers: sara bareilles, chasing cars, falling slowly (glen hansard + marketa irglova), amie (damien rice). by this gig we’d stopped playing ‘mistakes’ for my fingers’ sake. we haven’t done it all year.. don’t remember the solo anymore…

oh yeah, i remember now.. jan was a pretty nutty month- we played for these espl gigs, RP’s open house and my friend eeky’s poolside wedding dinner four days in a row.. don’t really have pics for those..

cove red + tony

In feb we got to play at the espl concourse (thanks to yi lin for the shots)! it’s always been our preferred location given that the waterfront stage is actually a tad big for our setup.. we did sets with our percussionist friend daniel (and i can’t find pics with him in it.. boo hoo), and tony (who doubled up as guitarist too). so thankful to be able to work with these immensely talented guys.

baby grand was shiok

i got to use the baby grand too! gave me a new freedom to express and improvise at will — once i figured out the keys (Ab, Db, …). there’s only so much i can do on the guitar cuz of my limited training. on the other hand, being on a more versatile instrument (i.e. piano) makes me feel obligated to do more. pretty stressful too.

ok. so i think i completed the pre-copeland update.. and done stalking charliehallband on the live stream. g’nite! be back later today for the epic copeland update.

<3 Red

christmas.

whee. post #2. took a break + learnt three future of forestry songs from Travel II.. great stuff with lyrics i really resonate with. hope to do a few of their Covers one day if Cove says ok.

ok Christmas season, gigs galore.. we added two carol remixes to our repertoire, and a cute song by tal & acacia called love’s gonna getcha.

christmasy dinner with umbrella-lights

here’s one at YWCA.. other performances included carols with the pipa o_o .. and a magic show..

another dinner gig we did had a lot of mainland chinese and we ended up doing a CHINESE song,  joke of the year. (in case you don’t know, both of us are really jia kantang (eat potato i.e. are twinkies). (the vid link is the cantonese version.. but of course we did the mandarin..)

we don’t have any decent shots of the two care corner gigs we did! basically they held an event for some low-income HDB families and had some musical/dance/skit performances, so we were part of the music. it’s so funny that we’ve gotten to play for such a wide range of audiences.. in this gig we had dialect-speaking aunties + uncles who prolly didn’t understand a word we sang..

our last gig of the year, we had this interesting gig opp at a flea market..

haji lane gig

the good thing about a non-themed gig during Christmas season was that we got to play both random (read: meaning-less but awesome) covers and the remixed carols (still can spread the ‘cheer’). we were playing in this little lane with hardly any space and it drizzled. but i kinda enjoyed the quirky rundown feel.. (thanks to meimei for the following photo..)

it was awesomely ghetto

whee ’09 updates done! thanks to those who invited us + all who enjoyed our music!

<3 Red