Friday, June 20, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Dominic Wong - Folk Singer
After 4 years of searching through tonnes of music to find out what kind of singer I am, I have finally found it.
I grew up listening to Bon Jovi (thanks to my brother) and I absolutely love all of his songs be they 80's ROCK or the typical Bon Jovi love ballads. After all, they don't call JBJ the king of rock ballads for nothing. So naturally, I entered the music world telling people that I am a rocker. So it's love songs and ROCK. But then they gave me a band, leather pants, shades and a microphone and told me to rock everyone's socks off. I couldn't. I had neither the stage presence of a rock star nor the voice of JBJ.. heck I didn't even have the sexy slur of W.A.R.
So this year, when I started exploring Folk, it was the best forray ever. It was only then that I realised that I have always been in love with Simon and Garfunkel. The simplicity of the orchestration (maybe not Bridge Over Troubled Waters), the way their voices blended so sweetly, the guitar being plucked. Then there was Suzanne Vega. The powerful lyrics that she writes and the raw quality of her voice accompanied by the guitar which she plucks so well just took my breath away. Bob Dylan, though I've known of him (who doesn't), suddenly seemed like a huge inspiration not only because his songs were so filled with meaning but because his attitude has never changed. While Simon & Garfunkel split up and came back to gether and then split up over the past 4o years, Dylan has just been Dylan - grumpy, foul-mouthed and resentful of journalists.
Of course this opens up a fresh can of worms because I don't write lyrics like Dylan or Suzanne Vega. I don't churn out melodies as sweet as those of Simon & Garfunkel. What I do know is that Folk music originally referred to traditional songs (House Of The Rising Sun etc), most of which don't even belong to anyone. Dylan changed that. Dylan applied present day concerns to traditional songs.. to traditional form. That is the singer that I want to become.
I am still very much a person in love. I love soap operas, love stories, teenage dramas. But at the other end of the spectrum, the study of law has made me become a person who simply cannot bear to turn my back on what should be.
So Dominic Wong will continue to write love songs. But he is slowly trying to recognize the wind around him and what is blowing in it.
I grew up listening to Bon Jovi (thanks to my brother) and I absolutely love all of his songs be they 80's ROCK or the typical Bon Jovi love ballads. After all, they don't call JBJ the king of rock ballads for nothing. So naturally, I entered the music world telling people that I am a rocker. So it's love songs and ROCK. But then they gave me a band, leather pants, shades and a microphone and told me to rock everyone's socks off. I couldn't. I had neither the stage presence of a rock star nor the voice of JBJ.. heck I didn't even have the sexy slur of W.A.R.
So this year, when I started exploring Folk, it was the best forray ever. It was only then that I realised that I have always been in love with Simon and Garfunkel. The simplicity of the orchestration (maybe not Bridge Over Troubled Waters), the way their voices blended so sweetly, the guitar being plucked. Then there was Suzanne Vega. The powerful lyrics that she writes and the raw quality of her voice accompanied by the guitar which she plucks so well just took my breath away. Bob Dylan, though I've known of him (who doesn't), suddenly seemed like a huge inspiration not only because his songs were so filled with meaning but because his attitude has never changed. While Simon & Garfunkel split up and came back to gether and then split up over the past 4o years, Dylan has just been Dylan - grumpy, foul-mouthed and resentful of journalists.
Of course this opens up a fresh can of worms because I don't write lyrics like Dylan or Suzanne Vega. I don't churn out melodies as sweet as those of Simon & Garfunkel. What I do know is that Folk music originally referred to traditional songs (House Of The Rising Sun etc), most of which don't even belong to anyone. Dylan changed that. Dylan applied present day concerns to traditional songs.. to traditional form. That is the singer that I want to become.
I am still very much a person in love. I love soap operas, love stories, teenage dramas. But at the other end of the spectrum, the study of law has made me become a person who simply cannot bear to turn my back on what should be.
So Dominic Wong will continue to write love songs. But he is slowly trying to recognize the wind around him and what is blowing in it.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Looking Between The Crevices
I've been back a day short of two weeks today. All i feel over here is the suffocating humidity, the bright, hot sun that has been shining down ever since I came back home.
Things have changed since I left. Surprisingly though, that time-difference I was expecting with my closest of friends wasn't really there. But things have changed. We're all looking for things to dow ith our lives before enlisting; we're thinking of what to do with our lives after we're done with NS; all this while we're wondering what the next two years are going to be like for us.
While most of the girls are working their butts off in some law firm or another, one girl's ass is sitting at home every single day, wondering what to do with her life. Should she fly? But she missed the interview; should she take up a sponsorship in teaching; should she take that job in Dubai; should she actually be working while thinking through all this? But her priority right now is getting her driving license. The rest can wait.
Wait. That's what I do every single day. I wait for One Tree Hill to load on my computer. I spend hours doing nothing but watch One Tree Hill.. and sometimes send the odd resume out. I'm broke financially and on top of that I'm an emotional vacuum. I thought that Japan had done me good. I watched dramas and started crying again. I heard music that sounded so romantic everything before me just faded to a blur (with the help of some beers of course). But the moment I'm back, I slip back under the covers of being a cold, hard person that I really am not.
One Tree Hill helps me get through the days. It makes me believe that there are things worth believing in; that there are emotions that we can and should still feel in our lives every single day. I leave you with a nice scene before I go back to wondering why the hell I feel like an emotional vacuum despite being able to relate to every single thing that goes on in OTH.
(Haley) - "You know some say that [when you're hurting] the pain and garbage is really healing and beautiful and poetic...? Well that's wrong. It's just... PAIN and GARBAGE. You know what's better? Love."
and she goes on to say,
"The day you think that love is overrated... is the day that you are wrong. The only thing wrong with love and faith is not having it."
So sometimes I think that if I just bothered to look between the crevices and not just brush over the surface, I might actually find some kind of companionship that I've always been looking for...
... but then again, who am I kidding?
Things have changed since I left. Surprisingly though, that time-difference I was expecting with my closest of friends wasn't really there. But things have changed. We're all looking for things to dow ith our lives before enlisting; we're thinking of what to do with our lives after we're done with NS; all this while we're wondering what the next two years are going to be like for us.
While most of the girls are working their butts off in some law firm or another, one girl's ass is sitting at home every single day, wondering what to do with her life. Should she fly? But she missed the interview; should she take up a sponsorship in teaching; should she take that job in Dubai; should she actually be working while thinking through all this? But her priority right now is getting her driving license. The rest can wait.
Wait. That's what I do every single day. I wait for One Tree Hill to load on my computer. I spend hours doing nothing but watch One Tree Hill.. and sometimes send the odd resume out. I'm broke financially and on top of that I'm an emotional vacuum. I thought that Japan had done me good. I watched dramas and started crying again. I heard music that sounded so romantic everything before me just faded to a blur (with the help of some beers of course). But the moment I'm back, I slip back under the covers of being a cold, hard person that I really am not.
One Tree Hill helps me get through the days. It makes me believe that there are things worth believing in; that there are emotions that we can and should still feel in our lives every single day. I leave you with a nice scene before I go back to wondering why the hell I feel like an emotional vacuum despite being able to relate to every single thing that goes on in OTH.
(Haley) - "You know some say that [when you're hurting] the pain and garbage is really healing and beautiful and poetic...? Well that's wrong. It's just... PAIN and GARBAGE. You know what's better? Love."
and she goes on to say,
"The day you think that love is overrated... is the day that you are wrong. The only thing wrong with love and faith is not having it."
So sometimes I think that if I just bothered to look between the crevices and not just brush over the surface, I might actually find some kind of companionship that I've always been looking for...
... but then again, who am I kidding?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)