First Time In A Long Time

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.

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?

We're Better Than That

I've been away from home for more than a month. I miss home. I miss my own bed. I miss my family, my friends. I don't believe I' actually saying this but I actually do miss the humidity.. just a bit. I miss everything back home. But I think I'm going to miss my life here more when I'm back.

Being away has been a good thing for me so far. I've been able to look at everything that has been happening in my life from a distance and I really need to do that right now. Some of the things that were weighed a ton in my heart when I left don't weigh that much now.

But I'll admit it. I don't have much of a life here. It's a quiet city that sleeps at about 10 pm, and the people out on the streets after that are either prostitutes or businessmen out for late night drinking sessions with their clients. Of course, there're the homeless people too. My point is, I don't go to school here. I don't go to work. I wake up in the morning and wonder what the hell I'm going to do the whole of the day. Some days I write songs. Some days I watch TV. Some days I go out and try to be who I have imagined myself to be but never had the courage to be back home. Some days, I do absolutely nothing. I don't belong here. And yet, I don't want to leave.

If anything, this place gives me the occassional inspiration to write. The parks are beautiful; Sunport is breathtaking and there's always the pub downtown that I play at sometimes. The thing is.. freedom here really is freedom - without the suffocating atmosphere that seems to always loom over my head when I'm back home. Writing songs then seems just like another normal thing to do rather than a desperate, attention-grabbing attempt at fame.

The amateurs on the streets here play their originals - for the most part. For some it just isn't realistic to play 100% original sets so they blend it in nicely together with their originals and I must say.. a lot of them sound really good. On the other hand, Power 98 - the only station that features local music slaps a 80% cover, 20% original thing on their acoustic hour programme. So much for creativity in Sinagpore.

See the thing about it is this. Earlier today I went on youtube and checked out the videos of a few local musicians that I usually check out back home. For the first time, I felt rather disappointed at the lack of original videos that were up there. You see.. I have NEVER thought that we lacked originals AND it wasn't the first time that I was on youtube watching local musicians. My life in Singapore flashed before my eyes once again. And you know what? I don't want to go back to a life in someone else's music anymore.

It's not that I'm a superb songwriter. I can barely weave lyrics through a melody... and that's when I actually do manage to write some decent lyrics. But I want to write songs. I want to write better songs. I want my songs to be heard. But when I get back home, I'll probably slip back into the same routine that I used to go about: listen to covers, check out one or two local songs, then go back to practising some American band's songs. Originals? Well.. they can wait till I do the covers well. After all... covers are what everyone wants to hear, right?

At the risk of sounding like a stubborn, egotistical artiste-wannabe.. here's to all fellow aspiring musicians in Singapore - We're Better Than That.

Way better.

A Long Overdue Confession

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The is the Dominic Wong that I now know. He loves his cigarettes, his beer, and sex.. whenever he gets it. Sure, he loves his music and he'd tell you that one of the things that he lives for. True, to a certain extent. A certain amount of musical ability runs through his veins, making him quiver at the thought of a performance coming up soon and making his legs shake incontrolably before, during and after the actual show.

He hurries through life the typical Singaporean way. Rush, eat, rush, complain, rush, try to write some songs, rush, eat, rush, sleep. Of course, at the end of the day when he stares at his ceiling and reflects on what came out of the day, the conclusion is that all the rushing really wasn't worth a dime.

Around him are some very close friends. Two are fellow musicians bound by nothing more than minimal knowledge of the law just enough to scrape through our diploma. One is a girl who's almost like a mirror image of him where the only difference is their skin colour and the length of her hair. He once had a person who knew him more than he knew himself always by his side to tell him that that new song he wrote sucks. Now she's no more there. He once had a person who danced her way through Secondary School and ended up being slightly more distant than he thought she would end up. Of course, there's also this girl who is his convenient substitute for a best friend gone missing (but she know's she more than just a substitute).

The Dominic Wong I once knew was a very different person. He was a vehement supporter of Communism; mainly in its belief that all men were born equal and that we should live in a classless society where everyone gives according to his ability and receives according to his needs. Now, he believes that since no system is perfect (or is going to work perfectly), there really isn't any reason to discriminate between ideologies - in short.. he doesn't care anymore.

He used to watch love dramas and read love stories - and believe in them. Now, he watches love dramas and reads love stories - and finds that its a fantasy world not dissimilar to one that Tolkien created.

That Dominic Wong loved once. Perhaps, he fell in love so deep that when he realized that he would never get out of that hole he had fallen into, he decided to dig himself a hole horizontally and hide away. Now, he's grown comfortable in that space where he s no longer in danger of falling nor subject to any attack from above; for it is a cave that he lives in and in that cave, no harm can reach him.
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Sometimes, when I sit back and think of how I have changed over the past few years, I feel emotionally paralyzed. I have learnt to keep my emotions in check so that I never ever put my heart on the table for someone again. Three years ago, I gave my heart to someone; and though I may tell myself that I am over the pain and anger and frustration that I felt, the truth is that I can never get my heart back from her no matter how hard I try.

I won't lie and say that we didn't have our good times cause we did. I will always remember the times that you cooked for me - even though most of the time it was instant noodles with some extra goodies that even I was capable of making by myself, nothing can and will make me forget the look on your face as you watched me eat; the totally random kisses that you would give me even though my mouth was full of maggi me; the way you would wink at me whenever I looked bored.

More than anything else, I will never forget the times that we spent on your couch watching TV. Days Of Our Lives suddenly became interesting to me.. but not more interesting than you. The times we spent in your room doing nothing but each other will probably never be erased from my memory no matter how hard I try.

We had our good times, baby. You and I both know that we could have been something more than we turned out to be. But the fact is, we turned out to be nothing more than a big mess. You messed up my life for a while. Heck, I guess I'm still trying to get better now. But you know what? Even though I may be better off right now if I didn't get to know you at all, I probably woudn't want that for me.

You let me experience love for the first time. How much it hurt after that is irrelevant. Whether it was also the last is left to be seen.

Two Men

Some years ago, someone I got to know for barely three months told me," Dom, you were not born for a normal life." I shook it off as any normal person would and was challanged by him," Come and see me 10, 15 years from now and you can tell me how normal your life has been."
Subconsciously, his words ring inside my head everytime I run my head up against a wall - especially when it comes to my music.

That man was and is still a musician. One who I try to hunt down at every opportunity I can because I never fail to learn something new from him everytime I do meet him. He was the man who told me that there is no such thing as right or wrong - just different angles from which to view.

When I complained to him about a girlfriend at that time, he told me to treasure her because she was a good girl and he liked her. When I insisted that he was wrong about this one, he looked me straight in the eye, cigarette between his right index and middle fingers and told me, "Dom look at it this way.. I'm either wrong about her, or I'm wrong about you." We then finished our cigarettes in silence.

Four years from when I first met that man, I find myself now in Takamatsu city. And yet last Saturday, I met someone who not only looks like him but also talks like him. They share no common language and would probably not be able to communicate with each other if they ever crossed paths. Despite all of that, this Japanese man provoked my mind in a way which no one else has ever been able to do other than his lookalike back home in Singapore.

Sitting backstage in his pub after a gig, he asked me what I want to do with my life. I said that if I had my way, I would like to be a professional musician. He gave me a stern look before branching out into many other irrelevant topics, probably as a kind of a test, before asking me with the same seriousness, "Why do you want to be a professional musician? I don't like people coming in here and screaming out to the world 'I want to be a pro' without even knowing why they want to do it."

He had me stunned. No one had asked me that question in a long time. But despite that, I told him almost immediately that at whatever cover gigs that I have done in Singapore, I always feel happy whenever I play songs to people. I added that I was not the kind of music lover who is satisfied with sitting in his room and playing to himself. I want to sing to people, for people. To let them know that no matter what troubles they have in their lives, if they just put them aside and have a pint of beer, a short cigarette and a good relaxing listen to live music, life might just turn around when they're done with it.

This lengthy post that seems to revolve around my fascination with two grown men with rough faces and long hair is really not about the two men, but how they have helped me, in some way or another, to find myself whenever I lose track of where I'm heading. That being said, external navigation can only work if the internal compass is in tune with the earth's natural force of gravity.

At this point, I don't think I even know my bearings.

Loneliness

寂しくなった。俺が外国に住んでいるのはもう一ヶ月ぐらいだけん、国にいる時と同じぐらいな寂しい感じする。

最近友達と会いに行って、本当に楽しかった。けど、何でこんな感じをするの？自分でも分からんで。

勝てに他の人の生活に入っちゃだめやんか。だけど、本当に入りたいのに。。。

今どうするつもり？いつまでも女性の仲間になっちゃだめだろうと思うけど、しかたないのか。