“do you know? though Adi is a very strict architect, he plays alternative rock band by night — in fact, he will take a week off to do tour! I don’t know he has that side of him!” i know it is pitiful.
or proudly putting both account of my architecture studio and my band on my instagram bio. that would be cool as hell.
But really — there is this better-than-orgasm feeling, when you rack your brain and find very nice melody, and you repeat it hundred of times just to please yourself. Or when every words build a beautiful sentence, and they just keep pouring your blank sheet, you reread it again and you don’t feel cringed (this is rare moment).
Playing live, though, is rarer since you need companion to carry a song. I am well aware of my untidy guitar skill and my mostly-getting-mocked voice. I can tell exactly the last time I felt totally locked in during performance :
it was on 9th grade, at Zoom Studio. During rehearsal, Our band — Ned & The Needlefish covered Paramore’s Born for This.
We have rehearsed it many times and on a certain repeat, everything fell into places and on my drum seat, i just can feel “it” — raw feeling of excitement, i can picture there was some kind of “stream” that surrounded the small studio.
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| i think the scene from Blue Giant manga closely represent what i felt that moment |
Though maybe had we got any documentation or recording during that moment, i am pretty sure that will sound terrible. But of all jammings, rehearsals and performances that I’ve done since 7th grade to college, that one was really memorable. Adis, Acong, Dipo, and David, i thank you for the memories. I am pretty sure they don’t remember such silly moment.
Now i am 28, and i thought i had moved on all that feeling. There is some part in my heart that wish to scream, to be heard. I assume it is that kind of emotion that has not been fed — if you are sad, you cry (or now hitting the gym or running), if you are horny, you have sex. I cannot identify this emotion, that kind of feeling that need to be expressed melancholically and beautifully. I cannot create painting, I cannot dance, so it should be through song.
These days I patched the feeling by attending many concerts. While I am grateful that by now I have completed many wishlists before I die (does it mean my death comes faster?) the feeling of “receiving” emotion is obviously different from “expressing” emotion. So it has not been healed. I’ve watched Slipknot, A Day to Remember, Saosin, Asian Kung Fu Generation, and this September will be Toe. But the only concert that hit me like a night inter-province bus was that Makoto Shinkai concert on 2024. I wailed like a baby for two hours straight. I long for that feeling again. an art that left me vulnerable. Thats the word. i long for being vulnerable.
But of course creating music was never easy. I have recorded many melodies that i thought were good since 2018, but none of them really grow into a song that has intro-verse-chorus. At best they were as worthy as ringtone or alarm. Let alone marry them with lyrics. I never think myself as bad writer, and pretty sure my literary vocab is decent. But creating lyrics is another kind of animal, and being suffering in constant anxiety, I don’t know what to pour first.
Maybe i am writing this as a cry for help. I don’t think much about die young, or maybe failing as architect and banting setir to corporate worker. But to die before releasing single — or if i could be greedy — an EP, that would haunt me.