The Skeptical Optimist

I have to admit that I have a real soft spot for the Esplanade’s Mosaic Music Festival. Into its 5th year now, the festival programmers love charging ahead and challenging the Singaporean prediliction towards safe, boring, MOR (middle of the road) music. While they might bring in one or two big names – they seem to always make an effort to bring in at least one cutting edge rock band, a few experimental electronic groups, jazz stalwarts, international and regional musicians, and indie faves.It’s truly eclectic programming, but one that has also shown a consistent commitment to quality, diversity and an adventurous spirit not often seen in the music concert scene in Singapore.

In the previous years, I’ve enjoyed acts like Broken Social Scene and Yo La Tengo – one of my all time favourite bands. And this year I found myself happily soaking in the sounds of toytronica group Psapp, a Brit group who use toys to add textures to their music and have a slight obsession with cats. You might be familiar with their sound, seeing as they are behind the theme music of the popular show Grey’s Anatomy. Plus, just revelling in the wonderfully moving, long and discursive jazz solos of the Brad Melhdau Trio.

I know it’s not music for everyone – but listening to Brad Mehldau, one of the greatest living jazz pianists, I realised the importance of complexity, experimentation, improvisation and grasp of a certain kind of culture.

We live in an increasingly fast paced society where we need things to be simple, quick and to the point because of constant updates and feeds, etc. Think twitter, facebook updates, news headlines short enough to fit into an iphone screen or a 2 minute hit. We have opinion columns, aggregators, Digg, google, wikipedia – all providing answers and ideas that are here one minute and gone the next. It’s difficult to find long, complex sentences and thoughts that have been probed and prodded for all their nuances and shadings. And so it is with the music that is popular – there are too many 2-3 minute songs with one emotion, one thought: usually about heartbreak, sex, violence or so-called female empowerment. It’s music that has a catchy beat, memorable but simple riff or loop and it doesn’t stray too far from the formulaic verse, chorus, bridge, chorus.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Sitting there and listening to Mehldau and his talented bassist and drummer take apart jazz standards, dissect them for the emotion of their melodies and exploit the possibilities of their chord progressions until they became wholly new compositions was just eye-opening. I’ve aways liked Mehldau and own many of his records, but to hear it live was just quite an amazing experience. It reminded me that music can hold so many ideas and thoughts and feelings – especially when it’s allowed 10-15 minute piano solos, long takes on songs that unfold and envelope you in their multiple strands of harmony and melody. It’s not easy to listen to sometimes, and I noticed people around me checking their mobile phones for SMSes and flipping through the programme during the show – but I believe it’s a discipline of concentration that’s worth working on.

Music like that reminds you that there is a world that can be brought into greater clarity through the abstraction of music. That there is an aesthetic nature to it all that transcends the mundane and even language itself in its capacity to communicate sentiments, memories, nostalgia and newness. Mehldau and Mosaic also tell us more about the richness of what humanity is capable of and how much more there is to discover. It’s not all about pop queens and boy bands out there – there is music being made out there that is able to make you think harder and better – if you’re only willing to listen.

Tags: brad mehldau, complexity, mosaic music festival, music, psapp

Most of us when faced with a fork in the road would naturally gravitate to the choice that looks well-paved with clear signposts and a predictable destination. Not for Gary Fisher and Oliver Ronzheimer who were both guests on Primetime Morning this week. 

      Gary is the Californian hippie who in the 1970s, began to modify his road bike to enable him to race up and down mountain slopes.  It was the first step towards the introduction of the sport we know today as mountain biking. 

      Oliver is one of Europe’s best motorcycle stuntmen. Like Gary, his love for two-wheelers propelled him onto the road less traveled.   

      For Oliver, who had been riding motorcycles since the age of 8 (although, he was quick to point out that this was legal, on offroad vehicles), it was his twin loves of entertaining people and motorsports that led him to his career, and he hasn’t looked back since.  He became a professional stuntman in 1992, and in 1999, set a Guinness World Record for jumping over 38 people on a motorcycle – without a ramp.  

      When asked whether he had suffered any major injuries, he replied with  deadpan Teutonic humour, “I’ve never broken a bone. I’m a professional.  It makes no sense, when I spend my time in the hospital I don’t make money.” 

      Where Oliver was the disciplined German, Gary Fisher’s path to fame had a more American frontier spirit to it. Starting out as a professional racer, he was actually barred from competing because he had long hair.  But it wasn’t his way to  get his locks shorn to gain easy entry. 

      Instead, he decided to do his own thing and began biking in the Californian hills.  By modifying existing lightweight racing bikes with tough motorcycle-like gear, Gary was able to make the humble two-wheeler an all-terrain machine. 

       “You can ride almost anywhere you want, you can ride all those little paths, you can ride out on mountains, you ride out in the forest, you can go almost anywhere you want. And it’s light enough that you can pick it up, put it over a fence, or go through a difficult area, carry it sometimes and ride home.” 

      The next step was to start a company with his partners, making mountain bikes for people, and introducing the sport to others.  

      To hear him talk about those early years, you conclude that going offroad was the best thing he did. 

      “Coming down the trails, it was amazing, it was a like a big natural rollercoaster. I had for years ridden around the periphery of this great riding on paved roads and everything, and suddenly this was the heart of something fantastic. And you know we used to say, you get out in the mountain bike, you’re away from the cops, the cars and concrete and you can have a really good time.” 

      Spoken like a true hippie and I for one definitely hope that life still holds many unexplored, unconventional but rewarding paths to take. 

(this article appeared in the TODAY weekend edition 28 Feb-1 Mar 2009)
 

Tags: alternative lifestyles, motor stunts, mountain bikes