I feel that perhaps it is time to shift the topic back to the local bands who put their heart into all their performances, good or bad, and had to sound check late into Friday night and early into Saturday morning to entertain you guys. Give them some light of day - whether they are good or bad, they have a united belief in wanting to contribute in some way to the scene.
I feel it is easy to sit back and be jaded about things that don't meet our demands. But the scene works on proactivity, but there are only a handful of people who actually do instead of demand. And for those who sit with folded arms and furrowed brows behind computers, your opinions matter very much, but they would be even more valuable if they didn't come in the form of cynicism but rather, in the form of constructive ideas, benefitial suggestions and a proposed approached to solutions. In the end, it all comes down to a lot of ranting but little care and nurturing to causing CHANGE.
There is a reason why concerts like Linkin Park cost 100 bucks or more for a pop to enter, and local gigs like LSB and Baybeats are free. Do you think LSB or Baybeats would draw as many people down if they were to cost 100 per head entrance fee as well? The answer would be 'no', and then we have to ask ourselves 'Why?' and then 'How?' Is it because the moshing is too barbaric? If so, what can or should be done, at what cost and practicality? We expect the world when we are willing to give so little in return. And frankly, we, as scenesters, are bottom feeders, algae eating bottom feeders when compared to the likes of the Big Fish in the music industry. We don't even make up a dot in the dot of Singapore.
I feel that as a scene, too many of us demand too much but give too little. A lot of us rant but we stop just short of actually offering a deeper opinion. If you truly love the scene as much as most of us claim to, we would choose to be proactive, choose to solve problems that might arise, and seek to find the best possible alternative to an implemented foundation. To actually make a stand and believe that, through working as a collective, we don't have to become cynical and jaded over a scene and that the power of creating a local scene Renaissance is in OUR hands.
So to the person who has said that he lost faith in the local scene because of something that upsets him like overactive moshing (I am not underrating the importance of dealing with situations like these, but merely stating them here as an illustration), it's ok if you want to take the easy way out and lose faith in what all these musicians and bands have spent a large part of their lives believing in. For myself, I would rather get together to think of better solutions to curb such behaviours rather than dumping it all into pessimism and resignation. The scene would be better without the likes of people like you anyway.
For myself, I have been in two bands, one being Ronin, which was loved and hated for our nutty stage personna. There are people who like me and are my dearest friends, there are people who detest me because I talk cock like vomitting rabbits. But I have never let any of that affect my dediication and belief that spending time, resources, and sharing ideas with the many many other people more capable and talented than me is the way to bringing up the scene as a collective, be it musicianship, logistics, organization, promotions, the nurturing of talents, or whatever aspects of the local scene that many overlook because it's all taken for granted. I have had the immense pleasure of working with many such individuals who work so tirelessly because they have faith in the scene. People like Leonard Soosay or Wayne Thunder, Sabrina Oi or Naomi, organizers like Anthony and website peeps like James, and countless more. but if there is one thing that have pissed us off more than anything else, it's the fact that people are not willing to put their money where their mouth is, and trust me, there is a lot of mouthing off. Mouthing off to me is ranting, tossing out an opinion for the sake of a response, and treating the consequence carelessly because they couldn't be bothered to take responsibility OR proactivity to come up with a solution of their own. I believe that ranting and whining about carrying heavy stones didn't help in building Rome in a day (which it wasn't)
Don't ask for too many 'Me's and start asking for more 'We's.
And if you lost faith in the scene so easily, well then, you were never really part of it to begin wtih.
Levan
