Men In Golf

Men in Groove,  

Leonardo

Munir (for Casey)

Mohamed

MIG in short, is an all Singaporean trio of some very eclectic names from the growing Singapore cultural landscape. The fabulous drummer and percussionist Mohamed Noor, guitarist Casey Subramaniam and the colorful Leonardo Mendoza on "the instruments of wind", if I may steal that poetic phrase from Leonard Cohen's album "Live in London". The relationship has nothing to do with their names, I only realized that, when I wrote this down, but the phrase always pops up in my head when I see Leonardo play one of his instruments. They never look anything like the traditional sax or flute, and they make all kinds of unanticipated sounds including that of a baby grand, but I never know what these instruments are really called. I received a Facebook invite from Mohamed,

for this gig a couple of days before and figured, why not. These guys are individually and as a group a guaranty for some good time, if only to hang out with them between the sets and tonight, as a feature, they were adding Pravin Saivi to the mix,  who I saw jamming with Mohammed before, and can be good for some fantastic vocals. It will also take me away from my trusted Kampong Glam into Tanjong Pagar,  for a little change in scenery I thought.


Tanjong Pagar turned out to be dead as a door nail  when I walked down Robinson rd! Just like any down town business district in any big city. Urban Fairways,  the chosen venue, was equally dead at my arrival, I mean, I was the only guest. The staff of, among a couple of others, 3 all blond  waitresses, and the Pure Blond draft were extremely welcoming though. 

I thought it could be because they finally had something to do, but later on when more people started to turn up, the attitude did not change. All staff was genuinely nice! That included my surprise bartender Karen Xavier, herself a contender of the live music scene. As the Men In Groove had no intention to start at 9 PM, I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with Karen. I had seen her around, but we never officially met. She told me she had a regular gig Friday's at OCF (Artshouse), a still to be discovered restaurant above Timbre at the arts house with a lovely ambiance perfectly suited for a pianist and a singer, to perform some mellow tunes. 


As the band started tuning in, I moved over to the stage, which was actually the first bay for the indoor golf, which on weekdays is the main entertainment at the Urban Fairways. It was still quiet so I perched myself right in front with a table and a bar stool and started doing what I enjoy most, listening to music and snapping away with my camera. The music was as to be expected quality, Munir Alsogoff, who was subbing for Casey, brought a soulful character to the evening with his guitar as well as his expressions. To most of you who will read this, none of the  band members will be a stranger, so what can I tell you. I did have a question though, where was Pravin? Not that I badly missed him, the night was young, the grooves were lovely, and company started slowly growing. Live was good.

It turned out that Pravin was to join after his CD launch at an undisclosed location. So it was only after the second set, and a couple of more Pure Blonds, that the vocal star of the night showed up, with quite a few, what looked to me to be, groupies? from that point onwards the place got excitingly animated. Singers often seems to have more opportunity or need to pull the crowd in. 




 








The tempo increased and the audience had gotten bigger and had become more visibly and audibly engaged. 

After that last set, they stuck around with the group spilling out onto the sidewalk into the quiet night. It brought a bit of life to this part of the, otherwise so empty, Robinson Rd and to Urban Fairways. A good choice for the owner Dilip Ghosh to arrange this and for me to join to enjoy it.