Barrio Chino not so China Town afterall

Our friday plans were simple. A bite to eat at this quaint Japanese Tapas bar called Katanashi on boat key. Well priced and well tapped Asahi, nice food, Unagi Meshi my all time favorite and, equally important, lovely friendly staff. Reason to have our dinner at boat key is because I saw some gig announcement for 10 Feet Up some 20 doors down the quay from Katanashi.
 
One thing this blog is making me realize is that there has to be more out there, or maybe I am really still in the exploring stage rather then realization state. I decided though that I have to become more adventurous. It was a good decision! 10 Feet up, a cozy crazy little bar above Loco on boat quay, hosted Farah Erfina, 

a Final contender accompanied by one of her co-contenders. The Final 1, as you may or may not know, a American Idols knock off. Coincidently the Saturday Times had an article on the final 1, blasting the show as well as the contenders. I haven't seen the show but “yoh man, judging by the original man, I'm sure man, the article is like close to the truth man”. Blasting the contenders may have been a little bit too much of an argument to get to the point that it is a bad show. I cannot imagine that from all the people participating there is no talent at all, which is what the article claimed. Zrina of the Fungkimunkees is one of them and I think she is quite talented. That in my opinion is equally true for Farah. Although, by her own admittance, she does not have much audience exposure, she seemed to have confidence, is engaging and has nice mannerisms that go well with the feelings of the song, oh yeah I think she has a nice voice too. With time and more maturity, talent maybe undeniable! 

The other gig that my Facebook calendar brought to notice was Latin Affairs at Barrio Chino on Club street.

Alina Ramirez: Keys 

Carlos Sendros: Guitar Vocals

 
Eddy Fleitas del Sol: Guitar Vocals

Mario Lopez: Bass

Pablo Calzado: Drums

For Loco dogs and Dutchman China Town is walking distance from Boat Quay. So after one set of Sarah we decided to take a walk on the wild side and moved to Club Street. This appears to be closed for traffic with wheels (as apposed to Singapore rules I consider pedestrians traffic too) on Friday nights. I think people are still getting used to it, but it may be a great people-watching feature when the street fills up with clubbers and dinners. We arrived at Barrio Chino at the crack of the first tunes by Latin Affairs 

 as was well occupied and we were lucky enough to find a seat. The Latin grooves were filling the place from a somewhat minimalistic audio system, at least for a full band to operate on, how ever that could not kill the enthusiasm of each of the band members and even inspired Kailin 

to plug his violin into the, already overloaded amplifier and Elisa to share her vocal and dancing skills. For many it seemed a sign for "let the party begin" and soon enough the floor was filled with people trying out their latest discovered hip wagging moves. 

 Alina’s on coming birthday was not the only reason why we stayed until well after midnight. 

The great atmosphere created by a cool live band in a funky venue, the crowd spilling out into the streets in between gigs as predicted, gave a good vibe to Club Street in Singapore’s Barrio Chino.

 

 

Bassment LAB syndicate.

If the title of the blog makes you think of experience enhancing chemicals being cooked in some dodgy basement somewhere down in Geylang, I will have to disappoint you. What I have started to describe, took place on the attic of Blu Jaz cafe and the only experience enhancers there, to my knowledge, were; some alcohol, two great bands, and an awesome crowd, who obviously knew what they came for and were definitely not disappointed.
 
First to the stage was LAB with:
 
Aya Sekine on crazy keys

Michaela Cruz voluminous vocals 

Timothy de Cotta boisterous bass 

Teo JR On Drums.

I am very sorry not to have any pictures of the LAB drummer. I don’t know how she managed it with her size 0 figure, but (t or not) Michaela blocked my vision to the drummer the entire set.  Since my primary objective is to be audience, I like to take my shots from the audience point of view. So where I sit or stand is mostly what you see. It’s a bit more challenging, but gives in my opinion a more real perspective.

LAB’s music was mix of own compositions and rearranged soul covers, of which one even more enjoyable than the other. Most of the fun however, was to be discovered in the numerous solo's, and when Michaela 

belted it out like she was 6 feet tall an weighed 120 kg. With the actual body mass probably only a fraction of that, I am still wondering where she gets it from.

 

With the Bassment Syndicate the band composition changed a little bit with focus Marques Youngs’ Trombone as the evident added value.
 
Hiran Benton – Keyboard

Koh Keng Hui - Bass, Guitar and Vocals

Marques Young Trombone Vocals

Omar Ibrahim Drums

 
It was now more of Marqous Young's Trombone that set the tone for the band, equally voluminous, if not more, as the Michaela before.

At this point, in all honesty, I have to do little soul searching, and try to pin point on the real reason for my preference for the long hard notes by Marques and Michaela. Of course for the most part it was because it felt exhilarating, but I was also thinking that the 3rd floor music was finally louder than the downstairs "comedy" event, a regular on a Thursday night. I do like a good joke, but never understood why the delivery has to be so screamingly loud, that it regularly over screams  good solo's.

Back to Bassment though. Although, there is not too much to add. The pattern was pretty much the same as that of LAB, a lot of good originals and some covers, with great vibes from the musicians, so the two sets seamed a perfect match. I read a comment the next day by Chok Kerong, who is a pretty damn cool cat himself. It was simple but showed a lot of respect. “Marques Young is Mad….”. If I may say so I agree wholeheartedly and want to give additional credit for the other band members, who sounded pretty “crazy” to me too.