Singascore: How my band survived playing in a foreign country

MANILA, Philippines - Despite merch problems and a strange club night, we played a solid set, knowing Singapore wasn’t the kind of audience we could have every night.

It was during a lasered-out Friday night at Zouk, a club in downtown Singapore, where I was told my band wasn’t going to have our CDs produced on time for the gig next day. I guess when you’re up against a good volume of merchandise, untoward things happen and all you got to do is solve it like a man — or like four men.

But we hadn’t thought of that just yet. Instead, cold shoulders, followed by some bickering had ensued between my bandmates right on the dance floor, arguing as to whether or not we should still push through with the gig or sell our CDs anymore. Instead of enjoying some first world guido action that night — the type of sarcastic clubbing that people in bands tend to do — we were divided in our approach to the merch problem.

Where indie happened: Last Saturday, The Pigeonhole hosted Filipino acts Hannah+Gabi and Bee Eyes, joined by Singaporean bands Novak and Obedient Wives Club.

Soon enough, we united in our approach to the music (naks) — of the club. The ex-music blogger in my ex-proud self would say that the music pumped dub step and glitch grime, with a tenth of it devoted to the skankiest of lyrics. I personally wouldn’t get caught listening to such Skrillex-based beats but the feel was too moving and, quite possibly, enveloping, so that problems were soon pushed aside and everybody just took turns dancing in the most horrible, crunked-out, Exorcist-like way possible. Everybody suddenly had it in within themselves to dance “the imaginary unicycle” and play “imaginary basketball” — lay-ups, rebounds and Milo-inspired dribbling included — all without alcohol because it wasn’t exactly cheap. A pitcher, for instance, with only a fourth of it filled with lime vodka and the rest ice, cost about S$50 while the cheapest beer was a Heineken at S$15. Boom. Loading up at a nearby 7-Eleven with Asahi or Tiger beforehand should’ve been considered. God, did that sentence sound cool.

The important thing, though, was we were ready for the gig tomorrow. No more drama, nor heavy emotions — just random Danish guys going up to you accusing you of being a hipster. What’s new, Danish bro?

Ancient Zouk: Iconic club Zouk has been around for the last 21 years, with the likes of Calvin Harris DJing.

Okay, so let me go through this real quick. So this Danish guy comes up to me and my friend Frank to ask for a light. I agreed like any other time anyone would ask, but this time the stranger slowly looked at me from head to toe, and started to assess my getup. “You’re a hipster, aren’t you?” he asks. I shouldn’t have but I replied with the even more fire-fueling rhetoric, “What is a hipster?” He then agreed saying, “Yeah. What’s a hipster anyway? But I like what you have going on in there. An army cap, blue polo, with a preppy gray shirt on top of it, matched with black — what is that, jeans? — and shiny blood-red shoes. And socks. Very nice.”

“Burgundy,” I replied. “My shoes are burgundy.” Before I could get any more weirded out, I realized I was okay with weird and decided to roll with it, assessing his outfit in return. “So, okay, you’re in all white. You’ve even got a brown leather watchstrap but without the actual clock on it, maybe to contrast the whiteness of what you’re wearing. Hipster points for you. Lots of accessories, too. You cuffed your white jeans to show your striped socks and black sneakers. Look who’s hipster too.”

Long paragraph of a reply aside, the Danish guy laughed and quickly turned to my friend Frank who he interrogated, mostly about his job. “Showbiz,” replied my already-pissed-as-hell friend. The drunk Danish finally felt it was strange to be there and started to bail, but not before leaving us with a quick, “Hey, don’t look at me like I’m some gay guy. I can compliment a guy anytime I want.”

Lessons: Don’t light cigarettes for random Danish guys. And leave when you sense that the club crowd is 80 percent male.

My band Bee Eyes were supposed to have a show Friday night at Home Club but thanks to Cat Cortes of Arigato Hato and a few other friends, we moved to a strange but even better place called The Pigeonhole, a book café and arts space along scenic Duxton Road.

Cray and night: A quiet little bookshop during the day, The Pigeonhole turns into a lively gig space come sundown. The Pigeonhole

Run by Singapore-based Rayner Lim and Ave Chan, The Pigeonhole says they aim to promote local NGOs, music, film, fine arts, and performing arts. And perform we did, at a very clean-looking bookshop boutique nonetheless. Pa-ironic talaga.

The sun in Singapore was up until almost 8 p.m. that night so playing at 7:30 p.m. that “night” felt strange. I guess Singaporean shows start early and on time over there, unlike here, where Pinoy time is strictly honored — which might’ve been the reasons everyone wasn’t there yet. “Yo, what’s up? This song’s about our friends but since they couldn’t make it, this song goes out to all you guys instead,” Julius, the singer, addressed the crowd.

“Temporarily sad,” added one of my other band mates. “What the (bleep).” As soon as we started playing our first song, though, many of our friends started coming in, almost as if they were all waiting outside and playing a prank on us.

Bookstore vibe: Singapore’s The Pigeonhole is fitted with furniture from the Salvation Army placed across a floor painted scarlet. The Pigeonhole

We ended up playing an encore after the first encore (yes naman), to the applause of the crowd, with some of them buying our merch after (yes naman part 2). It was a sweet night, something we could possibly blame on the bond re-forged the night before at Zouk. It wasn’t anything like SXSW or Laneway with Cults and Girls the next day but playing in Singapore or outside the country for that matter was a special ladder we never knew we could even climb. Okay, that may have sounded hipster. But it was special, man. It was special.