I was a gig by The Observatory, last Friday, at No Black Tie in KL.
The night became more interesting when one of the lead vocal introduce one of the song in their new album, "Dark Folke". She said that the song used to have a controversial name, it was known as "RPK", which they later changed to "Blood Rising", because, according to her, not many people from other regions would know the meaning of RPK. But I thought, it would be cool if they stick to its original name though. Anyway, I think the name, "Blood Rising" sounds fitting too. :) RPK = Blood Rising. (hehehe)
The Obvervatory is a Singaporean band, with only one Malaysian member, Dharma - who studied and currently working in Singapore. Dharma was the one who first came out with the music of "Blood Rising", and later the whole band begun to modify and arrange the music, and the lyrics was written by their lyricist Leslie Low.
After the gig, I couldn't help it but to walk up to Dharma and asked him about the song. He told me that he was following the Malaysia Today very closely before the March 08 tsunami, and could feel the whole movement of change coming to Malaysia. He was very hopeful about what was happening then. He came home to vote, and it was his first time voting, despite of being able to do so long long time ago. When asked why they change the name to "Blood Rising", he said that when Leslie came up with the lyrics, it feels like it could fit a generation of those who are rising up for change, who decide to take the road least traveled. Hence, the name change. Nonetheless, it was a song inspired by YOU! :D
Dharma told me that Leslie wrote these lyrics when you wrote "It's time to storm the Bastille" while he came up with the chords when you were at the Sungai Buloh prison for a couple of days around May '08.
We later exchanged name, and he asked if I had a blog cos my name sounds familiar and I said yes, I have and I was in KT with you and the Barisan Rakyat bloggers. And he said he remembered visiting my blog that time! I was like... WAHHHHHH..... *gasp*
Told him that it would be really cool if you ever know of this song, and he said yeah, he would love to have you hear it. :)
Here's the lyrics:
Blood Rising by The Observatory
Give it all Your salary Your prime Your lease Your seed Your sanity Your right Your peace of mind I'd never be ruled By lies The lies Feeding your mind Feeding your eyes Cheating you blind You rise up The sun loves everything The land in need of reckoning
From the dark Walk the folk Their eyes are no longer prisons They rise too Feel the rage in you All that's in me, in you We cease to be quiet Our uprising
*** I thought this song came as a timely reminder in the midst of a sea of crisis that's happening in Malaysia now, that...
"we should never be ruled by the lies that are feeding our eyes, our mind, and cheating us blind, we shall therefore rise up from the dark and feel the rage in us, hence, cease to be quiet and join the uprising!"
The SABM voters registration team was at the Jom Daftar Undi organised by the Sekretariat Belia Negeri Selangor (SBNS) under the portfolio of the MB of Selangor, last weekend.
Approached by SBNS to help out at the Jom Daftar Undi, we were told that they couldn't find any Penolong Registrar to be at the event for voters' registration.
This was an event focused on attracting the youngsters to register as a voter. And yet, a few days before the event, they were without any Penolong Registrar to register the crowd. They asked if SABM could get them anyone to do so. (Penolong Registrar is someone appointed by the SPR to do registration of voters on behalf of SPR)
And we did, we managed to get the Penolong Registrar who always help us at our Voters' Registration event to help at the Jom Undi Daftar. And guess where does this Penolong Registrar come from?
SABM is still in the midst of getting our own team to be appointed as Penolong Registrar by the SPR. Apparently, only those from the political parties or ex-civil servants can be a Penolong Registrar... As such, whenever we have any Voters Registration event, we need help from our Penolong Registrar friends in any of the political parties, until we have our own. For this instance, we managed to get help from DAP.
Yes, we BRIDGED the SBNS from the Selangor state government with the Penolong Registrar from DAP!
And we thought that all these while the Selangor state government is run by PKR, PAS and DAP! It left us wonder what went wrong, now that they need a third party to be a link between the state government and DAP. Shouldn't there be a direct connection? Are not the some of the Selangor State Exco from DAP? If yes, why such simple task cannot be arranged?
Imagine our shock and disbelief upon knowing this!
After awhile, I came to the conclusion that, either the State Excos are not too bothered about the state government's affair (perhaps their duty is only to show up at functions giving speeches and shaking hands) or the organiser was just simply inefficient...
Anyway, SABM were glad to be of help. But we sure hope that this incident will not repeat again. There should be better communication between the two!
The Jom Daftar Undi booth
The Penolong Registrars from DAP
..registering people
Eric briefing Yap on what to do...
Siva from SABM, filling up the registration form for someone
Eric, explaining what this is all about to potential registered voter
The SBNS volunteers registering more folk.
San Jiun - working hard :)
Sam trying to entice the youngster to register
We managed to get about 300 new registered voters at the event!
Permatang Pasir YM was seen at the SK Teluk Kemang this morning.
Suddenly everyone was rushing to the front.
A water bottle was thrown from BN's side. Then the water-bottle-war started from both side of the camp. The situation was getting out of control. It was scary!
