Sunday, December 8 I was listening to…

That afternoon I sat in front of my computer and hardly thinked about content for my 10th posting. I almost gave up and thinked to did the posting later until unintentionally an idea came up while I was playing some songs in my computer. “Why don’t I write about these songs?” I said. So, without wasting more words, here they are…

New Star In The Sky-Air

Lovely! That’s what I think about this song. This is a type of dreamy song that will makes you fall asleep when you hear it. Performed by Air, a French electronica duo. This song appears on the album Moon Safari.

Fallen Snow-Au Revoir Simone

Performed by indie pop band from Brooklyn, New York, Au Revoir Simone. Personally I like this song, this is a nice and sweet song, but not the type that can be enjoyed for a long continuous period. This song is more suitable to hear in some occasion.

Ana-Pixies

A song from Pixies taken from the album Bossanova(1990). Talk about Pixies, I’m in love with Pixies from the first time I heard their songs, and this one is on my top list of Pixies’ songs.

Kool Thing-Sonic Youth

Taken from album Goo(1990). Many believe that this song is the biggest hit of Sonic Youth.

We’re From Barcelona-I’m From Barcelona

The song title is We’re From Barcelona, performed by I’m From Barcelona in album Let Me Introduce My Friend92006). Just to make sure you don’t confuse when you read it. But don’t be fooled by their name, the truth is they are not from Barcelona, but from Sweden.  This song is suitable to hear in the morning because of its energetic and cheerful feeling.

Lyrics for jetAudio

Not Another Cheesy Love Songs

Maybe you are bored  with love songs that the contains are usually about cheating and broken heart. Maybe you are bored with the love songs’ lyrics that are too mellow. “Lagu pengantar bunuh diri” if my mom said. But hey! not all of love songs are quite like that dear. Below are some example of love songs that can be said unique or even smart.

Anybody Else But You-The Moldy Peaches

See this part of lyric;

You’re a part time lover and a full time friend
The monkey on you’re back is the latest trend
I don’t see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you

I like this song. FYI, this song is the soundtrack from Juno which also played by its casts (Ellen Page and Michael Cera) at the end of the movie. I like the choice of the sentences in this song which is unusual and funny. If you listen to the song, you will find that this song is a sweet love song with a funny twist that make this song sounds quirky.

If You Rescue Me-OST. Science Of Sleep

If you rescue me,
I’ll be your friend forever,
Let me in your bed,
I’ll keep you warm in winter,
All the kiddies are playing
and they’re having such fun,
I wish that could happen to me,
But if you rescue me,
I’ll never have to be alone again.

Without I explain, maybe you have got the picture about the song from the lyric above. It’s a sweet song without cheesy feeling on it. This song is taken from Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep movie, sang by Gael Garcia Bernal and the other cast. I also recommend you to watch the movie.

I’m Sticking With You-Velvet Underground

I’m sticking with you
‘Cos I’m made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I’m gonna do too

You held up a stage coach in the rain
And I’m doing the same
Saw you hanging from a tree
And I made believe it was me

Yap! Another quirky song with quirky lyric taken from Juno movie and sang by my favorite band, Velvet Underground. See the first part of the lyric, “I’m sticking with you/’Cos I’m made out of glue/Anything that you might do/I’m gonna do too“, what a funny choices of sentences. And once more, not cheesy.

Mint Car-The Cure

the sun is up
i’m so happy i could scream!
and there’s nowhere else in the world i’d rather be
than here with you
it’s perfect
it’s all i ever wanted
i almost can’t believe that it’s for real
So pinch me quick

i really don’t think it gets any better than this
vanilla smile
and a gorgeous strawberry kiss!
birds sing we swing
clouds drift by and everything is like a dream
it’s everything i wished

Another my all time favorite. If I hear this song, I always feel like I were on an amusement park with my lover in a sunny Sunday afternoon and all I feel is happy. This is one of a few cheerful songs among all the gloomy that ever made by The Cure.

Efek Rumah Kaca

In this 8th posting I will write about a band from Jakarta called Efek Rumah Kaca. Maybe this review is little bit late remembering the fact that Efek Rumah Kaca (ERK) has been booming since about a year ago. Their album also has been released and available at many stores in your town. But that’s not a big deal, because I think this band is too good to be missed, so then there’s no reason for me to not write about them.

First time I knew this band was from my friend who blabbed that this band was “a must hear-highly recommended”. Because of my curiosity, I ended up hear some of ERK’s songs and found that my friend was right. That was a really nice band. This band’s power is on their ability to formulate an easy listening pop song with smart lyric. yes, instead of make songs about broken heart or cheating, they prefer make songs about politic, social reality and other issues which rarely created by other pop bands. Just see this part of “Belanja Terus Sampai Mati” lyric, “Juga juga suatu pembelaan/Atas bujukan setan/Hasrat yang dijebak jaman/Kita belanja terus sampai mati”. I smiled cynically when I first heard this song, remembering the fact that I probably at the same condition as written on this song, shop till drop! Ok, back to ERK. Beside Belanja Terus Sampai Mati, there are another songs like Di Udara (they dedicate this song to alm. Munir), Bukan Lawan Jenis, Cinta Melulu-see its part of lyric-”Lagu cinta melulu/Apa memang karena kuping melayu/Suka yang sendu-sendu”, Desember and some other songs.

I ever came to their show once in February 2008 at Common Room Bandung. The show was titled konser intim “cinta melulu”. And fit with the title, that night they succeed build an intimate interaction with the crowd by the tracks they brought. It was proved by the crowded venue and audiences who sing along during the show. Small venue and (kind of) stage which easy to reached by the audiences were another factors which made the show felt intimate. Satisfied, that was what I felt after I came to that show.

So, if someday you find ERK album, just buy it! And you will feel no harm. Because there is no reason to feel harm for a quality you will get.

Hot Stuff From 70’s: Gilbert O’ Sullivan

In a little while from now,
If I’m not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower,
And climbing to the top,
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it’s like when your shattered
Left standing in the lurch, at a church
where people saying,
“My God that’s tough, she stood him up!
No point in us remaining.
We may as well go home.”
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally

That some parts of lyric from song Alone Again (Naturally), sang by Gilbert O’ Sullivan. I really love the song, and it can’t stop buzzing on my head for almost a year!  But this time, instead of write about the song, I’d rather write about Gilbert O’ Sullivan itself.

Gilbert O’ Sullivan was born in 1946. He is an irish singer-songwriter who was famous in about 70’s. Some of his most famous songs are Alone Again (Naturally)-became an original soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s movie Virgin Suicides, Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day, Get Down, and Clair.

What I like about Gilbert’s songs is the atmosphere of 70’s that is strongly felt everytime I hear his songs. It is a kind of nostalgic feeling which usually appears when we wear our granma’s old sweater; old but nice. So..I highly recommend Gilbert O’ Sullivan for those of you who have an interest to oldies songs, or for those of you who have a curiosity about Gilbert O’ Sullivan.

Michael Cera’s The Long Goodbye

I found this band while I was searching for something on the internet. I interested with one link which told about a band called The Long Goodbye whose one of its member is actor Michael Cera ( actor of Superbad, Arrested Development, and Academy Award nominator movie, Juno).
This band’s origin is from Los Angeles, and its other members beside Michael Cera are Clark Duke who was Michael Cera’s co-star in Clark and Michael, and drummer Christian Buenaventura. Related to Myspace.com/thelonggoodbyeband, this band got the influences from many influental band/musician such as Weezer, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan.
But seems that their biggest influence is Weezer. It is proved by their cover song of Weezer’s “El Scorcho”.

They Also sounds a little bit like Beulah which also an American Band (I have their albums, by the way).
I have heard some of their songs on Myspace page and found them nice. I will describe their songs like a lazy time on a Sunday afternoon, play guitar at house yard with our folks, then completed by a cup of coffee. In other words, those are such comforting songs. My favorite track is “Can I Call You Mine”, then followed by “Hovering”.

Today, maybe just a few people who know about The Long Goodbye. But with all of their potencies, it’s just about time until they come up at the crowd and become our new favorite.

MTV Indonesia Today…

Hello, meet me again on my newest posting. now is the beginning of November, and it’s raining everyday. Just like B.J. Thomas sang, raindrops keep fallin’ on my head..

Now move on to the main topic. To the point, what are you guys think about MTV Indonesia nowadays? Feel free to speak your opinion.

So, in my opinion, MTV nowadays, especially in Indonesia, is just money maker media rather than music television which provide us qualified musics and also as a big river where many musical talents all over Indonesia flows on it and reach up their rising star. But what happen to MTV? they seems don’t have any filter to sift which video clip or song is proper to be played on MTV and which one is not. For example, I give you one case. There’s a band let’s called it X band which musicality is poor, lack of capability, and don’t have any other selling factor. But amazingly, MTV plays their singles. On the other side, there is an other band, just call it Y band, which musicality is good, full of creativity, has smart lyrics and lot more goodness in it surprisingly failed to play their singles on MTV. How could this happen? Whose fault is this? Should I or perhaps you (who agree with me) blame MTV as the media or the people in Indonesia with their taste of music? Feel free to response.

When It Comes To Love

Hello there! Welcome to my blog. At this 4th posting I will write about musician couple. People say that love comes from anywhere. Those words work for musician too. Living in entertainment industry not only promising glory and fame, some of the musician even got their lovers from this scene. Some of them seem live happily ever after but some others fail to continue their relationship.

I’ll give you some example…

Thurston Moore & Kim Gordon

Both are members of Sonic Youth. Both are skillful musician. They married in 1984 and have a daughter named Coco Hayley Gordon Moore from their marriage. Although Kim is quite much older than Thurston, they look fit for each other.

Saiful Jamil & Dewi Persik

Dangdut’s queen of controversy meets city minister wannabe dangdut singer. As well as their full-of-exposes musical career, their marriage was also full of media exposes. But fortune goddess seem didn’t come for their marriage. Finally they separated in their early marriage years. Well this is nit my favorite couple, I just write about them because of their over-exposes news, even they continue making sensations after they had divorced.

Anto Hoed & Melly Goeslaw

A couple with a lot of musical talents. That is a sentence that gives a full image about Melly and Anto. Both are members of the band Potret. This singer-songwriter-band member couple is just sweet! Not like other busy couples who must lost their marriage and end it up with a divorcing because of their business, their marriage is still last till now. It’s not too much if I say that they are a good example of kinda perfect couple.

Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love

Every body knows this couple. One came from the band Hole and the other one was the front man of Nirvana. Lot of Nirvana (a band which Kurt involved in) fans didn’t like Courtney. They criticized her that she was just using Kurt to make her famous. They also believe that Courtney is the cause of Kurt’s dead in 1994. In a few last years of Kurt’s life, he suffered by his drugs addiction. This situation was getting worse by the media which pressuring him and his wife Courtney. On April 8 1994, Kurt was found dead in his home with a hole in his head which caused by a shotgun.

Australian New Buzz, Young And Restless

This time I want to write about Australian Band, Young And Restless. Just like the band’s name, they are young, and they are restless. They become hot topic everywhere because of their music which full of distortion and their riotgrrrl vocalist’s voice, Karina Utomo. Sounds like Indonesian name right? And yes, two of this band members are siblings who were born in Indonesia. They are Karina Utomo as vocalist and her brother Nugroho Utomo as drummer. Now back to their music. I really enjoy their music. It’s a mix of raw punkrock music and woman screams voice. I suggest you to listen to “Satan” song. This is an earcatching song that will give you a clear image of Young And Restless’s music. This is my favorite track. One point that surprising me is Karina’s powerful voice. Some says that her voice is quite similar with Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeah’s voice. Not only Karina’s voice, but also many people says that their music have a similar pattern  with YYY’s music. But I think there are differences between Young And Restless and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Their music are more full and riot than YYY’s. So we can say that this Aussie hot buzz is an Australia’s answer to Yeah Yeah Yeah from America.

So boys and girls, I recommended this band to you. Just buy their album at the music store near you and have a listen to twelve songs that will sting your ears.

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHILDREN SONGS

Every child who grewn up in past years definitely familiar with songs like “Ambilkan Bulan” or “Lihat Kebunku”, they also knew the name like Sherina or Eno Lerian. So did I. I used to be a huge fan of those little singers. I collected their albums, tried to dress up like them, sang their songs, and even had an ambition to be a little star like them. We all know that there were so many little singers on that era. And there were a lot of songs for children with its adolescence, innocent, and lyric which suitable for children. Just look this piece of lyric:

Balonku

Balonku ada lima

Rupa-rupa warnanya

Hijau kuning kelabu

Merah muda dan biru

Meletus balon hijau, dorr!!

Hatiku sangat kacau

Balonku tinggal empat

Kupegang erat-erat

This song tells the children about colors and simple mathematics operation. The good point of this song is that this song educate the children without teaching them. There were many other songs like this that we can found at that time.

But nowadays, the situation has change. Children songs become rare. The number of Children singer has decrease. the cause of this situation is quite worse. the children tend to sing grown up songs. I think this is not good for them because the contain of the grown up songs are not suitable for children. once I heard a five years old child sang “Makhluk Tuhan Paling Seksi”, errr..it was quite irritate my ears and made me uncomfortable when I heard that tiny little girl sang that song. We definitely don’t want our children become mature too early, don’t we?  But It’s not easy to keep out our children from this uneducating matters. We live in information era where we can access everything easily. It’s our responsibility as the elders to keep them free from negative things. So, parents, sisters, brothers, everyone out there..please be aware!! Don’t let our children influenced by a such bad song.

Sejarah Jaringan

Konsep jaringan komputer pertama muncul pada tahun 1940-an di Amerika. Konsep ini muncul daris ebuah proyek pengembangan komputer MODEL I di Laboratorium Bell dan grup riset dari Harvard University. grup riset ini dikepalai oleh profesor H.Aiken. Awalnya tujuan proyek ini adalah untuk memanfaatkan perangkat komputer agar dapat dipakai bersama oleh beberapa pengguna. Kemudian dibuatlah sebuah proses yang disebut Batch Processing atau proses beruntun yang memungkinkan dalam menjalankan beberapa proses pada komputer dengan kaidah antrian.

Pada tahun 1950-an teknologi komputer makin berkembang. Pada masa ini mulai muncul super komputer. Hal ini mendorong munculnya sebuah teknologi yang memungkinkan sebuah komputer dapat melayani beberapa terminal. Maka dibuatlah suatu konsep distribusi proses berdasarkan waktu atau disebut TSS (Time Sharing System). Pada saat itu pula lah bentuk jaringan (network) komputer pertama kali terbentuk. Pada TSS ini lah mulai ada perpaduan antara teknologi komputer dengan teknologi telekomunikasi yang sebelumnya masing-masing berdiri sendiri.

Kemudian pada medio 1970-an, beban pekerjaan dirasakan makin banyak, harga komputer besar pun makin mahal. Maka diciptakanlah konsep proses distribusi (Distribution Processing). Pada proses ini beberapa host komputer mengerjakan sebuah pekerjaan besar secara paralel untuk melayani beberapa terminal yang tersambung secara seri disetiap host komputer. Pada proses ini mutlak terdapat gabungan teknologi komputer dan teknologi telekomunikasi.

Pada era selanjutnya, harga komputer kecil makin terjangkau. Konsep proses distribusi juga sudah makin berkembang. Pemanfaatan komputer dan jaringannya makin banyak, mulai dari untuk menagani proses bersama hingga komunikasi antar komputer atau peer to peer system tanpa melalui komputer pusat. Pada era ini pula mulai berkembang teknologi jaringan lokal yang disebut LAN. Selanjutnya teknologi LAN makin berkembang, LAN yang berdiri sendiri kemudian dapat saling berhubungan menjadi jaringan raksasa yang disebut WAN.