Pastgigs2009

Admission price: RM15

This time - the second ST outling after the long sabbatical we managed to get together two more songs so the set lasted a full 30 mins. These extra songs were not ST songs but Crescendo which is an old Passion song, featured on both Love & Music and Open Secret, and Tim Buckley's Pleasant Street which Markiza always delivers with overwhelming passion (small p) in true Grace slickish sixties style. Trouble was the keyboard was too loud. But the fellas all played really fine. Next time we'll have to bee more careful not to adjust sound, 'cause the most important thing is how it sounds out there, and if we can't hear something, that doesn't mean they (the audience) can't hear it. Hopefully we can do it again soon. Lovely. Stonebay were awesome in their new acoustic guise, Cats were fantastic too with Lohan really delivering on the high vocals, and Square Circles made a good impression
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Sunday 18 January
(all day and completely free)

Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre

Open Day 2 18.01.2009

Free. Exhibitions, Drama, Music for further details consult this site: www.klpac.com

It was a real pageant!

Despite having no piano (well there was a piano but we didn't know how to make it play - that's because I forgot Markiza's piano attachments, so the audience had to make do with my guitar and harmonica only (as well as voices of course!) Well they seemed to enjoy it - thanks to you for appreciating our music and to all the rest of the fine music, dance, comedy and Idol, and thanks to Joe, Faridah & The Actors Studio and all those non-virgin guys n gals in orange T-Shirts who made it such a great day - look forward to the next one!

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Saturday January 24
TOUCHWOOD
@ VR1 Cafe

Damansara Intan , Ground Floor, Prudential Building, across the NKVE highway from Damansara Kim and Utama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

Featuring Square Circles, Julian Mokhtar, Zubira, Norton 500, Markiza & Peter Hassan.

Start 8.30 pm.

Admission RM15

Sam could not appear for family reasons, so Julian stepped in. It was a great show and at the end, although the audience had depleted somewhat , what remained was an enthusiastic group singing along with maximum gusto to all of Julians songs that they knew (which was most, even his originals like Wolf Woman). earlier Soft Touch - or rather Markiza and Peter Brown and Wong on acoustic guitar (sometimes slide too!!) and Aylwin on percussion acquitted themselves reasonably well (thinking of all of my - PHB -'s mistakes) and the audience weren't complaining. Square Circles despite their state of geometric confusion were excellent with height challenged Sujesh as singer, rhythm guitarist and leader, Kevin on bass, Segar on percussion and Lohan on sweetly 50s style tremelos and at the end slide accompanying that song about - well we all sang along exuberantly on the chorus: I say, You say, We all say no ISA - a great anthem for Human Rights. Thanks Sujesh for inviting us along. Other acts: Norton 500 featuring the meandrine Edward Gomez with his exploratory sixties-ish material (great entertainment for superannuated folk like me) and the steadfast Zubira making do with one strat from mexico with some fine renditions of bluesy-rock stuff. You missed it? Well there'll always be more at this venue cause the owner guys love music. keep yer eyes open for the next one.

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31st January
READINGS
featuring
Brian Gomez
Iain Buchanan
Amir Muhammad
Shantini Venugopal
Umapagan Ampikaipakan
Saiful Nizam bin Shukor
Music by: Markiza & Peter
3.30 - 6.00 pm
Seksan Gallery
67 Jalan Tempinis Satu Lucky Garden Bangsar Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
further information: Sharon Bakar 0126848835

A nice gig where we were definitely appreciated and got to meet some amazingly interesting and creative people, like Iain Buchanan and his wife Maznoor, and a young Chinese girl, Yvonne Foong, who suffers from a rare disease called neurofibromatosis (phew!) which causes tumours to grow on delicate organs like the inner ear (so now she is deaf poor girl), the spine and the brain. She has written a book about her struggles with this ailment and the enormous expense of dealing with it called "Im Not Sick, Just a Little Unwell" which won the Dream Malaysia Award 2005 when she was 19.
You can visit her site at http://www.YvonneFoong.com
Iain comes from UK and is elderly like me but has written a fabulous book called "Fatima's Kampong" about a beautiful village in the middle of a forest in Malaysia which is replaced by all kinds of human creations like multi-storey buildings, roads, supermarkets, factories, fairgrounds and railways. It was the last kampong the city finally consumed. Iain not only wrote the story but copiously illustrated it with most beautiful coloured drawings and paintings. To find out how to obtain this book write to mazhb44@yahoo.co.uk. We bought both the books and got them signed by the authors. Thanks to Sharon Bakar for organising and being MC for these splendid gigs. They are held on the last Saturday of every month .

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GALA FAREWELL

Farewell to who or what?

To The Actors Studio Theatre, Floor 3, Bangsar Shopping Centre, Jalan Maarof, Bangsar Baru,

59000 Kuala Lumpur

We are very honoured to be asked to perform at this ultimate series of shows

to mark the historic tenure of this theatre by The Actors Studio, Joe Hasham

and Faridah Merican's famous drama company.

For the record we (Markiza and Hassan Peter) were the second act to perform in Sept 1995

at the original small theatre under the Dataran Merdeka which tragically got

flooded out in 2003, so in a sense we take part in the Alpha and the Omega

(although please note the KL Performaing Arts Centre carries on and is

THRIVING!)

The Singer songwriter Performances consist of three shows featuring

18 acoustic artists to mark the final, regretful curtain of this wonderful and

legendary theatre.

Frid 20: Markiza and Peter Brown, Tan Sei Hon, Ida Lisa, Jerome Kugan,

13 Voices in My Head, Tony Leo.

Sat 21: Blister, Ariff Akhir, Wani Ardy, Azmyl Yunor, Edwin & Albert,

Silent Scenery.

Sun 22: Otam, Ian Chow, Jasemaine Gan, Izzy Mohamed, Kevin Broken Scar,

Rashdan Harith.

Plus guests: Frid 20: Priya K, Pang Khee Teik Sat 21: to be confirmed

Sun 22: Farah Rani.

All shows are free and begin at 8.30 pm so do turn up to support this beacon

of the arts and celebrate the many years that fine productions have been staged

there, from spoken word to dance to music to tragedy to comedy.
Honoured to play there for the last time. A well-received show with almost a full house of TAS stallwarts and acoustic appreciators.
Thanks to all you guys for coming and supporting Joe and Farida and The Actors' Studio. We look forward to the new venue

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Monday 23rd February 2009

SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL

Presented and performed by Markiza (piano and vocals)

NO BLACK TIE 17 Jalan Mesui, off Jalan Nagarsari, behind Istana Hotel, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur

starting time: 9.30 pm NO COVER

Come and hear those lovely piano songs from JM's first few albums sung especially for you by Markiza.

Quite a good showing. Played Joni Mitchell throughout except 2 songs of our own at end, "Crazy Heart" and "Like a Polar Bear".
Best performance by Markiza yet

Monday March 23rd Markiza @ No Black Tie AGAIN. Since some audience couldn't even get in the last time, she has consented to do another performance. Her now furry faced husband has also agreed to sing one or two songs by himself, Neil Young and other artists (this might put a few people off and lessen the squash). No seriously, do come and enjoy a relaxed evening, away from the rush and regimentation of life. Laid back acoustic evening with ac guitar and grand piano and two voices sometimes together in harmony. We'll be doing some of our own songs like Refugee, Losing Nature and Like a Polar Bear. Romantic and atmospheric, it's the perfect antidote to corporate Monday or Tuesday or those beginning of the week blues. 9.30 pm NO COVER. No Black Tie, 17 Jalan Mesui, off Jalan Nagasari, most seedy Bukit Bintang, 50200 Kuala Lumpur. Book a table ring +603 2142 3737

Well after that extravagant pipe-dreaming about having a big audioence hardly anyone turned up except two lots of close relatives and friends. We were delayed because of a family crisis and somewhat tired and distracted so not such a good gig. But people were very nice and said they enjoyed it. Thank you for coming, relatives and friends so we didn't end up playing to empty chairs like we used to do in the Istana Hotel way back for Happy Hours.

Saturday night 28th March. An event which may be called TRISEXUALCYCLE a celebration of sex. Or it might be called simply GOODBYE LOSTGEN - ie the very last time we shall be able to enjoy this legendary venue - alternative like it should be, genuine, unself-conscious, totally unmindful of money, creative, spontaneous, flowing - just a great place to do stuff and witness others doing their stuff.
Well this time the audience was JUST FIVE! But they were so nice we would have loved to take them home with us George and Nurul and Div and friends. We made lots of mistakes because we were tired owing to ongoing family difficulties - M's mum in hospital. But the audience loved it (well that's what they told us). We played for about 40 mins

This gig (Great Flyer) was to celebrate Earth Day (or Earth Week - anyway every year is Earth Year for every day of the year now - we have to think of the Earth all the time).
This was organised by Jazz with Nikki taking the pics - very well organised in our opinion. The first band on was Benchmarx, followed by one to watch called FIVE STATES OF MIND a mix of dissident ex-pats from mostly the States - 4 gals and 2 guys - this is them below beating it out and singing their hearts out with some originals and some covers (sorry missed out the bassist). The singer in the foreground is called Amy and the keyboardist Jody. Don't know the names of the others.

And this is one of us (below) taken by our daughter Nafisah. I was so pre-occupied with getting technically organised to play that I was totally unaware I still had my rucksack on - what a gump! We started with Like a Polar Bear and the excellent Annuar (don't know if the spelling is correct) on the hawaian guitar - he and his percussionist were the previous act on the bill so we asked him to stay put and jam with us, as he was weaving in some nice slide with a genuine bottleneck. The percussionist was really hot as well - thanks guys, you got us going. Next song was Lesser being, followed by Child (our original song called this from our second Passion album Love & Music). The songs seem to go down well, with good EQ sound from the sound guys, and Jazz being MC. Thanks for appreciation, audience. The last act (?) was really hot too - acoustic rock with good instrumentals and percussion back-up, and fine vocals from the leader. Lots of fruit, veg and eco-friendly produce for sale and a fair sprinkling of Earth-Hippies in the audience (take care of us - we're endangered too!). well this is the nearest I get to blogging...

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Markiza & Peter Brown & Wong Lip Kee (++?) at Homegrown at Bentley Auditorium

We (that is a pruned down Soft Touch) are playing at the Homegrown Music Showcase this Saturday 20th June* at 3rd Floor Wisma Bentley (near the Curve, opposite Tesco, beside McD's). It's an afternoon gig from 2.30pm - 6.00pm. We'll be performing alongside Velcrobot, Siren & Tenderfist. Admission is FREE so if you can tear yourself away from Borders and other cunningly seductive commercial conspiracies at the Curve to relieve you of your hard-earned fake gold and silver, it'd be great if you could make it coz the Bentley Auditorium is a really nice place for a gig. You should come check it out. Nothing beats homemade music on a Saturday afternoon.

Many thanks to Wong Lip Kee for performing with us on this gig and so recreating an
acoustic Soft Touch (without bass and drums as these musicians were otherwise engaged)
Thanks to the Homegrown people and to Bentley Music

To check out Soft Touch, go to: http://www.lemang.com or

www.myspace.com/lemangsofttouch or www.myspace.com/lemangpassion

To check out other bands playing on this bill

Siren http://www.myspace.com/suarasiren
Velcrobot http://www.myspace.com/velcrobotband
Tenderfist http://www.myspace.com/tenderfist

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Eco Film Fest 2009

Eco Film Fest 2009 was held at Palate Palette every Sunday from 3-6 pm for the entire month of October.
This was also in conjunction with the Malaysian Environment Week (third week of October). We performed on October 11 and 25 with the help of Henry Tan of the redoubtable Rollin' Sixers and then on 25 Wong Lip Kee of Soft Touch. To watch video of the Oct 11 show go to here

Talking about all things green, this free film festival showcased a number of international and local films focusing on environmental issues, as an efforts to draw public awareness to environmental issues in Malaysia.

This year’s festival featured four award-winning international full length films, ‘Blue Gold’, ‘Garbage Revolution’, ‘The Woven Ways’, and ‘The Waterfront’. EFF 2009 also showcased two short films entitled ‘The Secret Life of Cell Phones’ and ‘The Secret Life of Paper’. One highlighting the harmful effects cell phones have on the world if not properly disposed of, the other providing a message on how easy and important it is to be a sustainable paper consumer.

On top of that, two of last year’s winners for the Best Editing award, ‘Wasiat’ and Best Film award, ‘What Happened To The Green?’ was also screened. Also, complimenting the film screenings were some fun green programmes for the young and old, including some musical performances by Qings & Kweens, Otam, Markiza & Peter backed up by Henry Tan and Wong Lip Kee,
and percussion group extraordinary KL Stompers

	left: KL Stompers above: Wong Lip Kee with Markiza and Hassan below left: group with Yasmin in centre (wearing strap dress & beads) below right: Markiza with furry friends
Unfortunately no good photos of Henry Tan (who performed with us on October 11th - thanks Henry, and to Wong for helping out) But you can watch the VIDEO!

For further details on the Eco Film Fest 2009, please visit website

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