Sunday, 28th May 2006: The Exploited @ Paul’s Place
edited from an SMS received from (or maybe forwarded by) Rafil at 2.19AM Sunday:
“The Exploited is still on tomorrow 28th May, Paul’s Place. Time 1PM”
small report:
I went to Paul’s Place too late. Dragged my heels and arrived by a cab at about 7.30PM. There were some colourful mohawked, leather-jacketed punks and dressed up skinheads loitering around the area. The main stair door at the ground floor were guarded by two men, with the grill locked and them peering out at me.
I called Fadhil, who were already up there inside the venue. He said The Exploited is starting to play, I heard a familiar strain of drum beat, it could be Dogs of War, the band’s third single released in 1981. I opened up my wallet and decided to go to the mamak instead and have my much delayed lunch and dinner.
And so there I sat and munched through nasi with telur rebus and a dollop of ayam kari. Later some friends joined me and we stayed there and chat the time away. That was how I spent my time at “the first Malaysian Exploited show”, that is until me and Fendi left the place at about 9.30pm.
Through out my lepak time, I saw several commotion outside of the venue, kids shouting, kids being aggro, there was some kind of a fight, or two, or three, maybe. An old friend brought one skinny kid to the mamak place to clean up the blood on his face and gave him an Exploited tour t-shirt to wear so he would not be going around all bloodied. Later I heard some guy accidentally stabbed his friend in the stomach.
Oh, well. I guess it’s typical for such a gig. I have never been to many skinhead and “chaos” punk shows, but that’s the impression I got. It’s a scene where people would beat each other up for fun.
I’ve never seen anything like that in the regular DIY-punk/HC or indie-rock shows which I love to attend. And I do hope it stays that way. All these senseless macho aggro-core is just so bloody boring. It’s such a clich?©. It’s all been done before way back in the dark ages by our Cro-Magnon forefathers. I guess Devo was right all along, it’s de-evolution baby!
I can’t help thinking this sort of pent-up aggression could have been utilised better at the oil-hike protest at KLCC earlier today. Instead of punching your own friends, them “punks” could have lobbed a few bricks at the riot police and register their pain at the world gone loopy. Then there would be a semblance of sense and purpose to the whole angry youth pose.
Other than that hare-brained tragi-comedy, I heard the show went well. The police came to check upon it twice, both times they were driven away convinced that it was a just a private party with only invited guests allowed in. All this came complete with a list of the names of people invited. Very good indeed.
Paul told me that there were about 200 kids up there in the venue. “Just the usual number of kids like before”, he said. The man seems to be rather elated that his venue, victimised by a publicity-hungry police-chief, is now serving its intended duty again. I’m also happy at this fact. Paul’s Place is a place for us to make music, not an empty space primed for bat droppings.
Another friend told me that The Exploited played all the old hits, right from Alternative to Let’s Start A War to Troops of Tomorrow (a cover of an Urban Dogs song, written by Knox of The Vibrators).
When I was young I grew up with all these songs, and I had a pin-up of Wattie taken from the Punk Lives magazine tacked up on my wall, but strangely enough I didn’t feel sad that I did see The Exploited play today. In fact, I felt quite a huge relief, just to know that my idea of punk rock is much, much bigger than a uniform of mohawks, boots and bloodied faces.
END.
postscript: I guess The Exploited must be pretty alarmed at the behaviour of its fans. Some friends who were there told me there was a guy going around with a hammer! Oh, dear.
Anyway, here are two videos posted up by somebody who was there:
Exploited at Paul’s Place Video 01
Exploited at Paul’s Place Video 02
Ladies and gents,
To make sure y’all have a slam happy time, please remember to observe some basic rules if the gig does materialize at Paul’s Place:
a) Don’t loiter/berlegar-legar/lepak outside. Neon green mowhawks (even the humidity saturated floppy ones) crowning black spiked leather jackets can be spotted by Soviet spy satelites with cracked lenses in orbit. GET IN THE VENUE ONCE YOU ARE THERE.
b) THIS GIG IS TO BE CONSIDERED A PRIVATE EVENT. PAUL’S PLACE IS A PRIVATE VENUE. DO NOT USE THE WORD “TICKETS” or PUBLIC in your communications. I’m not sure how the organizers are going to manage this but please FOLLOW THEIR INSTRUCTIONS.
c) All in all, use your COMMON SENSE. I assume y’all are intelligent, since, you’re Exploited and not Mawi fans.
Have fun, stay safe.
“I assume y‚Äôall are intelligent, since, you‚Äôre Exploited and not Mawi fans”
Not so sure of that one boss! At the height of the early 80s UK Street Punk / Oi! fever, a very cheeky band by the name of Skin Disease put together a song that turned out to be a huge hit among the punks and skins of the day.
the song is called “I’m Thick” and here’s the lyrics:
“I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick, I’m thick”, x 64
Those who were inquisitive enough later found out that Skin Disease was actually a piss-take by Chumbawamba!! Classic!
exploited jadi main singapore ke? dung main? buzz me joe kalau jadi. nak ikut.
allo jay, since the gig was happening in Sj, the singapore one was cancelled by the organisers lah. I do believe they made quite a mistake there. it could have been a much better show in singapore.
Saturday-Tuesday was a rather surreal period.
Part I
*****
Saturday, went to Holiday Villa to take care of some business and see the Exploited. Thought it was odd that HV was selected as a venue. I wouldn’t consider it for anything harder than a keroncong fest. The show as to be held in one of the ballrooms. It definately would have been surreal if the show had gone on, the Exploited and local opening acts thrashing it out under large expensive chandeliers and the audience moshing on a thick luxurious carpet.
As we all know by now, the above vision never materialized (but would be great in a David Lynch flick).
Sunday, went over with Nazrul (360 Bassist) to visit Nuhi “Monkey Boy” Selamat, his wife and his 9 day year old baby – their new pride and joy.
Adjurned to Paul’s after that, bands were sound checking, opened the fridge and grabbed a cold one. Sat through a few opening acts, the only one I remember well was Roots & Boots. Sodd did a good job on vox and bass – got the crowd going. Nice stuff.
Went downstairs to get some air, then a metal band started up. Walked up the stairs to teh strains of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on Water”..figured, what the fuck?!?! Went in and to my horror, saw Paul playing drums for some metal band doing. Their regular drummer came up to continue the set.
Exploited came on around 6ish(?). I stopped listening to them in the late 80’s – so I was familiar with their *VERY* early stuff. Was pleased that they did shit from their first album Punk’s Not Dead – Sex & Violence being one of my favorite minimalist songs. Crowd went wild when they did Beat the Bastard – this was the first time I was hearing the song.
About 20 minutes or so into the set and the bass (kick) drum skin broke. After dicking around with tape we decided there was no salvaging the skin. There was a spare skin in the back room but it was too big. Fortunately Brandon, the young sound engineer who did a kick ass job that night, had a kick at home – a 5 minute drive away. Got into the car with Brandon, grabbed the kick (which had all his favorite bands written on the front skin in marker – including Linkin Park) – got it installed.
In the meantime, I went to 7-11 to get some more cold ones for the fridge – it was frikkin’ hot in there.
Got back enjoyed the rest of the show, chatted with a couple who had driven down from Penang drank the rest of the cold ones then proceeded downstairs.
Was shocked to see the blood spatter on the walls and floor. Went down to some of the kids and asked them what happened. Was told there was a fight and someone broke a nose. Left it as that.
Went to get a bite to eat and something even more surreal….Joe Kidd and Fendi driving by in a VOLVO – The safest and most conservative vehicle known to mankind.