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Monday, March 24, 2008

Progressions Travelogue (Part 2)

Back to Progressions' debut in the capital of Indonesia... I discovered the hidden basement room of Embassy called Wunderbar. It's the afterhours baby of resident DJ Miko, renown in the country of as a tech-merchant (also a MAC / PC whiz-kid).

One thing all Singapore DJs should take note... Indon DJs are technically way ahead in terms of creativity. Very few of them do straight-up beat-to-beat mixing. Many of them know their way around audio production programmes and have their own "re-edits" and "bootleg remixes". The way life is over here, the people are bred to really think competitively out-of-the-box... unlike the rigid and regimental Singaporean way. So if any of you are ever playing in this country, make sure you've a bag of tricks. Otherwise, you'll just be rubbing your own name in the mud. Thankfully, I've got new tricks... :)

One thing about a country like this, the people respect the DJing art-form. Notably, I received NOT A SINGLE REQUEST throughout my 3-hour set. The audience here, unlike the ungracious punters in Sunny Singapura, are willing to let the DJ do his work even though he may be dishing out one whole hour of unfamiliar material. They are receptive and adventurous, to say the least. Sometimes visiting countries like such, make me really ashamed to be Singaporean... I get that feeling of wanting to take our own flag and...

OK, I ought to move on before I get accused of having no national pride. I don't, by the way. The club's pretty much focused and sincere in wanted to represent the Progressions brand. Besides the running radio advertisement campaign, flyer distribution, net marketing... there's entry for TWO with the physical flyer and also a free CD for every paying patron. Or course having Jack Daniels onboard as a sponsor as helps a lot!

For those that have been pestering me via countless phone text (SMS) to get a copy of the CD... I'm sorry, none left. Go to my podcast instead. The club manufactured limited promotional copies for their customers. Anyway, kudos to the club for making me feel right at home from the get-go. I think when it comes to hospitality services, Thailand and Indonesia ranks up there above Singapore. Seriously! Stop kidding ourselves... Lion City is not really that gracious!

The saying always goes... somehow, you can tell how well a club is managed just by looking at the DJ booth. A fly-by-night bar will have a shady little DJ set-up tuck into a forsaken corner with really dodgy equipments. On the other side of the bank, you look at Zouk and Ministry... their booths are like a sanctuary, boasting the latest make in the industry. Embassy is no different with their Pioneer rack-mounted DJM-1000 which hooks up perfectly with the Serato... digitally with no lagging! It's been a long time but the Pioneer EFX-1000 still kicks arse all over :)

So how did the night go? Well, they got a flavour of what many in Singapore have already tasted and continue to crave for. Progressions as a whole have been crafted and re-styled based on a huge amount of research and many thought-processed elements. I wouldn't say that it has a full proof-formula... but it's all about adapting and knowing what the consumer wants. Only with that in mind, will you achieve this...

That's not ignoring the fact that the brand has been pretty much utilizing the web's power in order to reach others outside of Singapore. When I'm free, I'll go write a book on "How a brand becomes a lifestyle choice". Anyway, we ain't gurus... just applying a lot of common cow sense... wahahahahaha...

Three hours flew by without it actually feeling like it took that long. Maybe perhaps that SMOKING was allow in the club. Maybe I was also busy polishing up the vodka bottle? All in all, had a really good eye-opening experience... and I got to do my bit for vandalism... right next to Booka Shade :p

I'm seriously considering approaching Durex to make Progressions condoms... it's seems like a brilliant novelty idea! OK, I admit that I can't get over the fact that a club has it's own brand of rubber. It's genuinely a brilliant idea, due to the fact that people will actually talk about it... and that's the best marketing tactic that money can't buy directly.

Many thanx to Eric Lam for setting everything up, the club owners and staff for the hospitality, the DJs I met and most importantly... my Buni-cam-tographer for the photos and etc.

And now it's back to lame reality this bloody week. Fuck! Seems like the past weekend was like surreal dream. On the brighter side of things, it's Bangkok this coming weekend! Hu-fucking-ray! Sorry, the current Singapore situation is just really boring the hell out of me and making me very disillusioned with the way things are! I need all these little "getaways" to keep me interested! There's got to be a reason why Singaporeans are the only idiots with their stupid handphone / tissue paper requests and etc. It's really sad place to be in at the moment.