Archive for the 'Articles' Category

Koil Blacklight Article

Published
by
Ryan Koesuma
on May 12, 2008
in Articles, Calendar and Features
. 1 Comment
May 14, 2008
8:00 pm

Otong Koil

It all started in early July 2007, when we were just hanging out at their HQ, the God.Incoporated complex, when Otong, the band’s notorious sinister mastermind, suddenly said something that he knew we would gladly agreed to; “By the way, we have finished the recording for our new record, we’re gonna let you upload and distribute it. For free.”

Here at DRS, we’ve been campaigning and calling out local bands within out reach to distribute their songs for free, and with or without certain subjectivities, Koil had always been one of our favorite local band, and we see eye to eye, for like, eons.

At the time I didn’t take his words too seriously, because personally I’ve given up all hope on their next album coming out anytime soon. It’s been too long. And god knows how much longer it would take. Their latest single at the time, “Breathe With Me”, doesn’t sound like anything they would’ve prepared for a full-length album, basically an EDM track, containing mixes of some recording scrapes that they’ve piled up for some time. And rumor has it; they scrape most of the recording sessions they took since 2004. “I always wanted to fool everybody to think that we weren’t ready yet while we actually have, you know, catch them off guard,” he said in a hair-treatment session we took together a couple of months ago.

“We’re gonna shake this nation’s music industry upside down. Just wait and watch.” He then showed the cover artwork, picturing a man’s torso (Bobby, the band’s guitarist) holding a Flying-V guitar, with a slight view of the boxer underneath his pants labeled God.Incorporated. I was laughing my ass off at the utmost un-subtle advertising. “We’re still looking out for the female counterpart, do you have someone up for it?”

At the time I was going through an drug-like-induced-idea-high, since I was rooting for NIN’s Year Zero stunt on the online ARG (Alternate Reality Game) marketing, they went as far as “leaking” hi-quality songs on their new album. Together, we then kept on bouncing ideas on each other for some time; some of it came to fruition and have been proven very exciting, while some are still on top-secret confidentiality. DRS had always been kept in the inner circle. I was proud for what we’ve done, it was a history in the making, locally at least, and we even did it before Radiohead’s In Rainbows. “You know, I actually had been planning on this since a couple of years ago, before all the NIN stuff, but the technology and the people here weren’t ready yet.”

He sent me the files a couple of days later. “Please don’t write any review on your part, and don’t tell anyone that you had all the songs until the appropriate time.” I didn’t quite fully understand what he meant at the time, but turns out to save us a great amount of energy not to be chased around by the people around us asking for the copy. Some weren’t quite as lucky, while they didn’t actually had the songs, people think they did and kept on bugging them like a bunch of paparazzo’s.

The first song, Kenyataan Dalam Dunia Fantasi (Reality in the Fantasy World), posted on 18th July 2007 and six months later it has been downloaded for over than 5000 times, just from our site alone. The initial agreement was for only for 3 songs out of 6 they’ve prepared, then it grew and became all of it, and then three more after they’ve expanded the planned maxi-single (initially titled, “Hanya Tinggal Kita Berdua” (Only the Two of Us Left)) into the 9-song Blacklight Shines On full album.

I’d been invited to hear the final mix of the additional songs in early August 2007, and was totally ecstatic upon hearing it. They had totally given their trust to us for distributing their full album online. “We knew that you guys had the resources and had no catch or whatever doing so.” We have been bragging about our enormously silly volume for storage and bandwidth at him for a while back then. “I had actually approached others, so people could have some fun at hunting the songs from several different websites, but some actually wanted US to PAY to put our songs on THEIR site for FREE.”

* Koil will perform their first Jakarta gig after the Blacklight album, this Wednesday, 14th of May at Hard Rock Café, alongside Zeke and the Popo and Ronaldisko

blacklight tour hardrock jakarta (12x15)cm

Otong Koil menjawab Surat Pembaca DRS

Published
by
Ryan Koesuma
on May 9, 2006
in Articles and Features
. 42 Comments

Otong - Aming Okey, kami menerima beberapa surat-surat dari pembaca setia DRS yang sangat menarik beberapa bulan terakhir ini. Dan siapa lagi yang lebih baik untuk menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan tersebut selain Otong Koil, the man himself.

Bagi kamu-kamu yang punya pertanyaan jangan ragu-ragu untuk menghubungi kami lewat halaman kontak kami, atau ikuti diskusi-diskusi menarik seputar dunia musik di indonesia lewat mailing list deathrockstar.

So here is goes. (Powered by: GodInc.)

Org ga penting di Bandung wrote:

punten buat DRS klo bisa yg namanya erik ga usah ikut ngomong masalah musik malu maluin klo orang baca ok dia jago di computer tp ga bisa gitu dong!!! Klo mau ngomong lagi bljr dulu musik ke kang ibing biar ngerti bandung!!! anak mana sih ko baru kedenger namanya skrg??? aduh punten sekali lagi… web ini udah lumayan bagus gara ada hasil tulisan karya orang so tau bernama “eric” jadi jiji?? geuleuh?? sumpah !!!! bukan becanda

mas mas… selaen erik sebenernya kga jago komputer, bukan org sunda, dan kgabisa nulis juga, sebenernya mas mau nanya apaan sih? erik ituh anak bapaknya, emangnya mas mau kenalan yah? coba yah mas laen kali kasih ke saya pertanyaan yg jelas, kalo mau komplain cari aja partner yang laen, gelo siah maneh.

***


Resa Fashioncore (blizkit182@xxx.com) wrote:

Halo, gua resa, vokalis band SledgehammeR dari Bandung. Gini nih, gua butuh suporter supaya band gua jadi sering manggung dan juga banyak temen-temennya. cek aja ke www.myspace.com/sledgehammerband. di sana ada 3 lagu keren. Liat aja deh. Pasti percaya. Ditunggu balasannya. AYE! GBU!

hii resa… band lo mau banyak manggung apa banyak temennya? kalo mau byk manggung mendingan kga byk temen, ntar temen lo pasti minta masuk gratisan, minta kaset gratisan, kaos gratisan, rugi deh. kalo mau byk temen masuk ke www.temenster.com kalo mau byk manggung seringsering aja ngamen dimanapun, biar tahan mental kalo dikasih cepek doang padahal lo udah les vokal ama britney kalo mau banyak suporter daftar aja jadi pemaen persib.

***

Pahong suck (www.mawarberduri.tk) wrote:

saya ingin jadi bands rockstar

nama band kamu ganti aja jadi rockstar

***

Mario wrote:

Gue teuh bikin band, berlima 2 cewe 2 cowo. Lagi bingung nih, antara mau suka nya New Order atau Joy Division, kalo kata orang sih bagusan New Order tapi kalo abis nonton 24 hour party people kayaknya Ian Curtis lebih gaya deh. Gimana dong?

bandnya berlima ato empat sih? 2 cewe 2 cowo kan empat kaan??? untuk formasi kaya gituh gw sarankan yah, membawakan lagulagu ABBA ato kalo cwnya jago maen gitar lo coba kaya LUSH ato BELLY kalo NEW ORDER ama JOY DIVISION mah kgada kerenkerennya, secara gtuh yah, elo mah matematika dasar aja kga becus…2+2=4 thoolloolllll kga usah maen maen band segala laaahh… eehh tapiipaaakkk…gw punya usul gimana kalo lo cari personil sekitar 6 ato 7 org lagi, jadi lo bisa bawain lagulagu KAHITNA ato KSP, kalopun gagal lo bisa meniti karir jadi tim sepakbola…

PS: hedi iunus iz much better than ian kurtis

***

Kosasih (kost@xxx.com) wrote:

waduklah si Indra7..gak bisa ngapa2in..juga si dj koplok agus.. wueekkk? bodoh!!!! komunitas aksara yang sok ngerti apapun? gak baguslah.. gua brp kali ngeliat penampilan manggung mereka gak dapat tuh esensinya? si batman juga maksakeun!!! geuslah!!! geus teu usum!!! lirik maraneh sarua kabeh eusina!!! ngacapruk!!! teu si Otong, batman, mediot distora sudiro atau naon we lah!!!! komo aing mah hayang utah niggali tulisan si Alvin gendut bin dablek gaya teu asik jeung rujit eta ngacapruk di Trax? weleh.. weleh? niru2 mulu ya??? sok-sok ngabahas lagu vapour trail sagala lah!!! dor!dor!dor!! marodar iahabeh!!

si indra agus otong betmen emang te baraleg eta jelemajelemana teh da atuda ti ngaran oge siga kitu, dimana aya ngaran agus jelemana baleg sok? ari komunitas aksara teh naon nyak? urang oge sarua utah ey ngadenge lagu vapourtrail teh, meni butut pisan lagu eta teh, amitamit iihhh

Buying Music from iTunes?

Published
by
Ryan Koesuma
on March 18, 2006
in Articles and Features
. 6 Comments

itunesexcerpt Ok, so we?re all happy for Jason Tedjasukmana and the guys from Equinox DMD, for distributing the songs from Indonesian artist in the iTunes music shop, and therefore making it available (supposedly) worldwide. Or is it?

Alright, as you can see from the list here, there are more than 60 artists and bands ranging from the Indonesian major labels to the independent labels like Sore, Koil, Sajama Cut, Mocca, Homogenic, Suicidal Sinatra, BOTC, Cherry Bombshell, The Hydrant, Kubik, Media Distorsi, Pure Saturday, Netral, Seringai, Lain, WSATCC, The Miskins, Tika, G.E., The Milo, E.L.I., La Luna; solo artists like Dewi Lestari, Iwan Fals, Rieka Roeslan, Dewa Budjana, Krishna Balagita, Imel Rosalyn, Balawan, Vicky Sianipar; and compilations like Riot and OST Janji Joni. And if that wasn?t enough (although all three of the Simangunsong Sisters are on the list) there are also the big, hip and notorious Indonesian artists like Dewa and Dewa 19 (which makes them 20), and ahem.. Agnes Monica and Peterpan. Not on the band-wagon yet? Get your publisher to agree and try here.

The coolest thing about it, (beside the fact that everyone who is in countries far away from Indonesia could buy the songs, in the name of globalism) is that you can finally get the songs or albums that you?re been wanting to get your hands on but it is locally hard to find, because they are probably are in limited copies or distribution. There are even currently unpublished albums (in stores/hard-copy) like the brand new sophomore album from Homogenic (Echoes of the Universe) and the long-awaited solo debut from Dewi Lestari (Out of Shell).

mydiary Also there are some nice album packages like Seringai?s High Octane Rock, which contained 2 additional songs from their newest singles (and of course you can buy just one or two songs from it) and Mocca?s My Diary, which apparently, did not contain their first single ever, Secret Admirer in it, or anywhere else on the iTunes catalog. Never mind, it is probably just a glitch, in according to the press release, the biggest online music catalog in South East Asia.

With delicious features offered in this method, you can buy a hell lot of songs (more than 2 million songs and adding rapidly each week, in which you?ll probably be dead before you can hear them all) from a hell lot of international artists (and not just U2, Coldplay or Alicia Keys), except songs from the Beatles (because Apple Records have some legal battle for the name ?Apple?), Radiohead and Led Zeppelin (because they want their songs only to be available in albums only) and off course, Metallica (because Lars? Dad tells them to do so).

So what are you waiting for? Even Saddam Hussein bought Missy Elliot?s Work It to be played on his iPod in his cell. Download the newest iTunes, register with your credit card, and start buying!

Except.. Well, ahem.. there is this tiny little problem.. You MUST HAVE, i repeat, must have, a credit card addressed in one of these countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States and Puerto Rico.

But fear not fellow Indonesian readers (and fellow local artists, who already put their album on iTunes, although we superstitiously predicted that currently, there aren?t many of your songs that had been bought more than Mocca?s), we have some tips for you, (your fans and the potential pirates in Glodok, Mangga Dua and Kota Kembang) to buy the songs without owning a credit card addressed in the countries mentioned.

Well, apparently the songs that are sold in iTunes Music Store are encoded using FairPlay-encrypted 128 kbit/s AAC streams in a mp4 wrapper, using the .m4p extension (whereas regular AAC files have the extension .m4a) at 128 kbit/s. Apple?s DRM (Digital Rights Management), FairPlay, is designed purposively so that the .m4p file (which contain the protected encryption) could only be played on iPods (speaking about monopoly?), iTunes/Quicktime, and some Motorola cellphones; plus some other restrictions in using the song.

However this DRM method in not unbreakable, you could burn your songs up to 7 times with the same playlist, and thus allow you to rip it again from the CD to other formats like MP3, to be played other MP3 players and share/copy it over and over again which legal status are unknown in Indonesia but it is clearly illegal in the United States under DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

And so, Apple is very strict in choosing the countries which they have decided to make the iTunes Music Shop available concerning the country?s law about digital music copyright violation. So far they?ve opened in most of the countries that are in North America and the European Union. Japan and Australia are the recent countries they?ve added in 2005, making Japan is currently the only Asian country to be added.

Considering Indonesia?s reputations as one of the biggest digital piracy centers in the world, you will have to probably dream that someday, someday your great great grand children can finally bought the songs from iTunes Music Store in Indonesia (I was saying this in exaggeration).

So, what are the options? Well, to start, you could ask your friends or relatives that owned a credit card addressed in the countries mentioned, to lend their credit card details so could you buy it from their card (and don?t forget to pay back amount you have used, kids!).

Or, if you could get your hands dirty on a stolen credit cards addressed in the countries mentioned, that would work too, but this is supposed to be illegal, off course.

You could also travel to the iTunes Music Shop that are opened in the countries mentioned, or make someone else who happened to be there, to buy an iTunes Gift Certificate in a certain amount on money. You can buy the songs on iTunes with the iTunes Gift Certificate that will work like a prepaid cellphone credits. (Or you could get someone who owned a credit card in USA to buy it from online stores like iTunes Online Shop, Amazon, or Paypal, and the bre and the bre, but off course that would be ridiculously complicated).

If all methods that are mentioned above is too lame (which I personally think it is) you can try this one other thing.

It?s the prepaid credit card. You can just go a site like this one (note: we are not affiliated with the sites), read the directions and the proper requirements carefully, enter the amount you wanted to cash-in, transfers your rupiahs via bank, and get your prepaid credit card details sent to you. And after that you can directly enter the details in the iTunes registration form and buy the songs that you wanted. It may sound a bit complicated but it?s quite simple once you?ve done it.

Well, we can?t describe how glad we are to finally see Indonesian artists on iTunes, and try to give you as much information as we could for our readers to access, buy and use it (hopefully in a legal manner!). If you had any other information, suggestions and other useful tips in this matter please don?t hesitate to use the comment form below.

Ryan Koesuma, March 2006

Apa itu blog?

Published
by
Ryan Koesuma
on October 19, 2005
in Articles and Features
. 18 Comments

Illustration by Eric WiryanataApa itu blog?

Kamu sering denger kata-kata blog tapi gak tau itu apa? Kamu kepingin punya blog biar dianggep gaul dan trendy tapi gak tau itu apa? Kamu ikut-ikutan bikin blog di frenster tapi gak tau itu apa? Kamu udah punya blog tapi masih juga gak tau blog itu apa? Mari kemari, baca artikel ini biar kamu engga go-blog.

Okey, pertama-tama saya rasa kalau kamu emang cukup niat untuk mencari tau blog itu apa mungkin sudah cari disana sini, lewat google, atau kalau kamu lebih kawakan pasti udah nyari di wikipedia. Tapi kalau kamu males baca bahasa inggris atau kamu lebih seneng ngecengin pacar kamu saat pelajaran inggris di sekolah kamu dan nilai kamu je-blog, kamu bisa baca artikel dari Enda Nasution, a.k.a bapak blog endanasution (baca: Indonesia, hehe) tentang Apa itu Blog?

Jadi, apa itu blog? Well, untuk singkatnya, blog adalah sebuah medium untuk penyampaian informasi dengan menggunakan jaringan internet, dengan cara yang lebih egaliter dan dengan semangat globalisme, karena informasi gak cuman milik media mainstream aja, setiap individu juga bisa menyampaikan suaranya, yang sering kali lebih cepat, bebas dan variatif karena tidak berada dibawah suatu jaringan korporat. Bisa dibilang blog adalah New Media for Information and Culture. Kehadiran blog sebagai sumber informasi baru sudah mulai menunjukan signifikansinya karena para pembacanya membutuhkan informasi yang mungkin tidak terdapat di media mainstream dan untuk mendengar suara-suara yang selama ini belum terdengar tanpa kehadiran jaringan internet. Atau dalam kata lain kalo kamu kepingin mencari tau tentang sesuatu yang agak sulit di cari di media mainstream, kemungkinannya akan sangat besar kamu akan mendapatkannya lewat blog seseorang, kalo gak dapet, yah bikin sendiri aja.

Lalu dari informasi itu apakah yang bisa disampaikan? Yang ini juga, tergantung sih sebenernya. Dari pelakunya, tujuan dia nge-blog, dan bentuk informasinya. Contoh yang paling umum bagi para blogger pemula. Kamu nulis diary atau jurnal kamu secara online, trus curhat deh sebanyak-banyaknya tentang diputusin pacar, pedekate sama orang, maki-maki orang, atau cuman nulis lirik lagu orang, masukin buletin board atau junk mail yang mengharukan, dst. dst. Tapi apakah ternyata kamu cuman sampai disitu doang? Kalo iya, berarti blog kamu adalah seperti istilah blog yang di deskripsikan oleh Roy Suryo, seorang yang katanya adalah pakar IT di Indonesia tapi bahkan terlalu malu untuk mengakui kalo dirinya gak bisa pake frenster:

Blog itu satu tren saja. Jadi, seperti agenda yang bisa ditulisi macam-macam. Saya melihat blog sendiri kebanyakan masih berupa katarsis atau tempat curahan emosi.

Atau, kamu sudah lebih maju setahap dan mengerti kalo gak semua orang mau baca curhatan kamu kecuali pacar kamu. Kamu mulai nulis secara rutin tentang ide-ide, hasil karya naratif, hal-hal yang menarik dari keseharian kamu dan lingkungan sosial, pendapat kamu tentang hal-hal yang terjadi di sekitar kamu, dokumentasi, de el el. Atau juga kamu menarik link-link kepada halaman/informasi yang menurut kamu menarik untuk dibaca, dan memberitahukannya lewat blog kamu, jadi istilahnya kamu sudah mempermudah orang lain untuk mencari informasi dengan menjaringnya, atau membuat penjelasan sendiri, yah, seperti artikel ini juga hehehe. Lebih baik lagi bahkan, kalau kamu sudah bisa mempublikasikannya kepada orang lain secara global, mungkin dengan bridge-blogging, dan membuat orang lain yang nun jauh di ujung lain dunia ini tau tentang apa yang ada di sudut lain dunianya.

Tentu saja, kita tidak bisa mengkotak-kotakkan yang ini blog yang ini bukan. Blog adalah sebuat istilah yang cair. Intinya, jika ada tulisan yang dibuat di media internet, dan disusun secara kronologis-terbalik (yang paling baru yang duluan muncul), dan di-archive, dan di update secara rutin, udah bisa disebut blog. Penulis blog pun bisa individual, group, dan korporat, tergantung dari tujuannya membuat blog. Jika yang nge-blog itu sebuah perusahaan, tentunya isi blognya adalah berita seputar pengumuman produk, servis dan aktivitas perusahaan yang dianggap perlu untuk di publikasikan. Jadi apakah portal berita seperti kompas atau cnn bisa disebut blog? Kembali lagi, istilah ini bukan digunakan untuk mengkotak-kotakkan atau mengkategorikan sesuatu, jadi selama esensi blog hadir disana, ya, situs tersebut bisa dibilang cukup blog, terlepas dari sisi mainstream atau independen.

Kalo kamu ngaku-ngaku masih punya semangat "DIY" then go for it. Daripada DIY itu jadi sekedar jargon yang basi dan membuat kita terlena unproduktif. Cukup memprihatikan juga kalo ngeliat pengguna internet awam indonesia menguasai sebagian besar jumlah user di frenster tapi kurang melek untuk budaya internet yang baru ini. Tolong lah, internet itu bukan sekedar buka frenster doang, atau cetting, atau ngirim2 junkmail ke orang-orang tak berdosa, atau debat-debat kusir di forum.

Akan tetapi, artikel ini enggak disusun untuk memandu kamu nge-blog atau cara bikin blog. Udah ada seribu satu panduan di blogosphere (dunia per-blog-an / internet), kalo kamu terlalu males untuk nyari tau artinya kamu emang gak niat untuk ngeblog. Mendingan cukup aja sampai disini, daripada saya menjadi berdosa untuk membuat blogger-blogger "katarsis" baru. Mendingan kamu ikutan jadi Roy Suryo aja, karena Indonesia masih membutuhkan roy suryo - roy suryo baru, untuk tetap dimaki semua orang yang demen nonton infotaintment.

Ryan Koesuma, Oktober 2005