❤\(´^ ____^`)/❤: guitar

...Long time a go, when i was in school, or where i came from, the time i was growing up in the 80s. Rock music is everywhere. It was at the forefront of the consciousness. Radio playing local and international music, in school i went to, in magazines, video tapes, cassettes and CDs. I had a neighbour who is a Mat Rock or simply a label to describe young male who's interested in rock music by his haircut, tshirt and torn jeans. I get to know him and went to his house and for the first time touch an electric guitar. He's the first one who taught me how to play the guitar but since i don't have any at home, instantly i forgot about it. I think i bought an accoustic guitar but since no one teaching me and without any books or a guide (no internet/youtube era), it just sat at one corner collecting dusts and because of my social construct and surrounding at that time i thought girls don't play guitar so in a way i totally forgot about it. While growing up in school i get to know some friends who dubbed a mix tape for me, i remember one of it has Ramones,Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedy's in it. Then the next one is mostly all British punkrock bands The Clash, The Jam, Buzzcocks, etc and later i discovered the local underground punkbanks like The Pilgrims, Carburetor Dung, etc. In college i get to know a few more guys into the music and they taught me to play guitar a bit here and there, from my class, i have a friend with similar interests, he taught me guitar as well but i forgot everything easily, we even have our own band (i played drums) and jam quite oftenly at this jamming studio behind Pudu jail. After college, everyone move on their own way and eventually out of touch.

I moved on with life, working in advertising and live life half conscious all the time (no hope in transitioning and basically quite dead inside) then when quit advertising and concentrate on studying Japanese and get a freelance job in local NGOs and get to know myself more (gender identity and being Trans) and the politics of this country, then discovered there's a band that there's a Transwoman playing drums, i instantly felt like, shit that was that the thing i always wanted to do long time ago while i was in college, she reminded me of my old self. Fast forward when i was in Japan, i tried looking for guitar to practise but failed and kind of forgot about it, and while i'm there i was staying at Koenji, i discovered that there were a lot of girls carrying guitars and drumkit around and after awhile also i noticed there were more women's artists than men. I get to know a few women artists and in woodprint workshop there were 9 female out of 10.

After coming back here, i was reunited with my old accoustic guitar that i bought with a friend long time ago in Sungai Wang and played it once in a while, but things getting more intense and focused since last year probably 'its time' and i could be pretty fermented, few punk bands kind of influence me to write my own lyrics, i tried with the thinking of its just poetry sort of and since last year i manage to make a few songs (or rather poetry with instruments), with D.I.Y. punk ethics in the mind, anyone can do or learn anything actually so with that mentality i manage to make sort of 5 songs. Before i went to the Philippines me, Dorian and Jellene manage to wrote a few silly songs probably from our experience being Trans but all of us forgot about the lyrics and chords. Until last year we manage to salvage 1 song back and rewrote the lyric and came out with a few more and also did a lyric book in a form of a mini zine (A3 paper fold into small pocket size zine).
Then we performed at Findars gallery early last year, World Aids Day end of the year and also at Merdekarya. Since that experiences kind of psyched me up a bit to write and play more. I overcame the stage fright, my own thick introverted wall, shyness and also being too conscious about my own voice, so yeah, there's still a bit shivers here and there, but lets see where does this go to, there's Femmecoat and also another one at Merdekarya next month....

With youtube, now its so so so easy to learn any songs possibly imagined. Not like in the 80s, where you have to find the guitar book and rely on the next person who know how to play guitar....thank you internet.