(haven't been online since friday. i'm like a starving person who's been invited to a banquet. i.e. i'm stuffing myself to death. cos that's what they do, starving people who eat too much.)

Hello.

I may have mentioned making a band here several days/weeks ago. It all started when I read an article in a honky magazine about a caf� in HK called Nine Lives where bands hang out. I really wanted to try their espresso freeze or whatever it is, so in our daily emails, I suggested to my honky friends, minion Sarah and Wongsiu, that we pretend to be a band as to have some sort of credibility when we go.

And thus, arsequake was born. (I�m not too sure about the capitalisation � arsequake like aqualung? Arsequake like The 45s? or ARSEQUAKE like RUTH?)

Why arsequake? I hear you ask. Well, in Vanity Press, Ben talks about a band he�s been playing in which had many names. One of them, he said, was arsequake. So, as a sort of cover band, it seems sort of appropriate. Sort of. It�s all very fuzzy.

The idea is that Wongsiu�s gonna be the guitarist cos she�s a musical genius and none of us play the guitar and what band doesn�t have a guitar? She can also play the keyboard, cos she�s got a grade 8 in piano (actually, she�s also grade 8 in percussion, which makes her the likely candidate for drummer as well, but) Minion Sarah�s the drummer, cos she wants to be the cool one.

(Little known fact: the first instrument I ever wanted to play was the drums. When I was a little toddler and other children my age were having their first piano lessons, I made my parents buy me a kiddy drum set. However, I made too much noise and I was living in a flat, so I couldn�t play it much.)

Back to arsequake: I�m the lead vocalist cos I can�t do anything else. Well, I could play the cello, but a) I�m shit and b) someone needs to sing, ne c�est pas? I�m not even sure I can shake the tambourine or the maracas correctly. Am a bit of a rhythmic idiot.

(Actually, I just thought: �you could play the piano,� then I realized that I�d forgotten that I can�t. just because I�m a HK child of the 80�s doesn�t automatically mean I can. God.)

As I said before, we�re gonna be a cover band cos we�re too shit to write our own music. Actually, we could make Wongsiu write melodies to Sarf (minion Sarah is too long to type)�s arse-kickingly-good poetry. Some of them have a fabulous lyrical quality; here they are.

So if anyone�s going to be in HK this summer or even if you�re not, tell me if you want to be in our band.

I�m thinking of making t-shirts and badges. Maybe a website also. There�s so much to do� what should our Colour be? And we need something catchy, like �is this pop?� of the 45s. However, all I can think of is something along the lines of �we make your arse quake with pleasure� and that�s much too similar to (and most probably inspired by) �RUTH � the vibrating finger and thump of pop.�

And we need an image. I�m thinking Jackets. Tailored jackets. Maybe pearls.

For a band that doesn�t exist, has no songs, has never played together, can�t play their instruments, aren�t even on the same continent for most of the year, we�re I am taking this very seriously.

<< arsequake! >>

th since 5th october 2001