Dopplegengger (Historical Wise)

First of all, before I begin, I would like to welcome to whoever is reading this right now. I'm sure you all got to this blog is either I forward the link, or you all are just curious people, or you ARE in fact, the members of the band just browsing through to what I'm typing as you read along because we don't have this kinda thing, right guys? :D

Okay then, Welcome to Dopplegengger's blog place, web, whatever this is called. Forgive me, this is my first time using this service. So far so good, I think. We are consists of 5 dudes from Multimedia University (MMU), Cyberjaya, still studying as usual. My name is Azim and I'm the lead vocalist for the band and it seems that I'm responsible for typing out some stuff about us. Or maybe I'm just doing this for kicks and blabber it out everything that comes to mind. Hehe. My other bandmates are Afiq - Lead Guitarist, Brian - Bassist, Johnny - Rhythm Guitarist and our malay mixed Mat Salleh friend, Johar Lucas - the drummer a.k.a the beat architect. He was in Cicakman btw. I'm mixed chinese by the way. Nobody believes me but thats cool. Hehe. Anyways, this is our current line up. All of them are my closest friends and I appreciate their talents and their love for music and it's cool and lucky that we're all friends and a formed band as well. But it didn't start out like what you're reading now before because believe it or not, I was a FAN of this band before I joined in with these compadres... Now this is where I tell the story from my point of view.. :)

In 2004, we all entered MMU first year foundation, same classes and everything. I do have other bands at the time where I'm a drummer but never involved in bands from MMU. So I didn't know who was Afiq, Brian and other guys. They were just...normal friends. Then a few weeks have passed, everybody got aquainted, settled in with their hostels and classes. Then came an event which I would never thought they would organize so early, AudioWarfare 2004. Sounds like a battlefield war games but it was the battle of the bands. I wasn't really fond of battle of the bands because when you play, you usually cover other people's song and the judges evaluate based on that and mostly these bands don't have their original songs. So it's kinda hard to show the talent. The judges only familiar with radio friendly songs. That was the whole point. The reason why I said this is because I've already played lots of gigs where we have to play original songs. Only then, you can show your real talent as a musician and composer and so forth. But since it was just battle of the bands, so I figured, maybe it can be a fun activity to do with new friends, and covering songs for a change. Anyways, I was befriend with Johar at the time and he wanted to form a band and I said, okay, no problemo laa. I'll just play the drums and he plays the bass because he also registered with another band with Afiq and Brian at the time and Johar was actually a drummer. But I'll get back to that later. So me and Johar with another 3 guys which was Apek the vocalist, Azfar the guitarist, and Johnny the guitarist as well. As you can see now, everybody was everywhere. We called ourselves The Dutchladies. I know, I know...lame right? Somebody was drinking strawberry dutchlady milk, we had no time to think up a name. We just take laa! :P

Meanwhile Afiq and Brian has another band of themselves and Johar was also included. I wasn't close with them at the time but according to what Johar explained to me was that they all got together somehow and tried jamming among themselves. Afiq was the vocalist and guitarist as well, Brian playing the bass and Johar on the drums, rockin away and instantly there was that chemistry thing going on. Everybody clicked. Pretty normal for a band to savour the moment whenever you form a band and jammed nicely. But they said they needed another guitarist to play. So they invited Johar's roommate who happens to know how to play guitar, terrific football player and most probably Macromedia Flash editor of the year. Maybe every year. And very very very good at it, I might add. The guy was bushy haired, combed using his own hands in a stylized kinda way and likes to make smart jokes. Too smart in fact. Haha. That guy was Azhar Razali. And their band was called DBS, stands for Death By Stereo. When this guy joined, the music was so damn funky that I thought this guy was damn original or better than other funky guitarist in the world. They played together well. They were like the perfect mix of a band. Afiq and Azhar was good in sharing ideas in my opinion. When they were practicing for the audition, me, Johar, Johnny and others were doing that too for our band. We played The Ataris 'Boys of Summer' version. During practices, I could tell that we're not gonna pass the audition from the start because we weren't practicing as hard as we should and the fact that Azfar and Apek weren't experienced in this type of thing where it requires countless hours of practice and perfection. But I just roll with it anyways.

When that audition day came, we all did our thing in front of the organizers. And you guessed it.. Dutchladies out, DBS in. They made it into the finals. So either way, Johar still gets to play with DBS. And I was that someone who supports them. The night of that event, it was sooo many people filling up the hall. It was full house like a rock concert. But with seats. And I thought, wow, this event must be really good to get this kind of crowd. Anyways, all the bands performed and DBS was too. They played 311 'Amber' song and one of their original song called 'Dreamology'. It's because of them that I started listening to 311 songs. They were the only band that didn't play crazy metal rock songs. And I guess thats why they stand out. I was at the back cheering them on with our other friends and we were screaming like mad! Now at first, I wasn't really a fan of them because I haven't heard their original materials properly and it wasn't catchy for me even at that time. But it sounded quite creative because the song was a bit progressive. And they were my friends, so of course I was cheering alot. They didn't won anything but according to them, they were at 4th place. Which was quite an achievement considering they were the only first year students that made it into finals and others were seniors.

After the moral victory, DBS was here to stay..at least for a while. Everybody noticed the potential of the band slowly. They all kept creating their songs and practiced everyday in the hostel rooms. Friendship getting closer and stronger as they bond as friends and a band. Meanwhile I was minding my own business with other things but was still 'lepaking' with them as well. But the day that I became a FAN of their music was when they recorded their demo material for the first time at Ampang jamming studio called 'Excess Studios'. Now that studio is closed for good, I think. I heard 'Dreamology' for the first time in Azhar's room in campus. I was quite surprised that the songs were actually catchy and good. It was tight as hell. I mean it's a demo quality but a damn good one. So since then, I would sometimes hear what ever materials they come up with, whether with vocals or instrumental, and they played in front of me and I love listening to it because it has that ethnic, asian, modern but classy element by using just guitars when they should be using gongs instrument or something, which separates from other generic bands lately. Azhar and Afiq made beautiful guitar riffs together, makes me wonder both of them were meant to be soulmates or something. Haha. I really admire them and their ideas as guitarists and how they work together. Sometimes both of them like to record their guitar riffs through Azhar's computer for fun. Azhar knows a thing or two about home recording as well. All of them were very high spirited in releasing their demos but they never reached that goal because very busy with assignments. But their songs somehow circulating around the campus in the network, sharing and everything unintentionally. And somehow they got fans around MMU and people started to notice them and how good they really were. DBS played a few shows in MMU and outside as well. Sometimes I would follow them jamming and practicing for their next show. There was one time they got interviewed by Radio MMU. Things was just getting better and better. They even wrote malay songs just for fun. The songs were quite good and catchy as well that sometimes I like to sing it. But the most definitive performance for DBS was where I became the vocalist just for that night and sing for the band on our prom nite at JW Marriot KL. We all performed prom dancing type songs like from that movie 'That Thing You Do' and Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. We played so good that we had to perform the first song again for some dancing action. The only bummer was that we didn't have someone to record our performance, not even a clear photograph! But I guess thats because they were all just having a great balls of fire time. Hahaha! :D That night, seriously I would never forget..and I know the other guys won't forget it either. It was special for us...period.

The following year, which was 2005, things always change and adapt, I guess. One thing was that Johar entered Azhar's other main band called Neomedicus. He wanted Johar to join Neomedicus because Johar is quite good at drums and it fits Neomedicus's style. Funky.. :) Good for him of course. Then, there was this one time when DBS had a show to do in MMU. Engineering Society organized an event called E-Sensation and DBS was invited. Unfortunately, Azhar and Johar had to play for Neomedicus at a Green Day Launching Album gig. A definite clash right there! That's when Afiq asked me to play drums for DBS and I was crazy excited because I already memorized the drum beats of their songs. What to do...? I'm a freakin' FAN! Hahaha. So there was 3 of us that night. Frankly, it was not that bad. Although when we played the first song, there was something wrong with Afiq's guitar or the gadget he was using and the sound didn't came out and we stoped playing and everybody laughed. It was damn hilarious but it was fixed quickly and we get on with the show. Fun night for me! Time goes by fast and then came the real change. Azhar wanted to quit the band because he wanted to focus on Neomedicus. It was his main priority band anyway before he joined DBS. He joined DBS just for fun at first during AudioWarfare. He never thought it would be more than that but he saw potential and so he stuck around for a while, recording some songs with them and so on. But realizing that he can't commit for long so he decided to step back and the guys respected his decision because we all too love Neomedicus as a band and boy, they kicked ass too! In the end, we're all still friends what.. :D Later on, Johar quits DBS too and became full time drummer for Neomedicus. So, Afiq and Brian had to go through this revamping wake up call kinda thing where they all started to think who they should recruit and what kind of music they want to approach, fresh materials so to speak. So, they decided to recruit Johnny, our friend as well who can play guitar and Afiq wanted me to play the drums. It was an honor for me to play for this band because I haven't played in a band for so long and thought this should be fun. So we all gave it a try at the jam studio and surprise surprise, we all clicked too. Even though it wasn't the same type of music as before but it's definitely a new thing, a new breath of fresh air. Before we knew it, we had another DBS revamp band. And the meaning of DBS even changed from Death By Stereo to Deceiving Bedtime Story. Ooooo....So deepful meaning.. Hahaha..! :P

So with the new line-up, Afiq still sings and plays guitar, Brian still the Groove Master, Johnny and I were trying to find our place and sound in the band. In time, we created a cool straight- forward rock song called 'When She's Away' and from what I remember, it was a very frustrating song to compose and play because we keep improvising and thinking and deciding which part sounded good or bad, use it or not use it and wanted to stick with it. But the end result was a good catchy one. Easily a hit radio friendly song. And so we took this song and give the audience a taste at the AudioWarfare 2005. Alot of people gave a good reaction to the song because the last part of the song was a killer fast-paced contrary motion solos between Afiq and Johnny. We didn't win but it was quite memorable for us because it was the new DBS and that was our first show as a new revamped band in terms of the members and the music. We did pretty good for a while.

Then suddenly there's another line-up change again during our semester break. I remember Afiq calling me and asking if I would be interested to be the vocalist and then let Johar come back as the drummer. At first I was quite excited but at the same time scared because I never really tried to be a full all out vocalist. I don't really have the experience much. But Afiq was really convinced that it was all for the better for the band as he wants to concentrate more of playing the guitar than singing. And so, I was cool about it and so does everyone including Johar when he came back to the band. I think it was ok for me because Johar is a much better drummer than I am and I know he would bring cool beats to the table. I just wasn't sure if I had what it takes. But we all just gave it a try. Surprisingly, we all sounded better and more tight than ever before. My voice didn't sucked that bad that I thought it would be and Johar played his version of 'When She's Away' much twisted than I ever did. So it all worked out pretty well. And from this moment on, we kept creating more songs for recording our demo. We went to record the songs at Taman Melawati, near Johar's housing area. We recorded the music live track instead of track by track but the vocals was recorded separately. The final result was quite cool because it occured to us that what we usually play live in front of people is not the same sound as we thought when recorded properly. It sounded so clear and united. It was just wonderful and surreal.

We did a few shows in MMU as time goes by but none of that really promotes us or even get a big exposure and we haven't played in real outside gigs until late 2006. We were all too busy with studies and so on. We did jammed once in a while when we all had free time. We registered myspace music for people to hear our music, give comments, and spread the word and so on. As time goes on, we were tired of playing the same old songs and we tried to create more new songs but none of them really clicked or even had the energy that defines our band. It was a slow year for us...

In late 2006, we finally got an outside gig at Paul's Place near Old Klang Road. Even though it wasn't a famous gig but at least it's a start. In the mid 2006, we already have created new songs which really defines us and the music that we wanted which is kind of like 60's beatles rock but with a twist and we thought, if we're gonna change the song style, we might as well change the band name too. So Afiq came up with Dopplegengger, means twin or double or mirror image. And I thought, what better to play these new materials than to play at this particular gig. I remember that gig very well because it was the time when I was still healing from my illness. My voice wasn't up to par but I could still sing. We went, we played, and we conquered! I think that was the night that we realized we were back in business and feeling alive and kicking again. :D We found ourselves again...

But still, that wasn't enough because it was the only gig show we got at the time. Not everybody knows our potential yet. The real show and our next target would be the AudioWarfare 2007 (AudioWarfare 2006 didn't happen because there was a problem with the budget or the timing). By now everybody knows that AudioWarfare event is really a big thing in MMU every year. People from the outside would come and watch the show. Anyways, we didn't waste anymore time. We registered and thinking we had to do this and give it our best shot. It's our last chance to prove ourselves we were the real deal as a band that has been around for 3 years and try to win at least something before we graduate. Now we're all seniors... Plus, it would be the first time for our latest line-up to perform in front of MMU people. Meaning me, singing in front of big crowds like quarter from the Rock the World concert audience. Yikes..! :P But we took a challenge. We work our way up like crazy. Practicing again and again, performed small events that would lead up to the big one, just to show we're still alive. We had to strategize like what cover song would be suitable for us and would woo the judges and audiences. Brian gave the idea that would change my life forever, singing 'Crazy' by Gnarles Barkley. First of all, I don't really hear latest radio songs and when I heard that song, I thought, that was too crazy! I couldn't do that particular voice! Too high! And then Afiq suggested we change it a bit and give it a lil funky/jazzy type of feel to it. And I thought, hmmm, this could work.. I could sing with my own voice and my own style and the end result was totally different than the original but somehow still faithful to the soul of the song. Meanwhile, you're never gonna believe this. Azhar created another band called Thomas On The Moon, to join in the AudioWarfare with Afdeza as the vocalist(Johar's gf), Brian as the bassist, Johar playing the drums and another friend of ours, Hussam, a foreign student playing the guitar. I thought to myself, damn we got some competition going on here now! The fact that half of the bandmembers from Dopplegengger are also in Thomas On The Moon, it's gonna be interesting to see how this turns out in the end.

When AudioWarfare 2007 finally came, everybody was god damn nervous! I mean really really nervous! Especially me! I even had to puke in the toilet! Can't help it. One of my routines... :P Anyways, 10 bands were in queue to play and Thomas On the Moon was the first band to go. It was quite a good start. They rocked for sure. Afdeza's voice was spot on. It was nice to see Azhar playing his funky guitar again since AudioWarfare 2004. It was a great performance from them. Solid effort from the get go. But guess what? Dopplegengger had to play last! The 10th band! My god, the waiting was a torture, moving around backstage, watching band after band performing made us feel the pressure and the nervousness was nervewrecking. Some were really good but one band really stands out, Encarnacion... They were the 6th band to perform and they really freakin' rocked the house! Even though they played both malay rock kapak cover songs, still the band were so damn tight that you just feel congested. They were like the superband came out of nowhere and the judges even said that they should perform at Hard Rock Cafe instead of joining a competition. I was like, that's it! We're gonna suck balls to hell! The remaining of the bands to perform even agreed with me on that. We just can't beat Encarnacion. But it's too late to freak out now. I thought, let's just do it laa. No point blabbering. We just do what we do and hope for the best. When it came to our turn, the last band of the night, you can imagine that all of the people are getting tired and sleepy of course. Even we were kinda sleepy. But we gotta get the job done. So we performed our first song which was our own song called 'Sooner Than You Think'. Just as Johnny started strumming the chords, I was feeling it. Then when Johar attacked the first beat, I was like crazy possessed wild dancing baboon! I dont know where did that come from but I was just dancing my ass off. I guess it's to shake off that nervous thingy. When I heard the audience cheering for us, it was uplifting for me. We played like there's no tomorrow. I was jumping like a mad dude from hell! When that was over, the crowd so far liked us. A good sign. I don't know about the judges but I guess they pretty much ok with the performance. But what brought down the house for me was our second cover song Gnarles Barkley's 'Crazy'. It seems that alot of people know and love that song so much that when I started singing that song, the minute they recognized it, they were all shouting and shouting for more. I was like wow. This song is pretty famous. So I sang that song as soulful as possible with my own kinda way. In the end, everybody applaud us for performing that song. When we went backstage, one of them even shook my hands and thanking us for playing that song. It was pretty overwhelming.

But what was more scary for us was the results. We all had to wait until the end of the event to know who wins the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize, best guitarist, best bassist, best drummer, and best vocalist. When they announced the best bassist was Brian, we were all like in shocked and happy!! We were in disbelief. I felt like I had a heart attack. It was like a dream come true for him and I know he would show the trophy to his dad and make him proud. Best drummer went to someone else. Which was kinda bummer for me because Johar did a great job playing for both bands. He and Brian was the most hard working of the bunch. But it was okay. Johar will always be the best drummer that we all know. Best guitarist of course goes to Encarnacion's both of the guitarists because they deserved it. Both of them are guitar Gods. Hands down. And the award for best vocalist...now, when I heard that annoucement, I didn't think I would win because Encarnacion's vocalist was quite good as well. But it turned out that I won that award and I had the shock of my life! I seriously didn't believe it. It was my first time winning a battle of the bands award and to win the best vocalist award was really a treat. It gave me more confidence and recognition that would make me push the limits even more in the future as a vocalist. And then, when they announced the 3rd place, it was Thomas On The Moon! They won 3rd place and we were so happy for them! I mean out of 10 bands and they won! I know Azhar must be so happy because the band got to win 3rd place. I was like woohoo! What's goin on here? So far our friends won the trophies. And when they announced the 2nd place winner was Dopplegengger, thats when we all really loose it...shouted like hell! We can't believe we won 2nd place of the competition! The band didn't won anything in AudioWarfare's 2004 and 2005 but for 2007, we won something. And we won big. You could say we dominated the awards that night. Both of the bands won something. It felt really really good. It's like all of us gone out with a big bang and retired. We got some prize money of course. :D We kept it for future recording session purposes. And of course, the 1st band was Encarnacion, which was pretty obvious and we were so happy for them too! We all took videos and pictures that night. We went out to eat at mamak's place somewhere in Putrajaya and celebrate our winnings. Some of us didn't even go to the next day's classes. Too happy to go. Plus we were just plain tired cos we came back late. Haha. One thing is certain, we will never forget that night for sure...ever.

After that, we got some good shows from the outside. We were active for quite a bit and we keep on creating new songs to record our songs soon. Latest gig that we played was Tribute to Radiohead gig at KL JamAsia, Hartamas. That gig was quite important because the fact that alot of people love Radiohead and apparently, we played along side with a well-known band like Seven Collar T-Shirt and some other good bands. There were only 4 chosen bands performing that night and what does that tell you? It means it narrows it down and the lesser the bands, the more focused the audience are to you and we had to be impressive to bring Radiohead songs and I won't lie to you, the songs were quite hard to cover. We had to practice 3 times a week just to get it right. That night, we were the first to perform. We had to play 'Just', 'Electioneering', 'Let Down', and 'Paranoid Android'. Everything was ok, we were performing the 2nd song when suddenly, BLACKOUT! The whole hartamas was out of electricity. At least for about 10 minutes or so. It was so dark. Couldn't do anything but sit around waiting. Some people lit up some candles. Then electricity came back on, and we got it on going. Overall, it was a great night. People enjoyed themselves and drinking beers and so on. I didn't drink laa of course. :P I did had to go back early because something important came up. The rest of the guys just enjoyed the night and the show.

So, I think that's about it. Fuuhh, I think my fingers cramped a bit. So, now you know the whole background of us. Well, almost all. I don't know if I missed out on anything important but that's pretty much what happened until now. So, thank you for reading this story of mine. Hope you got some insights of Dopplegengger. Now all we have to do is just keep playing gigs and record some songs. Keep a lookout for us okay? I'm out! Chiaos.. :D