A long awaited visit by my KL jamming partners

My two jamming partners in KL finally made the trip to Batu Gajah, some 5 years since their last visit.

Batu Gajah or Elephant Stone, if correctly translated from Malay, but most people translate the name one word at a time, and usually translate it as Stone Elephant. Nobody can be sure the origin of the name. But it has spawned a housing project, Elephant and Castle with obvious reference to the town name and Kellie’s Castle, a ruin of an uncompleted mansion built by a Scottish planter, Kellie Smith, who died before it could be completed. Yet, for those who have been to London, it suggests the housing development company owner had been there before, as there is an Elephant & Castle tube station.

Kellie’s Castle has been a tourist attraction for a number of years. It used to be neglected in its original state with thick undergrowth and commonly referred to by the locals as “the ghost house”. While in that state, it did not deter some daring lovers seeking a haven safe from peeping toms, and murderer(s) who killed and/or dumped his victim there.

Then the state government of Perak decided to spend millions to make it a tourist attraction. To be honest, the work was “too enthusiastic” and the result was that, part of the building was practically renovated instead of restored!

Anyway, it was rented to an enterprising Chinese who publicized and increased entrance fee, and he must have made good money from the many busloads of tourists (including my own daughter who came with her college-mates and became their guide, much to the surprise of the entrepreneur cum guide who I later got to know).

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, the rental contract was not renewed and given to a “more deserving category of people” and the dispute went to the court. After he had lost the case, the place is now in a transition stage with destroyed pots and fencing, which was why I discouraged my friends from visiting it.

According to my friend who was the driver, they were delayed when they started the journey by the old route before Rawang and got caught in a jam because of an accident involving a trailer, which reduced access to one lane. I still did not understand why he chose the old route especially being an occasional traveler to this place. In my case, being a frequent traveler, I did occasionally take the old route, which brought back memories of my weekly travel before the North-South Expressway was opened.

Only after their arrival and when by then I had already read the papers, that I told them one of the reasons was the closure of certain roads because of the visit by the Emperor and Empress of Japan to Ipoh and Kuala Kangsar.

Joe, bassist cum vocalist, messaged me that he will come later, “..I gotta go n cut 1 hair first, don’t wait 4 me lunch..” which became the butt of a joke. Imagine the big deal of cutting 1 hair! It would have been worse if he used “cut 1 head” instead! It showed how brevity can be a problem for those particular with proper language though we got the message conveyed.

We had lunch at Hoi Seng in BG Perdana where they used to invite professional singers so that they can boost their business by selling tickets for dinner cum show. We were offered a variety of fishes, which included one “suei mah lau” which literally means “water monkey” and because we chose some other fish, we could not help wondering what it looks like to be given that name. My friend could not help but joked that we could have braised elephant leg.

Since my last visit to the restaurant with my son, I noticed they have included some new pictures, most prominent were one taken of Dr. Chua Soi Lek, Minister of Health, and another, of Chua Jui Meng, his predecessor. Both pictures were taken with the bosses of the restaurant, a husband and wife team. I was tempted to ask if I could ask our MP, YB Fong Po Kuan, to have a similar picture taken and displayed.

My friend’s car was parked in our car porch. My jamming studio is in the next house. So, for convenience, he passed his guitars over the dividing fence to me to take in. I forgot about our 2 dogs with me at the other house barking at them, they being strangers. I took the guitars and went straight to the room and set up the electrical connections. To set the mood, I could not resist putting on an Elvis cd and chose Hound dog and played bass. I was wondering what took them so long until when they came in and told me off, “we were waiting for you to control the dogs!” Mistake with a big M!

After trying out a few tunes, Joe arrived with his friend. I introduced them to my friends and we started our jam with Black Magic Woman. Being new to our group, Joe left it to us to suggest other songs and tunes. So we used those compiled by KC. We tried a few Shadows tunes, starting with Apache, followed by Theme for young lovers. We agreed that because we do not read notes, we had difficulties remembering how each tune goes in spite of having the title and chords! It was a real pity when Richard confessed that he had forgotten how to play the lead for Rise and Fall of Fingle Bunt!

Then I remembered that I was to try out the video camera that I just acquired from Joe. So I asked Joe’s friend to be the shooter. After a few shots, the camera went dead. I just hoped that it was simply because I did not charge the battery just before using.

Considering it was the first time Joe joined us, we managed to play quite a number of songs known to us. Main problem was that Joe, though younger, is more into ballads of oldies like Young ones and even before, like Rose, Rose I love you, while his rock influence started from Deep Purple. Off course, he was into Ventures and the Shadows too. KC preferred rock numbers which required use of effects. This reminds us of the cartoon in which the chap said, “I am not good enough to play unplugged”! I would have used my compiled songs which would have suited Joe, if not for the fact that they came from afar and far between.

Once, Richard twanged the guitar and it reminded me of the intro of Tell Laura I love you and Joe showed interest but not them. I asked Joe to sing at least one Elvis number but the others were just not keen at all!

Soon after we stopped, after some 4 hours (more because of tired and painful fingers), my wife came back from work. Asked what she would suggest for dinner, she said, “you all go ahead, I am vegetarian for today.”

The next day, I asked KC to try connecting the video camera to the computer. He found that the cd that I had did not contain the right driver for the camera. By then, the battery was flat and I had it charged.

After they had left for home, I tried the camera again to see what was recorded could be replayed and was pleasantly surprised to see the recorded 7 clips. Only 3 were decent short clips: Joe singing Young ones, KC singing Badge and Richard playing the intro for Soldiers of Fortune. I was pleased to have recorded something, when I least expected, especially the sound that goes with it. I must remember to take along the SD card to show my children!