K

Can you recall why/how you first got into music?

A

It all started because of my older brother, Faisal. I was exposed to a lot of different music from an early age because my brother was a DJ and radio host for Prambors. Back then [late 80s early 90s] there weren’t that many clubs, so the radio station made a mobile disco that would bring everything from the DJ, soundsystem, to lighting when people called.

My brother, Faizal, was in Prambors during the era when Lintas Melawai was around. There was a program called Lintas Melawai where Prambors would do live shows in front of Dairy Queen.

K

How were you influenced by your brother?

A

It’s funny because he was really into disco, meanwhile back then I was really into metal and punk. The influence he had on me was how he appreciated music, I understood the appreciation.

K

Can you explain to us what that appreciation is like?

A

It’s like a perfume, like you would wear a certain perfume and I would remember that “hey, this is Ken’s perfume”. This, of course, isn’t true to every song I listen to, but more often than not there would be these very special moments that would make the music memorable and personal. I was accustomed to appreciating music that way since a very young age.

K

Did you also listen to your brother’s music?

A

Later on, yes. I was first really heavy into rock, every time I was digging for records I would just look for rock records. After a while I started to appreciate all genres, good music is good music.

K

What is good music? Can we really say that it’s good or bad? It seems so subjective…

A

Of course we can, we are listeners and we have the right to say that. In my opinion there is good music out there, and there is music that you can only listen to once. I’m not saying the music is bad, but you don’t need to listen to it more than once, really.

K

So what is good music?

A

Good music to me are the ones that you need to listen to two or three times before you truly appreciate them. Once you ‘get it’ it will already be stuck in your consciousness and you will enjoy it. Music with replay value is much more meaningful than quick fixes, they leave their mark.

K

Around the mid to late 90s you seem to be very much in the hardcore/punk scene and was bassist for Step Forward, one of the iconic bands of that era, can you tell us a little bit about that?

A

I used to hang out in the Haji Nawi area. Haji Nawi is one of the centers of the punk community in Jakarta where it was more about the ideology than the fashion, there were a lot of kids into punk for the look back then. The South Sex, it used to be called. Hanging out there and listening to the music, it sort of felt like something was missing in my life and I had to have a band.

K

A

K

What do you think was this missing ‘something’?

A

I don’t really know how to explain it… I played the bass, and for the longest time I just played it at home. After a while I needed to take my bass playing to the next level, and that, I felt, was by forming a band. The first band I formed was Illegal Head with Acha from Straight Answer, Antiseptik’s drummer (an old Jakarta hardcore band) and Jill. We disbanded and me, Jill, and Andre formed Step Forward.

K

What sort of music did you play?

A

Would you believe that I used to be (does a straight edge ‘X’ with his arms).

K

Oh really? You were into the positive core stuff?

A

Yeah, I was really into bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Gorilla Biscuits. After a while the philosophy didn’t work out with me. There were some kids that were just too fascist in their approach of being straight edge. It isn’t a problem for me to have drunk people around me – that’s their life, we don’t have the right to say what they should do with their lives.

K

How were these kids ‘fascist’?

A

They used to mock and alienate people who weren’t straight edge. That’s when I decided that the philosophy wasn’t for me.

K

Was Step Forward a straight edge band?

A

Only the drummer was straight edge, still is until this day.

K

What was it like with Step Forward? I remember watching you performing with the band, especially during its prime and the height of its popularity.

A

I hope you didn’t watch us on the big stage. I really didn’t like performing on the big stages, we were just making money off them (laughs).

K

Okay, so you have experienced over two decades of music in Indonesia as a listener and performer. Has Indonesia’s music scene grown?

A

It has, but I don’t think the growth has been that good [for punk and hardcore].

K

What do you mean?

A

The gigs… it seems like there aren’t really places for them to perform. A short while back Battle of Disarms, a Japanese punk band, performed in the Tanah Kusir area. I was wondering where in Tanah Kusir the venue was, it turns out that they had to perform at the cemetery! At the cemetery’s parking lot, and they were sleeping on the train tracks there. It was sad, here you have a band all the way from Japan and we can’t accommodate a descent show for them.

K

What about hardcore?

A

The hardcore scene isn’t as big as it used to be.

K

A

K

Why isn’t it [the hardcore scene] as big as it used to be?

A

Perhaps people are happier now, they aren’t as angry as they used to be.

K

Is that a good or bad thing?

A

There are two sides to everything. On one hand, yes it is great. People are happy and can focus on their careers and personal lives. On the other hand people just aren’t as aware of their surroundings as they used to be, everybody is too relaxed, not critical enough.

K

What about Indonesian music in general?

A

For the majors… it’s going downhill. I’m going to have a kid soon and I afraid of what he/she will be listening to. There were a whole lot more commercial artists to select from back in the 90s and golden age of the 70s til the 80s. Now it has become a total industry.

What is really starting to become great is Indonesia’s independent music. Right now is the time to pay attention.

K

Why do you say that?

A

It’s the internet. Now it is possible to listen to so many different types of music, and Indonesia’s independent scene is growing because of it. Bands like Space System, yours [Jirapah], yesterday I saw Zoo at Demajors… holy shit! Jakarta’s scene in particular is really growing. Around 1995 until the 2000s Bandung was the place to go for Indonesia’s independent scene, now it’s Jakarta.

Even the major labels are starting to look for talent there. They are realizing that independent bands can be a commodity as well.

K

What is your opinion about digital and internet based music?

A

It’s great because now there are a lot of people that can listen to music. Digital music is all about access. Because it allows for easier accessibility, more people can listen to it. It’s great.

K

Lets get into record collecting now. What is it with vinyl records that makes it so attractive for so many people to go out there and hunt it? What is with this medium?

A

For me, vinyl records are very primitive – it’s very analog. It’s like those pianos in cowboy saloons or music boxes, the player read this physical groove on the record. Also, the sound vinyl records produce… compared to CDs they sounds much better and much more honest, in my opinion.

K

Interesting that you say it is ‘honest’. Can you explain?

A

They are both mixed and mastered, but I don’t know, it just is much more honest. The physicality of the groove has a lot to do with it. CDs are digital, so CD players read them without that physicality. The artwork on records has a lot to do with it as well.

There are so many things you get when you buy that one record. The music and the musical quality, then you have the large and beautiful artwork as well.

K

A

K

There have certainly been this renewed interest in collecting vinyl records. It even seems that many record labels are increasing their vinyl releases.

A

On one hand it being a trend definitely has something to do with, but also people are becoming curious about it, that ‘primitive’ technology.

K

How did you first start getting into hunting records?

A

That, again, is because of my brother. Everytime he would spin his records I would hear something I like and ask him for records like it. I would ask him where to find it, and so he would take me to Jalan Surabaya. That was about 5th grade. Since then I have been going there looking for records.

Sometimes it feels like you were meant to find a certain record record, and when you have this record in your hand it feels like this music was made for you. I don’t quite know how to explain it.

K

Jalan Surabaya is an iconic place in Jakarta to look for used and vintage things, particularly records., why Jalan Surabaya?

A

Jalan Surabaya has always been the place to look for records. The record stores there were very updated in the music they carried. Let’s say a record came out abroad, two weeks later you would find it in Jalan Surabaya. That is really amazing considering the technology back then – when the internet wasn’t around. The vendors subscribed to music magazines such as Rolling Stones and looked at the charts, and asked their friends who went abroad, many of them pilots or stewardesses, to bring back those records.

It is a really iconic place to hunt for records because you can never guess what sort of gems you will find. I have found rarities that people couldn’t believe I found. How is this possible? Well it went something like this: In the 60s there were many psychedelic bands, and of course some of them ‘made it’ and a lot of them didn’t. The records that weren’t successful were dumped to Asia by Europe and America. It was their ‘garbage’, so to speak, and it turned out that Indonesia received a large amount of that garbage. Well, now they realize that those records are actually great and in Indonesia you can now find plenty, even until this day.

K

Even with the popularity of Jalan Surabaya we can find those records now?

A

Yes, there are still plenty of good records there. Sure, there aren’t as many as before. It used to be that I would find a really great record at least once a week. I used to work at a hospital in Cikini, Rumah Sakit Cikini, so I used to go to Jalan Surabaya often.

Back then you look for bands like Deep Purple and find them, now you look for bands like Diamond Head. Now we have to do a bit of homework, and that’s fine because you will learn more and more about music. Like right now, the Smith is expensive in Jalan Surabaya because of its large demand, so instead I dig for Johny Marr’s electronic group. That’s the stuff I look for nowadays.

K

It is said that the record collecting community first met eachother in Jalan Surabaya.

A

Well, not all, but for the most part yeah.

K

A

K

How did you all meet eachother in Jalan Surabaya?

A

There is this play called Lian (named after the clerk, Lian Nasution). This place is perhaps the most relaxed shop on the street, in the other shops its elbow to elbow. Lian and the shop across the street, these people are very down to earth. They are the type of people would rather make you a friend than a customer, they have even invited me to have dinner in their homes. They make people comfortable in their shops.

That’s where I met Shun [one of the co-owners of Cafe Mondo], he was wearing this Black Flag jersey, and I thought it was dope so I started to talk to him. Lian… he cut he ribbon for Cafe Mondo and Hi-Fidelity’s opening, he even made a speech first (laughs).

K

What other places have you been to to look for records?

A

There was this one place in Cakung, East Jakarta. My friend Merdy called me up one Sunday morning and told me to look at the newspaper’s ad section. It said that this guy was selling his vinyl records for 5000 rupiah each! So me and Merdy went to Cakung. Cakung is an industrial area, the heat is searing… it just isn’t a very friendly area. When we got there the place was just this warehouse with a little box at the door. I called to make sure and the guy said this was the place so we entered this dirty warehouse that rented out large construction machinery. The records he sold, oh my god, that’s where I found my Can and Neu! records. I’m really happy we found that place.

K

Are there still undiscovered places like that in Jakarta or has the city pretty much been explored?

A

Oh there are still plenty of places that have not been discovered. Right now I am focusing on finding records door to door. We get it from maids, most of the time. They would be hanging out outside and I would go up to them and give them a presentation (laughs). I would show them what I was looking for, the different record sizes, and I give them my number asking them to call me if they had some to sell. I have gotten a lot of records this way, but I have also have been getting these really strange offers as well. They would try to sell me their refrigerators and stuff (laughs).

K

Fast forward to 2013, how did you get together with Shun and Tomoko to create Cafe Mondo and High Fidelity?

A

Me and Shun used to work in Babylon, we couldn’t stand it.

K

Babylon?

A

“Babylon”

K

A

K

Oh, that Babylon! (laughs)

A

Yeah (laughs). Financially it was good for me and Shun, but after so many years I felt like an alien there. I didn’t know who to talk to, to talk about things that I liked. I did not enjoy the environment, and after 8 years I had enough. Shun was like that as well, and one day he just said “let’s leave”, I was like “are you serious? I have a family…” but I said “bismillah” and took the plunge.

K

When was that?

A

February of last year, it was just us two talking about it. Shun wanted to make a cafe where he can spin records. I have always wanted to have a record store. Shun suggested that we should do it together, then recruited Tomoko, who worked together with Shun in a company. Four months later we opened on July 13. Why the 13th? Because it is a sign of bad luck, so we wanted to flip that stigma.

K

How has it been going since High Fidelity and Cafe Mondo opened its doors?

A

Well, my wife is very happy. She is happy to see me happy. When I worked at the hospital I was always happy to come home to my wife, but she knew I wasn’t content working there and since I left she can see how much happier I am.

I’m lucky that me and Shun have the same vision, we don’t like things that are instant. Things that are instant appear and disappear to quickly. We want to build our business brick by brick so our foundation is strong.

K

What are your plans for this place?

A

I want Hi Fidelity to be full of records. I never meant it to be boutique. I want it full of records so people will stay longer and listen to music together. I honestly am very happy when people listen to records in the shop, the people stop by over and over, then start hunting for records outside of the shop. I want people to experience what I experienced, going out to places and discovering records.

My advice for people who are collecting vinyl. Go out there and dig for records in the shops before you start looking online. Experience digging through dusty bins, sneezing, and meeting all sorts of people. Then you’ll understand and appreciate.