There is one thing that often shows up as a discussion topic among musicians this month. It’s about being underpaid.

The first one I saw was a Craigslist ad that has risen to fame (and has been deleted, but has been quoted in many places). That was a touché. Next, in a similar vein, from Dave Goldberg. He has got good arguments, I think.

However, all I could do was imagine how bad that was… until that hit my band. I made a Facebook post about it in my personal profile, and I got many reactions. So, I thought I would also share it here (some sentences have been quoted verbatim from my post).

We got this offer via email from a 4-star accommodation in country-side Victoria. To drive from any of our places in Melbourne to that place takes about 3 hours. The gig would run for 2 hours. In the email, they spent a paragraph boasting about how great their place was. And what did they offer as remuneration? 1 meal plus drinks. That was it. Could this be some kind of joke? Now there came a Schrödinger cat-ish situation. It could be both a joke and a non-joke, depending on who observed it and when it was done. They weren’t joking when they made that offer, and it sounded so unfunny to me as well. When I told about it to a bar owner that had paid much more than that to me to play music, he LOLed.

Anyhoo, I entertained myself with the thought that perhaps they didn’t understand that it was a ridiculously low payment. Chelsea told me, “Negotiate away!” Happy to oblige! I asked for money on top of that and did all the maths for them.

But they said nuh-uh.

O. M. G.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve played for free air in so many occasions (e.g. non-profit events or social gathering). I’ve got many witnesses to amen that. In those occasions, I even did things that didn’t make sense financially (i.e. lost money). Why? The organisers also lost money. But I can’t in good faith let a leeching practice continue. Even a small cafe can pay much more than that.

I remember one time when I was still in high school, around 20 years ago, I was invited to my mate’s birthday party. So, of course, lots of food and drinks. I saw a piano and offered myself to play. I didn’t expect any payment. I just wanted to make her have a good time on her special day and entertain everyone. The party went on for a couple hours… so then I decided to call it a night and go home. When I said goodbye, her parents gave me money (enough to buy about 20 Macca’s burgers, or perhaps 40? I don’t remember, but for a high school student that was like “Wow!”) as a gesture of gratitude. Even they could pay me more than the 4-star place!

I sincerely hope that this kind of venues would start respecting musicians as business equals. Right. Now.

Exciting times! Here are my gigs in February 2012 (are you looking for January 2012 ones?):

• Kaze featuring ade ishs.
  I’ll be on keyboard.
  Date/time: Thursday, 2 February 2012, 5–8 pm.
  Venue: The Alchemist, 361 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Vic, Australia.
  Free entry.
• ade ishs Trio.
  Line-up: ade ishs (piano), Chelsea Allen (drums), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass).
  Date/time: Friday, 10 February 2012, 7:30 pm–8:15 pm.
  Venue: Scotts Petroleum, Grampians Jazz Festival 2012, Halls Gap, Vic, Australia.
• ade ishs Trio.
  Line-up: ade ishs (piano), Chelsea Allen (drums), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass).
  Date/time: Saturday, 11 February 2012, 12:45 pm–1:30 pm.
  Venue: Mainstream O/D, Grampians Jazz Festival 2012, Halls Gap, Vic, Australia.

See you there!

Welcome, 2012! In this first month of the year, I’m booked to play at these gigs:

• MOU Quartet.
  Line-up: Mihoko Abe (saxophone), ade ishs (piano), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass), Jularaj Suthibutr (drums).
  Date/time: Sunday, 22 January 2012, 5–8 pm.
  Venue: Open Studio, 204 High Street, Northcote, Vic, Australia.
  Entry by donation.
• ade ishs Trio.
  Line-up: ade ishs (piano), Chelsea Allen (drums), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass).
  Date/time: Sunday, 29 January 2012, 5–8 pm.
  Venue: Open Studio, 204 High Street, Northcote, Vic, Australia.
  Entry by donation.

See you there!

Still in the end-of-year mood, I feel like listing the bands I’ve been with throughout my life. Without further ado, here they are:

Harmony, 1993. Genres: contemporary jazz, pop. Line-up: yours truly (keys) and Febry Hariyannugraha (keys). Honestly, I don’t remember the exact name of the band. If you happen to attend our only gig in 1993, please remind me. Trivia: we performed my composition Jakarta at Night 1.

KKE Band, 1995. Genre: pop. Line-up: Arief Awaluddin (voice), yours truly (key), Hendry Darto (electric guitar), Amir Aliakbar (electric bass), Oryza Sativa (drums). One gig only in 1995.

Ensemble Band, 1996–1998. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: Gupta Mahendra (guitars, 1996, 1997), yours truly (piano and keys, all line-ups), Arianto Surojo (electric bass, percussion, all line-ups), Bowie Djati (drums, percussion, all line-ups), Andre Maulana (keys, 1996–1997), Arief Awaluddin (voice, 1997), Ade Binarko (voice, 1998; enlisted, but never performed). Trivia #1: 3rd runner-up of the First Java-Bali Jazz Festival (Festival Jazz Jawa-Bali), 1996. Trivia #2: ARH Radio (Jakarta, Indonesia) Jamz Session, 6 July 1997. Trivia #3: On our first gig, the bill advertised us as “Enfemble Band”.

Duet with Sakty Rajasa, 1997–1998. Genre: pop. Line-up: Sakty Rajasa (voice), yours truly (key), various other supporting musicians. Did a few gigs together.

AB Trio, 1997–1998. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: yours truly (piano and keys), Arianto Surojo (electric bass), Bowie Djati (drums). We did gigs around the Depok campus of University of Indonesia. Trivia: On our first gig, I was playing an electronic keyboard, and in the first five seconds, it lost power. The power cable was accidentally unplugged.

No (known) name, ca. 2000. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: Ade (voice), Aldi (voice), Arif Dharma (voice), Imada Hutagalung (acoustic guitar), yours truly (key). (My apologies, Ade, Aldi, I don’t know your full names.) With me, we just did private function gigs. Without me, they had residency gigs at the (now closed down) Prefere café in Depok, West Java, Indonesia.

Mixed Up, 2002–2003. Genres: jazz, classical. Line-up: yours truly (piano, keys, voice), Sandra Bogerd (voice, kazoo), Yugo Isal (electric bass). Trivia #1: The first band to perform my composition A Wish for the Better. Trivia #2: All of us have done PhD.

Dexter and the Band, 2003–2004. Genres: jazz, latin, ethnic, and pop. The band is still active, but I no longer play there. The line-up for this band kept changing. As far as I remember, it (almost?) always had a distinct line-up for every public gig. The last line-up I played in was really great: Dexter Pradi (keys), Steve Pranaditha (drums), Dung Nguyen (guitar), yours truly (keys, cowbell), Armand Muljadi (bass), Adinda Marita (voice), Henry Sullivan (voice), Aldi Simatupang (voice).

Gadsby, 2006–present. Genre: contemporary jazz. This band was really mostly Ensemble Band. Line-up: Gupta Mahendra (guitars, 2006–2010), yours truly (keys, 2006, 2010), Bowie Djati (drums, all 2006–present), Yugo Isal (basses, harmonica, 2006–present), Shuhud Tjia (guitars, 2007–present), Andre Maulana (keyboards, 2007), Arianto Surojo (bass, percussion, 2010–present). Trivia: the first band (2006 line-up) to record my composition A Wish for the Better.

Tim Hadrah Melbourne, 2011–present. Genre: traditional. Well, I’m not really sure that it’s the agreed name for the band, but anyway… Line-up: Nur Kholis, Honest Molasy, yours truly, Mustofa Fahmi. Everyone’s on rebana.

ade ishs Trio, 2011–present. Genre: jazz. Line-up: yours truly (piano), Chelsea Allen (drums), Chris Schürmann (acoustic bass, July 2011), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass, August 2011–present). This is currently my main band. So far, this is the band that plays the biggest number of my compositions.

MOU Quartet, 2011–present. Genre: jazz. Line-up: Mihoko Abe (saxophone), yours truly (piano and key), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass), Jularaj Suthibutr (drums). This is mostly a contemporary jazz cover band.

I was in other bands (if not mistaken, mostly one-off ones), but my memory of them is hazy.

Factual corrections are welcome.

2011 is about to end, and this has been a great year music-wise. Thank God for all of these happenings. I’d like to spend a moment to reflect on these.

So, early this year, I got more serious into hand-drumming and formed a rebana band with Nur Kholis and Honest Molasy. It was so much fun. We had 5 gigs, public events and private functions. I wish to be able continuing doing this again next year.

One big thing that I have been so grateful for was Guildford Lane Gallery (which has also closed down this year). I have met great musicians there. I was so glad that the Melbourne jazz icon Steve Sedergreen greeted me and asked me to play.

I started doing a residency there, playing the piano solo from 8 April until 22 September. That was by itself great, but I still wished to play again in a band.

In June, I was lucky to meet a great drummer from Brisbane who just recently moved to Melbourne, Chelsea Allen and we had a jam, and I loved (and still do) her playing style. Moreover, we shared the same idea of forming a piano-bass-drum trio. We got our first gig together on 7 July (for which we didn’t do any rehearsal), with Chris Schürmann on acoustic bass. Before we started, I didn’t even have a name for the band, and I hadn’t seriously thought of one as we probably wouldn’t need one. When Chelsea and I had a chat during a break, a guest came to us and asked us the name of our band. Chelsea, being the smarter one and with higher brain engagement speed, quickly replied, “ade ishs Trio”, while I was mumbling, “Mmm…”. The name stuck since then.

Since then until August, I spent a lot of time rehearsing with other bands, too. Daigo Nakai joined the trio and we had many rehearsals together since then to prepare for our debut gig on 15 September. Early August, I was enlisted by MOU Quartet, something I’ve also felt grateful for. Playing contemporary jazz pieces is both fun and challenging, and the band has been a great outlet for this purpose. I was also asked by Linda Pearson to do a bassoon/flute/voice-piano duet for a gig on 1 September.

September was a big month. Duet with Linda on 1 September, MOU Quartet on 8 September, and a very memorable one with Chelsea and Daigo on 15 September. On 22 September, I opened Bob and Steve Sedergreen great duet.

I went into a musical “seclusion” in October. I didn’t do any gig. I just did a lot of sitting, thinking, and contemplating, and a few jam sessions. In November, I just did two gigs.

And came the last month of the year now. Jeff Karutz and I did a saxophone-piano duet early this month. Chelsea, Daigo, and I had a corporate function gig and we have been preparing for our gig next month. We will play more of my compositions.

This year, I have been more active on the performance side, and a bit passive on the composition side. Not a bad thing, after being almost passive on the performance side for years. My resolution for 2012: do more gigs and prepare materials for a new album. Wish me all the best!

A few weeks ago, you may have noticed the refreshed appearance of my musical website. Now, the blog follows.

Not only a theme change. If you see the sidebar, a couple things have disappeared. First, the Twitter shell. I tweet less anyway, let alone tweeting about music. I still do tweet about music, but my tweeting frequency has dropped overall. And then the links that you can find on my musical website anyway. Now, somehow, I also find them rather cluttery, so, bye. Also, not directly visible, but a feature that should have been available there: comment reply email notification.

That’s all for now. I have gigs booked for next month. Stay tuned for more info closer to the happening dates.

Just a quick update on my upcoming gig: Jazz saxophonist Jeff Karutz and I (on the piano, as usual) will do a duet of standards.

Date/time: Friday, 2 December 2011, 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm.
Venue: Palace Cinema Como, Cnr Toorak Rd & Chapel St, South Yarra, Vic, Australia.

It doesn’t cost you anything to watch us. So, come and enjoy!