Teaming up with the people you enjoy having activities with is, well, enjoyable. The key ingredient in a team is the people in it. A team of people with just sufficient skills but work well together is better than a team of highly skilled people but more interested in showing off than working together.

I’m now reflecting on the journey of my bands so far and what make them survive and what cause them to disband. When I was in high school, I had two bands that didn’t live long. I guess it was because we were just doing it to be cool teenagers, and almost noone seriously pursued music.

Who would have thought that my decision to study physics at University of Indonesia gave me the opportunities to meet other people that play music. And those are the people that I still play music with now. I applied to become a member of Mahawaditra, the university’s symphony orchestra. It was during the interview I met Bowie, now Gadsby’s drummer. Long story short, my application was declined.

In 1996, I was invited to fill in the post of keyboardist for Ensemble Band. It was there I met Gupta Mahendra on guitar, my high school senior Ari Surojo on bass, and Andre Maulana, another keyboardist. Bowie filled in the drums department. We kinda decided the band to mostly play Pat Metheny’s pieces. Ensemble Band was active until 1998. After that Ari, Bowie, and myself played as AB Trio. Also in 1996, in a mostly-non-musical student activity, I met Yugo Isal. We never really played together, though… until in 2002 in Melbourne, when I went to a music shop, we met again. We and Sandra Bogerd teamed up to form Mixed Up, with myself on keys, Yugo on bass, and Sandra singing and kazooing.

Meanwhile, Bowie went on to do postgraduate study at AIM in 2000. Ari was busy with job. While I still did music, it wasn’t with any of the ex-Ensemble guys, and then I lived in Melbourne since 2002. Yugo left Melbourne in 2003 (and thus Mixed Up became inactive and we never intendedly disbanded), and I had become Dexter Pradi’s sideman until 2004. Since then, I was busy with my PhD study.

Fast-forwarding to 2005, I had a short visit to Indonesia, where Yugo, Bowie, and I met again at a function at UI, and decided to just perform together without rehearsing. Hey, it worked! In 2006, Bowie, Gupta, and myself had an Ensemble reunion in Indonesia, but Ari wasn’t in Indonesia, so we got Yugo to join us, and thus Gadsby was born (again committed to be a Pat Metheny cover band), and we had lots of gigs, and we did a live recording of A Wish for the Better.

I had to leave Indonesia again for long. But I was pleased to hear that Gadsby kept on banding together, when Shuhud joined and Andre joined and left again. When I got the chance to visit Indonesia again earlier this year, we played a lot together (but without Gupta this time) within the one-month time window, and to add to my pleasure, Ari joined again. And you know what, we also had one gig with the orchestra that rejected my application.

Well, it’s been a long story. 14 years, and we’re still together. What makes us so? I guess it’s as simple as because we just love the music we play and we love to play together.