Digging a little deeper to find Jakarta's 'underground' music

By Allen Thayer

JAKARTA (JP): It's comforting to know that in any given corner of the world, including Jakarta, the gospel of rock n' roll is being preached to eager and devout masses.

These junior high school students, high school students and university-aged followers show their reverence by practicing religiously, sporting the requisite T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, and then playing the songs of their own personal deities of the modern rock world.

Yes, indeed, Indonesian rock and roll is alive and well in the capital, struggling to be heard amid the onslaught of bleach- blond boy bands, Britneys and Christinas.

The only problem is finding the music.

Searching for a recent "underground" event at a Blok M cafe, GM 2000, conjured up images of trying to find an invite-only, password-protected speakeasy -- only that there was no back alley and it was the middle of the day.

The event was an unofficial "Brit-Pop" gathering, meaning that all (or most) of the featured bands played cover-versions of British bands, of the sophisticated pop variety, from the Beatles to The Cure to Radiohead, or they played their own songs in a Brit-Pop style.

Cosponsored by UKM Band Veteran Jakarta (a student organization affiliated with the University of National Development) and Insound, the event required all but the specially invited bands, like Rumah Sakit, Laluna and a few others, to pay Rp 70,000 to play two songs, while spectators paid Rp 13,000 admission for the event lasting more than eight hours.

Ichan, 20, the organizer from UKM, said "this is one of two events we plan to hold this year. This event can be considered smaller, while the larger ones we hold on campus".

By 2 p.m. there were more than 100 young and enthusiastic supporters, scenesters, band members and organizers -- and this was only one subset of a larger "underground" music movement. Like the term "indie" (short for "Independent") or "alternative" (before it became the convention), "underground" is the "us" to commercial Indonesian music's "them."

These are the bands and the fans that don't have or want record contracts. This is where bands like Naif, The Fly and Padi first got their start. This is where musicians play for themselves and their fans, not for indifferent cafe and bar patrons.

Originality

The "underground", as it is referred to by its members, sets itself apart from cafe-bands, pop artists and dangdut singers in that its focus is on originality.

Sure, all of these junior high and high school bands start off covering their favorite U.S. and UK bands, but their graduation to the real "underground" requires the development of their own original, self-composed songs. Their influences might be abundantly clear, and in some cases even approach mimicry, but even in their choice of idols, their tastes are hardly common listening in Indonesia.

The underground is divided into a number of subgenres, yet these lines are often blurred, meaning all bands don't easily fit into one category. The four main groups are: punk, hardcore (a 1990s offshoot of punk), metal and indie, which is a less- abrasive, more pop-oriented type of rock music.

"We still lack unity in the underground," said Beamy, 25, the bass player for the self-described "heavy" band Brain the Machine.

"So we (Brain the Machine) tend to take our own path, record on our own and avoid being defined by just one community, so that we don't find ourselves caught between two different rival scenes."

The cross-genre fixing is strong but so also are the rivalries, meaning that a concert can end in a chaotic brawl leaving several youths injured, and no soldiers within sight to take the blame.

The underground attracts youths form all classes and education levels. The punk scene tends to draw its bands and fan-base from the lower-strata, while the metal crowd spans the rich and poor gap, and the hardcore and indie scenes tend to come from middle- to-upper class backgrounds. The socioeconomic divisions also have ties to the intergenre solidarity, where indie and hardcore are much closer to each other than they are to punk or metal.

Another roadblock to the movement's path to solidarity is the geographic limitations of the five subdivisions of Jakarta itself, meaning that a North Jakarta band might never play for a West Jakarta audience, and vice versa.

The underground came into existence only a few years ago in the wake of the success of American fringe bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Green Day. What was once thought to be noncommercial in the U.S., not to mention Indonesia, was turned on its head by a youth market that was unsatisfied by the pop music offerings of the day.

Only a few years ago there were a number of "clubs" that catered to this kind of music, like Black Hole, Pit Pup, M Club and the latest -- Poster Kafe in South Jakarta, which have all closed down due to poor management or the inability to make a profit. The intergenre rifts, not to mention the occasional brawls, also limit the underground's ability to promote its music to a wider audience. Just one intergenre underground club and better and more regular promotion of the events within the Jakarta media might mean success for many a struggling "underground" band.

Indonesia's record industry has picked up on the Western style of recruiting bands from the amateur ranks and introducing them into the mainstream, but as Adde, 24, the drummer for the band Room-V, reflected: "The industry has adopted the American process (of recruiting bands) but the idea of valuing original local music is still foreign."

Adde makes the point that the industry only recognizes originality if they think there is a possibility the band will skyrocket in popularity, like Sheila on 7 did only a couple years ago. The pop market in Indonesia is dominated by Western artists, meaning the few local bands and artists to make it fill the industry's quota for Indonesian bands, leaving the others stranded on the amateur circuit.

But pop music is defined by compromise. Jakarta's "underground" has the potential to revitalize the domestic music market, infusing it with its raw sounds and emotions. While not considered "underground", alumni bands Dewa, Sheila on 7 and Gigi all show the influence of the "underground" in their chart- topping hits. Independent, fringe music will always be around, pushing the mainstream in a new direction, but it always takes a little more effort to appreciate the precious nuggets and gems that are buried "underground".