Seven Oz joins Jakarta's 1970s rock music revival

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): The man in black clothes and boots clutched the microphone. With his eyes closed, he rendered Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven in his high-pitched voice. He seemed to be in a trance.

The quick lighting changes flooded the stage, intensifying the music.

The audience listened to the music attentively while enjoying their drinks, sometimes following the song and clapping their hands at the end of each song.

The Classic Rock Pub in Blok M, South Jakarta, that recent Monday night was filled with the memory of the glory of rock music from the 1970s as the band, who bills itself Seven Oz, played songs from such rock giants as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Jimmy Hendrix and Rod Stewart.

The pub's clientele, apparently aged over 30 years old, were all familiar with the songs.

"Rock songs from the 1970s are trendy now," said Duki Sadikin, singer and leader of the band.

Seven Oz feels happy with the trend and thinks it part of their success, since they claim to be the first musical group here to set the trend.

"Around 1990, when we started playing hard rock music at such pubs as News Cafe and Jazz Rock Cafe, we had no listeners. People thought we were playing orangutan music. We had to play other types of music in our gigs and insert one or two rock numbers," he said.

"Today, there are many groups like us. Even young people have formed similar groups," he said.

The groups include Jakarta-based Acid Speed, which consists of university students and young workers specializing in the Rolling Stones; Elpamas from Surabaya, consisting of 30-something musicians who focus on Uriah Heep, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Janis Joplin; Jakarta student group Lemon Tea, specializing in The Doors, Pink Floyd; Bandung student group Time Bomb Blues who sings general rock songs; and another Jakarta student group Colors, who play mostly Genesis.

The bands generally play in the Classic Rock Pub, which is the only place in Jakarta's nightlife specializing in that musical genre.

Other pubs in Jakarta, such as News Cafe, Jazz Rock Cafe and Hard Rock Cafe, also present similar music but they don't make it their specialty.

Some of the groups were created by the Classic Rock Pub. Initially, Lemon Tea was a group which sang any kind of song. The pub's manager, Chandra Elias, persuaded the student group to focus on The Doors and Pink Floyd.

The back-to-the-1970s trend seems to have gained a stronger following lately with radio station M.97 FM, which started broadcasting in October, 1995. It proudly declares itself the only station in town that broadcasts classic rock throughout its 18-hour-long day.

In Bandung, there is also a radio station specializing in hard rock music called Generasi Muda Radio (GMR) FM. It differs from M.97 FM in that it does not focus only on the classic rock of the 1970s, but also on other styles, like heavy metal, which emerged in a later period.

"Most of the songs we broadcast are from the 1970s, but we also broadcast rock songs from the 1980s, which we think have the potential to become classics, like Tom Sawyer of the Rush group," said Nova Cahya, session manager of M.97 FM.

The M. in M.97 FM stands for males, indicating the gender they are targeting. The full word is intentionally hidden because the Jakarta administration does not allow the naming of companies with foreign words.

"We know that lovers of this type of music are mostly male. It does not mean, however, that females don't like it. We've also received letters from females," said Nova.

The radio station aims toward people who were high school students in the 1970s and would now be aged between 35 and 40. They number between 300,000 and 500,000 in Jakarta alone, Nova said, quoting data from Indonesia's Survey And Research.

"The 1970s are just unforgettable. Throughout their life, people who were raised in that era won't ever forget its music," said Nova.

The station now has a rock collection of between 2,800 and 3,000 songs, which they have gathered from local collectors as well as abroad. They plan to increase their treasure to around 5,000 songs before they can proudly say "It is complete", said Nova.

M.97 FM has struck a deal to cooperate with the Classic Rock Pub to promote the rock-of-the-1970s mania.

One of the big events on Classic Rock's agenda is to reunite Indonesia's former giant rock groups.

Rock music's success in the 1970s spawned many imitators the world over. In Indonesia, there were groups called God Bless, Rollies, Ucok AKA and SAS. All made their mark with Indonesian rockers, as did international groups.

The Indonesian groups have all disbanded but most of the musicians are still alive.

Classic Rock has tried to reunite the bands but only once, one night last year, did it succeed in bringing the Rollies together on stage.

"We did not advertise but relied on the grapevine. It was so fantastic. There was such a huge crowd that night that many of them were forced to watch standing from outside," said Chandra.

Although the groups can't be expected to perform with all the original members any longer -- or only once as far as Rollies is concerned -- their fans can still see individuals of the groups, like Arthur Kaunang from SAS and Deddy Stanzah from Rollies, when they visit Classic Rock; sometimes playing songs on request.

"We still have an obsession to bring the groups on stage, with all the members present," said Chandra.