Wendy Phua

Here’s a video of a performance on “Pakoo Boomi” by Rosli Mansor where I sessioned for him on bass. The video features Addy Rasidi on guitar and Rahman from Bushman on drums. Filmed @ Fretboard Frenzy: Rise of the Stringers on 3 May 2008 at National Youth Council. enjoy!

I’ll be sessioning for guitarist Rosli Mansor at the Anugerah Band 2008 TV program on 6th May ‘08, so if your at home, in the office or at Harvey Norman, tune your TV sets to Suria channel this Tuesday (6 May), 8.30pm as and catch the Rosli Mansor Band take centrestage to open for Anugerah Band 2008.

Band members are Rosli Mansor (guitar) Addy Rasidi (guitar), Wendy Phua (bass) and Alvin Tan (drums). Information are found at the following websites:-

Rosli Mansor - http://www.room354.com
Addy Rasidi - http://www.myspace.com/addyrasidi
Wendy Phua - http://www.wendyphua.com
Alvin Tan - http://www.myspace.com/rockinalvin

Some pictures taken from a gig I played with Walking On Water (WOW) at Suntec City’s Balaclava on 4 April 2008. Being a specially themed gig called Sugar & Spice that features especially female musos that night, we were playing alongside other wonderful musicians the likes of Shirlyn (IMHO she’s Singapore’s equivalent of Robert Plant ) and Joan (her virtuosic violin playing will rip you apart) in The Unexpected Band, Alemay Fernandez (great singer), Bong (such awesome swagger on the bass! cool!) etc. Hope there’ll be another at Balaclava someday

Heads up folks, I’ll be playing alongside FRETBOARD FRENZY mastermind and solo guitarist Rosli Mansor on 3rd May 2008 at *scape Youth Centre. The second installment of FRETBOARD FRENZY: RISE OF THE STRINGERS 2, this event will be focusing on the guitar works of Shern Wong + Malik + Addy Rasidi + Rosli Mansor.

For those not in the know, Rosli last released a full-length instrumental guitar album called Dragged and is currently playing with a self-custom made double neck guitar with a wonderful fretless board on the 2nd neck.

I will be playing 3 songs with Rosli and Raman (veteran Bushmen percussionist) including a latest cool new number form Rosli that is not featured in Dragged. See ya’ll there!

FRETBOARD FRENZY: RISE OF THE STRINGERS 2
3 May 2008
12pm
*scape Youth Centre
Co-presented by SOFT and terraBox

FRETBOARD FRENZY, the brainchild of instrumentalist Rosli Mansor and produced by terraBox, aims to provide a platform to showcase local experienced and aspiring musicians with a common factor: their unbridled passion for the fretboard. MySpace.com - Fretboard Frenzy - All - Rock - MySpace.com - Fretboard Frenzy - All - Rock - MySpace.com - Fretboard Frenzy - All - Rock - www.myspace.com/fretboardfrenzzy

Finally I got hold of the pictures taken at a gig I performed in Bar CoCoon, Forbidden City by Indochine recently. It was a party organised by the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations to celebrate Women’s Day 2008. Here they are

Performing with the half-size violin bow

Performing with the half-size violin bow again and feeeeling the mood

Cropped up picture of the 1st

Performing with Yani in acoustic pop duo SKIN

Performing with Yani in acoustic pop duo SKIN and soaking up the lovely Indochine ambience….lurve those chandeliers..doncha??

You got the EP and now you can also get to hear an interview done at Lush 99.5FM on “Between Here And Then”. Thanks Asha!

hooray I finally got videos out on my performance at bass day. Here are the songs I played and my rig on that day is as follows:

4-string Tobias Classic > GT6B > L/R out to Line 6 DL4 > L/R out to 2 Line 6 Bass Amps (1 EQ to focus on highs and one EQ to focus on lows). “Between Here And Then” included use of a violin half-bow.

Where The River Flows

Stormy Weather

Sojourn

Between Here And Then (live looping)

Someone once said to me that I was one of his favourite FEMALE bassist. It took me abit of of effort to refrain from asking him who was then his favourite MALE bassist.

Ever since the Suffragettes took to the streets burning bras in protest against gender discrimination, females across the world finally felt it their due right cast aside the gender labels and fight for their basic self-worth. I am most definitely not a bra-burning Suffragette but I must admit I did used to get rankled when someone points out that I was a FEMALE bassist. I mean like, do we have to point out the OBVIOUS?

But you know what, I’ve gotten past the prickly stage of being too conscious of being a female bassist and never getting full credit for the bass playing itself. Anyway in this post-modern word now, it’s always best to laugh it off and throw a sock in its face. It rocks being a female bassist in Singapore, and I’m not ashamed to say that.

So in the spirit of this post, I’ll be performing at an event held to celebrate being a woman. Details are as below and I hope to see you there!

In-Gear Party – Celebrating women and being a woman!

Bar CoCoon, Forbidden City by IndoChine ( 3A River Valley Road, Singapore, 179020)
8 March 2008
8pm-11pm
FREE ENTRY
Females and their male friends are invited

In-Gear Party – Celebrating women and being a woman, an event hosted as part of Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) International Women’s Day celebrations. I’ll be performing solo bass songs from “Between here And Then” and selling the album at the venue itself. I will also be playing guitar and singing on original songs with talented singer-songwriter Yani in a duo outfit called Skin.

Other artists featured are: Ginette Chittick, Neomi Ogo, PopMyCherry!, Nicole V., and Prema Sommaya.

it’s funny how things you’ve always relied on to be there all the time can suddenly give way without warning.

coming right off after a very encouraging response at the Lodown In Music bass day, where I virtually sold all the EPs I brought down to the show, I was all geared up to work on more new songs and recordings…then Murphy’s Law came crashing through the roof

FIRST - my 6yr old laptop which has been my trusty DAW recording unit finally gave up the ghost. and so my recordings are stalled just when I was most inspired. well thankfully I always back up my work so I still got the old recordings with me. Taking it to the repair shop, I was advised that the motherboard was most probably fried. I ended up getting a 2nd hand Asus which anyway promises to be a tremendous working horse. While I’m pretty psyched about that, I however need to wait a week before I can get it back from some warranty repair.

if losing my old laptop’s not enough, then came the SECOND bummer - my right arm got dislocated in the middle of the night while I was soundly sleeping.

alright so I dislocated it 10 yrs back and it was bound to happen sometime. still it hurt like HELL and I was screaming all the way to the hospital in an AMBULANCE. I know some folks who actually dislocate their shoulders as part of their life routine and they actually attach it back themselves. but i guess i haven’t got the stomach for that. and it’s not funny for a musician to injure the hand/arm much less dislocate an entire shoulder.

so my laptop and I are in dormant mode right now.

well I’m slowly working up my arm to start playing abit on the bass but the shoulder still feels kinda funny, like it’s just hanging on in a fragile grip. hopefully with some physiotherapy I’ll be tapping away like the old times again

moral of the story? nothing much except that all you musicians out there should take REALLY good care of your hands/arm and I guess this is the best time when I can truly appreciate tremendous courage and effort of legendary one-arm bassist Bill Clements

good news! apart from buying the EP as a physical CD package, you can now buy my songs from Between Here And Then individually. just click on the song below to make your purchases.