Gugun Blues-Shelter | Biography

Previously called the Bluesbug, Gugun Blues Shelter is an Indonesian blues power trio that is a breath of fresh air in the seemingly dying Asian blues scene these days. Influenced by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bettie Davies, and Led Zeppelin among others, the band forced many music fans to take notice of its powerful, flawless genre-crossing blend of blues that incorporate influences from rock, funk, and soul.

Led by guitarist/vocalist Gugun, Gugun & Blues Shelter has released two albums under the Bluesbug moniker “Get The Bug” (2004) and “Turn it On” (2007) that has been gaining praises from music critics and fans alike. ”Turn It On” was voted as one of the best Indonesian album in 2007 by Rolling Stone Indonesia Magazine and Gugun was noted as one of the most promising local guitar player by the same maga-zine. In the same year, Indonesia’s Trax Magazine also voted Gugun as the best guitar player in South East Asia.



Gugun Blues Shelter is not only drew the attentions of local music lover only. The band also received attentions from European fans, thanks for years of playing for expatriate fans during its pub-playing days. As the result, Gugun Blues Shelter was participated in Belfast Big River Blues and Jazz Festival 2008 and played several dates in a four-weeks UK tour at cities like Burnley, Scarborough, and Crewe.

Due to the good receptions, the tour was extended to other cities like Leeds, Oxford, York, Rotherham, and culminated in another festival,”Colne Great British R n’ B Festival” at the Manchester outskirt. In Asia, recently Gugun Blues Shelter played several dates in Malaysia in 2008, participated in Singapore Art Festival at the same year, as well as in Indonesia’s big festivals such as Java Jazz Festival and JakJazz Festival.
With the success of their debut album “Get the Bug” (2004), and their second album “Turn it On” (2006), Gugun (Guitar / Vox) and Bowie (Drums) returned to Indonesia after a highly successful tour of the UK in 2009 leaving Jono (Bass) to clear up loose ends before the team became re-united once again in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Band released their third album “Self titled” in March 2010. With the hit single “When I See You Again” the 9 track album went on to win numerous awards including ‘Favourite Blues Song’ in the Indonesian Cutting Edge Music Awards 2010 (ICEMA 2010), TRAX Magazines “Best Local Album 2010” and also featured in “Rolling Stone Magazine” top 20 albums of 2010.

The group has made 3 highly successful tours of the UK and Northern Ireland between 2007 and 2010 featuring at both the “Belfast Jazz & Blues Festival”, The Annual “Colne Blues Festival” and also the “Skegness Rock & Blues Festival”. In March 2010 the band were invited to play alongside Buddy Guy, Jools Holland and the Buena Vista Social Club at the Timbre Rock & Roots Festival in Singapore.
Touring both Nationally and Internationally during 2010, the band were flown out to represent Indonesian modern music at the Indonesian Pavilion of the World Expo in Shanghai China both in August and once again in October. It didn’t stop there either as passers-by from the Romanian pavilion were so impressed with what they heard that they invited the band to take part in a special concert held at their pavilion.

October was a busy month for the band, aside from being re-invited to play in Shanghai, the band also took part in 2 of Indonesia’s largest music festivals; The “Java Rockin’ Land” festival and also the “Jakarta International Blues Festival” where the band performed with Aussy blues legend “Kevin Borich” and European Blues Queen “Anna Popovich”…. Oh and also rock legends “Smashing Pumpkins” and “Wolfmother”.

On the 10th December the band put on a special performance for the grand opening of Rolling Stone Cafe (Located at the HQ of Rolling Stone Magazine Indonesia) collaborating with legendary Indonesian frontman “Once” the band performed a half hour set including a rendition of Led Zeppelins “Rock & Roll”.
The successes continued into the new year of 2011 as the band scored a record deal with the prestigious independent “Guitar Driven” record label “Grooveyard Records” from New York, USA. The Compilation album “Far East Blues Experience” consists of hand-picked tracks from the previous 3 albums, re-mastered and re-packaged under the Grooveyard Label. The album was released in early January 2011 and is already receiving rave reviews from the blues rock community both in the USA and worldwide as the album is available to order via amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Into the future, the band is due to release their 2nd album with Grooveyard Records in April 2011 titled ‘Solid Ground’ featuring 10 all new songs and taking the bands vibe into a new “progressive / funky” direction. It doesn’t stop there either… Aware that many of their local fans will not be able to acquire the ‘Solid Ground’ album, the band will also release a local album “Satu Untuk Berbagi” which consists of 80% of the songs in Indonesian Language.

The band also plans to return to the UK to tour in both May and August and is also pursuing the possibility of performing in both Europe and Australia.

If you’d like to stay tuned to the bands progress, please do so via the following;
Indri Sjafri (Manager) – 08128882694 / 081908017155
e-mail: bugsproduction09@gmail.com
web: www.blues-shelter.com
Twitter: @GBluesShelter
Myspace: www.myspace.com/gugunandthebluesbug
www.grooveyardrecords.com/gptfareastblues.html

Gugun Blues Shelter International Stages:
1. KL Blues Festival 2008 – Malaysia
2. Singapore Timbre Arts Festival 2008 – Singapore
3. UK Tour – August 2008 (Colne Blues Festival, Belfast Big River Jazz & Blues Festival)
4. UK Tour – January 2009 (Skegness Blues Festival, 229 club London, BBC World)
5. Singapore Grand Prix Race Event – September 2009
6. Jakarta International Blues Festival – 2009
7. Java Jazz Festival 2010 – Indonesia
8. Singapore Rock & Roots Festival 2010
9. Java Rockin’land 2010 – Indonesia
10. Jakarta International Blues Festival 2010 – Indonesia
11. Shanghai World Expo 2010 – August 2010
12. Shanghai World Expo 2010 – October 2010

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Mocca Biography, Colourful with Mocca

Mocca is an Indonesian four-member band formed in 1997 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The band's musical style is inspired by the retro sounds of the 70s, with influences of swing, bossa nova, Swedish pop, and jazz. The core of the band is Arina Ephipania Simangunsong, Riko Prayitno, Achmad ("Toma") Pratama, and Indra Massad. When playing live, MOCCA is supported by six additional players on keyboards, guitar, percussion, trumpet, trombone, and sax.

While in college, Arina and Riko decided to get together and form a band. For a year, they struggled with performing other people's music, finding themselves bored with the lack of innovation, at which point they decided to write their own songs. In 1997, they composed four songs that unfortunately were not well-received by the rest of the band. After much squabbling and conflict the band split up, leaving only Arina and Riko with their songs.
In late 1999, they asked Indra and Toma to join and Mocca was born. They now had a group with the same vision and awareness of music.
Having signed a contract with FFWD Records, helped Mocca a lot to go international. FFWD is previously a distributor for international indie-pop labels from Japan and Singapore to Sweden. All Mocca's album are distributed by FFWD's partner labels : Fruit Records in Singapore, Small Room in Thailand, Apple Crumble in Japan, Beatball from Korea, and My Honey from Italy

Their debut album My Diary contains 13 songs written from a girl's point of view and her diary entries. The lyrics are in English, and the music mixes waltz, bossa nova, 70s disco, and rock. Rolling Stone Indonesia magazine placed My Diary on their "150 Greatest Indonesian Albums of All Time" list at number 59. The magazine also ranked Mocca's song, "Me and My Boyfriend" at #150 on "150 Greatest Indonesian Songs of All Time" list.
With simple and beautiful songs, all in English, the band gained popularity in neighbors countries especially in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Mocca has performed plenty of times in these countries. In 2006 Mocca collaborated with Swedish singer Karolina Komstedt, lead singer of the Swedish pop group Club 8. In 2007 Mocca performed in Japan as one of the headliners, long before that in 2004 they have performed in Okinawa as well. In 2008 they held in Malaysia and several gigs in Singapore too. Mocca’s latest international show was a solo concert held at Seoul, South Korea on May 2009
in 2010, their songs are used for several movie soundtracks in Korea, including Bandhobi and Personal Taste.

Arina Ephipania Simangunsong(vocals and flute) was born on 4 May 1978 in Bandung, West Java, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Institut Teknologi Nasional (Bandung), together with bandmate Riko. A fan of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Arina uses stage gestures and musical dynamics often found in jazz and folk-dixie tunes.

Riko Prayitno (guitar) was born on 29 January, 1977 in Bogor, West Java. Like Arina, he also graduated from the Institut Teknologi Nasional (Bandung). He began playing guitar at an early age, and began playing professionally with Arina while still in college.
Ahmad Pratama aka Toma (bass) was born on 27 June, 1976 in Bandung, West Java and has lived there ever since. A product designer by training, Toma has excelled in setting up the key components of their music. His punctual bass tone accentuates the tempo and rhythm set by Indra's drumming skill. His influences include Sting and Phil Collins.

Indra Massad (drums) was born on 31 January, 1976 in Medan, North Sumatra. He and Toma studied product design in Bandung together, and joined Mocca at about the same time. Unlike other drummers that use many tom-toms and cymbals, Indra prefers the simplicity and versatility of a single snare drum. His brush technique during acoustic sessions acts just like seven different mallets making seven different tones.

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Burgerkill | A Short Story of The Heaviest Band in Indonesia

This is a short story of 12 years career from the heaviest band which has been such a phenomenon among metal music lovers in Indonesia. A band whose name was inspired by a fast food restaurant from USA, it is Burgerkill, a band which came from Ujungberung, a place where Death Metal/Grindcore community grows at east Bandung, Indonesia. Burgerkill, which origin community was in scene Uber (a common abbreviation for Ujungberung), always goes with Stenograph Tribal style and aggressive music that is speedy (Jasad, Forgotten, Disinfected, and Infamy to name a few).

Burgerkill was formed on May 1995, started by Eben, a scenester from Jakarta who moved to Bandung for his study. There, he met Ivan, Kimung, and Dadan who became his first line-up. This band began its career as a side project which didn't have any certain purposes, just a bunch of metal kids jamming their axe-hard while waiting an offering to perform a real one. But it didn't go that way in Eben's mind, he thought that this band was his life and he tried so hard to make Burgerkill worked and admitted in their communities. Since then, the band got many chances to perform, mostly in Jakarta, from Eben's friends there. That's when the enthusiasm of underground music lovers for Burgerkill started and, indirectly, a phenomenon of hard music was born in Indonesia.


The first form of this band was unsettled, many underground musicians had joined the band. But now, they've already find their solid line-up. In 1995, they only thought about performing, went home, practicing at studio, there's no anything else. But it all changed since they succeed to release their first single which became one of tracks in "Masaindahbangetsekalipisan" music compilation, an album of bands from Bandung in early 1997. Other names like Puppen, Full of Hate, and Cherry Bombshell were also compiled in the album. It was produced by Richard Mutter (ex-drummer of Pas Band). It really was a glorious moment for underground music. Everything is new and new things stoked people! Track from Burgerkill, Revolt! became an opening track in album that was sold 1000 pieces shortly.

These guys of Burgerkill started to enjoy recording process that made them couldn't stop working. At the end of 1997, they joined other compilation "Breathless" with enclosing their songs "Offered Sucks" and "My Self". In early 1998, their career continued by releasing single "Blank Proudness" which was included in "Independent Rebel", a Grindcore Ujungberung band compilation album. This compilation was released by major label and distributed widely in Indonesia and Malaysia. Burgerkill was going broadly in so many underground events since then. The antics went higher, number of their fans grew excessively and always waiting for their performances. Burgerkill the Hardcore Begundal!

At the same year, the band released "Everlasting Hope Never Ending Pain" through a compilation album "Ticket to Ride". Benefit from this album fund the construction of Bandung's skate park. This single brought them to the new era of Burgerkill, when at the beginning they were much inspired by Oldschool Hardcore Band in creating music. Named it : Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Sick of It All, Instead, etc. But then, their music were influenced by more various kinds of music like Modern Metal and Newschool Hardcore which got faster beat and more aggressive. Energetic riff-power chords became a strong character of Burgerkill's music, and not to forget the guitar fill-in that made it totally catchy. These guys of Burgerkill never felt enough and always tried to gain more from all kinds of hard music that would be interpreted through every note in their pieces. That's what made them more mature in making music than before until it went into their second album.

Some of Mainstream Achievement were theirs, in example was Best Independent Band nominator for NewsMusik magazine in the year 2000. In early 2001, Burgerkill got PUMA (USA sport apparel) as their supported wardrobe to perform for a year. A year after, they got INSIGHT (brand of Australian clothing) as their supported brand in every of performances.

In the middle of 2003, Burgerkill became the first hardcore band that signed contract for the next six albums with Sony Music Entertainment, one of biggest major label in Indonesia. Then, at the end of 2003, they released the second album, "Berkarat". It was more progressive and fully skilled, to be compared with the first album. Their songs almost had no straight forward sound and simple moshpart that is usually found in other hardcore bands. In vocal, they kept it sounds depressive and dark, character of Ivan the vocalist became stronger and bold, it was about written mother language and distinct articulation in the lyrics. Meanwhile, from the music, Toto, Eben, Andris and their new guitarist, Agung, weren't afraid to explore more parts in music and expressed it that none of Indonesian heavy metal had done it.

A startled thing in the middle of 2004 for Burgerkill was they were chosen as "Best Metal Production" for the album "Berkarat" in AMI Awards, a prestige music achievement in Indonesia. It was unthought-of them to achieve such an award that gave them more responsibility and seriousness to prove another works in music.

While working on their 3rd album in early 2005, Toto decided to quit from the band which had been built with the other for 9 years. But the band had to go on, they reformed the band with placing Andris, that used to be the bassist as the drummer. They kept working for this album with help from an additional bassist. When they've finished working on their 3rd album, Burgerkill decided to sever the contract with Sony Music Entertainment that caused by no agreement reached in the album proceeding.

So guys...these kids always have a great spirit to keep blowing their power, and they finally released the 3rd album, "Beyond Coma and Despair" by their own label Revolt! Records on August 2006. This album was so deep and meaningful for all Burgerkill's personnel in each aspect: the sound, structure, and form of the music that was utterly different with their former albums. Heavier, explicit, and technically elements were presented in this album.

There are no ivory that isn't cracked, Burgerkill had a hugest grief in their career. Ivan, the vocalist of theirs past away in July 2006. He got inflamed brain that took the icon of hardcore music in Indonesia away forever. Without they even realized before, all the lyrics in the album described his condition at the time, it had personal and depressive plot that showed the ending journey of him. "Beyond Coma and Despair" was a tribute for Ivan Scumbag who had always been a good friend also brother that fully talented and dedicated with his amazing character in works. Burgerkill was in blues, but they were so convince to keep moved on and to make music that had been their lives for more than a decade, with brought up a new vocalist in the band. And after doing a long process of Vocal Audition, finnaly they found Vicki to be a new front man for the next chapter of their career.

They successfully did Java Bali tour to promote their album on January 2007. The ticket sold out showed how their fans felt very enthusiastic of Burgerkill performances. A written story wouldn't just enough, just wait their next surprises and listen to the new album, watch them play and feel how heavy metal totally unforgettable possessed you! BURGERKILL HARDCORE BEGUNDAL IN YOUR FACE, WHATEVER!!!

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The Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent | Biography

1994-2002
Period of formation. In this period, they met each other, played and hung up together, fought each other, rehearsed a lot, and wrote their song.

2002-2004
In 2004, The S.I.G.I.T. signed to Spills Records and released their self titled debut mini album (EP) and performed many bar gigs and venue. Their first single, Soul Sister soon became a local radio hits in Bandung and Jakarta, made reputated on MTV Trax Magazine as "The Hottest Rock N Roll Band".

By contributing on movie soundtrack for Catatan Akhir Sekolah (CAS), their fanbase grow rapidly. Did I Ask Your Opinion, which appeared as OST on former movie, finally became their first single to be broadcasted on MTV-I.

After leaving Spills Records, they begun to spread their stage performance to bigger venue and region...

2005-...
Their name appeared on NME's Stereo (30 July)
See and read the scanned page

"The S.I.G.I.T. - Black Amplifier.
Scorching, gonzo Zep Rock from our hot new Indonesian Friend"

2006
Signed to FFWD and released "Visible Idea of Perfection" in December under FFWD's sister label FFCUTS

2007
Signed to Australian Caveman! and released "Visible.." which distributed by Reverberation. They toured Australia in June to coincide the release date.

2009
Appearing at SXSW 2009 in Austin Texas. Toured California and Hongkong. Released "Hertz Dyslexia" on June.

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Gugun Blues-Shelter - Fight for freedom

You can’t buy my voice.. oh no, I got a message

You’re here on my land…oh yea, with your soldiers

You can see in my face I’m just a simple country boy,
I don’t mean no harm, don’t need this suffering.
You make me run, while you burn my house,
Is this the price I pay… to live another day?

You keep my nation under, your political strategy.
We must rise up, fight back… We got to be free.

You can see in my face I’m just a simple country boy,
I don’t mean no harm, don’t need this suffering.
You make me run, while you burn my house,
Is this the price I pay… to live another day?

You’re trying to break my people with your oppression,
But one day will come people… We’ll get freedom.

You can see in my face I’m just a simple country boy,
I don’t mean no harm, don’t need this suffering.
You make me run, while you burn my house,
Is this the price I pay… to live another day?

More about → Gugun Blues-Shelter - Fight for freedom