Gay Men's Dating Guide

languages

of love

To keep a relationship going, learn to speak

the five languages of love. You and your

man may speak in different tongues when it

comes to feeling loved.

Quality time You’re a quality-time person if you value eye contact,

meaningful conversations and shared activities.

Receiving gifts You may enjoy giving and receiving small tokens of

love. Flowers, bracelets, a gym membership card: these are symbols

of love to you.

Words of affection Sweet nothings are something to you. You

thrive on encouragement and compliments.

Physical touch You like hugging, holding hands, kissing and being

in physical proximity with your partner. Touching makes you feel

loved and connected.

Acts of service You gain pleasure from doing things for your

partner, such as washing the dishes after dinner. Chores aren’t acts of

obligation for you, but a service borne out of love.

What language do you and your partner speak? Find out by asking

him directly. In return, tell him what makes you feel special. Speaking

in the right language will make your man want to love you back in the

way you prefer. Love begets love!

Well, these aren’t my words!

I got this stuff from a download on Fridae. It’s a Singaporean gaydating guide.

http://www.oogachaga.com/gaymendatingguide

What I love about it is that it’s simple, visual and easy to read. And it puts into words things that I have felt intuitively but never articulated.

My husband almost never tells me he loves me. But I never ever feel unloved because he shows his love by doing things. He’s an ‘Acts of Service’ lover. I’m a ‘words of affection’ lover. We’re both ‘touchers’ and cuddle and snuggle all the time.

This is a great gay guide. Whether you’re single or in a relationship I think oogachaga are doing great work to conceive and design this thing and Fridae, as ever, are doing great work to promote it.

Looking Back at Friction

Well, it’s been a year since Matt and I started Friction. It ran on the roof of Marketplace every Thursday night for four months. If it rained we pulled it inside to the lounge. Running on a Thursday night was always an uphill struggle but Friction immediately gained a very loyal following who came religiously every week. 

After four months  we made two big decisions: first to move from Thursday to Friday nights and second, to make the night monthly. Sadly t only two Friday Frictions followed from these decisions:   Marketplace decided to launch a new Ladies night running every Friday and after only two months Friction lost its home. 

That was a big disappointment but we negotiated with the club to promote a new night on the eve of public holidays. The first one that came up was Merdeka Eve 2010. We called it Freedom and the rest is history!

Here’s an interview that we gave on our group page as Friction was launching. I think it’s kinda fun to see where we were at and what we’ve achieved in a year.

 

The Underground Soundz Team - I'm Soundz, he's Undie

Nicholas Teh grabs Underground Soundz duo  Matt and  Oran  to ask them about their new Thursday night party at Friction, on the roof of Marketplace.

Q. Why did you decide to start Friction?

MM I was getting irritated! I love Oran’s music but I’d been trailing around him listening to him spin in one empty place after another. He deserves more people! Starting Friction was partly about getting a different kind of music – great music - out there to more people.
OB Probably everyone has a vision of their ideal club – the kind of people, the kind of music, the atmosphere. Friction is ours: it’s the kind of club we want to go to!

Q. Why Thursday nights?
OB In London the clubs and bars are full every night of the week, except Tuesday. Nothing flies on a Tuesday! But Monday, Wednesday and especially Thursday are all busy, busy, busy. I’m sure there’s a space for a midweek party in KL. Especially an early one. Friction runs from 10pm till 2 am. Early bird gets the worm!

MM The roof is such a fantastic space. We've rearranged everything so there's a dancefloor, bar area and chillout, right underneath the Twin Towers! It's an awesome sight. 

On the roof

In the lounge

Q. What’s your musical background? I was a guest at your fiftieth birthday party last time. That was the best party I've ever been to! But at 50 you’re quite, how can I say ...advanced in years! Have you been deejaying all your life?

OB (laughing) No, I haven’t. Actually I only started learning to deejay a year ago, right here in KL. But I was a musician for a long time before my day job took over and I think I’ve got a good ear for music. And London is one of the musical capitals of the world. I cut my teeth in clubs like Substation, FF and Trade, all at the cutting edge of dance music. It was an amazing time. I got exposed to the very best of everything. It trained me. I love electro and techno. People hear the word 'techno' and get scared off, as if it's some kind of disco heavy metal but it isn't. Some techno is so uplifting and magical - your feet just pull you onto the dancefloor before your brain even knows it.

MM I've always been into underground music, from the early days of punk, to indie rock and electronica and now with electro and techno. For me an artist needs to have an original voice. Only the truly unique gets a seat at my table. We want to provide a more sophisticated atmosphere. Let someone else play top forty remixes...

OB Yah, there are other people can do that much more skilfully than me.

Q. What do you think of the current gay deejays?

OB I’m full of admiration for them. The Superbimbos, for example. Fendie has been spinning for a long time. He’s always reinventing himself, always changing and experimenting. Thomas is more new to the scene but very focused and committed. What they do isn’t easy. But every Saturday they get the excitement going and they keep it going. And they are both really nice guys, both very friendly and down to earth.

Q. What about the guys at Princeworld?

OB Princeworld have been market leaders in KL for a long time. Sometimes they struggled a bit, like when KLIQ was thriving but everyone knows them and respects the brand. Not just for their events but also their commitment to the community. They have always had a social conscience and they have gone out of their way to do good things for the PLU community here. 

MM The problem is they have their formula and they’re not willing to depart from it. So you get the same deejays playing the same songs.

OB I remember my first public appearance. I was extremely nervous. Fendie was there. He was very kind and even wrote to me the next day. He told me that a deejay’s set is a compromise between the taste of the deejay and the taste of the crowd. That was very helpful. A lot of Princeworld’s crowd are quite conservative musically. Those young Chinese boys! And Princeworld cater to that, a bit too much, in my opinion. I think deejays should lead as well as follow.

MM But it’s not just Princeworld, or just KL. The gay dance scene worldwide has become much, much more commercial in the last few years. We’ve started to follow fashions, not create them. I mean are we really falling behind the straight scene? That’s what Friction is here to change!

Well, that was then and this is now! Deejaying is one of those things that you can only learn by doing. By its nature you can only practise playing in front of a crowd by doing it. Friction was fantastic training for me, both as a deejay playing a weekly set and as a promoter, working with Matthew to create a weekly party. We learned many lessons, some the hard way! 

Friction was a unique night: the atmosphere, the regulars and the music combined to make something new and different. For the first time ever, there was a PLU club night that that was presenting dance music that was completely different to anything played on a Saturday. Many of Friction's best aspects were carried forward by Freedom. Onwards and upwards, people! Make Friction, make sparks!

What’s The Difference Between Techno And Electro?

Today I’m going to write about music:   people often ask me what kind of music I play. Actually, I love to spin techno but techno isn’t thought to go down  well with the so-called gay crowd (more on that subject in future blogs). In KL what I end up spinning much of the time is electro house. So what’s the difference? What is techno and what is electro house?

ELECTRO

I’m too lazy to say electro house. Strictly speaking, that is the music I spin but nearly all of us who talk about it can’t be bothered with the ‘house’. It’s an extra syllable, after all. We all say electro. But real electro is a spin off from electronic music – think Dr. Who theme music, Kraftwerk and banks of Moog synthesisers, then Human League and Gary Numan. Or later down the line, think Grandmaster Flash and the Message.

Electro house is a sexy and commercial descendant. Drum machines, heavy repetitive keyboard bass patterns, often with catchy vocals. Wikipedia cites Bodyrox’s ‘Yeah Yeah’ as a trailblazing electrohouse tune. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Xq4q1wCk4

It’s a tremendous song!

I also think Fedde le Grand’s ‘Put your Hands Up for Detroit’ is a definitive electro house tune. Even his overplayed and by this stage in the game, tiresome ‘Let Me Think About It’ has that definitive electro house keyboard bass riffing.

Detroit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYs2HHYqmxw

An example of a less commercial but totally cool electro house track is  Olivier Giacomotto’s remix of Defected by Robot Needs Oil. Gosh, that is sexy! I love the way the syncopated keyboards slowly develop over the main riff.   

        

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMPesTsZzqY

           

So electro house can be very poppy. It often but not always has vocals. Its ideas have grown to influence all kinds of other genres.

Other electro house that you know already: Walking Away, Love Never Let Me Go…

TECHNO

I’m a Trade baby. I grew up in London in an era when the gay clubs were pushing the envelope on what clubs could do and what music could be, and the club that pushed the envelope further than any other was Trade. It was the first legal all night dancing club in the UK. Its doors didn’t even open till 4am, though the queues started earlier and you could dance till 2pm. You could buy everything you needed in there. Everything…The British form orderly queues for everthing, even the in-house drug dealers. They even put in an ATM so you could top up your empty wallet and start over. Trade was a defining experience for many gay Londoners. There’s never been a club like it since. One guy arranged for his ashes  to be scattered there after his death! When they closed it down, finally, they gave away pieces of the dance floor as souvenirs, like pieces of the true cross… And Trade played techno!!

Trade Baby Bilsen c.2001

I don’t want to witter on about the origins of techno. I’m no expert. I found a nice quote on Wiki. Juan Atkins has stated that it is "music that sounds like technology, and not technology that sounds like music, meaning that most of the music you listen to is made with technology, whether you know it or not. But with techno music, you know it."

Techno sounds electronic. It can be hard and banging. But it can be uplifting. Somehow there can be something heartfelt or even spiritual about it, hence the way Trade became a techno temple.

Again, lifting from Wiki ‘Derrick May has summed up the sound as 'Hi-tech Tribalism': something "very spiritual, very bass oriented, and very drum oriented, very percussive. The original techno music was very hi-tech with a very percussive feel... it was extremely, extremely Tribal. It feels like you're in some sort of hi-tech village."

How can dance music be spiritual? If you want to know what I’m talking about you just have to listen. Carbonat by Piemont and Sydenham and Rune’s remix of Argy’s1985  say far more than my words.

Carbonat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u6ItBv70X8

1985

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1LEW5I590c

1985 is one of my top five greatest songs of all time. I find it so heartfelt and captivating that when Bill and I got married last year it was the music we played as people were arriving and waiting for us to walk down the aisle. Imagine the expecation and love in the room with this on the decks! Thanks for the wedding gift, Argy!

So you can tell just by the length of these sections where my heart is. I prefer techno to electro. Electro can be great. But when you have a verse chorus thing and lyrics and vocals you can sing along to, it shortens the shelf life of a song, no matter how good. Once you’ve heard an electro song a few times, you get bored with it. 

But techno is primarily instrumental. The vocals, if any, are ambient or suggestive, rather than dominant. So the track sounds fresh longer, or becomes timeless, like Carbonat or 1985. You could play those on any techno dancefloor in the world, today or in five years time and still enchant the crowd, whether they knew them or not. 

And techno has the power to reach into your soul, in a good way and in a bad way. For example, Wrong Turn by Kyle Geiger. Turn it up loud and it will take you into the darkest part of your heart. Beware of your dark side!! When I listen to it I contact my Mr. Jekyll. I become a dance inspired demon! I couldn't find a link for this on youtube but for sheer excitement and tension there's no match -I was forced to learn how to upload it myself. Here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaYyIMB4RyQ

So that’s the end of today’s blog. Would you like to listen to more?

I’ve done a couple of techno and electro mixes which you can download from my soundcloud.

Technomixes

Live at Kinky Kaos.

A live set from Kaos in BKK. It’s an hour of techno and tech house which builds and builds and builds till it reaches a hip-grinding climax with, funnily enough, an electro anthem by Freakadelica…’I Don’t Like It’ . I think this set is great to play when you’re shagging and at least one of my ex-pat mates agrees with me!

http://soundcloud.com/music-matters/live-at-kinky-kaos

Regenerate

For a long time I'd been wanting to do an uncompromisingly 'deeper, harder, faster' mix. This was it - hardly any vocals, four to the floor kickdrums and a galloping 135 techno beats per minute.

http://soundcloud.com/music-matters/regenerate

Electromixset

Hold That Sucker Down

I really like this mixset. Clearly so do other people - if I check my stats on soundcloud it's got more downloads than any other of my sets.  It’s poppy, with quite a few  80’s remixes but some of the material is a little hard edged, the way I like it. I made it especially to impress a promoter and it worked...I got the gig! Antonio Falcone’s Now That We Found Love remix is archetypal electro house.

http://soundcloud.com/music-matters/hold-that-sucker-down-mixset

Thanks for reading. If you’ve got any comments on electro and techno, I’d love to hear them.

BOYZ, BOOZE AND BEATZ

Well, the original Shakespeare was ‘Wine, women and song’. Then in the 80’s Ian Drury sang ‘Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.’ Let this blog be my own take on alternate lifestyles…boyz, booze and beatz!

I’m a fifty-year old acupuncturist. That’s still kinda young for my work. I’m a fifty-year-old deejay. That’s kind of old for that hobby. I’m a fifty year old gay man. In the West I’d feel over the hill but in Malaysia my age seems to make no difference to how young guys treat me. I’m married to my darling Billy.

I want to write about music…I want to write about sex…I want to write about drugs….i want to write about how much I enjoy life….I want to write about love…and how I got to this place I’m at now…Welcome to my blog…