When Carl Hamm’s curiosity and compassion drove him to reach out to Indonesian residents after the tsunami of 2004, he had no idea it would send him on a 7-year research project of “some of the most beautiful, soul-stirring music I have ever heard”—the quirky psychedelic sounds of Malaysian Pop Yeh-Yeh. Carl, aka DJ Carlito, a local Richmond DJ well known for his Bollywood Nights and WRIR Sunday evening radio show “If Music Could Talk,” has always kept his passion for collecting obscure secondhand vinyl at the forefront of his creative endeavors. As he was developing ideas for one of his upcoming radio broadcasts after the tsunami wrecked the Indonesian landscape, he began working on a set list for an hour-long creative tribute to Indonesian music.
The next few weeks led him to scour Ebay auctions for the most obscure and interesting music of Indonesia. Due to geographic proximity, many of the auctions included Malaysian 60’s and 70’s pop records mixed into the offering. “I deeply respect the creative process of all music throughout the world,” Carl says. “So I decided to purchase the vinyl and take a listen.” As the needle dropped, giving him his first listen to these vintage sounds, he knew that he had found a genre worthy of his deep devotion. Soon thereafter, he began a routine of daily post office pick ups, slowly accumulating Malay vinyl delicately packed in faded album jackets. The clerks who admired the unusual stamps on his deliveries soon got to know Carl as a regular.
READ THE FULL VERSION OF RVA #5 HERE
When Carl Hamm’s curiosity and compassion drove him to reach out to Indonesian residents after the tsunami of 2004, he had no idea it would send him on a 7-year research project of “some of the most beautiful, soul-stirring music I have ever heard”—the quirky psychedelic sounds of Malaysian Pop Yeh-Yeh. Carl, aka DJ Carlito, a local Richmond DJ well known for his Bollywood Nights and WRIR Sunday evening radio show “If Music Could Talk,” has always kept his passion for collecting obscure secondhand vinyl at the forefront of his creative endeavors. As he was developing ideas for one of his upcoming radio broadcasts after the tsunami wrecked the Indonesian landscape, he began working on a set list for an hour-long creative tribute to Indonesian music.
The next few weeks led him to scour Ebay auctions for the most obscure and interesting music of Indonesia. Due to geographic proximity, many of the auctions included Malaysian 60’s and 70’s pop records mixed into the offering. “I deeply respect the creative process of all music throughout the world,” Carl says. “So I decided to purchase the vinyl and take a listen.” As the needle dropped, giving him his first listen to these vintage sounds, he knew that he had found a genre worthy of his deep devotion. Soon thereafter, he began a routine of daily post office pick ups, slowly accumulating Malay vinyl delicately packed in faded album jackets. The clerks who admired the unusual stamps on his deliveries soon got to know Carl as a regular.
READ THE FULL VERSION OF RVA #5 HERE
After the tsunami, when Carl reached out through Blogspot and Myspace, the two most popular virtual social networking tools at the time, he started his introduction abroad with a simple question: “Is everybody okay?” He soon began engaging in frequent dialogue with several individuals in a Singapore metal band, Suicide Solution. This group included Elsa, then Suicide Solution’s singer, who now resides in Oregon and sings in the hard rock band Soul Distraction. Elsa humored Carl’s love for the 60’s pop that her parents were fond of in their youth, and translated lyrics of the popular tunes. Carl’s growing interest in Malaysian Pop Yeh-Yeh is unusual, as “young Malays see the music as old-fashioned in an era during which their music scene is trending toward Western-sounding metal, rock, and techno-pop. But there are also young musicians such as Elsa that have a deep respect and admiration for the pop stars of the elder generation.” Her ties to the music run deep, as her mother was a makeup artist and stylist for some of the most popular singers of the era.
Over the next several years, he researched the individual Pop Yeh-Yeh artists, piecing together the history of the era. “Almost all of the artists recorded at the same studio in Singapore, after they were discovered through local talent show contests,” he relates. “After recording, they were picked up by small record label companies that were typically owned by independent businessmen as a creative side venture. These labels released the music, and artists were paid a flat fee, often signing away any publishing rights to their works. In general, maintaining copyright wasn’t given priority until sometime in the 70’s.”
As Carl continued to trace the works of both popular and obscure musicians of the genre, the desire to make Pop Yeh-Yeh more accessible led him to the idea of releasing a digitally remastered double LP compilation of vintage gems. He contacted EMI for permission to license some of the older songs in their catalog, and found himself “bounced back and forth between international offices and label employees.” Having no luck with approaching the bigger labels, he decided to focus on smaller defunct labels, and hoped to find a way to contact the artists directly for permission.
Carl contacted Sublime Frequencies, a small label in Seattle known for releasing obscure and interesting sounds from around the world, and they took immediate interest in the project. Unfortunately, this still left him with a dilemma: with the small record labels of the era having gone out of business several decades prior, how would he acquire licensing for the songs they’d released? However impossible it seemed to do so, honoring the creative rights of the original artists was a priority that negated the possibility of simply cutting the record without their consent. He was left with only one option: to find all of the artists on his set list and obtain their legal permission for the re-release. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Carl knew he had to go to Malaysia.
As soon as he made this decision, he was faced with unknowns that would have stopped others dead in their tracks: where to get the money for the hefty airplane ticket and travel expenses, how to get enough time off work without having to quit his job, and who to even contact once he stepped on Malaysian ground. He had months of work to do, both in nailing down the details of his nebulous plan and in finding a creative way to fund the trip.
He sent a video summary of his proposal for the project to kickstarter.com, along with the description of specific goals that he intended to accomplish. He slowly drew in small donations over the course of the next few weeks, but it wasn’t adding up to what he needed fast enough. The momentum came when his sister, Xeni Jardin, a co-editor and major contributor for BoingBoing.com, decided to help her little brother out by posting his Kickstarter idea on her website, giving it global exposure. She described her “crate-digging brother’s” research trip to the popular website’s audience, and posted several Youtube links to the somewhat sappy black and white music videos of the era. Despite the language barrier, current audiences could dig the meanings of the songs through the dramatic acting of the musicians as they performed in a Lawrence-Welk style studio setting.
Thanks to help from his big sis, Carl’s donations increased, as did his luck—“I was connected with dozens of people in Singapore and Malaysia who wanted to help me out when when I arrived.” Aidil, the leader of the Malaysian power pop band Couple, contacted him and mentioned that the band’s guitarist happened to be the daughter of Adnan Othman. “Adnan is one of my favorite Pop Yeh-Yeh artists,” Carl says. When Carl arrived in Malaysia, Aidil personally introduced Carl to Adnan, who went out of his way to help Carl while he was there.
As he prepared for his trip, his email inbox continued to flood with correspondence from the people that he had been in contact with over the past several years. He updated them on current travel details, and they worked on scheduling times to meet. The information that he needed to finalize the re-release was waiting for him, over 6,000 miles away. Weeks of coordination over email developed his itinerary, and articles highlighting his upcoming trip ran on Malaysian media websites, such as Junk and Klue Magazine.
Seven years after he first listened to Pop Yeh-Yeh, on July 3, 2010, Carl boarded a plane to embark upon his three-week research trip with the goal of meeting with all of the artists on his compilation’s set list, and receiving their legal consent and approval to release their digitally remastered music. He also packed a video camera to document his archival excursion. Over the duration of his trip, the singers from the glossy cover art of his record collection came to life, through conversations occurring everywhere from impromptu lunches at street vendor stations to more formal family gatherings and social events. “Every day I received tips from Othman and his peers on who I should go meet next,” he says. “Thanks to their help, the appointments stacked up so quickly that I could barely keep up.” His days were filled with new introductions, video footage, and purchases of last-minute bus tickets to unfamiliar places.
He met legends such as Dato’ A. Rahman Hassan, Cikgu Yusnor Ef, Zam Zam, Kassim Selamat, A Halim, Hasnah Haron, M Fadzil, S Mariam, Zaleha Hamid, and many others, and had the opportunity to attend a private practice session with Orkes Nirwana, a wedding performance by Adnan Othman with Band D’Lima, and and several other bands that still actively perform to sold-out audiences. He also spent time with Joseph Pereira, author of Legends of the Golden Venus, a book about 60’s and 70’s Singapore rock. While Carl was in Malaysia, he was interviewed on the Malaysian radio station BFM’s “That Music Show,” giving listeners an update on how his project was going. Each artist was welcoming to Carl’s research, and “helped to guide me to the next artist that I was seeking,” as well as to many authors, promoters, and historians along the way. His trip was one of absolute immersion into the once-sensational culture of Pop Yeh-Yeh.
Carl returned to Richmond with many release signatures, as well as over 25 hours of video footage. “Currently I’m in the process of obtaining the remaining licensing necessary for the compilation release on Sublime Frequencies,” he explains. He’s also in the process of editing his footage into a documentary, which will be screened locally on completion. Once all release signatures are received, Carl will finalize plans to release the compilation, making the unique melodies of the genre available for listeners in the coming year. On a local level, Carl plans to start the vibe with a record release party for the compilation at a local Richmond record store. Ultimately, he hopes to bring several of the artists to the states to perform the legendary tunes of the era in a live setting.
In the meantime, Carl will keep the diverse appetites of local music lovers enticed with his Bollywood Night dance parties every second Saturday at Cous Cous, over the airwaves on Sunday evenings on WRIR, and through upcoming gigs at Balliceaux. His upcoming gigs at Balliceaux will feature a generous offering of Pop Yeh-Yeh, as well as other Asian psychedelic pop sounds. For more on Pop Yeh-Yeh, visit Carl’s blog, at: http://menarigogo.blogspot.com.
