マミカスタ‘s black pickguard was finally done last Saturday and it was straight to Steve’s to pick it up.

The Gotoh locking machine heads were fitted and Steve kindly filed the fret ends too. The neck’s edge is now smooth as a, well, you know. Following this, I e-mailed the people in Bournemouth that I can now ship the body over. I also appended a larger .jpg file of MAMIちゃん’s guitar and told them to forget using the template I took from Scandal Heaven. Paid the deposit this morning, and spent a good hour cutting up a Thomann box to fit マミカスタ’s stripped-down body. The body was wrapped in bubble wrap and after adding some AIRPLUS[1] in the box, the body fitted snugly without any movement whatsoever. The whole shipment weighed 3 kg and delivered it 1st class with insurance for £25. The shipment will reach the workshop this Monday afternoon. w00t!

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I had some guests on Wednesday night – about 14 of them.

The Malaysian Soc was sending a band to compete in the International Battle of the Bands at the Students’ Union, and they needed a place to do their penultimate rehearsal in, especially when the previous sessions were done sans a drum kit. Apart from some slight polishing up in bits here and there, they sounded fine.

Come Friday night, it was the first time in more than a decade[2] that I finally stepped into The Foundry. The whole Union Building complex has undergone a major facelift.


Neon lights abound, the whole place felt refreshingly cool unlike the dour appearance of the 70’s-styled facade that I used to know. The entrance to The Foundry was still at the same place. The band was still nameless at 7:45PM and they finally decided on SEMBILAN (lit. nine in Malay). SEMBILAN was to be the 3rd band to get onstage which I’m sure provided some sense of relief, as it beats being first on the list, especially with this being a competition.

The played a cool set (Mr Brightside / Bunyi Gitar / Get Lucky / Time Is Running Out) although there was a technical hiccup at the beginning with setting up the synth with the PA. The performance was quite sound and better than the first two bands, although I felt that there was defo room for improvement.

The judges liked SEMBILAN’s set, which raised our expectations as to how the band would fare in this competition. The subsequent bands were a mixed bag and I have to say, some did a better job, especially the band that was eventually announced as the deserving winner. Unlike the last Malaysian band’s BOTB results back in 1999, SEMBILAN didn’t get disqualified. Heh. There’s always next year!

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[1]Always keep these and any bubblewrap handy for future use!
[2]I can’t remember whether it was the band comp or my 2nd Soulfly gig.