Singapore’s rock history on display

SINGAPORE — What do the 1960s band The Dukes, DJ X’Ho and indie band The Oddfellows have in common? They’re all going to be part of an exhibition about Singapore’s rock music heritage.

Called So Happy: 50 Years Of Singapore Rock, the exhibition had its roots 10 years ago, when Little Ong, the creative director of fFurious and the curator for this event, was toying with the idea of showcasing the photos he took of the Singapore music scene. However, funding was an issue and the project was shelved.

It wasn’t until last year that the idea was reignited, after a friend told Ong about the irememberSG fund. “Luckily, I managed to get the funding,” he said.

The exhibition will feature 100 photographs of Singaporean bands in action taken by various photographers through the ages. “These are bands that we felt were critical to the scene,” said Ong, who said they had more names but they were eventually whittled down, partly because “it also depended on whether we could get the photos or not”. Each photo will be accompanied by a short write-up, which includes memories from the public.

“These memories were garnered from the responses left on our Facebook page by the general public and worked into the write-ups,” said Ong. “I felt that the (write-ups) shouldn’t just come from those in the music scene.”

Apart from the photos, several objects such as ticket stubs and flyers will be on display too. “We also have a guitar strap from The Straydogs and early gig posters from the ’80s of Heritage, Transformer and Pests Infested,” said Ong.

There will also be video interviews with members of the music scene through the years, including Zainal Abidin of The Dukes, X’Ho, music composer Joe Ng, music studio manager Ah Boy and musician Cherie Ko.

“The idea was to interview different people and learn what they had to go through to make music in Singapore,” said Ong, who added that the aim of the exhibition was to “inspire the public and let them realise we have such a rich history when it comes to rock music”.

This rich history can be heard on the exhibition’s two opening days (April 8 and 9) when bands such as The Oddfellows, Plainsunset, Riot !n Magenta, The Pinholes, Rudra and LC93 (a band covering songs by Singapore hardcore rockers such as Swirling Madness) take to the stage.

“I don’t think we can show everything (we’ve curated) at this exhibition, but what we can’t display we will continue to post on Facebook,” Ong added. While he had no firm plans to make this exhibition a touring one after its run at The Substation, he would like to bring it overseas too.

“But we have a website and the exhibition will live on through that,” he said.

So Happy: 50 Years Of Singapore Rock starts tomorrow at the Substation and runs until April 17. For more details, visit http://www.sohappy.sg

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mentioned that funding for the exhibition was through the SG50 Celebration Fund. That is incorrect, it was through the irememberSG fund. We apologise for the error.