8/10/2019 What The Tweet - What's your story?

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By NIKI CHEONG

YOUVEalready readthe great

lengths somepeople go throughto become famous.R.AGEs cover storythis week high-lights the painspeople will gothrough for a tasteof fame. SharmilaSharm on theScene Nair herself(on Page 4) made anattempt at this during therecentE! News Asiaaudi-tions.

If youre anything likeher, however, you probablydislike being in front of thecamera. But this doesntmean that youreunable to share yourcreativy and thoughtswith the rest of the world(okay, fine, well start withMalaysia).

Enter Your Grandfathers Road

(YGR) movie project. The project,produced by Sunny Stories incollaboration with Popiah Pictures,aims to involve as many people aspossible in their movie-makingprocess.

And what better way to do thisthan via the Internet and socialmedia?

The way YGR works is simple: fora few weeks, a select group of writ-ers will share their stories on adaily basis at www.yourgrandfa-thersroad.com. The public is theninvited to leave comments on theseposts - sharing their own stories.

You dont have to just share yourstories via text, you can also opt toupload a video via YouTube and

attach it to your comment.Similarly, you can attach photos aswell.

Besides using Facebook andTwitter to drive traffic, YGR also

introduced its Driver of the Week

campaign where they get a varietyof different personalities to share astory a day for a whole week.

Yours truly was the first Driver ofthe Week (I shared some pictures ofme as a kid too but youll have tovisit the site to see it!), and subse-quently girl drifter Leona Chin andpopular blogger JoyceKinkybluefairy Wong have takenthe drivers seat.

It would be interesting to see theprogress of a site like this. Crowd-sourcing is an integral element ofsocial media, and a project like thiswould be a good indication ofwhether or not it works inMalaysia.

Besides sharing stories, the YGR

creators are also inviting aspiringactors to audition online. After allthe stories have been compiled, anda script drafted, Sunny Stories willopen a call for videos where anyone

can upload to YouTube and submit

their audition videos to get a role inthe movie. This means that anyone- with or without prior acting expe-rience - has an equal chance atgetting a part in this planned roadmovie.

YGR may have generated quite abuzz online, and have also attractedthe attention of sponsors, but it willalso be looking to the public, via thecrowd-funding method, to helpsupport the project monetary wise.

Depending on the amountcontributed, YGR will offer creditmentions and invites to the moviepremiere, among other things.

From a social media perspective, Ido hope that this project works. Wehavent yet had a project of this

scale in Malaysia that requires sole-ly online participation and YGRwould be a good test to see howthe Malaysian cybersphereresponses to such activities.

By IAN YEE

WHILE I was going through the mountain ofCDs I was supposed to review over the lastcouple of months, one album caught myeye Dream Theaters latest,Black Clouds &Silver Linings.

It reminded me about this rather forgot-ten concept in music the supergroup and it had me YouTube-ing the wholeday.

A supergroup is kind of like an NBAAll-Star game, or say if ManchesterUnited somehow managed to buy LionelMessi, Cesc Fabregas, Fernando Torres andCristiano Ronaldo (*fingers crossed*).

Its when a bunch of famously talentedmusicians or artistes decide to form aband; and of course, the results are usuallypretty awesome lots of crazy technicalskills and ground-breaking music.

Dream Theater is one such supergroup,with their members coming to be recog-nised as some of the best musicians on theirrespective instruments since they startedout, especially drummer Mike Portnoy and

guitarist John Petrucci.Now the whole idea of a supergroupmight not make as much sense these days(unless youd like a supergroup of NickCarter, Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating and

Justin Timberlake), but thanks to wondersof video streaming, the supergroups of old and the fewrealones we have today cangive young musicians something to aspireto with how they blast open boundaries inmusic, both in terms of skill and musicality.

The best example of that would be

Portnoy and Petruccisrealsupergroup,Liquid Tension Experiment, a side projectwith keyboard player extraordinaire JordanRudess (who is now part of Dream Theater)and veteran sessionist Tony Levin on bass.

Basically, theyre a bunch of show-offs,but in a good way. Their progressive rockinstrumental style allows them to demon-strate their incredible individual skills with

long solos and lots of crazy riffing betweenPetrucci and Rudess.

The first supergroup to achieve main-stream success was 60s blues-rock trioCream, which featured a young Englishelectric guitar genius by the name of EricClapton.

Clapton was already something of aguitar god at the time with his innovativework on the electric guitar, while the othertwo members, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker,were both prominent British jazz musi-cians.

The following decade would see the riseof a number of supergroups such as theMahavishnu Orchestra (with John

McLaughlin and Billy Cobham), as the jazz

fusion movement produced some of thegreatest instrumentalists ever.Fusion group Weather Report, founded

by former Miles Davis musicians keyboard-ist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist WayneShorter, achieved critical acclaim followingtheir debut album in the early 70s, but itwas the addition of Jaco Pastorius thatturned the band into a bona fide super-group.

Pastorius is widely regarded as the great-est bassist of all time, even though his trag-

ic death had cut short his career. Another70s fusion band, Return to Forever featuredanother bass pioneer, Stanley Clarke, buttheir classic line-up was even more glam-ourous than Weather Report jazzkeyboard legend Chick Corea, guitar wizardAl Di Meola and drummer Lenny Whitecompleting the group.

Fast forward to the 90s, and we have thelive virtuoso guitar supergroup G3. SteveVai and Joe Satriani are the regularmembers in this on-going concert tour,with each show featuring a third guestguitarist.

Thankfully, supergroups arent totallydead. Since 2007, hip-hop/R&B heavy-weights Kanye West, Pharell Williams and

Lupe Fiasco have joined forces to work on aside project called Child Rebel Soldier.Theyve already released a single,Us Placers,and toured together, but their full-lengthdebut album is still in the works.

A few not-so-mainstream acts such asSMV (bassists Stanley Clarke, Marcus Millerand Victor Wooten) and Chickenfoot (VanHalens Sammy Hagar and MichaelAnthony, Red Hot Chilli Peppers ChadSmith, and Joe Satriani) are still keepingthis awesome concept alive.

T6 R.AGE STARTWO, WEDNESDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2010

Screenshot of Your Grandfathers Road project website.

Super supergroups

Dream Theaters Black Clouds & SilverLinings.

niki@

thesta

r.com.my

What happens when you put some of the best

musicians in the world together? Magic. ianyee@thestar.com.my

Whats your story?

You(ths) have a lot to say, and you say it in your blogs.

Every week, R.AGE highlights three young Malaysianbloggers.

Our picks this week:Bryan Limhttp://bryanlyt.comBryan is a communications and media man-agement student who earns a little on the sideby dabbling in photography. He is a familiarface at various events, concerts and bloggeroutings organised in the Klang valley.

Kellaw Wai Hoehttp://kellaw.blogspot.comFull-time student Kellaw blogs about life andevents that he attends frequently. His blog alsooften touches on current issues as well as newtechnologies. He says of himself: Im one ofthose guys who mix fun, work and play all in one!

Jeremy Choyhttp://bboyriceakajeremy.blogspot.comAlso known by his monicker Bboyrice, Jeremy is adancer, blogger and photographer. He is currentlya Mass Communications student and describeshimself as a guy thats always hyper.