Music veteran Clement Chow, who sang ‘Count on Me J’pore’, explains why we’re rehashing previous National Day songs

Posted On Aug 10, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

almost famous

Clement Chow does not believe in dressing his age.

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” Why should be used’ grow old ‘? Here, you evolve ,” says the 59 -year-old music veteran as he points to his head,” but don’t lose the heart of feeling young all the time .”

You may not recognise his face, or even his word off the bat if you’re not old fairly( hee ), but you most definitely “ve ever heard” his expres immortalised in the 1986 National Day song “Count On Me Singapore” 😛 TAGEND

Incidentally, he will too be returning to the Padang tonight to accomplish another renditon of the reservoir adoration 1986 classic at the 2019 National Day Parade.

Chow is also the music programmer behind the Sentosa Musical Fountain, that put up light-footed and sound proves for 25 times from 1982 to 2007.

And if you call Takashimaya today, you might be able to hear its jingle( which has been playing for over 20 times) courtesy of Chow.

Dressed in a thundering etch T-shirt, a Hard Rock Cafe cap, and spectacularly ripped jeans, the multi-hyphenate entertainer is a marvellous projectile of energy.

” I speculate the instant you slow down, you do ,” he says with a laugh.

And Chow has been keeping himself busy.

The man owns two yield companies, Vertex Integrated Entertainment and Crazy Rich Entertainment LLP, but still notices the time to write, compose and record his own spirit projects.

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Just a couple of weeks ago, the producer-musician secreted a song announced ” None of This Came Easy” for Singapore’s Bicentennial commemoration.

The soaring piece boastings the articulations of Chow, Rahimah Rahim, Tay Kewei, and Nick Zavior supported by the 66 -piece Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra. Its cinematically-shot video likewise boasts a multicultural synthesi of regional dancers, strung together by neighbourhood hip-hop dancer and instructor Muhammad Zaihar 😛 TAGEND

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And even more recently, Chow put out a remake of” Count On Me, Singapore”, opening with him gently crooning a brand-new preface before segueing into the song suitable been approved by a choir of Joo Chiat tenants 😛 TAGEND

Both parts, Chow says, are ground-up initiatives born out of his spirit for music and his desire to contribute something for this milestone in Singapore’s history.

In fact, he gives on that” None of This Came Easy” was only designed in February and after sloping it to the Singapore Bicentennial Office in April, Chow wrote, arranged, and recorded the part piece by June.

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” Don’t get caught up in what you have to do, but get caught up in what you want to do .”

This, Chow says, is a mantra he abides by — not that he has had any trouble doing what he loves.

The son of an accountant and kindergarten teach, Chow had no lack of showing to music growing up. Both his parents sang in the choir, and “his fathers” was also a huge vinyl record collector.

” He left home a accumulation of nearly 700 vinyls and he enjoy it ,” says Chow.” From Glenn Miller to the Great Caruso and everybody in between. My house was always fitted with the audios of vinyl records being played .”

Interview Clement Chow was exposed to music since young. Image by Gareth Chew.

However, it was in the Anglo-Chinese School in 1972 that Chow received his melodic talent with the school’s armed ensemble. Starting out as a fanboy of the school band, he followed them everywhere until the band conductor making a decision draft him.

The ACS military band consistently swept top accolades at the annual Singapore Brass and Woodwind festival, so much so that Chow was noticed( and subsequently recruited) by the Singapore Armed Forces’ Music and Drama Company( MDC ).

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The SAF MDC is known for churning out the biggest honours in the entertainment industry today, from JJ Lin to Chua Enlai to Jeremy Monteiro. It was there that Chow honed his performing knowledge until his ORD in 1981.

One year later, Chow got together with three other MDC alumni — Tina Goh, Sheikh Tahir, and Roslee Harree — to form the Dissonant Affair, a singing quartet who altered famed songs with their complex harmonies and original arrangements.

The Dissonant Affair won the top prize in the 1982 Talentime by the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation with their portrayal of The Beatles'” Got To Get You Into My Life” be done in order to the funky style of Earth, Wind& Fire.

Chow’s music busines taken away from from there. From television to radio to live achievements and sound production, the man was deep in the action of the roaring’ 80 s music scene.

The hooting’ 80 s

Chow’s gazes brighten as he recalls the music scene in the 1980 s.

” The 80 s was the best! There was potpourrus, you could go from guild to club and you could find different types of music, different forms, you have been able never get bored !”

For a generation of people who is brought up on a food of social media and Netflix, the relevant recommendations of going out for entertainment can be quite foreign.

Entertainment in the 80 s, says Chow, was going out for good food and then aiming a good strap after. From country to R& B to pop, there was a good neighbourhood ensemble for every musical genre.

He clangs off a listing of his favourite numbers: Ramli Sarip, Alleycats, Black Dog Bone, Joe Chandran and The X-periments, Tania, and a stripe from the Neptune Theatre( from whom he learned to play the conga ).

” We even had a wonderful band called The Flybaits at the Mandarin Hotel. They used to do impressions of various well-known pop superstars and they were entertaining and funny !”

interviews For Chow, the music background of the 80 s was the prototype of true entertainment. Epitome by Gareth Chew.

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Entertainment was heady, wild, and imaginative.

Tania, says Chow, was the first band to use a microphone stand as a substitute for a bass drum — an inventive solution to space restrictions in a small bar 😛 TAGEND

” There were no rhythms but the kicking was amplified by making the resonate louder, turning up the EQ of the bass, and the base of the microphone stand was the knock container. He would knock it and that would sound like a knock drum .”

Chow himself was a familiar is now facing the music scene.

Readers of a certain vintage might recollect watching him sing and play at the Oberoi Imperial Hotel at Jalan Rumbia, Palm’s Wine Bar at Holland Village, and the Changi Sailing Club, to refer a few.

It was a scene that expanded on people’s hunger for entertainment, which in turn yielded opportunities to homegrown musicians and performers.

Clubs were willing to shell out money — it was not uncommon for a ensemble to pull in S $25,000 a month in the 80 s — for good performers who are likely bring in and retain crowds.

So what deepened?

Foreign talent, says Chow, which depressed the revenues of local bands. Then when it becomes too expensive to hire regional straps, they eventually divided up and try to find work as solo performers, often relegated to nightspots.

Social media, very, has attracted beings away from the bars and the societies and onto virtual openings, and musicians are forced to adapt to stay relevant.

” We’ve lived through these changes and we’ve seen it ,” he says.” The music community is very different today .”

Musicians today scarcity communication

One grouse that Chow has about young musicians today is what he sees as an inability to connect with a live audience.

This situation is of particular concern for musicians in a Instagram/ YouTube age who are used to performing in front of a camera.

” It’s a frightening study for them because they’re used to singing to a camera and that doesn’t agitate anybody. But when they’re suddenly looking at a populace, they’re like, oh my God, there are real people out there .”

” I’ve hired them before you and you will know them ,” he says with a grinning, when we ask if he was referring to anyone in particular.

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These, Chow says, are skilled, current ordinances that are” very good, socially on YouTube” and the route he visualizes it, they truly know their stuff because they are willing to learn and they can pick up new techniques and approaches promptly from online.

” But with that knowledge you need to bring it out into your live operation and delivering it over to the people ,” he says with a shrug.

Consummate musicians — like those Chow grew up listening to and worked with in the 1980 s — know how to read their audience, connect with them and keep them entertained.

Admittedly it takes a certain kind of personality to hold the attention of a an audience but Chow insists that a lot of it takes rehearsal, which you cannot get in front of camera at home.

” Whether you’re an introvert or an sociable, trust me, you are able to ,” he says vigorously.” I know of both types of identity who have been out there, who have been doing it well .”

Musicians, Chow admonishes, need to have that” made of punish” to sharp their performing skills. And one channel to achieve that is to stir mistakes.

” You want to keep representing gaffes so you can be free ,” Chow contributes.” It’s okay to establish misconceptions, but it will be a big mistake if you don’t select yourself up after .”

On National Day chants

Coming back to” Count on Me Singapore”, Chow says he received the job to record it when he was working in a recording studio with Jeremy Monteiro 😛 TAGEND

” We were doing a lot of slogans then. So one day Jeremy said hey, national jangle, need you to sing it. So within an hour, we recorded it. I “d no idea”. It was just another job .”

The next thing he knew, Chow was seeing himself on cinema screens and newspapers and was selling over 120,000 cassette tapes of” Count on Me Singapore “.

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It was a proud instant for Chow, from way back in 1986, and he considered to be a liberty to sing a wildly-popular National Day song that still resonates today.

However, he is adamant that it is not about him.

” It’s about a national word, being able to be counted upon, I think its a extremely universal sense. Even Bruno Mars has a song on that ,” he quips.

ms weekend Chow posing with a newspaper clipping of him when’ Count on Me Singapore’ was secreted. Image by Joshua Lee.

Speaking of National Day ballads, Chow pauses to pick a favourite since they were all carry different messages.

Some, like” Stand Up for Singapore” and “Home” continue to resonate with Singaporeans for decades, but there are others that people don’t sing anymore — hymns like” It’s the Little Things “ and ” Song for Singapore “ — Chow conceives deserve greater attention every now and then.

But it’s hard to escape the fact that people are just not hugging newer National Day sungs with the same fervour they reserve for “Home” and it seems we have given up trying to rouse mettles with a brand-new numeral each year.

Last year’s theme song was a remake of the 1987 classic” We Are Singapore “. This year’s song compounds both the 2002″ We Will Get There” and the 2015″ Our Singapore “.

Chow thinks it is the cost of trying to stay related 😛 TAGEND

” I’ve had very mixed reactions including your generation. They’ll say cannot fit a circle into a square lah. In the old days an psalm is a communal song which includes parties. Today, it’s so cleverly done that it’s hard to reach the person who sells boozes on the streets or the aunty at the coffeeshop .”

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Newer psalms, with their wordy stanzas and unfamiliar patterns, are very significantly stylistically exclusive to certain groups of people.

Perhaps anthemic chants, envisioned as a tool to cultivate solidarity among Singaporeans in the 1980 s, have become outdated.

‘Operation Singalong’ was govt’s attempt to get S’poreans to sing folk song in the 1980 s

But Chow is not so sure.

” Yeah, I don’t know. We haven’t found the formula in the sense. What are you all looking for? What would incite you to say,’ Wow that’s worth something, that’s worth my courtesy ‘?”

” The authority must ask themselves does[ a National Day song] still act as a medium for messaging ,” he computes.” Is it effective? Are the people take it in? Are the vocals manufacturing them feel this way ?”

Perhaps, he indicates, hymns need time to grow in the hearts of their listeners.

” As a song buns through time, it musters record, it collects narratives so these things make it even more meaningful than where reference is first started ,” says Chow.

Case in extent: When it was first propelled, countless Singaporeans thought” We Are Singapore” was “boring”, “uninspired”, and extremely “sentimental”. Today, it is heralded as a classic.

S’poreans formerly criticised’ We Are S’pore’ NDP song as’ uninspired’. Now it’s a classic .

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There’s really no warn what the future holds for National Day songs.

As we wrap up the interview, I query Chow about his thoughts on the Singapore sound. Singaporean culture, being so young and heterogenous, have not been able to created a resonate that we can claim as our own, as opposed to, say, Indonesian music or K-pop.

For him, though, a Singaporean sound is simply about Singaporean experiences.

” Just be whatever your influence has been, and find your own style and just get it on. Music is neutral. What compiles it Singaporean or not is the person singing it .”

Chow’s mentions were edited in the interests of clarity. Top photo by Gareth Chew.