Falcons: Road Shows And Recordings (Part VI)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Article is written in good faith and part of Joseph Chin's articles on The Fabulous Falcons:

"In 1965, we toured with Rocky Teoh, the Elvis Presley of Malaysia in our road shows within Malaysia and for one road show in Singapore. In this one show in Singapore we performed alongside some of the leading bands from Singapore like The Quests . It was during this show that an untoward incident happened and the Singapore audience, being territorial, booed us throughout our whole performance. This didn’t go down well with our own Malaysian fans. Later the action of the Singaporean audience will backfire.

Later, The Quests from Singapore had a show with some other Singaporean artistes in St John’s Hall in Ipoh. Of course the Malaysian fans had not forgotten the ugly incident when Rocky Teoh and The Fabulous Falcons performed in Singapore a few months back. Halfway through the performance of The Quests, the crowd got really rowdy and uncontrollable and starting booing and taunting the band.

As a consequence, the show had to be called off and they had to be escorted back to their hotels. This was an incident I would rather forget, but somehow the story of this one incident, will be the one thing everyone wants to hear when I mention about the band much later on in my life.

Somewhere in mid-1965, we did a recording in Kinetex Studio in Singapore. It was my first recording with the band although for the rest of them, it was their second recording (the first one being Midnight Express). We spent several days in Singapore where we befriended Vernon Cornelius of The Checkmates, a Singapore band. We recorded 4 songs on two singles. Mayflower and Hotspot on one record and Lonely Star and Misty Breeze (image) on the other.

We were disappointed that we were not allowed to use our own amplifiers as it was a requirement of the studio that we use theirs. As a result we actually didn’t get the sound we wanted. That was a big let down for us. This was something that we were sore about but had to contend with.

Though we were disappointed that offers from renowned recording labels never came our way, and record sales for our singles were not up to expectations, we were still proud of the fact that we were recording artistes, at a tender age of seventeen. On hindsight now, I guess it was down to poor or non-existent advertising on the part of our band as we were inexperienced and lacked managerial expertise. (Joseph Chin)"

Click: Fabulous Falcons to read the series on this blog. For his full memoirs read Joseph Chin's Travelling Foodie and The Falcons blog:

http://thefabulousfalcons.blogspot.com/

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Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Ricky Nelson, Matt Monroe Of Ipoh, Malaya (Part V)

Monday, March 1, 2010

During this time in the 60s in small town Ipoh, Malaya, there was also an explosion of singers who really made names for themselves by impersonating and singing songs by Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Matt Monroe and Ricky Nelson.

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In my hometown our well-known *impersonators include: Ho Kok Onn - Cliff Richard, Les Lee - Elvis Presley, Johhny Lee - Matt Monroe, and Richard Ng - Ricky Nelson.

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Our band The Teenage Fentons, was always the back-up band for all of them when they performed at the movie theatres like the Lido and Rex Theatre.

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*There are impersonators of western pop singers from all over Malaya in the 60s.

Image/original article: Joseph Chin Collection, Ipoh, Malaysia.

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Teenage Fentons - A Falcons Offshoot (Part IV)

The Falcons were happily playing for gigs around Ipoh and were proud and thankful they were the only band with a manager and had instruments provided for. Everything was hunky-dory until the day Robert called the group for a meeting. Things were to change drastically as he told us that his father wanted him to stop as our manager to concentrate on his family business. It came as a shock to us.

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Together we formed another band called the Teenage Fentons (image). A friend agreed to manage the band and would provide the necessary instruments for us. We started practicing as a new band playing songs mainly by the Shadows as we just had a new Fender Stratocaster. It wasn’t long before we were offered gigs to perform at dances and as guest artistes at talentimes.

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In the 60s, it was common that a band performed live before the start of a screen musical and we were offered to play at the Shaw Brothers chain of cinemas. The Shaw Brothers are two movie magnates with cinema halls in Malaya, Singapore and parts of South East Asia. We had our fair share of fun and fame although we were only paid $40 for a night’s gig. After a few changes with our band members we decided to call ourselves The Drifters.

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Image/original article (edited): Joseph Chin Collection, Ipoh, Malaysia.

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The Fabulous Falcons Fly At The Federal Hotel Cameron Highlands, Malaya 60s (Part III)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

PART III: THE FABULOUS FALCONS, IPOH, MALAYA (60s).

Michael Ho, a school mate and I decided to form a band. We knew a guy called Christopher Choong. He played the drums really well and together with Thomas Ham, we formed a band. Forming the group was easy but we didn’t have funds to purchase expensive instruments.

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We cracked our heads wondering what we should do and our prayers were answered in our schoolmate Robert Ng whose father was a tin miner. As he came from a wealthy family he agreed to be our manager and would purchase all the necessary instruments. Cool!

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In those days, it was really something to have a manager in the band but we didn’t see the necessity to give it a name. We would gather at Robert’s house, a bungalow in Greentown, for practices everyday.

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We worked really hard and played even harder then. The hard work paid off when we got an offer to play in Federal Hotel in Cameron Highlands. We were really excited at finally getting a chance to perform especially on Christmas Eve. But what do we call the band? We can’t just go on and perform without a name.

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So we all sat down and picked our brains as to what name to give. We noticed that Robert’s dad had some stuffed and beautiful eagle-like birds, so as we took one. Robert mentioned that it was a falcon. We unanimously agreed that very minute our group would be named after the powerful, beautiful bird and thus The Falcons as a band was born.

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It was a great experience for us that night in Cameron Highlands playing till way past midnight and seeing people enjoying our music. After our first gig at The Federal Hotel in Cameron Highlands, our spirits were lifted and our confidence as a band grew. We were to play for many more gigs all over Ipoh and we continued to practice to increase our repertoire.

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Image/Original article (edited): Joseph Chin.

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(1) Malaysian Connection - Joseph Chin (Lead) - The Fabulous Falcons (Part II)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

It was around 1961 after giving up hockey that I found a new interest - music. It all began with the school talentime. In my school at St. Michael's Institution, Ipoh, the talentime was held every year featuring the Hawaiian Rhythmaires as the backing band for every hopeful contestant.

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The band consisted of my school teachers. I was particularly impressed with one teacher whose bass guitar resembled the one used by Paul McCartney of The Beatles.

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After watching them, I was really eager to learn the guitar. My brother was just an occasional player and played the guitar just to amuse himself but at least he knew a few chords. So that was how I started. I was also fascinated with talentimes too as they were really popular then. I recall several popular contestants at each talentime contests in at the YMCA, Ipoh. Deep inside I was wishing that some day, I would also make it up there on the stage doing my thing.

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In my parent’s house there was a Grundig gramophone and I used to play the black vinyl records over and over again so I could pick up the songs and commit it to memory. With guitar in hand, and an ear as near as possible to the gramophone speaker, I slowly and painfully picked up the notes of the songs. I was 14 years young then.

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Image: Joseph Chin today from 'Facebook'.

Edited Article: Joseph Chin Collection, Ipoh, Malaysia.

Blog: http://thefabulousfalcons.blogspot.com/

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