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Here’s a great interview with Philip Cheah – one of the key founder’s of BigO, Singapore’s very iconic independent music magazine. BigO is celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year!

https://esquiresg.com/what-ive-learnt-philip-cheah-bigo/

WE WERE MUSIC FANS. Michael Cheah, Stephen Tan, the late Chris Ho, Gerrie Lim, Lim Teck Lin and I met in the 80s; four of [us] worked at The Singapore Monitor (a rival paper of The Straits Times) and another worked overseas as an entertainment journalist. When the Monitor closed in 1985, the shock woke us to the idea that a local rock magazine about music and pop culture was crucial; mainly because many of our fans/newspaper readers kept asking us to do something else. [So we did BigO Magazine.]

This year marks the 40th anniversary of BigO magazine. Now defunct, the magazine started out as a black & white photocopied fanzine in 1985, championing local original music and alternative pop culture. It became a glossy magazine in 1990 until it stopped publication in 2002. It carried on as a website until it closed down in 2023. BigO, which stands for Before I Get Old (taken from the lyrics of The Who’s “My Generation”), was founded by Philip Cheah and his brother Michael, and Stephen Tan, all of them ex-journalists of the defunct Singapore Monitor. Michael passed away on 12th July 2024.

The 2-day concert at Blackbird features bands mostly from the 1990s and a few from the 2000s. TypeWriter is performing on Sat 12th April at 1pm. The gig starts at 12 noon till about 7pm. The complete line-up:

Sat 12 April
The Mother, TypeWriter, Obstacle Upsurge, Force Vomit, Great Spy Experiment, Plainsunset

Sun 13 April
Disko Biscuit, The Oddfellows, Rudra, The Pinholes, Astreal, Opposition Party

Voices: Before We Get Old is a documentary series by Viddsee. In Episode 2, musician and filmmaker Yee Chang Kang (The Ordinary People, Typewriter) recounts the history of alternative music in Singapore, and reflects on the significance of The Substation, Singapore’s first independent arts centre.

For those who missed the live stream, here’s the video on YouTube. Songs in The Key Of Home was a live stream series organised by Bani Rahman and The Basement Studio. TypeWriter performed an acoustic set as a trio (Chang Kang, Alan and Patrick) on 19 November 2020.

Here’s wishing everyone out there a happy 2021 and for those who celebrate the Lunar New Year, good health and prosperity to you! We couldn’t play any live shows last year and only did one live stream gig in 2020, which was a different type of experience and pretty good fun. We hope to finish up recording our EP by the middle of the year. Stay safe. More to come…

Our new single, “Your Eyes Catch Light”, is out on Spotify today. Happy Valentine’s Day peeps!

 

Hot off the oven! We’re excited about our upcoming EP, which should be out in 2020. Here’s the first preview from the upcoming “The Golden Mile” EP. It’s called “Your Eyes Catch Light”. We’ll be performing this song live for the first this Friday at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre. TypeWriter will be playing three 45-minute sets, at 7:15pm, 8:30pm and 9:45pm. Hope to see you there! This video will be removed on 31 December 2019. We’ll release the finalised mix and video on 14 February 2020. Watch for it!

We’ve ran out of vinyl copies of our EP, “What You’re Feeling Is Not Enough”, on our end. Whatever is left in the stores is all there is. We’ve only made a limited 100 copies for sale to the public. Once they’re gone, that’s it! The record is available at Roxy Records & Trading, The Analog Vault, The Barbershop @ The Panic Room, Hear Records and Vinyl Kakis. Do call up the shops to check if it’s still available before heading down.

TypeWriter – “Gentle Wind” featuring Rachel Tan

We’ve got a new music video from our upcoming EP, “What You’re Feeling Is Not Enough”.

“Sorry, I Got Carried Away” is the new single and first track off Side B on the record. The song is available on Spotify. The EP will be out on 8 September on Spotify and on limited edited heavy-weight coloured vinyl.

We would love to see you at the EP launch on 9 September at the Esplanade Annexe Studio. Tickets at $18 available from: http://ptix.co/2uC5Aji

Credits for the “Sorry, I Got Carried Away” music video:

Directed by Yee Chang Kang
Shot by Jonathan Goh
Assisted by Danny Ng and Ahmad Rifa’ ie Amrun
Edited by Ahmad Rifa’ ie Amrun
Colour-Graded by Yazmin Matrahah (Infinite Frameworks)
Audio-Post by Jinn (Fuse)

Special Thanks to
Shooting Gallery Asia
Operation Dagger
Mustafa
Valerie Kuah, Freddie Yeo & Lawrence Ang (Infinite Frameworks)
Isa Ong & Colin M. Pereira (Fuse)

The early bird tickets at $15 will end on Monday midnight so hurry, book your tickets at Peatix.com now!

After 14 August, the standard tickets will sell at $18.

Tickets for the EP launch show is at: http://ptix.co/2uC5Aji

Watch out for our upcoming single and music video, “Sorry, I Got Carried Away”, to be released on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other digital platforms on 25th August 2017.