After a musical career that spanned two decades and four bands, Joseph Pereira began researching the 1960s Singapore music scene. His work has yielded three books so far, including the most recent Behind the Tea Dance. He’s also been sharing his vinyl collection on the local party scene. (To check out his collection do a bit of dancing, check out the dance party he's co-organizing on Jan 23). Here he tells us about the glory days.
I was a teenager in the 60s. It was a glorious time. You became aware of music and the opposite sex.
I had a classmate invite me to his house. He had an uncle who was in a rock band, and he was given two albums to listen to as prime examples of psychedelic music. The first album was by a band called The Cream. I thought, “What kind of name is that?” Then he put the album on. I was really floored. I’d never heard this on the radio. The second album was by Jimi Hendrix Experience. I was thinking, “I will never go back to pop.”
I began to search out seven-inch singles. I could not afford albums back then. In ’69, an album cost $8.50, and we were only getting 40 cents a day pocket money. A seven-inch cost $1.80, which was more affordable.
I had the opportunity to join a band in 1972. We played our first gig in a Malay village in Bedok Corner. The Malay houses were on stilts. You climbed up this stone passage then there was a square area before the door. That area was a natural stage. It’s all gone now.
My parents never knew! My father was a career banker. I was the first son in the family—there were seven of us. He had high hopes for me. In my early school years, I was topping the class, but then I lost focus.
I grew up in Jalan Kembangan. I lived there from 1958 to 1975. From ’58-’64, we lived on a long lane called Jalan Lapang. At Kembangan MRT, there is a condo now—that’s where my village was from ’64-’75, but they both disappeared. The reason we moved was because of the frequent floods.
I always had a day job. I was in three branches of civil service, then in banking, then I was a full-time life insurance salesman. Then I was doing consultancy work covering Vietnam and Cambodia.
When people asked me in school, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” I would say without hesitation, “I want to be a journalist.” But when I came out of the military and I applied, I was never successful.
In the 90s, I had the chance to write for a local pop magazine, Big O. The contemporary bands, the younger writers were already covering the contemporary bands. So I thought I’d go back to the roots.
I interviewed a few old bands, asked them involved questions, made them really think and we had these long dialogues. That became my first book, Legends of the Golden Venus, which came out in 1999.
Local bands are being taken advantage of. They’re being asked to do things for free. When I get sick, I can’t go to the doctor and say, “Can you give me pro bono medication?” Why should artists be asked to do the same?
Media is not helping. They should be reporting on the local scene, not parroting about K-pop. I spit at K-pop, man!
Back then there were financiers willing to put serious money behind bands. I interviewed musicians who told me they didn’t have to work daytime. They worked maybe eight or 10 nights, but earned enough to cover their expenses.
I went only once to a tea dance, at the Golden Venus. I went with two classmates. We were only 15 years old. The patrons were dressed outlandishly: frills, corduroy, jackets. And here we were looking like tourists.
Then the bands came, and it was mind blowing. They did not play like the pop bands. These guys did not face the floor. Sometimes they faced each other. I was thinking, “This is how it should be.”
There was one venue, the St Johns Ambulance Brigade Hall at Beach Road. I interviewed some musicians who said that the safest place was on stage. Because while the bands were playing, all the patrons would all be fighting.
But by January 1970, the government had banned tea dances. Some venues were having too many fights among the patrons, so their licenses were withdrawn.
