Wednesday, March 19, 2008

HOW, WHY, WHEN, WHERE, WHAT and WHO...?

It started with a band called Minority back in 1990 in Kuantan, Pahang. The band consists of Pete(guitar), Acai(bass), Puyu(vocal) and Naen(drums). After been playing covers (from The Ramones, Ear Damage, Sub-Society, Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols and Misfits, just to name a few) for some time, Pete(who's a kid brother for Ili and Abang from The Pilgrims) decided that they should do their own songs. With RM70, they recorded an 8 songs demo entitled "Quantity Doesn't Matter" sometime between 91-92. Been gigging at only a few venues (including funfairs) in Kuantan and Temerloh and the most memorable one, supporting The Pilgrims in "Away From The Numbers" at Picaddily,Damansara PJ, together with Future Primitives and The Stone Crows and few other bands.
In between this active progression of Minority, Acai had been approached by Wan (Spirit Alcohol) to do a side project band, which was yet to be named. The idea was discussed, when Acai was supporting Wan, playing bass for his rehearsal tape project. They jammed a few sessions with Wan on guitars, Acai on bass and the drummer(who if not mistaken) was Wan's cousin. At times, they will be joined by Shahril (By Side Off) on guitar and Wan will be on drums. The band didn't last long mainly because of lost of direction or maybe... lost interest.

However, the idea of forming a band with Wan didn't end there, as Acai feels it's important that, besides Minority... Kuantan needs another active band to bloom... By the agreement(and by the power of GreySkull) of Acai on guitar and vocals, Tojeng on bass and Wan on drums, DEP started to venture the nasty world of the underground(intended to make it sounds dramatic)... Back to Minority, circa 94 - 95, they seemed had lost their touches and senses when everyone in the band was particularly busy with their lives. Pete had been into lots of Islamic learning and been devoting himself extremely towards this direction. Naen was rarely to be found available as most of the times engaged with his SUKMA shooting activities/trainings. Puyu will only be around if Naen and Pete are present. This left Acai with no time to waste and get DEP to be in full force that very instant.

DEP had made it's debut appearance at TMS Dangdut Disco, Kuantan in 95. They had also supported Carburetor Dung together with few other bands at the same venue. During this active time, DEP has an avid follower who never fail to attend to their shows and even during their practise sessions. His name is Panther and he joined them on bass replacing Tojeng who later took 2nd guitar. They became more powerful than ever. From there, they have been actively gigging (around KL and Kuantan) and writing new materials and later decided to cut a self-released/self-titled EP in 96 at Bach & Traz Studio in Bangsar, KL.

Few months after the EP was released, Wan suddenly decided to leave DEP due to some personal reasons. Fortunately, the emptiness was immediately filled by Little Jam's Asma, and DEP was back on track again. They managed to cut another release entitled 'Dullaby' around September 99 at Zanzibar Magic Studio, in Ampang KL. An 8 songs(plus 2 short intro and outro) release and was produced collaboratively between Oz Yusof (Naked Butterfly) and DEP.

They still did some shows up till 2002 and later became less and less active. Circa 2003-2007 they were almost on a hiatus. But make no mistake...they had never leave the scene, but only remain dormant and...DULL!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i wanna learn the d.e.p dance step from abrokos..huhu..

Anonymous said...

I'm the first person that send the comment to d.e.p blog..hahaha..