AKA is not your average rock band
KA is not your average rock band.
Hailing from Surabaya, AKA, an acronym for Apotik Kali Asin, a pharmacy owned by the father of the band’s lead singer Andalas Datoe Oloan “Ucok” Harahap, not only have the best moniker ever, they were also one of the most dangerous musical collectives this country has ever seen.
At the same time Ozzy Ozbourne was biting the head off a bat midway through a Black Sabbath set and Alice Cooper began bringing a guillotine on stage, Harahap was impressing local crowds with stage antics that would make Harry Houdini proud.
In one of his most memorable gigs at Taman Ismail Marzuki in November 1973, Harahap showed up on stage by jumping from the rooftop before being whipped by what appeared to be an executioner who later tied him up and hung him upside-down.
In what was meant to be the pinnacle of the show, Harahap was then put inside a coffin and hauled offstage. When he was locked inside the coffin, he suffered a panic attack.
Many of his fans have said that demonic possession has been part of AKA’s show and that Harahap perfected the skill of black magic, something that enabled him to survive all his stage antics.
But, preoccupation with Harahap’s bizarre stage gimmicks can easily turn people away from how good AKA’s music is.
All of the band’s 11 long-playing studio albums have long been out of print — which also makes them expensive collector’s items on eBay —making it difficult for new generations of fans to enjoy their music.
When Rolling Stone Indonesia compiled a list of the 150 best albums of all time, none of AKA’s studio albums made the cut.
It did not help that AKA, following the order of the day, had a lot of Malay-style ballads, Javanese pop, Qasidah devotional songs and keroncong in their catalogue, a major turn-off for hard rock-leaning fans.
But for those who can see past the stage antics and forget their attempts at selling out and instead focus on some of the gems that AKA managed to smuggle into their albums, it is easy to understand that AKA is one of the best bands this country ever had, artistically speaking.
Raised on a steady diet of Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Cream and Three Dog Night, AKA offered a unique and richly nuanced take on rock music, an artistic wonder considering the fact that the only means of transmission were the records that four members of AKA listened to while they grew up in Surabaya and then took up as influence.
The music of AKA is a testament that rock music can sometimes serve as a universal language, confirming what musicologist Michael Jarrett said about the dynamics of rock music relying on the materiality and circulating capabilities of recordings.
“Thus one does not have to be from a particular place or have a specific cultural background in order to innovate within the rock ‘tradition’ as long as one has access to recordings,” Jarret said in his seminal article “Concerning the Progress of Rock & Roll”.
With only records of their favorite bands at their disposal, AKA managed to create a unique blend of rock music as imagined by four middle-class pals from Surabaya. The results could stand alongside the classics from that era.
One of their heaviest compositions, “We’ve Gotta Work It Out” off the album Do What You Like, for instance, is AKA’s take on Led Zeppelin with Soenatha Tandjung’s heavy riffing anticipating Soundgarden’s version of grunge almost three decades later.
“Glenmore”, another English language song off Do What You Like, with its locomotive rumble guitar and driving beat, is similar to the way Led Zeppelin sped up the Blues in “When the Levee Breaks”. And, Do What You Like was recorded in 1970, one year before Led Zeppelin IV was released.
Then there’s the funk gem that Harahap perfected, maybe after repeated spins of James Brown’s There It Is in “Shake Me” off the album of the same name, released in 1975 on Indra Records.
It certainly takes some star quality and cockiness to utter these lines and Harahap did it effortlessly. Harahap: “Boys!” AKA: “Yeah!” H: “Do you like grass?” A: “No!” H: “Do you like morphine?” A: “No!” H: “Do you like LSD?” A: “No!” H: “Do you like (to get) stoned?” A: “No!” H: “But, now. Do you like sex?” A: “Yeaaah!” H: “Alright!”
What makes “Shake Me” special is the fact that the hard rock element, largely from Tandjung’s solo guitar licks and Syech Abidin’s complex drumming, stands out and prevents the song from being just another James Brown knock-off.
It was such compositions that were recently included by the Canadian label Strawberry Rain in a compilation of AKA “modern”-sounding compositions titled Hard Beat.
Strawberry Rain, run by Southeast Asian music specialist Jason “Moss” Connoy, has included Shake Me and Do What You Like in Those Shocking, Shaking Days, a compilation of 1970s Indonesian music that was released late last year to great critical acclaim.
The label said that AKA deserved a reissue simply because it is one of the country’s best bands. “Today AKA is recognized as one of Indonesia’s top rock bands of all time, and for good reason. With this release, we are proud to offer an anthology encompassing AKA’s heaviest and funkiest moments,” Strawberry Rain said in a statement.
And to do justice to some of AKA’s finest moments, Strawberry Rain has gone to great lengths to re-master songs in the compilation from pristine vinyl copies that Strawberry Rain found on the collector’s market. Masters from all of AKA’s recording sessions are long gone.
With the meticulous care that Strawberry Rain took to bring out the best sound quality from AKA’s back catalogues — those who have listened to two of AKA’s tracks in Those Shocking, Shocking Days know that they have the best sound quality — this compilation is heaven sent.
And for those new converts to AKA, young music fans who recently found the band but had to struggle with the hiss and crackles of the vinyl copies of Shake Me or Do What You Like or the drowned sound of cassette tapes, this compilation is a gateway to the rich history of the country’s most dangerous band.
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