There’s no arguing that rock and roll is a quintessential product of American culture. You could choose between Dylan and Elvis, but there’s no denying that rock and roll only became rock when primitive blues riffs were played on the electric guitar by young people for young people. To emphasize the specific American character of rock and roll, critic Chuck Klosterman recently wrote in the New York Times that the musical genre is a byproduct of the post-World War II invention of the teenager, soundtracking a 25-year period between the early 1950s and the mid 1970s (which ended with punk).

In the early 1960s, rock and roll made its transatlantic journey and landed in England, spawning the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. From there, rock and roll traveled the world and captivated youths of all nations. Despite its distinctive American (or Western) character, many in the developing world could not resist the temptation to “indigenize”, rock, bringing rock and roll to the local context, bending and twisting it to meet the demands from traditional culture, out of the belief that either “indigenous” music is more superior or simply to prove that it is possible to bring together East and West. Whatever the motivation, the endeavor, particularly in the context of the Indonesian rock scene, was somewhat of a a failure, or we would all dance to “Irama Lenso” tunes today.

“Irama Lenso” was a musical genre championed by the country’s first president, Sukarno, to challenge what he considered the decadence and corrupting nature of rock and roll. Tired of Elvis, Sinatra and Bing Crosby, Sukarno hired singer Bing Slamet, jazz guitarist Jack Lesmana, pianist Bubi Chen and classically-trained violinist Idris Sardi to play the type of music that could incorporate all elements from traditional music in the country. The top talents gathered in a band called The Lensoist, which was dispatched for a tour of Europe and the US between 1964 and 1965.

In 1965, the band cut an album titled “Mari Bersuka Ria dengan Irama Lenso” (Let’s have fun with Lenso), and had it not been for the communist coup later in the year perhaps the album would have circulated more widely. Or maybe even without the political cataclysm, the album simply would not have sold, as it turned out Lenso was a slowed down version of Hawaiian music with its steel guitar being replaced by traditional stringed instrument. For the Lenso musicians themselves, who were schooled in jazz and rock and roll, it proved to be very difficult to discard their years of Western training and record something that sounds both modern and indigenous.

Sukarno’s son Guruh Soekarnoputra continued the cross pollination effort with his band Gipsy. In 1975, Guruh and Gipsy recorded an eponymous record with the sole aim of combining progressive rock (which was all the rage in the mid-1970s), western classical and traditional Indonesian music. In the recording booth, Guruh directed some of the country’s best known musicians like Keenan Nasution, Chrisye and Abadi Susman to play piano, synthesizers and other modern instruments, mixing their sound with melodies and scales from Balinese and Sundanese traditional music.

To up the pretension quotient, one of the tracks on the record is titled “Chopin Larung” (Chopin Submerged). Some considered Guruh Gipsy to be one of the best records in the country’s rock history, but people outside of the progressive rock community found it more difficult to enjoy. Other than grizzled, middle-aged collectors of progressive rock records, there is only a handful of casual rock fans who worship the record.

The practice continued in the 1980s with more bands taking on the impossible task of combining eastern and western musical traditions. One band stood out in the early 1980s. Kelompok Kampungan, a musical collective founded by Bram Makahekum, an alumni of playwright WS Rendra’s theater studio Bengkel Teater. Bram took Guruh Gipsy’s experimentation to a new level. Half of the 10 people in the band played traditional Javanese instruments to provide a rustic sonic landscape for Bram’s lyrics, which deal with the issues of divinity, romance and justice. Again, Sukarno looms large in this record; the first track, and the only output, “Mencari Tuhan” (Searching for God), begins with a two-minute recording of one of the president’s speeches delivered in 1965.

It was released in 1980 with little fanfare, and Kelompok Kampungan was dropped from its label soon after. The album had its second lease on life when reissued two years ago by the Canadian boutique label Strawberry Rain. The response to the reissue album was subdued, with only die-hard local music fans taking notice. Today, vinyl copies of the album fetch a low price on the second-hand market.

GOING NATIVE: Comedian and multi-instrumentalist Bing Slamet (center) leads members of The Lensoist, including drummer Adi Karso (left), as they play a Lenso composition during a performance in this undated publicity photo. (Courtesy of Denny Sakrie)
LOCAL FLAVOR

This brings us to Barasuara, the latest in the long line of bands determined to bring local flavor to rock and roll. Members of Barasuara put their love of the country’s tradition on their sleeve. Band leader Iga Massardi takes pains to wear a batik shirt at every live performance, however uncomfortable it must be for him. In the lyrics department, members of the band cooked up lyrics using formal Indonesian language and tried their hand at playing with rhymes, puns and other types of language games that were meant to be clever.

Some of the titles on their debut album Taifun (Typhoon) are carefully constructed homophones like “Bahas Bahasa” (Talking about Language), “Sendu Melagu” (Singing Melancholy) and “Nyala Suara” (Flaming Sound) and the songs’ lyrics follow the same pattern. When writing lyrics, members of the band put a premium on rhyme and rhythm rather than legibility and clarity, reducing their sentences to gobbledygook and non-sequiturs. It does not help that the band’s music is heavy on the rhythm section. To hammer the point home that Barasuara got their inspiration from “ethnic” music, most of the compositions on the debut album were heavy on the percussive side and light on melody and harmony. The end result is music that is rousing enough for the audience to chant during a live show but exhausting enough for fans who listen to their music after two spins of their CD.

Rock and roll is at its best when it is written and performed in its pure, unadulterated form with an absolute disregard for where its practitioners come from. Last year, Barasuara lost the trophy for the country’s best rock album to Kelompok Penerbang Roket, the rising star in the independent rock scene, who became the talk of the town for their primal take on Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Today, fans of Indonesian rock from the 1970s would certainly count any releases from the Bandung-based Giant Step, which is a pure distillation of Yes and Deep Purple, as the best music from that period, rather than Guruh Gipsy. And the lethargic Irama Lenso pales in comparison with Koes Plus’ best records from the 1960s, which have the raw power of early Beatles. For rock and roll is always best when served raw.