M

onday night was never this noisier. People danced, jumped and laughed. Earlier this month, Monday Mayhem was here again.
The notoriously riotous Monday Mayhem once left for dead had been resurrected. This is probably the only event at which you get indie kids, metalheads and partygoers united and celebrating the chaos that has been long missed.
No need to have professional DJs when musicians-turned-DJs were present to kill the disco tunes and spin whatever they wanted to play.
It was Nasta Sutardjo, the woman behind the chaos, who initiated the Mayhem.
Monday Mayhem died a few years ago when Parc, a small but cozy club in Blok M, South Jakarta, folded. And Monday night was never the same again after that.
For the new incarnation of Mayhem, the club Poste in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta, had the honor of hosting the party and Monday night came to life again.
“I didn’t think it was going to be this crowded,” says 34-year-old Nasta. “People came up to me to ask when we’d be holding another one.”
When the party was at Parc a few years back, Monday Mayhem was held regularly. Parc also held events like Thusrday Riot (yes, it was spelled Thusrday), which featured rising indie bands — also organized by Nasta.
The idea behind breathing new life into Monday Mayhem was floated by Nasta’s husband, Henry Foundation, who is also the leader of electropop band Goodnight Electric.
“Since early this year he’s been looking for a national holiday that falls on a Tuesday,” Nasta says.
“He expected to have a Mayhem started sometime this year. But on the date he wanted, he and Goodnight Electric had to play at the Mosaic Music Festival in Singapore, so he asked me to organize the Mayhem.
“With two old friends from Parc, I moved fast by promoting the event through Facebook, Twitter and the power of word-of-mouth marketing.”
Nasta organized her first gig in 1997 when she was on holiday in Jakarta. What she saw in England, where a gig could combine live bands and record-spinning DJs in one venue, inspired her to do the same here.
“At that time indie gigs in Jakarta were stagnant. So I took my chances,” says Nasta, who likes bands fronted by woman like The Breeders, Cocteau Twins, The Raveonettes and one-woman sensation M.I.A.
Another of her efforts was the Six to Six Music Festival at Taman Ria Senayan, South Jakarta, where live bands, DJs and visual artists join together.
Nasta says Jakarta’s indie scene deserves better.
“We don’t have enough regular events. And the new generation of performers is so divided by differences,” she says.
“We need to support bands so they can have more gigs to help them come out of the underground and form a cult following. This will make a strong underground community.”
Such exposure is far more helpful to them than just posting new music on their MySpace pages, Nasta point out.
Follow Nasta on twitter.com/momorobow.


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