If rock `n' roll is only about scoring drugs, groupies and ear-splitting noise, the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian would certainly have no business existing in the music scene.

This band plays the kind of music that would easily put you to sleep, the kind of music that would not be out of place in the back catalogue of British folk hero Nick Drake - breezy tunes with acoustic guitar plucking or strumming backed by chamber music orchestration.

To make matters worse, their songs - mostly written by lead singer and primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch - talk about lonely girls dreaming about stolen horses, misfit students constructing models of the Velvet Underground; and the star of track and field. Some songs casually reference Karl Marx and Franz Kafka - in fact the cover of the band's second album If You're Feeling Sinister features a copy of Kafka's The Trial.

Early in their career in the mid 1990s, this band had found a way to alienate both the music industry and fans by doing antics that could be considered career suicide for a mainstream band.

Belle and Sebastian's debut album Tigermilk was recorded in three days and only 1,000 copies were pressed on vinyl. From their early days, Belle and Sebastian resisted playing at common venues, eschewing pubs and clubs and opting for libraries and churches. Murdoch himself has declined to do interviews and the band grew literally without publicity, no band photos nor easy availability in stores, adding a somewhat mythical cult status to the band.

For their first gig in the United States, The New York Times called Belle and Sebastian "lazy, unambitious bumblers, full of private jokes they're too sleepy to share".

But for all their unpretentiousness and bookish charm, Belle and Sebastian have managed to seduce fans, the type of people who are too literate and sensitive to like metal and hard rock but scoff at the idea of listening to emo or goth.

Critics also love Belle and Sebastian.

Rolling Stone magazine featured If You're Feeling Sinister on its lists of "Essential Recordings of the 1990s". Spin magazine put the same album at number 76 on its "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005 list". On top of placing Feeling Sinister at number 14 in its top 100 albums of the 1990s, the uber-elitist webzine Pitchfork Media has repeatedly given favorable ratings to every new output from the Glaswegian band.

Even the band's live album The BBC Sessions, released in 2008, scored 7.8 out of 10.

In the review, Pitchfork editor-in-chief Scott Plagenhoef writes "despite the slapdash nature of some early shows, the group sounded polished in its early radio sessions."

And it is the polished sound that the band will likely produce when they play Bengkel Nightpark on Aug. 4 in a gig called Beatfest.

Over the past few years, Belle and Sebastian has moved away from the baroque sound suitable only for bedroom listening. Some of tracks in their latest album The Life Pursuit sound sunny and upbeat, with tracks such as Another Sunny Day that would sit comfortably alongside the back catalogue of power poppers Fountains of Wayne.

Saul "Slash" Hudson is a musician who stands at the opposite extreme of Belle and Sebastian - a guitarist who is the epitome of rock *n' roll excesses, particularly during his stint with the Los Angeles-based band Guns N' Roses.

If you grew up in the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s, the chances are you know of or have heard Slash, considered to be one of the greatest guitarists of his era. In August 2009, Time magazine ranked him number two on its list of the "10 Best Electric Guitar Players of All Time".

With Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose, Slash was part of one of the most prolific song-writing teams of the era, writing epic songs including November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged. His blues-leaning licks adorned all Guns N' Roses songs, before the two separated after a bitter wrangling over creative control of the band.

While he was still with Guns N' Roses, Slash collaborated with performers ranging from Ray Charles to Cheap Trick, Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.

After he left Guns N' Roses in the mid 1990s, Slash formed his own band, Slash's Snakepit, and later reunited with pals including Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum for the supergroup Velvet Revolver. His new band was fronted by the former lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland.

More than twenty years after his prime, Slash is coming to town to promote his new self-titled album and do two gigs in Jakarta and Surabaya. Slash is expected to play at the Tennis Indoor stadium on Aug. 3.

For the album, Slash hired Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead to do vocals, but for his Indonesian gigs he will perform with Myles Kennedy, the lead singer of the southern rock band Alter Bridge.

Several months before his show here, fans were already anxious to see his performance. One fan, Gustaf Marbun, had traveled to Singapore to see Slash live, and expected to do the same for the guitarist's two shows in Indonesia.

"He's truly like a chameleon. He can play with anyone. He's no guitar shredder but with this kind of magic he can come up with something you have never imagined before, and even with different faces. He is the only reason I learned to play guitar," Gustaff said.

Another fan, Indra Asikin, an electronica DJ, said he would be more than happy to leave his turntables and pick up his guitar once again to welcome Slash. He expected to see Slash live if only for old time's sake.

"For me, life began when I heard *Guns N' Roses' debut album* Appetite for Destruction, back in 1987. *Slash* made me want to become a guitarist. I just wanted to have some fun, but I'm also expecting some old Guns N' Roses songs in the set," Indra said.

"Slash is the epitome of rock *n' roll. On stage he is never afraid to hit the wrong notes in his set. I have watched this guy playing guitar from the Betamax era until now. He's not perfect at all, but keeps on playing and showing and does not seem to care about small mistakes on stage," he said.

Gustaf best summed up the appeal of Slash: "Slash is just like poison. He's a drug - addictive - once you try you always want to come back to him," he said.

M. Taufiqurrahman contributed to this article

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