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Terengganu Punk: The Origins of Malaysian Punk Rock

[As republished by MyKemaman.Com] Main Article On Malaysian Rock

The first proper punk rock "scene" in Malaysia started in Terengganu in 1978/1979. It started in the small town of Dungun by a group of friends influenced by British music magazines such as NME, Melody Maker, Sounds, and Zig Zag, as well as their brothers and friends studying or living in the more modern West Coast cities who would pass them the magazines and music.

By late 1979, almost every secondary school in the state had its own cliques of punk rockers. They would hang out on the weekends at the main bus station in the capital city of Kuala Terengganu, with the usual punk rock regalia (badges, studs, safety pins and such). Too poor to afford guitars or any other musical instruments, there never was an actual punk band but trading of tapes and zines were vigorous.

Most of the trading material came from friends studying overseas, friends living in the West Coast cities and also punk rockers from UK, Europe and US who were kind enough to send tapes and magazines for free. Irregular trips were made to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (and Georgetown, but rarely as it was too far) to dub punk rock records at the music stores or buy pirated tapes, the only source for good music those days.

Some fishing villages would have the most "punks" and thus became the center of activities. The main two villages were Kampung Mengabang Telipot (an hour north to the city) and Kampung Tanjung (right at the mouth of the city's river system). In Mengabang Telipot, there was a small punk community library laden with fanzines, magazines and music, which the kids would share. This library was actually a wooden cupboard situated at one of the punk rockers' houses, it was called as "logen".

The first Malaysian punk rock fanzine came out from this scene. It appeared in 1986 with the title of Huru Hara (meaning "chaos"); it was written in Terengganu slang by editor Mamat Hitam but never distributed on a large scale. The first fanzine to do that was Aedes, which lasted until 1996; the first punk bands to appear there were Mallaria and later The Stone Crows. Both put out one rehearsal/demo tape.

There was a lull in activity in the mid-80s for the Terengganu punk scene, but a resurgence of bands of different persuasions appeared by the late 80s and early 90s (sparked in part by the setting up of a larger Malaysian underground music scene based in Kuala Lumpur in 1987). By the mid 90s onwards, there were constantly new bands appearing in the state and as of 2007, there are still a lot of active punk-influenced bands such as Dirty Divider and The Goodnight Goodies.