To add to the posthumous sniff to this album, I was at the “Rock For Wayne” tribute concert few days ago to catch them bands paying tribute to the late Wayne Thunder, a well known musician amongst the local independent music circles who passed away couple of weeks ago. Of course being someone adamantly narrow-minded and old-school I was only there for the few, most notably the last Humpback Oak reunion, Force Vomit and Electrico. I felt out of place amongst them emo and neo-goth crowd, I felt so old. And I didn't see anyone particularly quite get the meaning of this concert, treating this as another event of fun and laughter, peace and joy. The moon phase's not on full so we did not get the chill, but I bet Wayne would have felt equally out of place. The spirit of rock n' roll was simply not there.

So everybody misses (or claims to) Wayne except Zoe Tay who probably had the last laugh, and the future of The Suns remained uncertain, but still life goes on. Here, out of respect for a great personality who would probably beat up those emokids if he's still alive, I decided to revisit the great Singaporean punk classic from The Boredphucks, appropriately titled “Banned In Da Singapura”.

This debut album by our favourite phucksters had Wayne turning up in the pseudonym “Sir Richard Tulan” and of course along with the other dudes “J-Bob” and “Sig Lendonn”. This album is a tongue-in-cheek sartire against censorship, never quite the same testy reaction expected since The Oddfellows sang about some asshole. They were perhaps bored, laden with raging hormones and mischiefs but they served up some of the most memorably punk ethos engrained in the immortality of compact discs. The songs and profanities are of course spewed forth from the sewage pipe with humourous lyricism, and every one of them is literally littered with fuck. They were uniquely Singaporean because they traded vulgarities in more than four different languages (with the necessary Singlish lingua franca that connected all races here) which evinced the interesting multicultural vibe of our garden city. They should have been given a medallion on racial harmony day but this cannot be seen through the short-sighted narrowminded range of the censors' eyes.

Musically they bore the snarky goofy touch of classic punk ala Sex Pistols, meets a dash of Naked City grind and madness, some coccaine-induced reggae and mushroom-triggered psychedelia, alot more Oi in veins of Sham 69, dirty nasty AC/DC hardrock and god knows what else. “Boredphuckin” rocks in pentatonic chords like a perversion of a jailhouse rock, with the mean street spirit parading for spars. “Ballad of Tabitha” is the fare of verse chorus verse The Clash/Ramones before the trepidation of college rock sets in slowly. “Kita Nak Seks” is a mishmash of reggae, surf punk and mod stirring sleazy lyrics in some of the most effective combo I've heard, with the “cao ang moh” line as particularly enlightening. “Old Man Kaupeh” is one of the most interesting filler I've heard with the dudes impersonating our dear old local heartlander doing his round of whining and “kao beh kao bu”, while “Cheryl” is a porn dub with twisted banjo playing and moaning “I love the Boredphucks!” “St.Pat's Classroom” is their tribute to the irritating teacher and it is summed up with “Phuckda Skool” in its glorious vengeance! Note: This CD has a hidden track, check out at your own discretion!

This great band like all cults of yesterday lived too fast and died too young, and of course Wayne is dearly missed by all people from under the radar, left of the dial. But life goes on, you're still going to pay your bills, worry about your CPFs and Zoe Tay still has her last laugh. Anyway the CD reviewed here is the original and it has went out of print within the few years it was released. Since then BigO has reissued the album with three bonus tracks. Get it before it's too late.