Introduction

‘These are atypical Singaporeans’, he said to me as we gulped down glasses of whiskey with belinjau chips. ‘This whole thing is not usual here’, he continued. ‘These are noisy people’. This conversation took place among a group of 20 or so Singaporeans, gathered together for food and drinks in celebration of the final day of Chinese New Year. The gathering point was located in the basement of an ageing mall in Singapore's Central Business District (CBD). At the dead end of a hallway is a diminutive storefront neighbouring a drum studio attached to a storeroom. This dead end is affectionately referred to as ‘The Doghouse’. Named after the habitat of its proprietor, Lim Kiang, a rock and blues musician who was the founder of a legendary 1960s psychedelic band The Straydogs, the Doghouse is the occasional home of a small community of amateur and semi-professional musicians, family members, friends and fans. Complete with a makeshift bar, guitars, guitar amplifiers and a few chairs, The Doghouse hosts this group on Mondays and Fridays for happy hour jams at the end of the work day. The group of mostly men congregate until the early evening hours to play music or jam, drink, smoke, eat and make a little trouble in this out-of-the-way place, deep in the basement of a bargain mall known for its overwhelmingly Burmese clientele.

Coincidently, not long after this gathering, a story appeared in The Straits Times (2016: D5). The article outlines the ‘spirited debate’ emerging over the future and identity of one of Singapore's ‘few independent art spaces’, The Substation.