Book Review [Review of the book Sonic city: Making rock music and urban life in Singapore by Steve Ferzacca]

Abstract

Sonic City is built around the author’s serendipitous meeting with ‘Kiang’, bassist for popular 1960s and 1970s Singapore band The Straydogs, while shopping for a guitar at Guitar 77 in Peninsula Shopping Centre where the musician was working as store manager. The author becomes part of an impromptu-formed band, Blues 77, with Kiang and other members of The Straydogs, while studying their lived musical experiences through ‘sonic ethnography’ (18). This involves reconstructing and reliving past and present narratives of ‘vernacular heritage’ in Singapore, including tours to other parts of Southeast Asia which are nevertheless experienced and understood through a Singaporean lens.