The sweet purr of a lonesome cat...

Concluding the trilogy of 'What my children got me for my last birthday to get self indulgent and get off breathing down their necks' is a CD of Alleycats' 1987 album 'Aku Kerinduan' (I am missing someone).

I am sure nobody would go out to buy this particular CD. It was probably a 'buy 1 free 1' offer after they had bought 'Do Re Mi' (the DVD) and Adele's Live in King Albert's. But I am not complaining...

Alleycats - lineup which kept on changing again
and again over the years. Shan, the other sibling,
disappeared from the scene many years ago.
Starting jamming at their town house in Lorong
Seratus Tahun in Penang, where FG and WSD
crossed paths many years ago, they have reached
heights that no Malaysian band has reached.

Alleycats always invokes fond memories of meeting back stage in DTSP in USM during one of their many performances there. Back stage, they were just regular guys, no frills, no prima donnas, and the backstage was light and easy with back up mainly a family concern with the burly father and even mother there! Many years later, met them again at PJ Hilton's Chillies - Loga and David.

The songs in this album were written by people who are vaguely familiar. I remember reading about them in URTV magazines whilst waiting for my turn at the barber's in RRF! [People like Juwie (a cross dresser who disappeared from RTM after being banned), Habsah Hassan (a prolific songwriter, used to pair with Ahmad Nawab). M Nasir who use to write many of their songs is not here. Probably, he was busy with his own solo career then].

Songs from Alleycats definitely cannot be bad. This compilation of songs in A-minor, melancholic in nature form an excellent platform to a relaxing Sunday afternoon laze after a diaphragm splinting belly filling banana leaf meal. The melody would rock you just nicely like how a mother would rock her kid to sleep. That, is definitely an experience worth labelled 'PRICELESS'!

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