WHEN I read about his sudden death, I had not known that he was admitted for lung cancer. Had I known, I would have spent a lot more money to send sms'es about this important news. One of the two men with that incorrigible hairstyle who redeemed the sad state of Malay entertainment industry, has left.
Writing an obituary or tribute to Loganathan of Alleycats is not unlike writing an obituary of the whole group. Perhaps his talented brother, David, whose electric voice is second to none except to his electrocuted hair, struggles to believe that Alleycats is not dead.
The truth is, Alleycats is no longer the same without the two much-loved beehives in the front, and the taller sibling hitting himself with a tambourine. If David and his classic voice are the purr of Alleycats, then Loga is its whiskers. Now the cats have lost their whiskers, have they got the power to stay on like they have for more than 30 years? Alas, like any other feline, their eight remaining lives will pass very quickly.
I first fell in love with Alleycats some time at the age of eight, when I found a cassette belonging to my late brother. Andainya Aku Pergi Dulu is probably the first song which introduced me to Alleycats. I did not know at that time that Alleycats was a name of a group, and neither did I know the voices were of two Tamil-speaking Indian men.
Memorised lyrics and sang
That black plain cassette opened up a new world of Malay songs to me. It was during a time when my father would not have allowed us wasting money to buy a cassette. The result being my siblings and I did not develop a habit of buying every new album released by Alleycats, or for that matter, by any other artists we liked.
In retrospect, it was a very futuristic style of my father for not letting us buy cassettes: in today's world of mp3, people like me are dime a dozen. And so the source of my Alleycats stipend was friends who came to school with lyrics that I copied, memorised and sang. Within months, I was asked by my Standard Two classmates to belt out an Alleycats number in front of the whole class on Teachers Day. Alleycats' are songs which people can sing without music. That shows how much talent is required to become a vocalist, unlike Malay songs today, which can be imitated and replicated by anyone.
Alleycats ruled the airwaves for as long as we can remember. It was the era R.M.I.K., "belakang masuk" Bas Minis, Mun Loong, Globe Silk Store and Kimisawa.
It was only when songs began to be distributed in the medium that Lucky and Flo sniff best that I bought my first collections of Alleycats songs. By that time, the felines no longer dished out albums on a yearly basis, relegating themselves to clubs in Petaling Jaya. In a matter of less than a decade, Malaysians quickly endorsed all their hits as 'evergreen'.
Although Alleycats' fans cut across racial divides, his greatest fans are Malays, even the kind of Malays who would never have stepped into a banana-leaf Indian restaurant or buy cincau ais from a Chinese hawker. Yet, it is almost a recipe for social ostracisation if a Malay has not heard of Alleycats, a group whose most prominent faces are two Indian men with a below-average grasp of spoken Bahasa Malaysia (the language formerly known as Melayu).The seasoned Alleycats listener should have grown accustomed to their un-Malay pronunciation of words such as "pedih", "kasih" and "sedih" - words that are almost a must in most Malay love songs.
Yet, the Arumugam brothers belt out their numbers with unpretentious confidence, unlike some of the native Malay-speaking entertainers whose only talent is to get on your nerves, with artificial pronunciation of any Bahasa Malaysia words that have generous dose of 'r' sound in them.
The Alleycats' own bahasa
Long before politicians started lamenting about 'Bangsa Malaysia' - probably another mythical concept such as 'Bahasa Malaysia', or began forcing students of different races to share the same rooms, the Alleycats showed their own indifference to racial barriers more effectively: singing Malay songs to a Malay market. Which Malay household has not heard of these two 'machas'?
There is hardly a Malay song enthusiast who does not know songs like Kerana, Suara Kekasih , Layang-Layang Terputus Tali and Sampaikan - some of the most whistled songs in the eighties all the way to the nineties, whether by construction workers laying bricks in the heat, or the white-collar unhealthy looking name-tag wearing civil servant in his air-conditioned room.
Alleycats should be thankful that their peak did not take place during the age of Internet. Their popularity was hard-earned, not through the help of blogs and websites, mobile ring tones or
You Tube
. Neither do they represent the best looking men on Malaysian television, or as people who spot the latest fashion. As late as 2005, they were still wearing the time-capsuled baggy linen-looking shiny shirts. Their fashion stubbornly stood the test of time alongside their unique and highly-insurable voice and singing talent. They are the same alley cats some times found roaming in public on the streets of Petaling Jaya.
What will become of Alleycats now that Loga is gone? The alley cats no longer purr. Their hissings have long become rare and their paws no longer able to tear open the curtains that hide the kind of industry that music has now become: looks (normally a small goaty-like chin hair and no moustache) and SMS credits are the main ingredients in the recipe to make a successful singing career these days. And then, some of them are recruited to star in drama series bearing titles that sound like condominium names.
Farewell, Loga. Farewell to an Alleycat. Who cares the smell of that beehive Afro hair of yours. You and others are true legends, even if they did not give you a Datukship or TanSri-ship, which you truly deserved along with other Alleycats. Kini tinggal kenangan belaka; Di taburan bunga pusara mu;.... Kasseyy !
ABDAR RAHMAN KOYA is in his early 30s and works at an Islamic publication firm in Petaling Jaya.
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