RADIO MARA: IBU SAODAH HARNADI

A recording of a Radio Mara show about Tembang Sunda Cianjuran singer Ibu Saodah Harnadi with lots of great music, date of the recording unknown.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

MARA RADIO: INTERVIEW TAN DESENG ABOUT TITIM FATIMAH

Here's an interview with the Maestro Tan Deseng about the great Sundanese sinden (female singer) Titim Fatimah with some incredible music, I think these are unreleased private recordings and listening to them.... in my mind at least, she truly was THE greatest of them all.... Tan Deseng knew Titim Fatimah very well, he produced most of her records and composed many of her songs. Truly, an amazing tape this.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!!!!

BALE BUDAYA PAUNDAN II

There are recordings from RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia), interviews about traditional Sundanese music with Bp. Aam, Bp. Enoh Atmadibrata and Bp. Drs. Tong K. with a few beautiful musical pieces,Iyar Wiarsih singing a version of the song Bintang Gerilya and a bit of Pantun music. The A side of this tape was recorded on 11 November 1992 and the B side was recorded on 18 November 1992.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

SIRADJUDDIN BANTANG - I MADDI DAENG RIMAKKA

Siradjuddin Bantang from Makassar in Sulawesi, playing the rebab and singing the story of I Maddi Daeng Rimakka, a brave man of the Gowa kingdom in Binamu. Quite a few stories about him and his bravery from what I understand, but he got into a fight with his uncle, Karaeng Bontotangnga over a stolen horse and some buffalo's and it ends with I Maddi Daeng Rimakka dying on the battle field.... Seems this cassette is part of a series but I only have the first cassette.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF LIEUT GEN A. YANI

As it says, a short biography of General A. Yani.... General Ahmad Yani was the Commander of the Indonesian Army, and was killed by members of the 30 September Movement during an attempt to kidnap him from his house in 1965.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

IGOR TAMERLAN - LANGKAH PERTAMA / GURUH SUKARNO - UNTUKMU INDONESIAKU

Here's a promotional vinyl copy for radio stations, on the A side Igor Tamerlan and on the B side Guruh Sukarno.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

PIDATO BUNG KARNO

Here's a cassette with speeches from Indonesia's first President, Sukarno, or as he was lovingly called, Bung (brother) Karno.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

LANGEN SUARA RADEN DEWI SARTIKA

Dewi Sartika (4 December 1884 – 11 September 1947) was the leading figure and pioneer for the education for women in Indonesia. She founded the first school for women in Dutch East Indies. She was acknowledged as a National Hero by the Indonesian government in 1966.... In 1996 The RRI (an Indonesian radio station) put out this cassette, it's the story of her life, all in Indonesian.... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

PEMILIHAN UMUM 1997

Here's a cassette put out by Lokananta records to promote the 1997 (rubberstamped) elections, patriotic songs, speeches etc. ..... GET IT HERE Enjoy!

BUNG KARNO - DI PBB TAHUN 1960

Here's the speech that Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, gave at the United Nations in 1960 (in English)......

GET IT HERE

enjoy!

SOEHARTO BAPAK PEMBANGUNAN INDONESIA

This is a propaganda cassette, came out in 1983 when the dictator Soeharto and his regime were still going strong....

I started living her at the end of `1996, I still remember when he was president, Indonesia was another country, very, very different from now, very isolated, all news was controlled and censored. You didn't see much police on the streets (like now) all you saw was the military everywhere. If you started to talk about politics or "The Family" Indonesian people would just get up and leave, it was too dangerous to talk about these things openly... You would see him and his family on tv every day, all the time and there were propaganda movies on tv all the time....

When he and his regime went down in may, 1998, things got CRAZY and I was in the middle of it, lucky to get out alive and in one piece really. I had a trip home to Rotterdam planned on the day that everything went crazy. I was trying to make my way to the airport in Jakarta, Suharto was supposed to land there that day on his way back from Mekkah (he didn't land there he landed at some military airfield) and I was in a taxi. Got stuck in the tens of thousands of people demonstrating on the toll road to the airport and people started breaking the windows of the taxi to get at me. Only the quick-thinking of the taxi driver saved me, and he managed to get out with me hiding under a blanket. He drove me back home, all the way to Bandung and the next day I tried reaching the airport again, by train. The train never made it to Jakarta, at Purwakarta the whole train station was on fire, an incredible big fire and after waiting for a while buses came to bring all the passengers to Jakarta. A young English couple with a little daughter, about 3 years old or so were sitting in front of me. Saw them later om tv, getting dragged out of a taxi, mercilessly beaten and robbed.....

The bus arrived at Gambir train station in the center of Jakarta and it was already dark. The city was burning, riots everywhere, huge groups of people running around and i was walking completely alone with my backpack through all this madness trying to reach Jalan Jaksa, where all the backpacker hotels were, not too far from Gambir. Soldiers with tanks would shout at me, telling me I was crazy, a foreigner all alone in all that madness.... Came to Jalan Jaksa and everything was closed so I decided to try and take a taxi again to the airport... Got into the taxi and the driver was a huge, giant guy with a big ass afro, must've been 300 pounds at the least and he started driving into a completely wrong direction so I got a bit scared, I'm not ashamed to say it, there were warnings about violent robberies (two English boys were found later at the toll road with their necks cut through), but we had a conversation, about all the craziness going on and at one point I said "Alhamdulillah" and I guess that saved me. He started calling me his brother and turned the taxi around and brought me safely to the airport....

The airport was deserted and very spooky which was very weird because the day and the night before it was pandemonium there, foreigners and specially Chinese Indonesians trying to get tickets out of the country, to anywhere, for exorbitant prices...

I got a flight to Holland easily, in no time. Was planning a month in Holland but I was back within two weeks, didn't want to let my (Indonesian) wife and daughter alone, things stayed very tense for quiet a while, somebody only had to shout RIOT!!! and people would just run, shops would board up and close, loads of demonstrations, but in Bandung not much happened....

Man what times.... Only a very, very small number of foreigners remained in Bandung, you could count them on two hands maybe, very special times..... Times of high hopes, hope for freedom, the hope that the incredible corruption under the former dictator and his regime would now stop....

Well......

People will not leave as quickly when you start about politics and there's much more freedom for the press, that's true.... The middle class that was virtually destroyed during the crisis that brought about the end of Soeharto is enormous again but the poverty has also gotten worse, the difference between the super rich and the very poor has only grown, corruption never had been as bad as it is now, and there's a lot, a lot more going on....

There's quiet a bit of nostalgia here on the island of Java for those times that Soeharto was in charge.... I'm not so sure if many of these people remember what was really going on back then and if you would like to get a feel about how those days were I can certainly recommend reading this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10313047-indonesia-betrayed

Or maybe this book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248074.The_Mute_s_Soliloquy

Or even this excellent book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2602190-the-wisdom-of-whores

Or to understand what the Soeharto regime stood for, maybe you could watch these movies, the best movies I've seen about Indonesia:





Personally... I look back on those times with a sense of nostalgia, I was living here, there wasn't much news coming in from the outside, a few letters from friends every now and then, no internet, just starting out here with my wife and daughter, living in a different house every year (rent would always double at the end of the year because they would know there was a foreigner living there), we didn't have much, a tv, a refrigerator, it all went very slowly, but not with a sense of nostalgia for the old dictator and his murderous regime.....

Anyway, it's a very, very lengthy cassette I'll have to give it to you in two parts....


PART ONE

PART TWO

enjoy!

KARYA CIPTA: ISMAIL MARZUKI VOL. 2

Ismail Marzuki (also known as Bang Ma'ing; 11 May 1914 – 25 May 1958) was an Indonesian composer, songwriter and musician who wrote between 202 and 240 songs between 1931 and 1958, including numerous popular patriotic songs. Among his best-known works are "Gugur Bunga" and "Rayuan Pulau Kelapa". In 1968, he was honoured with the creation of the well-known Taman Ismail Marzuki (the Ismail Marzuki Park, often called TIM) which is a cultural centre in Menteng in central Jakarta. In 2004 he was declared one of the National Heroes of Indonesia.

Here's a cassette with some of his songs, sung by Sudharnoto, Adikarso and Paul Irama.....

GET IT HERE



enjoy!