User:Taufiqrahman/Jakartabeat.net

Jakartabeat.net is a web magazine discussing and dissecting music, film, books and human interests which occasionally joins the political discussion that takes place in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia.

The website was born out of its founders' concern about the lack of media platform that takes music criticism seriously in Jakarta and Indonesia in general. Since the demise of notable music magazine Aktuil in the late 1970s, music is discussed only in a hushed tone by fans and critics alike and even if discussion takes place it mainly concerns with the side-story of musicians and rock stars, gossips about their flings, drug addiction and at best the technical prowess of certain musicians, their charts placement and trivia from the industry. Rarely music is discussed in its social and political context when in fact music in Indonesia had played an indispensable role in most of social and political changes in Indonesia.

Jakartabeat.net wants to do away with all the cliches and jump into the task of offering different take on music--both homegrown and foreign--approaching it as part of a larger picture of social and political conditions. Even if the music under discussion only has minor contribution to the society, Jakartabeat.net treats them as a work of art that still merits discussion if only for its technical or lyrical feat. And given the fact that only a handful of music produced in Indonesia could be capable of achieving significant artistic or political potentials, Jakartabeat.net decided to just focus itself on the thriving, left-field indie scene in Jakarta and other major cities in Indonesia.

Small wonders that in its two years of existence, the website mainly discussed band that A & R of the major label never heard of like Bangkutaman, Sajama Cut, The Upstairs, Zeke and the Popo, Suarasama, Efek Rumah Kaca and Gribs, who thrive in obscurity but holds the key to the future of the Indonesian pop music. For overseas act, Jakartabeat.net only pays its attention--mainly because of its' writers personal preference--to obscure, Pitchforkmedia.com-approved bands like The Velvet Underground, Television, Pere Ubu, The Walkmen, The Nationals, Arcade Fire, Pavement, Wilco, The Libertines, Grizzly Bear, Sonic Youth and LCD Soundsystem, bands that not only shuns the limelight most of the time but strive to promote their indie credibility.

Although a webzine could subsist on writing about music only, Jakartabeat.net is also aware that the publishing and film industry in Indonesia are still in need of support--after all most people read teen lit and cheap horror film--and early on Jakartabeat.net founders decided to devote some of its webpages for reviewing films and books produced by local filmmakers and publishers.

Yet, as most of contributors to the pages are also fans of world cinemas--including Hollywood--and readers of Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and Alex Ross, it appears that once in a while those names should appear on the pages being dissected and discussed. Also because founders of the website and some of its contributors are pursuing advanced degree in political science, Jakartabeat.net by default set its eyes on the political scene in the capital.

1. History

Jakartabeat.net started off in 2007 as berburuvinyl.wordpress.com a blog initially by Philips J. Vermonte, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Study (CSIS) and M. Taufiqurrahman, a journalist for the English daily Jakarta Post, who were both attending the Northern Illinois University (NIU) in Dekalb, Illinois, a midwestern small town 80 miles of Chicago. The blog was written mainly about what new music the two winter-stricken entertainment-starved students discovered on vinyls that they found in some local music stores, including the legendary Reckless Records in Chicago and Kiss the Sky in Geneva, Illinois, a record store immortalized by writer Dan Kennedy in GQ magazine. Finding music on vinyl soon led to more discovery on the pages of Rolling Stone, Spin, New Yorker, New York Times and ultimately Pitchfork.com--which in large part inspired us to start a proper website. Later a number of guest blogger joined in, including Rizal Shidiq, a music-crazed grad student of George Mason University and Ary Perdhana and Moch. Pasha of Boston University.

As more writers like Muslim thinker Ulil Abshar Abdalla--who went to Harvard at the time of berburuvinyl founding--, writer Nova Riyanti Yusuf, Roby Mohamad of Columbia Uni joined in, woke up to new reality that a blog would not suffice.

Philips came up with the idea of setting up of a website with its own domain name. He pooled resources both in the States and in Jakarta for the establishment of a web magazine which was later christened Jakartabeat.net. The web was up and running in January 2008 and has published its annual best-of list and regular reviews of books, music, and movies as well as political commentary and cartoon. Recently it added the free-download service from which local bands in Indonesia--and abroad--could upload their music, writer with their e-Book and artists with their artworks and speaks directly to readers of Jakartabeat both in Indonesia and abroad.

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