coastal alt/indie rock

​​Field Notes​​

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I’m certainly not the only person who thinks Bali is one of the most amazing places on Earth.

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When we lived in Singapore and Japan, we made many trips there over a period of years. Ubud, Legian, Seminyak, Kuta, Tenganan. Temples, odalans, volcanoes, lakes, rice fields. We saw so many Balinese dances that I couldn’t begin to count them. Legong, Barong, Rangda, Kris dances, Kecak. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve seen some of them ten times or more.

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The sound of kecak — check-check-check, checka-checka-checka-checka — is particularly impactful to me. Rhythmically, it gets inside you.

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But the strange path to "Amok" actually started much earlier.

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As a kid, one of my favorite cartoons was the Daffy Duck classic "Duck Amuck". Years later I learned more about the word amok itself and its history in Southeast Asia. Then, living in Singapore, I heard stories about people becoming possessed by their kris — a distinctive wavy-bladed dagger — and committing acts while apparently under its influence.

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Then we went to Bali and I saw the Kris dances, along with Barong and Rangda, and the constant interplay between the spiritual and physical worlds that runs through Balinese culture.

Eventually all of those things collided.

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I’ve never known so many scents


It started with temple incense


I’m smelling kretek in the air


And there’s durian everywhere.

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That’s Bali as I remember it. Not an abstraction. Sounds and smells.

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I hear the ring of gamelan


And the teeth of the Barong


The chanting of Kecak


No wonder I’m a wreck.

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And then the chorus:

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There are demons in my head tonight


Maybe the priest will put me right


Stop me before I’m out of luck


Stop me before I run amok.

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That’s where the idea became bigger than Bali.

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Things sometimes become bigger than us. Obsessions, desires, fears, whatever demons happen to be occupying our heads. They possess us for a while, and we run amok.

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The song keeps blurring that boundary between something that actually happened and something that might have happened:

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Remember that night in Seminyak


When we bet on fighting cocks


I won this kris; now it speaks to me


In ancient Balinese.

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Those images are very close to me because Bali is very close to me.

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I’ve spent enough time there to know that I could never capture the place completely in a song.

Bali is too sensory, too spiritual, too complicated and too alive for that.

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And despite the title, the song isn’t really about running amok.

That was just the gateway.

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On the other side were the incense, kretek, gamelan, kecak, Barong, Rangda, temples, ceremonies, rice fields and volcanoes — and memories accumulated over years of returning to a place I love.

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The fun really began as I recorded the song. I didn't want to use Kecak samples - that seemed like cheating - so I created all the kecak chants myself. I took gamelan lessons at Puri Saren Agung, in Ubud many years ago, but I don't own a gamelan, so I played those parts with my keyboard.

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I hope some small part of the spirit of Bali made it into the song.

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