Day #3: AONYX: We Are The Drugs

It was around March 2009, Irsan Ramadhan/Rama and I (as Astral Escalation), decided to leave our old management. I was thinking to form a new management, at that time all I was thinking is to form a new DJ management and small event organizer for our own event. And Rama suggested that we recruit Oscar Erdiansyah as our comrade. Oscar was also a member of our old management.

After we told Oscar about our intention, he tagged along Jayarindra Sigit, because they got a project together that called Aydra & Oscar. Technically, we had oral agreement to form a new institution. But, we still had no idea how to form it. So, we ask for a guidance from one of Indonesia's top DJ and an owner and founder of Spinach Records, Riri Mestica.

Basically, Riri supported our intention. We met up a couple of times, and thanks to him, we got the courage to found a new management.

And AONYX was born in April 2009.

Aonyx's name is taken from a rare animal species, Aonyx Cinerea (Oriental Small-Clawed Otter). It was Oscar that came up with the name. Main focuses of Aonyx was (and still are) created some good songs and create great performances. And not long after the name was chosen, Oscar tagged Anissa Nuradi Putri/Icha along with us. With her specialty as graphic designer, she's the one we entrusted with all creative designs for Aonyx.

Along the way, we created some club events, befriended with some people within the industry. Even Aydra & Oscar become a finalist for LA Indiefest Remix Competition in 2009. Everything was revolved around Electronic Dance Music scene until April 2010.

An offer to perform at brewww!, Kemang, was received. So we (Oscar, Jaya and I, also with some help from additional vocalists, Charita Utamy, Leona Agustine and Muhammad Pandu of PAL/NTSC) prepared some electronic music to cover and play them live. In total, we performed two times as electronic band. We were not satisfied with our performance and decided to put this live music project on hold.

In late 2010, Dmust Akira or as known as Akira As Astronughty (Trax FM Jakarta announcer and former member of 1945MF) joined us. We knew Dmust since 2009, so he wasn't a stranger for us. With Dmust as our comrade, the live music project was planned to be back on track on 2011. We will also help him to launch his solo album under (coming soon) Aonyx Records.

From the moment that we formed Aonyx in April 2009, we got couple allies too. I personally would like to thank Spinach Records, Synan Recordings, M1/43, Trance4Life, No Signal, Indika FM and Trax FM Jakarta, also Barcode, Buddha Bar, Kampus, 365, Domain and brewww! for all the supports for Aonyx.

Watch out for us, 2011. Caution: too loud is not in our vocabulary, and we are addictive. Haha. Wish us luck, fellas.

Cheers..

(from left to right: Irsan Ramadhan, Jayarindra Sigit, Dmust Akira, Oscar Erdiansyah, Anissa Nuradi Putri and me)