***for info on offline donations in Yangon, please scroll to the bottom of this page***

Our Story

Mingalaba! Hi! We’re Side Effect. We’re a 3 (and sometimes 4) member indie rock/punk band from Yangon, Myanmar AKA Burma. We need your help to get our record out, play gigs, and promote independent music in this country!

We write all our own music and lyrics—a rarity in the cover-driven / copy-song landscape that is popular music in Myanmar. We play what we want to play and what moves us; we don’t care about fitting into strictly defined genres. We wish music fans in Myanmar appreciated music and originality instead of the heavy focus on celebrity vocalists.

We’re unsigned, we have a DIY mindset, and we want to release our debut LP independently.

Please scroll down to stream some of our music on Soundcloud.

What We Need

We are preparing to release our record in Myanmar and we’re aiming to raise USD$5,999, which sounds like a lot, but unfortunately the exchange rate is really shitty right now (currently that equals about 46 lakh in Myanmar Kyat) and our needs add up pretty fast. If we can raise over that amount, we could certainly use the extra funds! We need to raise money for the following:

• a drum set for Tser Htoo! (see our video)
  
• pressing the CDs, printing the cover and album liner/notes, CD cases
  
• paying a distribution company to circulate our album to stores across the country
  
• promotion—billboards, ads, sending samplers to agents, promoters, bands and labels in countries throughout S.E. Asia.
  
• gigs—to play independent concerts, we usually need to come up with money for gear rental, venue, and soundsystem. If we have investment money from you guys, then we can subsidize gigs (i.e. keep the ticket prices lower), so that more punk kids can come to our shows.
  
• gigs abroad—if we can raise enough money for plane tickets, accommodation, and passport and visa fees, we might have the opportunity to open for the Handsome Furs on their upcoming Asia tour in Spring 2012. We are also looking into submitting applications for indie festivals in Singapore, Thailand and China. We want the world to hear our music!
  

We’ve already written, recorded, and mixed our debut LP Rainy Night Dreams with money we raised from our day jobs (Darko runs a small tailoring shop, Tser Htoo is a radio engineer, and Jozeph is... preparing to become a sailor) and from some gigs. Our friends Dan and Alexei from Handsome Furs hooked us up with the incredible Mr. Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal, who mastered our record for us. Our friend Tim shot and edited our pitch video. Our friend Cap is painting our album art. Our friend Kyar Pauk advised us on how to pass the dreaded Myanmar censor board…

What You Get

MP3s! Postcards! Beer! Mohinga! Tour guides! A song written about you! Check out our Perks on the right-hand column for more info...

Considering both international sanctions on Myanmar as well as the crappy postal/courier infrastructure, its unrealistic that would be able to send you physical things like CDs or T-shirts, so most of our Perks are things we can/will do for you if you come and meet us in Yangon! 

Please help us by getting the word out about our music and our fundraising campaign. Please click the share buttons to bring the noise and help us reach more people on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If you know of any promoters, gig/festival organizers, or journalists/media who would be interested in our music and story, please put us in touch with them!

If you’re a musician coming to Myanmar and you happen to have a large luggage allowance, we would gladly accept your hand-me-down used and abused old guitar pedals, amps, speakers, monitors, cymbals, snares, CDs/mixtapes of awesome music, mics, distortion pedals, boxes, anything really! Swag ain’t so easy to acquire in Yangon…

Offline Donations...

Offline donations also available (for those living in Myanmar/without credit cards). Please get in touch with Daniel (English) on 095052007 and/or Darko (Burmese/English) on 0973080022.