DUMB MELON QUARTET
Ram Cheung / Guitar, Vocal
Jan Ho / Bass
Jarvis Yeung / Drums
Although C-Chai had formed two blues band before but they were short and he didn't have too much experience of handling a blues band, so did the other members, so they kept playing those songs for months. In February 2007, C-Chai asked his friend Ram Cheung to attend the band practice. Ram and C-Chai met each other from internet 2 years before, and Ram's current band Anti-Gravity had just disbanded. After the jam session, the band members agreed to add one more guitar in the line-up, they became a four-piece band and named themselves The Dumb Melon Quartet.
Two Months after Ram joined, Edmund quited for personal reasons, the band started recruiting a bassist again. They had tried four to five bassists and finally they got Lawrence Joe Kwok. Lawrence was a guitarist from a Brit-pop band China Four, he was introduced to the band by their bassist who was C-Chai's friend, too. Not longer than two months after Lawrence joined, the band played their first gig in Shatin for a YMCA function. Although they played only three songs in the small gig, that was successful and kind of dream-come-true that the aim of the band is to play the blues in the local indie band scene. They were probably the youngest local blues band which follows the tradition from the blues legends like Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy etc. The next step of them was to play in 48th Street Chicago Blues, the one and only blues bar in Hong Kong. They contacted the boss, Tommy Chung, and earned an opportunity to perform in his bar.
In that day, the band shown all the people in the bar that there were still young men play the blues, and soon built the relationship with Tommy Chung that later he invited the band to hold the Monday Jam Night in the bar for few times, that was really good chance for the band to gain experience and popularity. The band kept performing in different venue like 48th Street and LiveHouse every month.
In the summer of 2005, almost two years after C-Chai dismissed his previous blues band, he wanted to make his another dream come true, that is to play the blues in band competitions. The band took part the Band Battle 2005 (絶世好Band Sing戰擂台), a competition organized by Music Land. The show was held at The Queen Elizabeth Stadium, the biggest venue that the band ever played. They couldn't believe a blues band can get into the final and stand on the stage of the QE Stadium, there were some big indie bands in this competition like Qiu Hong. They played Caldonia, a Louis Jordan swing blues cover, and finally won the championship, the best drummer award and the best guitarist award.
They hadn't stop running, but kept challenging themselves and the public acceptance to the blues, they took part two competition in the same night. 28 August 2005, it was a big day for the band, they took part the SoundBase Unplugged Competition and Warehouse Teenager Band Competition. They went to Sheung Wan for the sound check of Unplugged Competition then went to Kennedy for the sound check of Warehouse Competition, and went back to Sheung Wan and got ready for Unplugged Competition. They had Anton on the keyboard at that day, played Got My Mojo Working and they five went to Kennedy immediately to get ready for Warehouse Competition. Anton was the keyboardist of the band 800 which took part the competition too.
They played two songs, Caldonia and the band's first original, Moth. They didn't have any prize in SoundBase Unplugged Competition but became the champion of Warehouse Teenager Band Competition, that was so meaningful to the band because the Teenager Band Cometition required the band members not elder than 25, so that is "teenagers", and all the members in the band were 25 at that time, that was the last chance that they could take part the competition. After winning two championship, the band started being known in the scene and earned more performing chance, they kept gigging every month, played at Hard Rock Cafe, FARM, Warehouse and was interviewed by Indie Label and HK Magazine. 11 March 2006, after they played the gig at Warehouse, the band stop all activities due to many many reasons.
The local band scene changes very fast, bands formed and broken-up, after a year, DMQ is almost forgotten. C-Chai has formed a new rock band, Ram has joined and quited a band, Jarvis joined a post-rock band, and Lawrence hasn't touched any musical instrument for a year in the police school. Ram is playing in the bars nowadays and one day in 2007, he was invited to play a show at Fringe Club, since he quited the previous band, he asked the members of DMQ to play that show, and then the band has reunited. Played 2 gigs in Fringe Club and Krubrick in 2007, the band appeared again in indie scene in October 2008 with a different line-up, Jan Ho was substituted temporary for the bassist.