Cancellations Mount

On May 9, a showcase featuring three electronic dance music artists, Jean Paul Makhlouf, Alex Makhlouf and Samuel Frisch, also known as DJs Cash Cash, at the Zouk Club in Kuala Lumpur was called off when police raided the club without any prior notice. More significantly, no reasons for the raid have yet been given.

Several weeks earlier a music festival featuring international DJs was to happen at Kuala Lumpur’s MINES International Exhibition & Convention Center and was also canceled by police “at the eleventh hour,” according to the Malay Mail.

A permit had already been issued but the police decided to revoke it stating that “there had been objections among local citizens who were worried that something unwanted might happen during the festival.”

The British hardcore metal band Carcass was supposed to play in Kuala Lumpur in May but the government decided to not issue visas to the group, supposedly because of their songs’ “unsuitable lyrical content.”

The Malay Mail said Carcass then made the situation even worse by expressing their anger with a post of the Malaysian flag depicted upside down on its website.

Another metal band, Kreator, was to perform at a club called Scandals in late April, but was canceled at the last minute by the local government because it said the club’s permit had expired. Insult was added to injury when the organizers of the concert refused to refund tickets saying that they weren’t responsible for the cancellation.