..once upon a time..

..once upon a time there was a group of boys who made the streets of Kota Bharu their playground, and a shared passion for music the bond..their band was The Kilat, named after the club that sponsored them, National Electricity Board, or LLN, Lembaga Letrik Negara, as then it was known...

..the year was 1970 and they were all in the early twenties..carefree and footloose..without any concern for the future..theirs was a world that orbited around the streets of Kota Bharu, be it days..be it nights..and Hoover Restaurant was the meeting place every evening after work..and every night after a brief return to homes for a change of clothes and a bath..

..inevitably they called themselves the Hoover Boys...Sal May, keyboardist and lead singer..Yu Soh, lead guitar..As Re, bass guitar..Jein, rhythm guitar..Ro Pa, drums..and Mat Cho May, hanger-on, arranger, organiser of parties and errand runner..

..Kota Bharu swings in the seventies..with several night-clubs that offered live music and live dance-girls..and they were the boys that provided the music, together with a few others..earning a living during the days as labourers and meter-readers and music makers during the nights..days for the money, nights for the love of music and for the money..

..yes, pakmat recalled those simple times..those irretrievable, foolish and carefree times of youth..the camaraderie that existed amongst them..and pakmat remembers them fondly..

..for we are all in our sixties now..living out the balance of our lives, the best we could, as quietly as we could..whilst giving thanks to the One and Only..to the Almighty..for His Tidings..For His bounty..

..a song from the past..by Sal May..