The Extracurricular Being

"Thanks for the lost cause."

These are among the words that Gabriel uttered as he wipes his electric six-string bass guitar with a silk handkerchief.  As the said instrument lies like a child on his lap, music plays in the background.  It was a CD of the band wherein he used to play with.  His bass lines were not just audible, they were melodic.

Theirs was not just a music, but a progressive ideology.  It was the tenet of principle over popularity.

Theirs was not just a career but a way of life.  It was the way of life that outshines the rise-now-set-tomorrow.  It was the sacred doctrine of spiritual enlightenment over the spotlight.

He stood up and walked towards the CD player.  He turned it off.  "I’ll miss you!" he whispered, teary-eyed.

He took the CD from the player and put it in its case.  His eyes crashed onto the inlay of the album.  There it got stranded.  Then he read the dedications handwritten by various people.

One dedication stood out.  It reads, "Thanks for all the guidance Kuya Gabby!  Yours always, Kathy!"

Gabriel quickly closed the case and threw it somewhere.  He didn’t really know where it landed.  It might be on the sofa, he supposed, for there was no sound of shattering plastic.

He grabbed his bass guitar and carefully placed it in its hard case.  Upon closing the hard case, he tied his shoulder-length hair and wore his eye glasses.  Then he left.

He has grown lots of hair.  Such hair is a testimony of the length of time since the good old days.  Gabriel was still playing with a rock band with Kathy as their vocalist.  Those were the days when boy bands were being placed on the shame basket of the music scene.  He was bald then and got a 20-20 vision.   From their uncompromising renditions of covers from Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Juan dela Cruz Band, to their all-music-no-gimmicks original compositions, the band’s ticket to success is having a pretty, innocent looking female vocalist exhibiting her vocal prowess over songs that have been identified with the male caliber.

It has been five years.

And in the span of five years, with three multi-platinum CD’s under their belts, their TV guestings have become more often, with the camera focused on Kathy of course.  Everything followed quickly for Kathy: a role in a movie, a pictorial in a sexy magazine, and product endorsements.

Until one day the stairway to heaven became highway to hell.  Kathy went solo, leaving the band behind.

Well, Kathy initially asked everyone’s help in her first attempt to play "something different".  This, according to her, is a career move that will make their music more accessible to more people.  But Kathy was not just asking for help.  For her, that was a one-way road, and the band got two options: to agree with her or not to disagree with her.  The drummer, guitarist, and keyboardist rejected the whole idea, and as a result they disbanded.  Kathy decided to pursue her career move on her own.  This is when she decided to go solo.

Oh, what about Gabriel?  Did he agree or disagree?

That fateful moment he kept his silence.  He wanted to disagree with Kathy, but he couldn’t.  He couldn’t believe that the Kathy he has known for years has already been helplessly consumed by the bandwagon effect.  That his dear comrade is now playing something different.

And that something different is pop music.

On a busy street, Gabriel walked past a big streamer.  It reads, "Who will be the first Minstrel?  To vote, type MINSTREL <SPACE> [YOUR VOTE] and send to ####"

"It’s nice to see you again.  Finally!"  he whispered.

He hailed a cab.  The cab took the northbound lane of Edsa.  Along Edsa were several streamers for Minstrel, the singing contest sponsored by a huge broadcasting network.

The driver asked him, "Bossing matanong ko kayo, sino ba ang manok niyo dun sa Minstrel?"

Gabriel replied, "Si Kathy.  Ikaw, kanino ka ba?"

"Ako?  Kay Mitch ako bossing!  Kasi para sa akin bukod sa may puwersa ang boses niya mas marami siyang kayang kantahin eh," the driver answered.

Gabriel discreetly smiled.  He was so glad that there’s someone in the grassroots who still got upright sense of musicality.

He realized that it was wrong to underestimate the driver’s taste.  He should have told the driver who his real bet was.

His mobile phone buzzed.  It was an SMS message.  It reads, "hoy gaby san k n?and2 n mga 2ro2t boys!pls txt bak."

He replied, "nakampocha nmn ang aga p huh.2pm p lng mmya pang 6pm ang finals.mshado kayong atat.and2 nako s boni.on d way nako.sbhin mo pala kay mike may dala akong xtra kable."

It has been five years.

It has been five years since the last time he played a Razorback song.  Nowadays he has been keeping himself very busy practicing the bass lines of Mishka Adams’ songs.

Yes, tonight he’ll be playing not just something new but also for someone new.

The driver went back on him.  The driver asked, "Eh bossing ano naman ang maikokomento niyo dun sa manok ko?"

He replied, "Well, walang dudang magaling talaga siya.  Lalo kung standard jazz ang pag-uusapan.  Kaso hindi ko kasi gusto ‘yung pagpe-perform niya eh.  Masyado siyang malikot at minsan nanghaharot pa ng kabanda.  Hindi tuloy ako makapag-concentrate sa bass ko."

"Ha!?  Ano’ng ibig niyong sabihin bossing?"

"Ah, wala.  Basta magaling siya."

"Bossing parang may kamukha kayo."

"Sino?"

"Uhm… si Pepe Smith!"

"Gago!"

Everybody loves Eraserheads.

Well, not really everybody, but most musically sensible Filipinos surely do. God knows how their reunion concert turned out to be a big and successful one, and more delightful is how their “Final Set” songs found their way to PC’s and MP3 players, entertaining folks from the 90’s and beyond.

Everybody misses Eraserheads at least, and the 90’s music scene at most.

Unfortunately, not all 90’s bands savored the same splash of reverence as that of Eraserheads. Some got reunited but did not receive the kind of reception that they deserve, like After Image and Wolfgang. Some have lost their former musical prowess to the mediocrity syndrome of the ultra-mainstream dimensions, best heard in True Faith’s “Dahil Ikaw” exhibiting cliché lyrics at its worst. Rivermaya, another legendary 90’s band, is experiencing a huge headache with their former manager Lizza Nakpil not allowing them to use the name Rivermaya for she has asserted countless times that she IS Rivermaya (okay fine, eh ‘di tumugtog siya mag-isa!), rendering the band practically incapable of getting booked for gigs. And there are countless others who, by pure musical valour I must say, chose to remain standing tall; fine examples would be The Dawn, Parokya ni Edgar, Razorback, and Slapshock among others.

Yup, everybody loves and misses Eraserheads. But you see, the 90’s music scene has a lot of things to boast way beyond Eraserheads. It is something that we, the 90’s folks and the younger generation alike, suddenly craved for during this past decade of musical famine (2000-2009).

Towering instrumentalist standards
There was this one astonishing and somehow disdainful opinion so popular among professional guitarists during the 90’s: Marcus Adoro of Eraserheads was actually one of the worst guitarists at that time!

Whoa! Fast-forward to 2010, say that again and you’ll have to endure a barrage of flying rotten tomatoes for blasphemy! Booo!

But rudeness aside, it reflects the towering standards guiding the music scene of the 90’s. The singing drunkards of the street, self-taught in the art of romancing the acoustic guitar while waiting for their next shot, have already mastered every Eraserheads song that you can name.

And that being the case, the aim of a typical 90’s guitarist was to be more than just an intoxicated slave of the guitar. Same thing goes with the drummers and bassists. For all we know, the 90’s produced the top guitarists (e.g. Perf de Castro, Manuel Legarda, Tirso Ripoll, David Aguirre, Francis Reyes, etc.), bassists (Louie Talan, Buddy Zabala, Nathan Azarcon, Buhawi Meneses, Mon Legaspi, etc.) and drummers (Raymund Marasigan, Wendell Garcia, Harley Alarcon, Zach Lucero, Robert dela Cruz, etc.). The instrumentalists’ aspiration then was to make their instruments partake in the sacrament of musical expression, contrary to today’s conventional practice of confining the instruments to the rhythm section, providing trivial accompaniment to whoever pretty face is on the mic.

How often do you hear guitar solos nowadays? Surprisingly, it is now more often for me to hear guitar solos in drinking sessions than in local rock gigs.

Fads, fads, and more fads
Eraserheads got critics, no doubt about it. They got a lot actually. Same thing goes with popular bands Rivermaya and Parokya ni Edgar. But no matter how strong these critics express their disapproval, the motive is always clear and noble: we must never let any fad get in the way of the growth of the music scene, especially in the identified areas of improvement.

Yet for some reasons, the great anti-fad spirit of the 90’s faded away when the new millennium arrived. All of a sudden, everyone was listening to Linkin Park, even those who used to label themselves as full-pledged critics of rock and hip hop music! I do not have anything against Linkin Park, I have to agree that it is such a very good band, but it already came to the point that even the most musically naïve segments of the society suddenly became self-proclaimed die hard rap metal fans, yet they refuse to listen to other equally proficient rap metal bands like Incubus and Rage Against the Machine!

And the funny thing is these Linkin Park fans have only one Linkin Park CD in their rack: Hybrid Theory. Because in 2003, a year before “Meteora” got released, these very same Linkin Park fans would not listen to Linkin Park anymore. They would instead listen to F4!

Oh, wait a minute, from Linkin Park to F4!? What a shift!

And the shift does not end there. Paolo Santos saved the day by showing everyone the moving and mellow force of an unplugged guitar. It gave birth to the acoustic fad, which virtually became a contest of coming up with the best version of “Overjoyed” by Stevie Wonder. If Paolo Santos saved the day, Lito Camo ruined it through his stupid “novelty” songs that murdered the Filipino language (“matandá” became “matánda” and “gumíling” became “gumilíng”). Good thing Lito Camo’s junk music died a natural death. And years later, my good friend Sitti was able to catch some attention with her samba and bossa nova music. And yet voila, bossa nova singers sprouted here, there and everywhere like wild mushrooms; even Agot Isidro came up with a bossa nova album. Jeez!

And now the bossa nova fad has declined, where have these Linkin Park fans gone? What are they doing now? Reading the Twilight saga and watching its overrated silver screen adaptations!?

Don’t they still have a sense of musical identity after all these years?

Musical identity and sense of ethics
A friend commented that the secret behind Eraserheads is Ely’s songwriting skills. It is Ely’s talent to come up with an original material that has created the unique sound of the band. They may not be technically proficient, but Ely’s musical composition prowess has proven itself to be one of Eraserheads' ticket to fame. Eraserheads is not just a name of a rock band anymore. It has become a musical identity.

Isn’t it on the very grounds of musical identity that a band becomes either famous or infamous? Radioactive Sago Project, Sino Sikat, and Pinikpikan are among the bands that gained the reverence of the music scene due to their musical identity. On the other hand, Orange and Lemons, Cueshe, and Six Cycle Mind are among the bands that became infamous due to plagiarism issues.

But who’s getting the upper hand in the commercial sense? Who gets the wow of the masses? Go approach a common folk out there and ask him if he/she knows Sino Sikat (no puns intended). Probably not, and if the person does he/she must be a music aficionado. But for Six Cycle Mind, who stole melodies from Parokya ni Edgar’s “Don’t Touch My Birdie” and Moonstar88’s “Torete” to create their song “Sige”, they don’t only get regular airplay, but they also became commercial model of Tanduay, with Katrina Halili shaking her hips! Darn!

Not only did we lose our musical identity, but we also lost our sense of ethics in choosing the musicians that should get the spotlight.

New Year, new start (hopefully)
Our present longing for Eraserheads and their music says a lot about our subconscious musical sentiments.

It just shows how much we need them back, or at the very least how much we need musicians that are of equal aptitude and attitude as Eraserheads, for from the year 2000 to 2009, we endured a decade of musical crisis so to speak.

We have now entered not just a new year but also a new decade. As you know, contemporary music periods are now being referred to by decades, like the new wave fever of the 80’s for example. So I think it is proper to say that we have now entered a new musical period, and I deeply hope that this new period will see the new start for the local music scene.

Let’s start this new period right. We cannot kick it off beautifully by again being copycats and imitating Eraserheads. Instead of imitating Eraserheads, let us emulate them. That means we must embed within us the musical virtues practiced by Eraserheads and the 90's music scene as a whole: an intact sense of musical identity and ethics as propelled by a daring mind and an honest heart, shattering all forms of mediocrity and stereotype blandness that the marketing despots of popular culture have always forced into our very concept of entertainment.

Happy New Year everyone!

(Click here to view photo source)

I am cutting my Lenten break a bit short.  I strongly believe I need to share something to all of you, something that has helped me nurture my spirituality.

Music is actually a very essential part of my spirituality.  I really love listening to new age instrumentals whenever I reflect over the events that has shaped my spiritual character.

Today I would like to teach you how to listen to free music the ethical way.  That means we will not be visiting sites that shares music without the consent of the artist.  Instead, we will be visiting the artists' official MySpace pages.  These are MySpace web pages where tracks are made available for online listening by the artists themselves.  You just need a computer with an internet connection (which obviously you already have) and very basic Google search skills.

And since today is Lenten Season, I think it would be great for us to make new age music as example since it is the perfect music suited for reflecting in our spiritual experiences.  There's this very good recording label that caters to new age music.  The name of the recording label is Real Music.  So today we will search for a MySpace page where we can listen to a Real Music artist's music for free.

Before we start, go to the website of Real Music and search their catalog.  There you can see the list of Real Music artists with brief description of their music and their discography.  Take note of the artist that interests you.  In my case, Kevin Kern is among my favorite artists.

Open a new browser and go to Google.  Then type "myspace" plus the name of the artist in the Google search bar.  For example, to search for Kevin Kern's official MySpace page, type "myspace kevin kern" in the Google search bar.  You will next see a long list of search results.  The artists official MySpace page shows in the format "<Name of artist> on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures...", so click that one.  You will afterwards be directed to the artists official MySpace page, in this case Kevin Kern's official MySpace page.  Finally, you will see an audio player on the said web page where there's a list of tracks available for listening... yes, you can now listen to these tracks, absolutely free of charge and guilt!

You can also try visiting the official MySpace pages of other Real Music artists like Johannes Linstead, Nicholas Gunn, Omar Akram, and Mike Howe.

Hope this simple tip helps you in your musical journey.

Oh, I will be posting here the official MySpace pages of my favorite musicians, so always make sure to regularly check things out in this blog.

Hi!  Before I go ahead and post my musical rantings here in this blog, I would like clarify some things regarding some media that I will be posting here from time to time.

Please note that I will be strictly observing copyright laws, so I will not be posting links here that leads to sites that potentially infringes copyright laws.

Also, I will posting mostly "official" links, information and media.  That means I will not be citing information from publicly accessible and modifiable sites like Wikipedia.  As for MySpace pages, I will only be posting the artists' official MySpace pages.  And I don't think I'm a big fan of citing information from fan sites; if the artist got an official website, it would be better to cite information from there.

And of course, I will be posting YouTube video clips here.  It is sad though that not all musicians got an official YouTube username, but still I'll try my best to post a video from the artist's official YouTube user name (if any).

As I've said in my previous post, I am starting this new sub-blog on three premises.

First, this is my way of paying tribute to the culture of educational equality in the local music industry.  It's such a very heart-warming fact that I was able to do lots of things in the music community despite my lack of a college diploma.  I was able to occupy various positions (vocalist, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer) in different rock bands, organize music events with the help of my friends in Agama Productions, be a choirmaster, write songs, be a music critic, and a lot more... all these without a degree in music!

Second, I see the need to further promote artistically dignified yet under-recognized musicians (both locally and abroad), who have always been pushed into the backseat in a music industry where popularity-fueled entertainers bask in the spotlight.  Haven't we had enough of Lady Gaga who preposterously declared that pop music will never be lowbrow?  Oh please.

And finally, of course the lessons of life as taught by my musical experiences is worth the discourse.  Now this one is a really wide and fertile field.  The subject of life's lessons as imparted to us by music is way too beautiful that right now I cannot find a word or two than can describe even a tidbit of it.

All these being said, I hope you would find my new sub-blog "Music Lessons" worth visiting.  I will be posting my articles in this blog soon.

Crank it up!