By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

“I NOW have a better appreciation of silence,” I jokingly told Filipino video artist Tad Ermitano after 90 minutes of an “assault” on my senses.

I was at Mag.net Cafe in Bonifacio High Street one quiet evening on July 24. My friend and fellow tech journalist Jing Garcia sent me a text message inviting me to a gig. He did not give any details. He just told me to come over. I agreed. On our way to the place, he revealed that Tad and eight other sound artists have gathered to play in public. Sound art is not your everyday music. To help you understand it, let’s get back to my story. But here’s a video clip I took for iVDO of one of the sound artists, Lirio “Elemento” Salvador, plays his “turnplate,” an instrument he created.

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By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

IF you find yourself in Singapore early next month, make sure not to miss Baybeats. Assuming you love listening to music, which is why you took the time to read this blog, then all the more you should be interested in finding out what Baybeats is.

The annual music festival features the current crop of the best indie bands Singapore has to offer. And you thought there’s no music scene at all in Singapore, save maybe for Filipino show bands playing in hotels? So dead wrong (you and me both, then) because apparently youngsters in Singapore have decided to gather up in arms, wield their instruments and make terrific music.

The music scene there has been brewing as early as last year with bands like Electrico, The Observatory and Astreal — some of them even moving on to play in famous festivals like South by Southwest in Texas, upping their indie cred some more. Click on MySpace to find out about these bands or tell your jet-setting friends to pick up their CDs next time they go to Singapore.

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By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

“…WALA pa yung MTV… wala pa yung Internet.. wala pa yung iPod or MP3. Wala pa yung cable. Wala pa yung cell phone, wala pa yung CD or DVD. Meron lang Betamax!”

With those words, Raimund Marasigan of Filipino rock band Sandwich set the tone for what was going to be the night’s anthem. It was a new song Marasigan and his band had composed (it is not yet recorded) for this special night when a younger crowd witnessed the debut of Club Dredd in Eastwood in Libis, Quezon City.

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GIRL TALK, the alter ego of Gregg Gillis who specializes in mashup music (read: music samples remixed) , was seen performing at the Montreal Jazz Festival on stage and in the streets. Known for his surprising antics on stage, Girl Talk hijacked his own set and went on performing in the streets equipped with a laptop, wireless speaker, and portable, eh, desk(?) as people partied on, Boing Boing writes.

Excerpt:

Mashup legend Girl Talk hijacked his own set at the Montreal Jazz Festival last month. Towards the end of his set, he walked out of the auditorium and set up his laptop in the parking lot with two 200W speakers powered by a generator. 400 people converged on the lot while Girl Talk did another set, open air, no permit, while the cops looked on in bewildered amusement.

Here’s a video clip capturing the event, which was posted on OpenSourceCinema.org.

If you don’t know Girl Talk, read this Pitchfork interview.

BURN, the music magazine of INQUIRER.net’s sister company, Hinge Inquirer Publications, interviewed Maroon 5 for its July-August issue, now out in newsstands.

Here’s an excerpt from the Maroon 5 interview:

Not red, but maroon, of course. The talented quartet with the sizzling hot vocalist have tasted the oh-so-sweet taste of success and have poured most of that sweetness into their sophomore effort. With an upbeat, very danceable single, seems like Grammy Award winners Maroon 5 will be tasting even sweeter success the second time around.

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