July 2007 Archives

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. Tad smiled back. I remember referring to John Cage's famous composition called 4'33" which involved three movements of silence. Tad then gave this explanation, but please bear with me since I don't remember his words exactly. But here it goes: 4'33" was nothing but silence. As the silence became "deafening," people who were listening started hearing other things, say, the coughing of a person in the audience, the sigh of a bored spectator, the creaking of chairs moving, and the mumbling of some people. Cage and other sound art performers later wanted people to hear "unexpected sounds" that came out of a concert hall, for instance, when people started listening. While the performer of this piece did not play a single note, there was "music" or unpredictable or unintentional sounds produced. Thus Cage has somehow challenged the very definition of music. Sound art is that -- sound but meant to convey certain feelings or meanings by an artist. That night, there were nine of them organized by young sound artist Tengal. They played his piece called the "Rotation of Nine," according to Tad's blog. In an interview after the performance, Tengal said that he loved the number nine because it would always "refer back to itself." He said the number nine is also the most "egotistical number." Prior to the actual performance, Tad and Tengal agreed to name their group Motzkin Gangan Ensemble. Asked what it meant, Tad said Motzkin refers to the number of possible combinations in a maze, while Gangan is a Japanese onomatopeia of a ringing in the ear, a headache or a climbing noise (I hope I got that right amid all the chatter and noise, heh). So I figured Motzkin Gangan Ensemble is Tad and Tengal's very own definition of sound art. It is a combination of different sounds organized like a jazz ensemble, where everyone is free to improvise under a certain form. In this case, an algorithm of nine artists, playing for 90 minutes at certain intervals. Tad further writes in his notes about the performance in his blog Cavemanifesto: "[B]asically [it involves] a scheme to schedule the overlapping performances of 9 improvisors. As Tengal has a thing for the number 9, he wanted to set as many parameters as possible to 9. Thus: nine players, each playing for 9 minutes then resting for another nine; players' entrances staggered 3 minutes apart, repeating as necessary to play a piece exactly 90 minutes long." Jing Garcia, Tad, and the rest of the sound artists are a relatively new breed of artists. Lirio "Elemento" Salvador, who was the only one wearing dark shades that night, played an instrument he created. He called it a "turnplate," which is pun on a turntable. Using some electronic devices and everyday objects he found, this silver contraption (which looks like a little weapon from a Transformers movie) is an example of what Garcia calls "found instrument." He also brought with him a bass guitar made out of found objects. I also saw an "air synth," a Kaoss pad, lots of synthesizers, a circuit-bended instrument (which is a modified electronic instrument), and other home-made electronic instruments that could literally shatter your eardrums when volumes swell. The beginnings of experimental sound art or experimental music using electronic and ethnic or found instruments in the country is hazy. But Jing Garcia remembers that he and his group called The Children of the Cathode Ray were formed in 1989. At the time, they were playing what people called, "multimedia art/music." This description would send Blums Borres, Tad, and Jing laughing. In the liner notes of the Children of the Cathode Ray, Jing writes:

The original 1989 lineup of The Children of Cathode Ray consisted of Blums Borres, Tad Ermitaño, Jing Garcia, Regiben Romana, and Magyar Tuason, with Peter Marquez pitching in as tech and gaffer. The band is a closed but metastable collective, with a 15-year history sporadic dormancy interleaved with sudden bursts of activity.

To people, sound art might be considered noise, albeit a structured one. But sound art is about challenging the conventions of traditional music. As Tad puts it:

With noise as their palette, augmented with feedback, delay and amplification, it's as if every one of them owned an atom bomb: each one has the power to blow up the soundscape in pure white noise and most of them don't have much experience jamming with others as a sound artist.

Honestly, they sound punk to me. Finally, I borrowed the list of sound artists from Tad's Cavemanifesto entry. Here they are in no particular order:

• Lirio Salvador on a self-made touch-modulated synthesizer
• Inconnu ictu on Alesis Airsynth
• Ria Munoz on Kaoss Pad and contact mic
• Chris Garcimo on Roland SH-101 keyboard
• Caliph8 on MPC Sampler
• Erick Calilan on self-made circuit-bent devices
• Jonjie Ayson on a scrapmetal bass made by Lirio
• Blums Borres on electric guitar
• Tengal on drums, panart, kulintang, interactive computer

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. But that's not the end of it. Baybeats also aims to showcase the best bands this side of the world has to offer. Aside from local bands who pass the auditions (yes, bands need to pass quality control) in this year's festival, also playing are bands from Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and our very own emo-punk rockers Typecast and Urbandub from the Philippines. Woo-hoo Pinoy! :) To top it all, Baybeats also features dream-pop Mercury Rev. Click on the Baybeats main page to hear some classic Mercury Rev tunes. "Diamonds" is one great song. On a recent trip to Singapore, I picked up a copy of local zine Junk that has an accompanying CD of songs from the bands playing at Baybeats. Not bad at all for seven Singapore dollars. More about it on a later post. Or check them out on the Baybeats website. Baybeats happens August 3 to 5 at Singapore's Esplanade. Best of all, it's free. And the show's produced by people from the Esplanade so you can be sure the sound's not crappy. If you have no idea where the Esplanade is, ask anyone where the durian-looking building is or let Google Earth point it out to you. PS. A "little-known" band called The Cure is also playing in a one-night-only gig in Singapore on August 1. Lucky Singaporeans, the best we could get here so far is Christina Aguilera. :)

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. For upcoming Filipino rock bands, Club Dredd was the place to launch a music career or something close to that. The names are now all too familiar: Eraserheads, Razorback, Rivermaya, Teeth, Wolfgang, among others. "Sa Jingle magazine, natuto ka mag-gitara..." Patrick Reidenbach, owner of Club Dredd, said it was nine years since this joint closed its doors. It was June 12, 1998, he recalls, adding that he was forced to shut down the place to take care of a family business. "I had to concentrate on my dad's business," he said, as he took a puff of his cigarette in the Playroom, another new joint just above Club Dredd. Reidenbach said he finally decided to partner with the Gweilos Group who agreed to take care of the F&D (food and drinks), while he took care of the "entertainment," which meant lining up mostly original Pinoy bands that have already earned a name in the local rock music pantheon. The new Club Dredd, however, is still sticking to its original philosophy of discovering new bands in the country. "'Di pwede cover bands dito (We don't want cover bands)," he says, adding that he also does not want the new Club Dredd to end up as a "nostalgia club." But Marasigan and Sandwich were probably feeling nostalgic when they played "Sembreak" composed by none other than Marasigan's old band the Eraserheads. Reidenbach says that he official set up Club Dredd on June 1. It is located on the second floor of Gweilos Eastwood, which he says is a much-improved gig house compared to the old Club Dredd in Timog and later in Cubao. Club Dredd's website explains:

What's great about the place? Well we have improved the sound system, with the help of Stephen Lu of Loudhouse. Also, no more worries about the aircon and banyo that plagued the old venues. We have an excellent, high quality kitchen and bar provided by the Gweilos Group, which is headed by old Dredd habitues Raul De Castro and Marlo Benitez, plus 24-hr security and parking. We have yet to put up the signage and dress up the place, but since we took over, already many of our favorite acts new and old have played there, and many, many more are scheduled to perform in the coming weeks and months.

The "oldtimers" of Club Dredd like Papa Dom, Jing Garcia and Marasigan all agreed that the new Club Dredd was way, way better looking than its predecessors. "We were so excited when Patrick called us. There was no joint in the Quezon City Area. In Makati, you had Saguijo, and in España Mayric's," Marasigan said. "It is quite nostalgic but this is a chance to do it better this time. Dati kasi parang naging Divisoria ng banda yung dati sa Edsa. Wala ng quality control," Marasigan added with a laugh. "As long as the bands are playing what they like, Club Dredd will always be different," said technology journalist and former Jingle magazine writer Garcia, who started out as a sound technician when the joint was still in Timog. Reidenbach said some people have said that Club Dredd has become sosyal. He stressed, however, that wherever you put this joint, it will always be Club Dredd. He said the official launch of the joint might happen sometime in September. But he said he and his partners are still discussing this. He plans to revive the old Club Dredd Jazz nights and poetry reading, dubbed Dredd Poets Society. Other bands who performed at Club Dredd that night include Duster (a new all-female band), Manibela, and Pedicab. Here's a photo of Duster.

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. Q: The title of your album is It Won't Be Soon Before Long. I heard that it was a mantra that you use when you're touring. When you did start using that? Adam Levine: A buddy of ours, Christopher McCann, who's a photographer was on the road taking photographs of us and he tended to write down things that people said in a little scribble pad, and he had written this down. Then, we're compiling down photographs in this book that we made called Midnight Miles, which is this photo documentary of us on the road. This quote came up and I think Chris wanted to name the book It Won't Be Soon Before Long, and we thought, "Wait a minute! That's way too good to use for this book," as much as I love books. So basically we held on to it. We kind of kicked it around a little bit and thought it would be a good idea to try it out, it stuck. Q: When you were writing songs, was that like a threat that kind of kept on through? JC: It was so perfect because our fans were asking when are we going to make our next record, and we kept asking when are we going to stop touring and we answered all these questions, “Soon! Soon! Soon!” And we dragged on and on, months and months. AL: The meaning of it is obviously open for interpretation because it doesn't actually make sense so I just thought about the fact that when you say that “It won't be soon for long,” it really kind of means that it will be long before soon (laughs). Either it doesn't make sense but if you think about it that way, kind of conversely, you start to understand what the hell it means. It's true, don't you know what I'm talking about? You guys aren't smart enough that's the problem, next question. (laughs) Q: After touring, when everything sank in, what does fame and all that kind of stuff mean to you now? Wanna find out the answers to this and other questions? Grab your copy of the July-August issue of Burn Music Magazine now and get your fill of Maroon 5 and other latest news in the music scene. By the way, here's a look at the two covers -- take your pick!

AS I'm writing this, Eskimo Joe is playing at the Aussie Stadium in Sydney, Australia as part of the round-the-world Live Earth Concerts for a Climate in Crisis. Nope, I didn't fly to Sydney, heh :) You can watch the Live Earth concerts in Australia, Japan, China, Germany and other countries online via MSN. While you can use other browsers, for the best experience and to watch all the concerts in one player, you need Internet Explorer. Here's a promo video courtesy of Soapbox on MSN Video.
Video: Live Earth Concert 07.07.07 Photo of Eskimo Joe from the Live Earth MSN site. Here are photos courtesy of Associated Press. Here's former US vice president Al Gore checking out Giants Stadium as he gets a tour of the North American venue for the Live Earth concert by Live Earth workers Aaron Growsky (right) and Lily Sobhani (left) on July 6 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Here are Australian Aboriginals dancing on stage while the band Blue King Brown performs during the first Live Earth concert in Sydney, Australia on July 7.

By Agence France-Presse SYDNEY--Australia kicked off a round-the-world series of music concerts designed to highlight climate change Saturday with a traditional Aboriginal welcome ceremony. Six Aboriginal performers danced across the stage at Sydney's Aussie stadium in front of a crowd of several thousand before former US vice president Al Gore appeared on video screens to launch the worldwide initiative. "Thank you for coming today," Gore said, as he reminded concert goers they were the first in the world to take part in the Live Earth concerts. The Live Earth initiative aims to raise awareness about climate change with concerts in Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg, London, Johannesburg, New York, Washington and Rio De Janeiro. Performers in the all-day global extravaganza include Madonna, The Police and Metallica. A reformed Crowded House will headline the Sydney concert which is expected to draw an audience of 50,000 people. The televised event will stretch to seven continents with an amateur band playing at the British Antarctic Survey Station in Antarctica. The first act of the day, the little-known Australian band Blue King Brown, took to the stage shortly after a message from Australian politician and former rock star Peter Garrett. Garrett, who previously fronted Midnight Oil, said it was up to citizens of developed nations such as Australia, the US, Japan and Europe to push for action to reduce pollution before it resulted in catastrophic change. "Your voice matters, make it heard," he said. Campaigners argue if nothing is done to stop the build-up of so-called greenhouses gases which allow the light into the Earth's atmosphere but prevent heat from escaping, the consequences could prove disastrous. Live Earth will feature some 7,000 events in 129 countries but organizers have encountered some problems and criticism. A concert due to be held in Istanbul was called off due to security concerns while the Rio event was nearly stopped by a judge who feared for the safety of the 700,000 expected to attend the free concert in Copacabana. There has also been sharp criticism of the event, with skeptics charging that the luxury lifestyles lived by many jet-setting rock stars only add to global warming.

By Erwin Oliva INQUIRER.net IT was a fun-filled night on June 30 at the Mag.net Café in Bonifacio High Street, but Filipino pop rock band Orange and Lemons, which was expected to play during Saturday night's grand launch, walked out, an organizer of the launch confirmed with INQUIRER.net. "Bong (Baluyot, Orange and Lemon's manager) was very apologetic but it was quite unprofessional for them to do that," said Quark Henares in a telephone interview, referring to the band's unexpected walkout. Henares, one of the Mag.net Café business partners, said there was tension between Clementine Castro and the other band members. (Editor's note: This was the latest blog entry, dated June 29, on Clementine's MySpace profile. The band's MySpace profile is at www.myspace.com/orangeandlemons:

I WILL NEVER LEAVE ORANGE & LEMONS.... Current mood: numb THEY JUST WANTED TO KICK ME OUT. ABSURD AND OUTRAGEOUS.)

Henares said efforts were made to allow Orange and Lemons to play without any hassle or possible problem caused by the tension. But the band decided not to play. Another band called Spaceflowers, which is also managed by Baluyot, played instead as proxy. Talks of in-fighting among Castrp and the other members of this famous Filipino pop rock band have circulated, including rumors that Orange and Lemons is disbanding. Orange and Lemon's manager Baluyot, however, declined to comment when reached by INQUIRER.net. Orange and Lemons was formed in 2003. The band is known for its Beatles- and The Smith-influenced music. Their career was boosted when a local TV station hired the band to play the theme song of "Pinoy Big Brother," a Filipino franchise of the popular reality TV show. The band launched its debut album "Love in the Land of Rubber Shoes and Dirty Ice Cream" in December 2003 under an independent label. Orange and Lemons was named Best New Artist for 2004 in NU107's yearly Rock Awards event, and eventually landed a contract with Universal Records in October 2004. The members of the band are Clementine Castro (vocals/lead guitars), Mcoy Fundales (vocals/guitars), JM del Mundo (bass), and Ace del Mundo (drums).