Saturday, September 27, 2008

Wazzup May Nagaz?!? Part 2...

Alright, here's the second half of my Naga gig trip story. After we stuffed ourselves at Frennie's house, we passed by the hotel to pick up our gear and then headed out to the gig venue.

The gig venue is a bar restaurant called "Bob Marlin". When I first heard about the place, an image of a cartoon drawn marlin that rasta dreds came to mind. Not a logical caricature. But it'll do.

I was surprised to see that the place actually had decent gear. Their drumset was mic'd and they had nice guitar amps, bass amp, and even a keyboard amp. This relieved Roland a little because it takes a load off from him to sound tech especially when the drumset is mic'ed.

Hapitones

There were 3 local Naga bands that played before the 5 Manila bands did. The first of which is a band called Hapitones. I've seen these guys play before at a previous Naga gig. But this time, they had a fuller horn section. They had two trombone players and a trumpet player. The horn section added to the Ska theme of their music.

Skinflute

The 2nd local band to play is called Skinflute. They're basically a rock cover band; covering songs the likes of Razorback and other local rock acts. They weren't spectacular. But they didn't suck either. It was nice to rock along with the band given I recognized so many of their cover songs.

Blakbord

The last local band to play was a band called Blakbord. Frennie asked me if I knew some bands that I could recommend for her birthday celebration. I suggested this band called Sidhi, who are heavily influenced by Matisyahu. She declined the suggestion. And the reason is because of Blakbord. The band is essentially a Matisyahu cover band. Given Naga's liking to Reggae music. The Hebrew-esque rap reggae sound of Matisyahu songs would definitely be a bit hit out in Naga. So I'm guessing these guys get a lot of guys locally.

Reklamo

I've seen LC (Reklamo guitarist and vocalist) in other 3 piece bands in the past. We used to gig with LC every Saturday for close to a year back in the old 6Underground in Makati. The band was called NtoN back then. LC wasn't singing much and focused on wailing on his guitar ala-David Mustane, which I found cool back then. Reklamo has a similar LC guitar playing flavor. But has veered away from too much Megadeth, into something a little more eclectic. I found myself singing along with them during one of their cover songs. "We don't need no education!" "Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone!"

Liquid Jane

I've always loved Chad's band. And their performance that night was no exception to what I've come to expect from them. Their sound is "Eclectic Rock" as Chad puts it. The Reklamo drummer was amazed at Chad because Chad would do complicated bass riffs while singing. Something that's not very easy to do. Even sting plays post bass riffs so that he can focus on his vocals. I wish Liquid Jane played Everlong by the Foo Fighters though. I love it when they cover that song.

SunDownMuse

It was then our turn to set-up and play. Islaw, our bassist, was so trashed because Milagros goaded then to drink a lot of what happens to be his favorite alcohol beverage back in college, gin. Islaw apparently took one of the gin bottles and took several large gulps of it like he came the desert and he was drinking water. Most of us are used to Islaw's drinking binges. He always manages to play fine despite his uber drunken state.

Gino, our guitarist, left his gear on stage because he's also the Liquid Jane guitarist. So he just chilled for a while until the rest of us were set-up.

The bane of percussionists that we have so much gear that we're always lagging behind in setting up. Briggs, our vocalist/guitarist, thought everybody was set-up already and begain playing the first song. Unfortunately, I wasn't fully ready yet. I hadn't pulled all my percs toys out yet and set them down on the stage. So I ditched the toys for the first song.

I enjoyed our set, even though I didn't feel very good about it. My band started without me. And Jerrold, our drummer, was so worried about Islaw's drunken state, that he stopped playing before the last song was actually over. This kind of left an anti-climactic end to the set. Oh well. Not every set can be a kick ass set. I think I played okay that night. But I made a number of mistakes which kind of disappointed me.

After our set, I just ordered more of the over-flowing free beer to make up for the disappointment. I'm easy. It took me 2 more beers for me to snap out of it. Well done San Miguel. LOL!

Yosha

Now this band is absolutely kick-ass. Each band member is highly skilled. Yosha started out as a "for fun" band by married couple Yosha (vocalist) and Karel (bassist). Almost all of them came from UP music.

And each of them is way too good in their own right. I love Mike's (drummer) solo, where he maintained a stomp beat despite all the complicated fills he was putting in. The keyboardist plays a lot like Wowee of Jazz Volunteers. Yosha had such a sultry voice. And Karel, damn him. I've never seen anybody with that level of speed in person in my life.

This band is just hands-down a collection of all-stars. They have an album launch this coming September 29. I'll see if I can go to this gig. I've seen them 3 times already and I'm always blown away. This band will either inspire you to practice your instrument some more, or make you throw away your instrument because they're just too good. LOL!

Milagros DanceHall Collective

Yosha was supposed to play last. But they requested to play sooner. So Frennie asked MDC if they could play right after Yosha instead. Normally, that would freak out MDC or any other band because you can't really top Yosha in terms of skill. But those guys were so trashed that they didn't really care at that point. I love watching Manila's experts on da riddum stylee. Their DanceHall Reggae style was a big hit with the crowd (all the more lending to the fact that Naga really likes any form of Reggae).

Sappy was there for the set. I missed his deep Shaggy-esque vocals in their songs. I knew for a fact that Macky, the bassist, was trashed beyond his mind. But his playing was steady in a very Gorillaz-esque style. I love these guys. They're always fun to hang with during gigs, and even more fun watching them play.

The rest of the night was a blur to me. The only things I remembered after the gig, was waiting up for Briggs to finish up helping Frennie with the arrangements at Bob Marlin, and eating at Biggies. Biggies happens to be more popular as a fast food chain than even McDonald's in Naga.

When we got back to the hotel, some members of Yosha and Liquid Jane were lounging around at the lobby not planning on sleeping because they leave pretty early. I then realized that I was the only non-learned in the group. Karel, Mike, Drew, Gino, they all came from or are still studying in UP Music. But nevertheless, they treated me well and I was part and parcel of the conversation like I was their musical equal. That felt good actually.

I was thinking about not sleeping myself and just pass out on the tour bus. But then my eyes were getting heavier and heavier, so I hit the sack.

I woke up a few hours later. Jerrold and Islaw already left our room because they had an early airplane flight back to Manila. I went downstairs, and slowly enjoyed a nice breakfast. Other bands started trickling down and joined me at the large dinner table. The hotel still feels like an upscale bed-and-breakfast. It felt homey. But also had a tinge of class in its presentation.

Bus ride was quicker because I was asleep more during the trip home than I was going to Naga. The orange color of the bus weirded me out at first. But I didn't care after a while since I was hungover and dead tired.

We had 2 stop-overs to grab something to eat. The second stop-over was at the same McDonald's with the make-shift bar with a showband playing beside it. It was daytime. So there was no showband this time. Thank God. I don't think I wanted to LSS Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas for the remainder of the trip home.

After snacking at McDonald's, Roland and I saw the sign above and uncanningly read it as "Cleanest Restroom". I suppose this was the hangover talking. But upon close inspection it reads "Clean Rest Room". Either that or we need to start getting a pair of glasses. LOL!

We all got back to the Isarog Bus Line near Araneta Colliseum in good time. Roland helped me lug my gear back to my appartment, and he chilled at my place for a while. We just ended up loafing around, watching this or that anime, or concert video on my 32" LCD TV. Not a bad ending to my out-of-town gig weekend.

I wanna go gig at Naga again. Gotta redeem myself from the way I played that night. But in terms of feasting on Naga delicacies. FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!! I think I gained 4 pounds in just a span of 3 days. LOL!

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Friday, September 26, 2008

Wazzup May Nagaz?!? Part 1...

I haven't posted anything on my blog for a while. I've been so consumed with playing Dekaron all this time. Immersed in a virtual world, that allowed me to escape the real world even just for short periods of time.

However, quite a few people have been bugging me to post something because everytime they keep checking back, there's nothing new posted. So I will make an effort to post about some stuff this weekend that has happened while I was in blogging haitus. This is the first of a few posts I plan to put up.

"Wazzup May Nagaz?!?" is the tag line for the whole gig/trip we took to Naga the weekend before last weekend. Although we've gone on gig trips to Naga 3 times over in the past, this gig was definitely unique. To celebrate Frennie's birthday, we brought in 5 bands from Manila. And e. Each of the bands performance, I'll briefly touch on as this post progresses. The bands are as follows:

Reklamo
Liquid Jane
SunDownMuse
Milagros DanceHall Collective
Yosha

Each band I absolutely appreciate in terms of their musicality and artistry. So this gig trip was definitely going to be a form of pleasurable audio coitus.

I took a leave from work because we were going to leave at an early time than previously planned. I was getting really tense and stressed out at work during the week. So that Friday leave was definitely a good idea. It allowed me to unwind a little before heading off to the bus station to catch our tour bus to Naga.

Roland, a good friend of mine from highschool and sound engineer extroardinaire, came over to my place. We essentially hired him to do all the sound teching for the gig. He was nice enough to help me lug all my percussion gear over to Briggs' place. And then from there we drove up to the Isarog bus line near Araneta Colliseum.

Frennie is awesome. She was able to spin up a number of sponsors in order to get us nice transportation and accomodations for us. The first of which is reserving an entire tour bus for the bands to ride in for the long trip. Not all the bands rode the bus, some flew in by plane, and some followed in Briggs' car because they had a gig that night

The bus is of "deluxe tour bus" standards, with a built-in bathroom, and an "in-flight movie". Everybody on the bus was shaking their heads at the fact that they didn't bring any DVDs to watch since there were screens on the bus to ensure anybody riding can view movies properly. "Kahit soft-porn man lang. Para medyo interesting kahit half-asleep" said LC, the vocalist/guitarist of Reklamo. We were all crazy to some degree. I think that's why all the bands got along with each other. LOL!

Milagros DanceHall Collective sure love their alcohol. They gave us an inkling of the amount of alcohol we would drink over the weekend, by passing around a bottle of Emperador. Taking numerous swigs from that Emperador bottle sure made even the corniest of movies seem enjoyable. Since no one brought any DVDs to watch, we had to contend with what the bus driver had onboard. "The Guardian" starring Kevin Costner, and "Dude Where's My Car?" dude, was alright. Oh how alcohol can have this uncanny ability to make unbearable things seem interesting. "I am a rescue swimmer sir! When the army and navy docks pulls back, we go in sir!"

We only had a few stop-overs. Some stop-overs involved the bus driver having a cigarette. Another involved eating at McDonald's next to a make-shift bar with some showband playing tunes by Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas. We were all joking to each other that this was already the gig venue and that we should go in a set-up. LOL! Damn showband, those songs LSS'ed me for the next hour or so after eating in McDonald's.

Five or six hours later, we finally arrived in Naga. As we got off the bus and stretched our legs out, we were surprised that there was an immense amount of people parading/in procession. We joked to each other that this was our welcoming committee. But then we quickly realized that since it is fiesta time in Naga, that this was only part of their festivities.

The hotal Frennie put us up in was actually previously just a large house/property owned by an expat. He decided to add a 3rd floor and a number of rooms to turn it into a hotel. It just recently opened as a hotel a few months ago, so all the facilities and the rooms were still brand new.


After settling, we all decided to get some sleep despite passing out for most of the bus ride on the way to Naga. It was around 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM at the time, so we needed to get a little more sleep or we'll end up going unconcious early at the gig itself.

When we woke up, the place had a nice upscale bed-and-breakfast feel. You would share a large dinning table with other guests. But surprisingly it didn't feel all that intrusive at all. I had a chance to look around the hotel and liked the garden around the place.





It was so odd to see an Indian Sikh temple from the front of the hotel. I didn't think that kind of religion would reach this far into the Philippines. Apparently, it's possible to reach this far after all.

We then proceeded to a food court because one of the gig sponsors wanted to treat us to food as part of their sponsorship. Grill Plus is the name of the sponsor as far as I remember (This isn't me trying to plug a sponsor in this post by the way).

I have to say the food was goooood. Check out the "before" and "after" shots I took of the food we partook for lunch at Grill Plus. You can really tell that we're just a bunch of "patay gutom" freaks.

Before...

and After...

After eating a hearty meal, we then proceeded to the Ateneo de Naga campus. The radio station that all 5 Manila bands were supposed to do a radio interview was located within the campus. The station was once just a college campus station. But then grew to become a commercial radio station.

The rest of my bandmates were too lazy to do the radio interview since the luster of a radio interview faded since we've done this already from a previous Naga gig trip. They just automatically voted me to be the spoke person for the band for the Nth time. So I ended up being the only one representing the band while the rest of my bandmates headed out to a studio to practice. Apparently my bandmates were listening to me over the radio the whole time. I think I did okay in the interview. At least I hope I did.

They passed by for me after the radio interview and we then proceeded to the practice studio. Practice was fun. We got the opportunity to clean up the songs that we planned on playing that night.



After practice, we then proceeded to Frennie's house for her birthday dinner. Do note that we were still feeling a little full from our feast of a lunch earlier that day.

But of course, the "PG" people that we all were (this includes all the other Manila bands by the way), we stormed through the food like we haven't eaten a single thing for days. It's also good to eat in Naga. The food is guarranteed to be good. And you are left feeling generally content (and very bloated) after each meal over there.

It's 2:23 AM in the morning right now and this post is getting way too long. I'm starting to get Dekaron withdrawal symptoms. So I'll end here for now and continue the story in another post.

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Monday, September 8, 2008

This Cage...

I wrote this song a long time ago. During a time when everyday was about numbing the pain through alcohol and then some. This was a time of venturing off to Puerto Galera practically every weekend trying to escape something that's inescapable. I met new friends who run a resort in White Beach because I went there often. They had a fresh perspective of me as a person. They didn't know anything other than what I've told them. They treated me well, and enjoyed making music with me. It was funny that it took complete strangers for me to feel loved back then.

Beyond all the excessive vices, music and good-natured people pulled me through during those times. It's nice to look back at those times. And realize that I actually managed to go through it and come out a better person.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Below is the prose of the song. I haven't recorded this song even though I've thought about doing so for ages. The only way you'll hear the music for this is if you join me at an inuman jam. LOL!



This Cage
Words and Music: Aldous Castro

Banging on the walls inside my head.
Struggling in the water I tread.
Feeling around in this dark world so blind.
As I push the dirt out, it feels like a crime.

No way.
Find my way.

Oh I yearn to be free.
Free from myself.
Oh I yearn to be free.
Escape from this cage.
This cage.
This cage.
This cage.

I've been kicking myself in the teeth.
Bashing my head until I bleed and weep.
Killing my being until I feel no more.
Wishing this numbness would seep my core.

No way.
Find my way.

Oh I yearn to be free.
Free from myself.
Oh I yearn to be free.
Escape from this cage.

I scream into the heavens.
Wishing that someone would hear me.
I sing into the heavens.
Wishing that someone would come down and save me.

Oh I yearn to be free.
Free from myself.
Oh I yearn to be free.
Escape from this cage.
This cage.
This cage.
This cage.



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Monday, September 1, 2008

Duke University Djembe Ensemble 2005...

I wish my college offered drumming ensembles like these. Sigh...



Each member had an integral part to play, which I found really cool. I want to start a group like this. But none of my friends who are into percussions wants to start something for one reason or another (ehem, Mari). The closest that's out there locally is Hairydawgs along with a few of its spin-off groups. But those are largely Samba marching bands though.

How cool would college have been if I was part of something like this? How much better would I be now if I started percussions that early. Oh well. I'll never know the answers to those questions.

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