Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Birthday Week Part 2: J.O.E. (JR Oca Experience) at Estrogen Valentine, B-Side



On to the second part of my birthday week series of posts. This one is about my gig with J.O.E. (JR Oca Experience) at the Estrogen Valentines event at B-Side on February 14, 2012.  This will be a picture heavy post since there was lot of pictures taken that night by some pretty good photographers.

JR, his wife Jojie, and I ate at Nihonbashite first for some tasty Japanese food. We ate at the upstairs portion of the restaurant because they sport large cooking areas there and cook the food right in front of you. The Valentines themed highlight of the dinner can only be explained by the fried rice picture I took.


We had an amusingly eccentric cook at Nihonbashite. He just formed the fried rice into a heart shape. We all found it cute and started taking pictures of it before we dug into the food. After our sumptuous dinner, we headed over to B-Side.

(All the following pictures in this post are courtesy of myself, Chuck Valerio, Mari Arquiza, Minerva Studio Canada, and Erwin Rentutar) 

It goes without saying that out of all the gigs I had during my birthday week.  This particular gig night had the most people watching.


We were the only non-female fronted band for the night. And we were playing alongside some pretty heavy hitter bands that night. Flying Ipis played first. I'm not an outright fan of Flying Ipis. But I can appreciate how tight the band played.

I believe there was a bunch of kids that performed as a rap group. The group's name escapes me. Sorry!



The next act was Turbo Goth. For an group whose music is largely preset out of a laptop, they actually showed the most energy and stage presence amongst all the acts that night. Sarah Gaugler, the vocalist of the group was, as always, a treat to watch performing. She's just plain easy on both the eyes and the ears. This power couple just released their official music video of their song "Venus Flytrap". These two were joined by Nino on guitar during the latter part of their set.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Birthday Week Part 1: SunDownMuse at Black Kings' Bar

I finally get around blogging about my birthday celebration last week.  But I felt it prudent to break it up to a few posts since a lot happened practically every night of last week.

I'll kick this series of posts off with my gig with SunDownMuse at Black Kings' Bar last February 13, 2012. I requested for a leave from work the week prior and got it approved. So it was such a joy to sleep in that day and just look forward to non-work related festivities.

I had practice with one of my other bands, Jack Versus the Crab, at Blue Light Studios that afternoon. It was nice to see my bandmates from that band after being in a 1-2 month gigging haitus. I was particularly happy to see our drummer Fritz, "Dr. Sticks", again. The last time I saw Fritz was when I spent Christmas Eve with him and Windi's family.

I wasn't big on proclaiming that it was my birthday. Hence why my birthday is hidden in Facebook. So it wouldn't show up in people's News Feeds unless it was a Wall Post. I also didn't mention it during Jack Versus the Crab practice. It wasn't because I was hiding it. I just didn't really feel like making a big deal out of my birthday. The net effect of course, was less trivial birthday greetings and a clearer identification of who really knew it was my birthday from the beginning. The other net effect was my bandmates Fritz and Waxie throwing a playful hissy-fit days later upon hearing that it was indeed my birthday that Monday. Sorry!

Practice went smoothly despite not having our bassist. JR was back in the lead guitarist slot. Some people from Jack Daniel's/Rogue Magazine showed up at our practice to take some pictures and video of us.  So I suppose the practice ended up being a semi-show of sorts.

When practice concluded Waxie, Fritz, JR, and I grabbed a bite to eat somewhere to discuss some band issues. JR and I headed back to my apartment to pick up my percs gear for my SunDownMuse gig tonight. I gotta hand it to JR. I'm bandmates with him across 2 bands, Jack Versus the Crab, and his own band J.O.E. (JR Oca Experience). We've been hanging out together more often the past weeks. So we're good friends these days. He volunteered to essentially be my driver to pick up my percs gear and then head to my gig with SunDownMuse. Just so he can be there to celebrate my birthday.

Right before we left my apartment to head to Black Kings' Bar. Joseph called asking if we could wait for him as he was walking over to my apartment building. His work shift just ended at that time. So his call was perfect timing. So it was myself, JR, and Joseph that headed out to BKB together.

(All pictures here were taken by myself, Joi, and Binky.  Thanks you two!)


My bandmates from SunDownMuse and their respective partners started trickling in. I was treating everybody to beers, Jack Daniel's, and whatever food/pica-pica they wanted. It was certainly a night filled with booze and food.


To my surprise, Marco, one of the owners of BKB and his girlfriend were serving us our drinks and food instead of any assigned waiters. Apparently, most if not all the waiters, quit at the same time. Their waiters seriously lacked skills anyway. But at the same time, I felt a little bad for Marco and his girlfriend doing all that work for us. It was really nice of them.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Acoustic Nights with Gigo at the Keg

I've slowed down on blogging every single gig I've been having. When you're gigging anywhere from 1-3 times a week, I suppose it's natural that documenting every single one gets a little tedious. Amongst my current job instability and the search for my next opportunity, music continues to be a safe haven and source of happiness. Aside from being in 3 great bands (SunDownMuse, JR Oca Experience J.O.E., and Jack Versus The Crab), I also play percs for my bandmate Gigo at his acoustic gigs at the Keg, Fort Strip.

Gigo has been doing this acoustic thing solo for quite some time prior to joining SunDownMuse. He wanted to gig so badly that he decided to go solo just to satiate his performance hunger. He invited me go play percs for him late last year. And I have quite a few gigs with him at the Keg since then.

These acoustic gigs gave me a chance to play my cajon. I bought my cajon years ago from Popo (drummer of Moonstar 88, All For Patricia, etc.). It was a custom cajon sporting a larger body and 6 strings underneath the hood. This was a lot better than the standard cajons you can buy from music stores. And at the time I bought it, it looked sexier than most.

It's also interesting to note that the initial invented style of my percussion playing, that's more a snare and kick drum style, actually fits quite well on a cajon. Of course, I'm not really playing the cajon the way it's supposed to be played. But it's good enough for me to follow Gigo and enjoy playing.

Gigo's song selection spans as old as songs from the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Stone Temple Pilots, down to his all-time fave John Mayer.  He's a 90s boy just like me.  So a lot of what he plays also come from that era. He's also very much a blues kind of guitar player. So his song selection reflects those two things.

Below are some pictures and a video of our performances at the Keg the past few months. All of these are owned by the Keg management.






Gigo and I have a gig at Keg again soon. We'll be playing there this Thursday night, February 16, 2012. Below is the link to the Keg's Facebook fan page if anybody needs the address to the place.

https://www.facebook.com/TheKEGInc

If you got nothing to do this Thursday. Come join us. It'll be a whole lot of fun.


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Monday, February 6, 2012

The Avengers Super Bowl Commercial

It's Super Bowl XLVI Sunday in the States today.  Twitter and Facebook are riddled with updates about the culminating game of the series.  But everybody knows the artist performance and commercials during half time  of Super Bowls are just as equally enticing to watch.  Madonna doing "Like a Prayer" aside, One of the more interesting ones commercials for me is a teaser of the upcoming "Avengers" Movie.  Here is the video clip of it below.



I have an army... We have a Hulk...

Awesome...


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