03.12.2007
COG: CALCULATED FORCE
WITH INFLUENCES RANGING FROM 80s NEW WAVE TO MATH METAL'S POLYRHYTHMS AND SYNCOPATION, COG'S MUSIC IS NOT EASY TO CLASSIFY. IT IS, HOWEVER, TIGHT, THRILLING, STARTLING, AND IT GETS THE CROWD HOWLING
Late night in a car workshop-cum rock club somewhere along Katipunan extension: the band playing is laying the histrionics on real thick. The vocalist jumps about, tossing monobloc chairs in the air; the guitarist leaps on and off amps; the bassist jerks spastically around like somebody with hip dysplasia trying to do Tae-bo. Granted, there’s quite a roster of musicians known to go apeshit while performing: Roger Daltrey, Youth of Today, Angus Young, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and a whole bunch of others getting their spines snapped by the amphetamine jolt that is Rock. But then this band’s guitarist snags his foot on the bass cable and cuts off the signal. There is a quick, collective, and obviously embarrassed darting of eyes to the audience, betraying contrivance, an affected if not completely conscious planning out of onstage antics. Simply: a sham. Made more pathetic by the band’s name, which implies ingenuity, evokes a character in Romeo and Juliet, and alludes to some message from the gods. Sure. “Behold: The Untalented.”
The next band sets up, bearing a name that is more unassuming, to say the least. Cog: a small component, hidden from view more often than not, and very likely covered in grease and grime and the detritus produced by an efficiently functioning whole. Even phonetically the name is unassuming—monosyllabic, and sounding like somebody’s stifled cough. No surprise then that their stage stances are just as low-key. Bassist Richie Ramos rarely looks up at the crowd. Guitarists Eric Perlas and Joel Patricio, fingers on fret boards a constant blur of chord and note, flank him. Allan Po is barely visible behind the Pearl set, face framed by flashing drum sticks. Sax player Garon Honasan stands stock still while playing. And vocalist Yagi Olaguera sings with his free arm on his side, hand balled into a fist. Their set isn’t so much visual spectacle as aural event, an incidence of fierce and fat low end, vicious treble, clear brass notes, and pensive lyrics by turns snarled and sung over drumming so tight you can’t slip a leaf of Rizla between the measures.
People buying drinks at the bar beside the stage pause to stare at the band, and the folks sitting by the table to my left all listen for the first time, nodding to the music, caught along with everyone else in this physics puzzle of outward-blasting music pulling everything into itself.
Which is also saying that Cog’s music, drawn from influences such as Math Metal’s polyrhythms and syncopation to 80’s New Wave, is a bit difficult to figure out. Take for example one review of the band’s first full-length album Conflagration, in a men’s magazine a few months back. Sure, the publication is devoted to the penetration of things other than sophisticated music. But the brief, insipid article inexplicably compared Cog to Omaha-grown rap-rock-reggae-kitchen-sink outfit 311. That, plus the reviewer’s sideways appraisal of Conflagration as simply music for the angry combined to form a source of vicious jokes sniping at clueless music review hacks.
“We’re always sticking out like sore thumbs,” Perlas tells me during our interview, quite politely, I might add. A more to-the-point observation would have highlighted the capacity of any truly original, and therefore strange, creative output to excite the cognoscenti, astound the layman, and expose the dumb.
You guys started right in the middle of the New Metal fad, with the safe, if not boring, half-time groove that numerous local bands readily adapted. Why did you decide to go for atypical time signatures?
EVERYONE, POINTING TO JOEL: Ask him! [laughter]
JOEL: Hindi ko naman alam na mali ‘yung bilang ko e.
RICHIE: And he’s the banker!
YAGI: [turning serious] Para maiba ng kaunti. We try to make our music interesting.
How did you achieve Conflagration’s level of unity?
ALLAN: Some of the songs in the album came from way back.
YAGI: Nagsimula sa music, tapos nagka-hiatus kami ng ilang months. It took a long time for everything to happen. Gawa na yung most of the songs, around 70 percent, noong nagsimula kami sa album. Tapos nagbato na ako ng tema, may kinalaman sa fire lahat. I also took some ideas from the cover, kasi naunang matapos. So lahat nag-grow from each other.
GARON: And it was a good thing we took time releasing the album, kasi nahinog ‘yung material.
How do you map out the band’s sound?
ERIC: It comes mostly out of everybody’s influences.
YAGI: We’re all fans of each other. Parang, ‘Astig yan a, buuin natin yan’. Everybody tries to contribute something.
What’s the status of Conflagration?
ERIC: We first pressed 500 copies. We sold around 70 or 80, around that much. Then we decided to put it out with Tower Records. We sold another 60 copies. Now it’s going on nationwide distribution under Tower of Doom and Galaxy Records, so pinull-out muna namin yung mga copies.
YAGI: Oo, panibagong push uli.
I remember you guys telling the audience at your album launch that you weren’t expecting that many people to show up.
ALLAN: We were all nervous. We had no idea how the launch would turn out.
ERIC: There were several times when we were arguing, ‘So, do we launch or not?’
JOEL: We were all really ecstatic with the launch’s outcome. None of us expected it would be that successful.
GARON: What I liked most was that I didn’t personally know most of the people there.
The album comes with a vid file of the song “Collapse.”
ERIC: That was shot on location at a farm in Canlubang Laguna.
YAGI: I got help conceptualizing the video from Odin Fernandez.
JOEL: We actually didn’t expect to get any airtime for it, so we decided to push the boundaries.
I went to Recto recently, and saw somebody buying a pirated copy of your album.
JOEL: Medyo bad trip, kasi bumababa ang sales nung CD. Pero ok lang din e, kasi exposure. So sa akin, ‘Thank you’ sa mga pirata.
YAGI: Ok kung burn lang para sa kaibigan, di maiiwasan yon. And we’ve taken advantage of that in the past, namimigay lang kami, ‘O sige burn ninyo, burn ninyo’. Pero bad trip na may kumikita sa pinaghirapan mo.”
RICHIE: We can’t do anything about the piracy problem because culture can’t keep up with the technology. Piracy has beaten 3 kinds of encryptions so far. I’d just like to break even with the production cost, ok na ako doon.
YAGI: It’s flattering, even though we’re on the losing end.
RICHIE: But piracy also weeds out certain kinds of artists. If you’re no good, you’re dead with piracy. We’re in it for the long run.
Can I assume that your ideal fan is one who is willing to shell out that same commitment, then?
Everyone nods.
YAGI: Yung mga nakaka-appreciate talaga. Yung pag-iisipan yung music.
Indeed. Back at the car-workshop gig, the crowd howls in good-natured protest as soon as Olaguera introduces the band’s last song. Cog gives in afterwards, and it is only during the encore that the members begin to mix it up. The audience responds, whooping louder as the song ends, screaming in jest for yet another encore. I look around as the band gathers their things. The people occupying the table to my left are clearly talking about the music they have just heard. They pair their words with motions that are quick, animated, clearly thrilled. The stage is empty by now, but the banter to my left goes on, as the people continue to work out Cog’s music, its little components, its ticking, whirring, startling sum.
Visit the band's MySpace page.
Currently taking his MA Literature in Filipino at Ateneo de Manila University, Paolo Enrico Melendez is a published fictionist, university instructor, and clueless music hack.
