January 31st, 2007

Peryodiko Table

• By : paochec

January 30th, 2007

Brand New Kitchie

• By :

Photo by Mari Arquiza, from kitchienadal.net. Those who are curious about Kitchie Nadal’s upcoming second album — due out this March — can check out the new single, “Buwan,” at kitchienadal.net. (You’ll need Flash installed to hear it, I think.) It’s very interesting, especially since it isn’t in the anthemic/senti mode of some of her earlier hits. In fact, it’s pretty laid-back, and low-key. The instrumental backing may come as a surprise too. It reminds me of an interview I conducted with her about three years ago, when she said that she was looking for more “distinctively Filipino” modes of music. It’s not Kontra-Gapi, but it’s not what you might expect, either. Worth checking out.

January 29th, 2007

my favorite U2 song is Mysterious Ways

• By : paochec

Nobody chose “Mysterious Ways” as their favorite U2 song, it’s mostly “Pride (In The Name of Love)” and some voted “All I Want Is You,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Elevation” and “With Or Without You.” Of course, what was important was they were able to explain their favorite songs well and I do like our choices for the winners of the U2 contest, don’t you? Funny though, right now, I’m trying to write a blog entry about why “Mysterious Ways” is my favorite U2 song of all time and I can’t come up with a decent answer, much less an eloquent one worthy of winning a contest. So far I have this list: 1. It rocks 2. I like to imagine that the “She” in the song is me 3. I love this song Haha, my days as a writer are numbered!!! :O Seriously though, I’ve stumbled on similar tasks of writing about bands or musicians or songs or albums that I adore precisely because all I could think about was how much I loved them/it so much that it could be summed up in those words: I love this band/singer/song/album. There is such a thing as having too much feeling and being at a complete loss of words. Luckily, that doesn’t happen everyday, hehe.

January 26th, 2007

WIDE AWAKE AND DREAMING: WAKE UP YOUR SEATMATE’S “PANAGINIP” VIDEO

• By : Luis Katigbak

Last last Saturday, on January 13, young all-girl rock band Wake Up Your Seatmate launched the music video for their latest single, “Panaginip,” at Gweilo’s Eastwood. Directed by Mihk Vergara, the video was described by Erwin Romulo as having been influenced by George Lucas’ early sci-fi flick THX 1138. It stars bassist Patty Peralta, drummer Atchoo Ilagan, vocalist/rhythm guitarist Mia Tengco, and lead guitarist Celine Pineda as labcoat-wearing scientists monitoring and experimenting on a man in a white straitjacket suspended in an all-white room. It also features vintage computer equipment, drooling, nosebleeding, a romance angle, and a performance by the band. Read more…

January 25th, 2007

CHILLITEES’ TOP 10 MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF 2006

• By : Joelle Jacinto

Our Pulse Prime Artist of the Month had a very good year, though they did have both ups and downs. Here they list, in no particular order, the best and worst of 2006. 1. Uela Loses Her Phone (a.k.a. Jolog Soul at SM Mall of Asia) Uela Basco: Ano yun eh, naglalakad kami, na-late kami kasi dalawang car yung dala namin para hindi mahirap sa parking. Kay Jon, kasi, tutal naman mas malaki yung kaniya. [laughter] Ano ba yun? Revo. Ang sabay sabay doon, ang sabay sa car ni Jon, siya, ako, si Astro Jon atsaka si Paolo. Tapos, hiwalay si Dan, yung dalawang roadies niya atsaka si Andy [Aguirre, the band’s manager.] gayon, hindi kami same ng parking. Humiwalay kami. Na-late kami ng konti kasi nakita pa namin si Karen Davila. Jon Jose: Hindi kami maka-park, tapos nakita namin si Karen Davila tapos apparently hindi nila ma-start yung kotse nila, kailangan namin i-jumper from the Revo. So, papasok kami, hindi kami dapat doon magpa-park dahil bawal kami. Pero nakapasok kami dahil sa kanya. Read more…

January 24th, 2007

HALE

• By : paochec

With Twilight, the hit quartet behind “The Day You Said Goodnight” steps back a little, and—in Episode I slash Batman Begins slash The Godfather (Part II) prequel fashion—delivers the much-anticipated follow-up to their self-titled debut. Twilight, as we all know, is a kind of diffused illumination, the lull between sunset and the total opacity of nighttime. Curiously, in idiomatic language, it is a kind of death-knell—as in “the twilight of a man’s life”—the penultimate sweep of mortality’s wildly ticking clock. (Incidentally, talks of a hiatus are hovering above the four-piece, as they toy around with the idea of taking a breather after being in the not-so-calm eye of the pogi rock storm.) Fortunately, however, the death-knell definition does not hold water on the band’s sophomore outing, as Champ Lui-Pio and company masterfully shatter the pigeonhole—and maybe let the pigeon out, and maybe replace it with a sparrow, which are characteristically less upbeat than pigeons but are infinitely better singers. But I digress. Anyway, the band has not really mentioned anywhere that Twilight is a “prequel”; I just made that part up. I do not wish to mislead or confuse, but Hale’s second baby is the sound of a distant past, a distant past one can be proud of, one that warrants an extended visit—like shooting the breeze with a first love. Twilight reeks of the early Nineties, its light fighting dimness in an under-card match. I can hear some Gin Blossoms in here, and some Lemonheads, and—yes!—maybe a pinch of sweet, sweet Ash (“Girl from Mars” and “Lost in You,” off of 1977, probably). The signs are clear: Hale wishes to be taken seriously. In the opening track, “Last Song,” Lui-Pio promises that he’s “done with all these tears,” and that, “one day, I’ll fly so high above my feet,” which I don’t think is about substance abuse; I think the “high” the singer’s referring to is a creative one, and I say that with no dash of sarcasm whatsoever. “Fire in the Sky” is slightly more upbeat than standard Hale fare, but Champ’s championing of the insipid, unaffected vocal delivery is proving to be limited, or, at the very least, ineffective in some contexts. And speaking of insipid deliveries, though Twilight promises to be more musically adventurous than Hale, the band’s trademark melancholy is still evident on tracks like the strings-rich “Empty Tears, Empty Heart” and Lui-Pio’s solo acoustic-and-vocal performance on “Liham.” (Lui-Pio, it has to be said, is more earnest on any given day than, say, Cueshé’s Jay Justiniani or some such pogi rock idol.) The gems in Twilight teeter on the brink of genre-shattering, but the boys still manage to land on their feet somewhat. The most exciting among their pop singles is a toss-up between “Waltz” and “The Ballad of.” The former is exactly that (a waltz), while the latter is cut from the same cloth as Coldplay’s “Fix You,” starting off unforgivably tender and ending like a Howard Shore score. The grand revelation of Twilight, however, remains the songwriting of guitarist Roll Martinez, which reaches its apex in the Kid A-esque attempt “7, 8.” The sparse and subtly electronic arrangement of “Dahil sa ‘Yo sa Himig ng Aking Gitara” is also of high note. Now, the question is, how will they do these songs live? Hmmm.

January 24th, 2007

SAX IN THE CITY: GUIJO JAZZ NIGHT AND THE MANY FLAVORS OF JAZZ

• By : paochec

“I hope there aren’t any jazz snobs here…” Francis Reyes said tentatively, just before Garlic started their set at Guijo Jazz Night last Thursday, er, night at, er, SaGuijo. The nice thing about Jazz Night is that it acknowledges that jazz is a fluid genre, and invites acts that wander toward hip-hop and R&B, funk and blues, and — oh, I already wrote that article. Last Thursday night’s line-up featured GJN first-timers Saxophoro, made up of five sax players and yeah, that’s the whole band, and Garlic, that experimental trio made up of Francis Reyes, Louie Talan and Zach Lucero. Garlic’s last gig was two years ago. They’ve only had 12 gigs so far, and they’ve been active off and on for around nine years. You can say watching them play live is a momentous occasion. Meanwhile, Saxophoro’s been around officially since 2003, though the idea for it had been brewing since 2000. They’re fun, like an acapella chamber choir but with saxophones instead of voices. The other two bands that played were the “usual suspects,” the staple bands of Jazz Night, Quail Quartet and Sound. Quail Quartet, who are called so whether there’s four or three or five of them playing, cover and improv on those Miles Davis/ Chick Corea/ Wayne Shorter jazz tunes. Sound, as most of you probably know, make you feel like everyday was Sunday. It was Sach Castillo’s birthday that night, so there were more people than usual and all were in high spirits, though the energy was sizzling as early as 9:30 when Quail opened the show with John Coltrane’s “Equinox.” The main guys in the band—keyboardist Nikki Cabardo, bassist Dave Harder and drummer Mikah Azurin—coaxed young Joey de Guzman of Saxophoro into joining their set, as their not-so-usual “frontmen”— guitarist Dolf and sax player Bradford Martinez—couldn’t make the gig for various reasons. When more relaxed (a stanza or two into the song), Joey was ably soloing and putting accents on the older musicians’ solos, showing that he was talented but must have been super stunned to be playing Coltrane so early in the evening. Dave, Nikki and Mikah were all in top form that night, solo-ing fabulously on all the songs, and their good vibes were infectious. Quail also played Miles Davis’ “All Blues,” Chick Corea’s “Windows,”Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower” and the standard “Stella By Starlight,” which they played with an upbeat tempo rather than the usual somberly romantic. Saxophoro’s set was made up of tunes arranged for four/five saxophones; notable was their beautiful arrangement of “The Nightingale Sang on Barkley Square,” which bandleader Mike Guevarra disclaimed as “Romantic… Corny, no?” Also memorable was this tune that Mike would dance to while not playing, and their version of “Bahay Kubo,” which they are slated to play at the Java Jazz Fest in March. Besides Joey, and alto and tenor sax player Paul Tadeo, their “bassist” is a tiny, pretty girl named Roxy Modesto, who wields a HUGE baritone saxophone. They try to gig as much as they can now that they’re more or less a stable band, with a pretty fun repertoire. They pretty much surprised everyone in the near vicinity of Guijo and got us all cheering and laughing throughout their set. I can’t wait to see them again. Sound is always fun, but it was my first time to see them with their brand new bassist, Niño Avenido, and it was a whole new experience watching Niño dance and sing along to the songs, as if he were more part of the audience than the band, though of course, it’s hard not to see how well he seems to have adjusted into Sound’s, well, sound. Sub drummer Dru Ubaldo (from Whatevuritakes), who’s been looking more relaxed playing with Sound on their last few gigs, appeared especially frantic again Thursday night, perhaps because Sound’s regular drummer, Paolo Lim, was back from his vacation and watching in the audience. I especially enjoyed “Let’s Get It Back,” the almost purely instrumental piece where Sach sings, “Doot-do doo-root do-root do do…” at the start of each measure. It’s one of those songs that’s just really great to watch when everybody ups their game because the vibe is good. Seemed like good vibes were on everybody’s checklist that night. Garlic’s three epic songs were a fitting conclusion to Jazz Night. As Kiko puts it, “We’re going to play the kind of music that will accompany you home.” Um, yeah, I’m not really sure what he meant by that, so I’ll leave it open to interpretation. As I was saying, it was a fitting conclusion because from old school jazz to rearranged standards and a jazzified Pinoy folk song to acid jazz to the kind of experimental music that covers jazz, rock, blues and the avant garde (“Mamang guard daw yung tugtog natin,” Kiko told Zach and Louie after the gig), it was a good showing of how jazz branches out, evolves and develops. Much like how good music does, which is what Guijo Jazz Night is about in the first place. Photo by Niña Sandejas. Guijo Jazz Night usually happens every first Thursday of the month—well, except for this month. Oh, and the next month, too. Next show’s scheduled for February 8, and it will feature Sound, Chillitees, Saxoforo (tentatively) and Quail Quartet. Check out SaGuijo online.

January 23rd, 2007

I don’t fucking believe it.

• By : paochec

Yep. I don’t fucking believe it. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen? AMEN.

January 19th, 2007

there are jologs in Singapore

• By : paochec

Well, not jologs- jologs, plus they’re neither Pinoy nor Singaporean. They’re a bunch of wild sweaty hardcore fans wearing all black, moshing at the jampacked Muse concert a couple of days ago. They look very Pinoy but they’re actually Malay fans from Kuala Lumpur who probably trekked over to Singapore just to see Muse and mosh to “Super Massive Black Hole,” I am SOOOO envious. Then again, Francis Reyes and Niña Sandejas, who were there to interview the band, were in that pit and were convincing me I wouldn’t be so envious after all. Um, they got to see Matthew Bellamy walk by and they’re trying to convince me not to be envious. Yes, something’s wrong there. Well, of course, maybe I wouldn’t have liked that part of the experience so much, the mosh pit, I mean, but they did tell me that at least these moshers were protective about getting you to safety when you squealed “Could I please get out of here?” (hehe, did you just have a visual image of Francis doing the squealing? Hehe, me too, though sadly, we’re both wrong). Don’t you wish our own jologs were the same? I forgot to ask how these KL moshers smelled, because I was distracted by news of a Muse concert in Hong Kong in March. Hmmm. That sounds like the kind of thing I should cover for Pulse, yes… Ah, I just can’t wait till we go global. Speaking of Muse, we’re uploading a Best Albums of 2006 on List-O-Mania today, that is, if you haven’t seen it yet. Muse is on it, yeah yeah yeah. *dance*

January 19th, 2007

THE PULSE.PH TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2006

• By : Joelle Jacinto, Luis Katigbak

This list took a little longer than we expected: that’s because we listened and re-listened to all of these releases and subjected them to rigorous scientific experiments involving Chladni patterns, a particle accelerator, and several well-trained (and now unfortunately permanently deafened) white mice, until we were sure that they really were, without a doubt, the Top 10 Albums of 2006. Okay, that’s not exactly true. The fact is, Luis is a somewhat slow and very easily distracted writer. Still, we stand by this roster of excellence. Once again, it must be pointed out that it wasn’t physically possible for us to listen to everythingthat was released, so these are our choices from the many, many albums we did get to experience. We decided not to include any albums that weren’t actually made available in record stores here, hence the absence of any number of undoubtedly brilliant foreign acts (to local distributors: hint hint!). Read more…