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I know this is a couple of days late, but I believe I have never mentioned to anyone on this blog that I’d love to go to Istanbul someday.   My curiosity was piqued when Kaye gave me a promotional music CD for a hotel in Istanbul.  It’s a full album featuring different Turkish artists, and although still bordering on the electronica, it wasn’t the Trance Eurasia music I had expected were proponents of their country’s scene.  The Music was more diverse than I expected. The Point Hotel’s album collection is aptly titled, “Sweet Dreams”, like you could dream about a very culturally sacrosanct Byzantine Turkey while you’re in Modern Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). I am very in love with the track entitled, “Pink Wings”, which sports undertones of the Islamic beat combined with ethereal vocals.

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Point Hotel - Pink Wings [Download]

Again, Eid’l Fet’r.

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Rainy days and Mondays

The Carpenters is by far the most articulate pop band of their time when it comes to love melancholy.  People who grow up to their songs will not wonder why the story of these two siblings is as tragic as, say, their song Aurora.

Yesterday, I felt rain on my head.  Walking through a crowded place, everyone is bustling, running for cover, scrounging for a ride home.

Yet I moved through the noisy crowd like the film and music was slow and sad. Like Karen Carpenter cooed at my ear with her cold voice.  I have always wondered why the rain was such a sad occasion on most literary references.

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Scarlett Johansson - Falling Down [Download] [Lyrics]

Oh, and by the way Scarlett Johansson can sing.

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Andrew told me that I could write anything I want on this blog, ANYTHING I was passionate about to write. If you know me personally, it’s hard to tell what field I belong to.  That is because I’ve been all over the place and am practically interested in EVERYTHING.

A few months ago, I took the bold step of turning this blog into everything I was interested in.  And now it’s turn out to be an “anything goes” kind of blog.  But I haven’t done it any justice by waiting for its 2D walls to grow cobwebs.  WELL. That’s always been my bane.  Being too busy living life to write about it.  I even missed writing about the very eventful Kadayawan, but if I released anything at this point, I suppose it’s like stale cheese.  Which is worse than the smell of freshly fermented cheese…you get my point.

So, it’s back to basics for me and that’s the fact that I love music.

Did I tell you that I love music?

The other day, I was just thinking about it when I finally reunited with my lovely guitar after TWO YEARS. That’s a fairly long time to be away from an object you held on to practically everyday.  Imagine you lost your phone and found it two years later: that’s how I felt.  

See, when I left Manila two summers ago, someone (who I had kindly sought favor to load my things at the back of the car while I prepared for my trip to the airport) forgot to load my guitar (among other valuable electronic gadgets, irritatingly so).  So by the time I got to the airport, I was cities away from my lovely wooden thing.

A few days ago, I got in touch with my cousin who I haven’t seen for the same number of years and found out that she took the liberty of taking MY guitar with her to Davao.  I just love her, she is definitely the best. That’s why I forgive her for the pink heart-shaped butingting that she pasted on my guitar’s pick guard, it’s alright by me. Even though I would never have approved of it to begin with.  Never mind, we can easily arrange its…removal.

What got me thinking even more while I was finally strumming the thing was how hard it is for a musician to love music without an instrument.  Or to REALLY love music without being able to play anything.  I know you’re all sick of my metaphors, but here’s another one:  It’s like, you can’t really appreciate sex until you’ve done it, in my humble opinion.

I finally get to play a song I’ve been dying to play myself which is Joy Division’s monumental single, “Love will tear us apart”.  For this post, I won’t have you listen to how I played it.  Instead, check out this superb cover from Jose Gonzales (who also made an equally superb rendition of Heartbeats by The Knife as well as Teardrop by Massive Attack).  For me, it’s always a joy to listen to guitar players and hear them sing to the songs that they play.

What more if I was THAT guitar player.

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Jose Gonzales - Love will tear us apart (Joy Division cover) [Download]  [Lyrics]

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Photo courtesy of http://morofilm.blogspot.com

My friend Jun Macarambon, who co-wrote “A step for my dream” had their film officially selected in this year’s Cinemalaya, inevitably the most prestigious film festival in the Philippines. I haven’t seen the film myself, but the fact that it made it to the festival should keep everyone’s heads up. It was directed by Monalayn Labado, also a Mindanawon. Hopefully, their producer Teng Mangansakan II, also a documentary filmmaker from Mindanao, would allow to screen the said film for this upcoming Mindanao Film Festival for everyone to see. Lately, the influx of critical Mindanao filmmakers shaking the national and international scene have grown since, perhaps, Lav Diaz. Other films to watchout for that are made by a Mindanao filmmaker include Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s film (director of Huling Balyan ng Buhi) “Imburnal”, which was recently shot in some parts of Bankerohan and Dumalag. It is an entry for this year’s Cinema One Originals. Also, an advocacy film was recently made entitled, “Hunghong sa yuta” which has already run on local cinemas. Noticeably, most of our fresh breed of filmmakers have done stories on Mindanao, treating these stories with a fair sense of what Mindanao truly feels like.

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Nerdy e-mail about Indie cup of tea

I haven’t written anything like this in a loooooooooooooooooooooong time.

***

Hey Dennis,

Nice to hear from you again. Haha, I’m guilty of not revisiting you on the music marketing for your bar, I’ve been unreasonably busy. But when I talked to Rocky I actually appreciated some of his choices, and I’ve discovered something new from him too (which is something vintage i.e. 80’s German/Euro Electro-clash-pop). And speaking of Electro-clash-pop and depending genres, I’m really in to it since two or three years ago when I discovered my most favorite Swede-band, who was on the rise then (The Knife) along with them guys from LCD Soundsystem who released their first album in 2005. Plus there’s Thom Yorke, who finally (as expected) made an all electro-album. (a) By the way on Thom Yorke going electro, he just had to go out of control SOLO because people were starting to blame him for Radiohead’s inadvertent shift from their trademark electric guitar rock band to the synthetic but very bop not-everyone-buys-it sound, (b) Radiohead’s new album is a personal favorite because they noticeably LESSENED Thom Yorke’s electronic ambitions in their band by letting him vent it all out on his own & (c) Best part about it, they haven’t broken up. ANYWAY, you don’t want to hear me wax poetic about it but they’re my staple tips to people lately.

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Hey just want to make a quick update in case any of you are interested. The independent gig schedules are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

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Why me? Hah, aside from being almost tongue-tied, in hind sight, I tend to think that there were several things I never got to say on my talk today because, you know, I really didn’t know what to say to begin with. Anyway, I thought my task was to identify the difference between being being an emo blogger from a niche blogger. But I guess I failed to mentioned, if I hadn’t implicitly said so already, that you can be an “emo blogger” without betraying your niche.

I used to go through the trouble of writing about my purely indulgent life - if that’s not redundant or what. I guess, part of why I deleted my “too personal” blog accounts, I figured out one day that I’m not so interested in myself anymore. If I want to talk about myself, it’s because I’m really interested in something.

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I’m currently under Rock Rehab - kind of my made up term for this period of time I’ve decided to lock myself away from all other types of music except of course, Rock. This involves hours worth of listening to Rock-only playlists with artists like Radiohead, The New Pornographers, The Decemberists, Wolfmother, Deftones, The Metric, Frank Zappa and the inescapable 70’s jangle rock of Steely Dan (mind you, this is just to name a few). I’ve come up with a pretty eclectic array of artist to be listened to probably up until the end of this month.

I guess at this point, you might be asking why?

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…to update. So I was going to do this whole rap about podcasting, however, had little time to finish the draft I’ve been working for two weeks already! I’m not getting anything done at the rate I’m going. It’s been a busy week in “real life” what with all my pre-final exams and the crazy lifestyle I’ve been keeping up with. Currently having a week-long gig at Madrazo compound and I’m just dying to get the beach at one point during the city festival.

So for the meantime, let me just say happy Araw ng Dabaw to you all! And show up at the blogger’s party tomorrow at Netfront 6-7pm-ish. I’ll take care of registration and I’ll make sure you get you’re free cookie. And you can get to shake my hand finally!

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I almost forgot to mention about this new bar that opened up at McArthur Highway (right next to the old Petron gas station and in front of Ateneo high). It’s called Moonstomp and the place is very Mayrics-ish. I swear, I have found my Ibiza! It’s owned by one of the coolest people you notice around Davao city, if you get out enough.

Last night, they had party punk acts and some electronica. The only band whose name I caught was the one my friend Pink was with, Gravity 404. Loved their set (or at least half of it, because that was all I caught up with). In any case, it’s actually peculiar that I suddenly had the urge to text Jaenor (this guy who has been asking me to session for their band, who I’ve never met in my life) to ask if the offer was still up. And the next day he replied and told me that it was still open. The weirder part is, he was actually in Moonstomp the night I was there and he was with the band I just mentioned. Whoohoo. So at least I know I’m with the right people. (Smiles.) Can’t wait for Wednesday’s jam session.

I really want to start a shoegazer band, but I don’t think anyone’s in to that here. Which reminds me, I miss my bandmates! One’s in Cebu, another’s in US, and then another’s in Manila. Come on, give me a break kids. Davao’s the place to be at this point. We ought to warm up on the scene here.

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