Thinking....

Mmmmm, are you still there? Yes, you!...how the frack have you been? (a little Battlestar Galactica profanity there...er, blame the TV coz the show is on while I'm typing this...now, you Trekkies and Jedis and Wookies don't get mad, and I'll try to squeeze a phrase from your sci-fi show in future posts!!). Anyways, after months of lazy, uninspired, blank stares on the computer screen, contemplating, thinking of what I'll do with this blog, I decided to write some stuff here (I--am--really--trying----again!)...It becomes too much work and crazy sometimes when you're updating two or three sites, I guess, and one can alway say, i'll do this later, mmm, tomorrow maybe...then tomorrow turns to a day, several days, and then it turns to weeks, months. Well, at least its not years, right?

Well, I'll give myself a bit of a push, kick myself in the bum or something (if that is physically possible!)...maybe I'll put in one or two posts before the month ends...and we'll see where it goes from there. Some pretty interesting music coming out of the motherland nowadays...well, not that it ever disappeared...but as a music fan and collector, you just have to get your hands a wee bit dirty and dig a little deeper than what the radio, TV and CD stores want you to hear (and buy, ofcourse) in order to find some of the hidden gems...

...back from the Twilight Zone...

Ahhh...I guess, I just have to write-off the whole of November and December 2006...(except for that itsy bitsy one about the band, On Petals, which was from the former month). Hey, even part time bloggers are allowed to be, um, lazy, busy, lazy, indifferent, er, lazy, distracted, lazy,...okey let's just stick with lazy. There were too may unfinished ideas that never materialized so my apologies for that...but since I wasn't sure if anyone was reading the entries here, then I guess it's just like saying an apology to myself for being lazy...hahaha!

I really wanted to post a lot of alternative Christmas albums last December...but, oh...December was so 'yesterday', or should I say, um, so 'last year'! Hopefully, 2007 brings in new energy and new entries here...well, I guess we'll just have to see, and do it one day at a time. It seems like there has been a great deal of new OPM releases last year that warrants attention...but I'm not really concerned with the current, latest, trendiest, famous releases...so, you should still (eventually) see postings about a lot of classic stuff...indie, unreleased, commercial, old, major, new, never heard stuff, whathaveyous in future music entries.

Distant greetings across the ocean from a band called On Petals

Once in awhile an album comes out of nowhere and causes a bit of a buzz with online indiepop music fans. This album was "released" a few weeks ago...and a lot of people started asking questions about this band and where they came from. Is the band based in Manila, or somewhere in Asia or in North America? Anyway, before anything else, the band that I'm referring to is called On Petals and their album is called "Distant Greetings". I guess the individual members would have started their roots in Manila, then for a time, some of them were in Guam before eventually moving to the U.S. West Coast. The band was formed around late 2003 and now they are actually based in Stockton, California (just outside San Francisco).

Initial listen to the album (i.e. the first track, "Day Light Punch"), you would have thought of early 90s lo-fi indiepop ala Confetti or Tramway, or a thousand and one songs with girl-boy twee vocals and instrumentations but then you will notice the sneaky, cranking-up of the guitar on this song and this would slowly prepare you for the sound of the other tracks in the album. From the 2nd track onwards, the band would show that it wears its influences proudly on its sleeve and you can hear some great power pop moments here, not much in the 1970s Big Star or Badfinger era but in a more late 80s~early 90s Teenage Fanclub country or like lo-fi recordings of Yo La Tengo and The Lucksmiths or slow stripped down Jesus and Mary Chain.

The band combines distorted guitars, excellent harmonies and blissful kind of refrains on their songs and would start with an ever light mood and in a blink of an eye they'll just crank up the guitars and surround you in a wonderful wall of various textured music.

On Petals is made up of Christian Dasmarinas on vocals and guitars, Francis Samson on guitars and bass, Maria Redulfin on vocals and keyboards, Noel Dasmarinas on drums and guitars and Gaudy Glindro on bass. This Do-it-yourself 10 track album is the band's debut output and for this release they decided to put it out online...the whole album as a FREE Download...complete with matching CD artwork. Yes, Pepe, just go scroll down the page and click the links below...hurry, before it eventually disappears!

According to the band, aside from the obvious musical influences...they are also inspired by a lot of artists...from UK post-punk/New Wave bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure and New Order to American College radio heroes like Sonic Youth, Matthew Sweet and Ben Kweller, to OPM heroes Eraserheads and 60s bands The Beatles and Velvet Underground and ofcourse, indiepop bands like Belle and Sebastian, (90s Guam Indiepop band) Lampas Landay, Apple Orchard and Sodajerk!

The band is already hard at work on their second album which they said would be released (hopefully) by early or mid 2007. Aside from this online release, I'm not too sure how many albums they actually printed and if they will be selling the CDs too...So if you like what you hear and you want to get more info on how to own the real deal, a physical CD album of "Distant Greetings" or to email your comments or just to say hello to them, then just click here to contact the band!

One more message from the band to anyone who will lend an ear...
"We're a bunch of rice-eating, coffee made, filipinos. thanks for listening!"



On Petals - Distant Greetings
(CD/Self-Released / Lotek Records Lotek003/2006/US)

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1. Daylight Punch (MySpace audio)
2. Lovewave Holiday
3. Tenola Art Show
4. XB.102 (MySpace audio)
5. Fastfood Trivia
6. Love Domestic
7. Atrolotek Melodrama
8. Toaster Minutes (MySpace audio)
9. Transport Fairywell
10. Fastfood Trivia (Alt.Ver.)

To Download the whole album and artwork click HERE!

Cover Kuber Cober Kuver CoversDayToday!!! Part 5

Ahhh...How time flies, it feels like it was only yesterday that I was watching this band perform live in Club Dredd or in Mayric's or in the occasional University and College venues around Manila. Anyway, this month's covers posting is a cover of a 10,000 Maniacs song...as performed by the amazing band, Color It Red way back in the year 1991. The band have had it's fair share of revolving members throughout their 17 year existence but from 1989 up to early 1992 the original line-up of the band were Cooky Chua (vocals), Barbi Cristi (rhythm guitars), Maricar Florendo (keyboards), Hank Palenzuela (Bass), Edison Jovellanos (drums), Mike Villegas (lead guitars). This makes this cover song a more enjoyable listening experience since this will be one of the few times that you can actually hear the band's original members playing live and you can hear Color It Red's tight and powerful music. I'm pretty sure there are still a lot of untapped, undiscovered bootleg tapes of demos and live materials somewhere.....most likely with their old management, friends or old band members....but I really doubt it if they'll ever re-surface for music fans to hear...by the way...listen closely at the end of the track and you'll hear CIR's current keyboardist, Sam Salazar, shouting out a song request...anyways, enjoy it...while it's still there...


Color It Red - What's The Matter Here?
(10,000 Maniacs Cover)(streaming audio)
- Live, November 1991

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Were you first in line?.....Remembering the first (or was it the second?) single of After Image

After Image came into the Manila music scene around the late 80s but they actually released their debut album around 1992. Aside from the new wave and rock covers that they played in their gigs like Bolshoi's "A Way", U2's "With or Without You" Or "Pride (in The Name Of Love)", REM's "The One I Love", The Chameleon's "Tears" even GNR's "Sweet Child Of Mine" they also played a whole bunch of original songs. One of these songs called "Next in Line" was eventually released as their first commercial single under Dyna Records. A fan favourite in their live repertoire, sometimes you can even hear an occasional version of this song with a full band setting (Yes!...with drums and loud guitars and not much synthesizers...) with matching segue into "Baba O'Reilly" or "Love Will Tear Us Apart". I also remember that radio station 99.5 RT was always playing a very early demo-sounding version of this song that was really great, mind you this was a few years before any official release from the band. The song arrangement was totally different than the commercially released single.


Aside from "Next In Line", before the hullabaloo of major label life came to the band, they were also known for playing a great, highly addictive, fast original song which, before the onset of the 90s and if there was an alternate reality or world, this would have been the band's very first single. This song was called "Let It Go". A song made with the band's original guitarist named Francis Reyes aka Francis Brew aka The Dawn's main guitarist. This song also had a lot of airplay in the radio in the late 80s and was also a fan favourite when they have their concerts. Unfortunately with the parting of the guitarist and the band due to their own reasons (band infighting or not, I don't really care much about the politics and rivalries among band members!)....all the originals were also dissolved, so songs like "Let It Go", "Dogs", "Stay/I Wanna Live"(?), etc. was scrapped and shelved into the forgotten songs bin. "Let It Go" still remains as one of my peborit After Image song...it had just the right mixture of everything that the band can offer at that time...one amazing and brilliant Pinoy p!o!p! moment!



After Image - Next In Line
(7" single/1992 /1 track Promotional Copy
/ Dypro-Dyna Records/PH)

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After Image - Let It Go (streaming audio)
(unreleased / 1988-1989)

Cover Kuber Cober Kuver CoversDayToday!!! Part 4

Here's another CoversDayToday for this month...blame the batteries on my lazy watch for the delayed posting (again!) or the occasional lazy~bug~flu or something, hahaha!

Anyways, The Mongols were comprised of members of The Eraserheads and Teeth...so it was great to hear them cover an old song by Teeth with Ely Buendia on vocals! I heard a rumour that they recently covered "Laklak" also in one of their live gigs! Mmmmm, that'll be a great bootleged song to hear if anyone bothered to tape it!

Anyways, here's an old live radio session from The Mongols...enjoy!

The Mongols - Shooting Star
(Teeth Cover)
-from a live radio session

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Get your music fix from The Sleepyheads' debut!!

It's 2006 and this is the long awaited debut album of The Sleepyheads called "(Don’t let our) Tuneless Moaning (go to waste)". Wow, to start off this CD with a song called "Addiction" and then finding yourself getting hooked on the whole album's music is just pure poetry. Most of the 14 tracks in this disc (except for 2) only clocks in at just over 2 minutes long, some even less! Most of the songs can definitely be tagged as classic, brilliant three minute pop songs -- short, perfect, melodic, to the point, fun and snappy would-be hits!

The Sleepyheads formed around the year 2000. From a quartet to a tight-sounding trio, they have had their share of revolving personnel, but that's another story. The current members on this release is Jayvee Del Rosario (drums and vocals), Marvin Justo (guitars) and Erick Encinares (bass/organ/backing vocals). Tomas Jalina played guitars on two tracks, "Mystery Plunker" and "Monotone Melody". Having released an EP or two plus some occasional track in some compilations, they opted to go the DIY~way and independently self produced their debut album which is limited to 500 copies, as of today's date there are less than 100 CDs left (!)....so go hunt down a copy for your collection! Check their My Space Site here.

This is a video of the band playing live...the sound is a bit low so TURN IT UP...AND PLAY LOUD! Thanks to the band for posting and sharing this!
The band's main influences are Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground with a combination of 60s and 80s lo-fi pop sensibilities. They traded the extended solo-riffs, the wah-wah pedals and the fuzzboxes for honest to goodness, straight up rock and roll with just the right combination of snap, pop and crackle drum beats, boom-boom bass parts and strummy, jingle jangle guitar parts, brilliant monotone vocals and their occasional use of their organ (er, no pun intended!). In short, just think of their words of wisdom -- "Ethnic Faces Rock And Roll!" -- Pure underdogs of our current musical sunshine BUT definitely Purveyors of great music!



The Sleepyheads
(Don't Let Our) Tuneless Moaning (Go to Waste)
(CD / 2006 / Independently released / PH)

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1. Addiction
2. Can't Go To Church
3. Dead Poet
4. Excitement Calls
5. I'm Not Good Enough (Listen in MySpace)
6. Janitor Fate
7. The Man Who Wasn't There (scroll up
& watch the video)
8. Monotone Melody
9. Mystery Plucker
10. Nature (Love Is Like)
11. Positive For Negative (Listen in MySpace)
12. Rescued
13. Tuneless Moaning
14. Underdogs of Sunshine