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Livin’ Rakenrol!

a version of this was published in the 2Byou section of The Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 22 2009.

You don’t know rock ‘n’ roll – or in Pinoy slang rakenrol – until you’ve lived it. No, I’m not talking about turning back time and living in the 60’s and 70’s. What I’m talking about is going through a day of only surprises, being made to imbibe the enterprise of letting go and letting be: rakenrol! as Pepe Smith has told us countless times.

At the Red Horse Beer Muziklaban Media Challenge, this was the one thing that rang true. Kicking off the 11th Muziklaban amateur rock band competition, the media challenge was an introduction to the new and improved project of RHB. Happening too early in the morning for media people (a 7AM calltime at the Ortigas San Miguel Building), the day began with the realization that we were all participants in an amazing race that would bring us all the way to SMC’s Management Training Center in Tagaytay. I couldn’t help but imagine eating some creature I would rather step on and kill in a heartbeat. (more…)

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Ded Na Si Lolo Lives!

There was something fulfilling about Ded na si Lolo, the second installment of the Sine Direk project of the Director’s Guild of the Philippines, Inc. (DGPI).  Written and directed by Soxie Topacio, it began by establishing the kind of noise and screaming – and melodrama – that is true for the majority of communities in this country, the kind that we rarely see truthfully represented on TV and the movies, for fear that it will give us a sense of our REAL conditions as a nation. (more…)

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Rico Blanco Soars

a version of this essay was published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 4 2009.

It took a while to get used to the sounds of Rico Blanco’s solo album Your Universe (Warner Music, 1998).  It didn’t help that the first song “Say Forever” begins with a distinct electronica sound, made even more disconcerting by Blanco employing what sounds like a British accent (I’m at the central stay-shun/Without a des-ti-nay-shan). It has everything that would make a non-fan move on to the next CD on their shelf.

And yet, this just might the biggest mistake one can make. As soon as the strains of the title song “Your Universe” begins, it’s easy to see why Blanco became the soul of Rivermaya in his last years with the band. He has the writing chops that can melt anyone’s heart, without being mushy or corny about it. In this title track, as with many of the love songs in this debut, Blanco employs a distinct kind of songwriting that’s reinvents the formula with a different vocabulary and perspective altogether. (more…)

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Fuschia fades

It was easy to fall for watching the movie Fuschia, directed by Joel Lamangan co-written by him and Ricky Lee. There was veteran actress Gloria Romero in the lead role, a really interesting title, and an even more interesting synopsis. More importantly, it is part of the Sine Direk project of the Director’s Guild of the Philippines, Inc. (DGPI), sold as a showcase of films created with unbridled freedom – no capitalist producers to consider.

But there’s more to good films than just a director’s freedom. In the case of Fuschia, it is about knowing when to stop. Unless of course the point is to befuddle the audience into confusion. (more…)

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Disparate Voices in Harmony

a version of this was published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer on 13 April 2009.

Over lunch, the foursome more famous as the AngFourgettables talks about their nickname, Charice Pempengco, Arnel Pineda, the all-OPM concert month, and everything else in between.

They haven’t disbanded, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact they insist on two things here: one, that all they’ve done is lie low as a group which allowed their individual careers to flourish, and two, that they’d really rather be called Ang4. Please drop the “gettables” and use the number four, if only to make them sound younger. (more…)