Tag Archives: OPM

kultura

No Junk In This Trunk*

Because there is plenty here that works: from the funky music to the fantastic lyrics, dramatic situations and imagery so vivid, emotions so raw it can only be yours.

I knew it when I heard “Kapit Mahal” via Billy B.’s now-defunct UR radio show, but I know it even more now: that was no fluke. Top Junk released its indie debut last year, but I count it as one of my early 2011 finds, literally: I bought it at Route 196 as I bobbed my head to The Purplechickens’ Here’s Plan B gig of reminiscence. Yes, it was like being fresh out of college that night, but that’s stuff for another story. (more…)

kultura

Some wishin’ for original Pinoy music and musikero*

I’m a fan of original Pinoy music, always have been, and I grew with a Kuya who spent good money on cassette tapes of The Dawn and Neo Colours, Gary V. and Randy Santiago, Ogie Alcasid and Francis Magalona. I was enamoured with Smokey Mountain, loved “Ryan Ryan Musikahan,” and thought the world of Ryan Cayabyab. When Kuya left for Holland, he’d come home to buy every local CD he could get, rip them and leave most of them with me, and here I found that I owe it to Kuya really this breadth and scope of music that I have the capacity to appreciate, and the value given to talent: he’d buy these acoustic CDs and his appreciation would be contagious – hello, Nyoy Volante and Christian Bautista. And more recently Julianne. Of course on this recent visit we listened to Cathy Go’s CD until I memorized it, and we were still on listening to Peryodiko, as we did Gloc-9’s MKNM.

But also there is my Tatay, from da orig rakenrol of the 60s, with bands like Bawal Umihi Dito and Birth of the Cool (yeah), which Tita Mitch Valdes would affectionately call The Birds of the Cool. In one of the first stagings, if not the first one, of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1971 the Tatay played Pontius Pilate if I’m not mistaken Simon of Cyrene, with Boy Camara as Jesus.

In high school I would happen upon local rakenrol, and I mean the Juan dela Cruz band on cassette – Kuya wasn’t going to have any of that, and the Tatay would shake his head.

Meanwhile, in the past two decades or so, I’ve found that when it comes to culture in general, music in particular, I will give everything a chance. It’s a lot of money put out on local music and culture, but knowing the landscape, to me at least, is the only way to even talk about anything that is painfully complex and dangerously diverse. Here, some wishful thinking for Pinoy music, in memory of the kind of non-scholarly but absolutely grounded love for Pinoy cinema that was in the practice of Alexis Tioseco. (more…)

kultura

Notes on OPM: Lea & Anne, and the curse of celebrity

Because it was waiting to happen, wasn’t it, where the industry of show is finally called out for creating the monster of the talentless making money out of singing. Of course this isn’t new: many a-non-singer have signed record deals, and we’ve talked about them before. But what is different about Anne Curtis is not just that she is a non-singer, it’s that she can’t even carry a tune, and yet she’s got a CD and a sold-out Araneta Coliseum concert tucked under her belt.

It is the height of absurdity. But also it is a sign of the times for the industry of show and celebrity. It’s at a point worse than reality TV stars becoming celebrities – at least those we’ve proven just die their natural deaths, and the Kim Chius are as rare as they come. It’s worse than Paris Hilton doing a record – at least her record didn’t become a hit at all, and the bad singing isn’t happening on television everyday.

With Anne, this industry has proven that it can take someone who cannot sing to save her life, and make money out of the fact that she cannot sing. (more…)

kultura

cynthia and the narrative of leaving

which is to say there are many reasons for Cynthia Alexander’s leaving for Seattle. none of them is about the lack of support for her music in these shores. this short essay responds mostly to the Francis Brew piece, which painted a narrative that actually made it seem like Cynthia was upping and leaving, complaining and whining, about nation. all untrue. (more…)

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Kuya and OPM

this was previously published in Metakritiko when it was still cool and fearless (haha). and because i don’t like repeating myself, and we were brought up to not talk about ourselves, am posting it here as tribute to pinoy music on the one hand, birthday greeting on the other. for Kuya, without whom this blog (and therefore my writing) wouldn’t be possible, and who should really be writing more often, too. cheers!

Mix Tapes for the Story of Distance:
or OPM? Music that Binds

Mix Tape 1: Ode to Sibling-hood

When I was a kid, my liking for the local was judged as baduy by my Kuya who took to liking everything not Pinoy. We fought over the remote control on Sundays when I couldn’t get enough of GMA Supershow, and he wanted the rerun of any other foreign show or movie on Channel 9. I watched That’s Entertainment, day in day out, to Kuya’s raised eyebrows. Yes, the talentless lived there, and they were “watermelon singing!” Kuya said, exasperated. That is, they didn’t know the words to the songs they pre-recorded and so they just keet repeating the word “watermelon.”

And here, the songs that I love(d) from the height of baduy Origina Pilipino Music (OPM) in the mid-80s to early 90s, all of which I’ve got memorized like a know how to ride a bike, to Kuya’s distress/disgust/despair, of course.

Side A: The Baduy Collection

  1. I Love You Boy, Timmy Cruz
  2. Points of View, Pops Fernandez and Joey Albert
  3. I Remember the Boy, Joey Albert
  4. Mr. Kupido, Rachel Alejandro
  5. Kapag Tumibok ang Puso, Donna Cruz
  6. Mr. Dreamboy Sheryl Cruz
  7. I Like You, Geneva Cruz

And then the next thing we knew, we were in the same boat, of loving OPM, memorizing whole albums (cassette tapes, baybeh!) and even (yes! show our age!) the last of the 45 records. We also started loving Gary Valenciano (before the V.), but were wont to spend more on tickets for – or tried harder at finding free passes to – the foreign acts. Name it, we went to it, Vanilla Ice, (the fake)Milli Vanilli, Gloria Estefan. I would try and keep this tradition going and watched Metallica with my first boyfriend (bad idea, he hated that I failed to catch the fluggin’ guitar pick thrown my way); watched Earth Wind and Fire with my boy(best)friend and did think there could be some sweet love growing on a Saturday night.

But then, there was Kuya, and our growing collection of OPM that we both agreed weren’t baduy, anyone who said so, be damned.

Side B: The Compromise Collection

  1. Each Passing Night, Gary Valenciano
  2. Leaving Yesterday Behind, Keno
  3. Tatlong Beinte Singko, Dingdong Avanzado
  4. Nandito Ako, Ogie Alcasid
  5. Enveloped Ideas, The Dawn
  6. Mga Kababayan Ko, Francis M.
  7. Humanap Ka ng Panget, Andrew E.

Mix Tape 2: Distance(d)

And then Kuya left, just as I hit college and found my own kind of OPM in the Pinoy rakenrol and alternative music of the mid-90s and first decade of 2000. He would come home and visit, and find himself in record stores to buy CDs that I couldn’t bring myself to get: an acoustic album here, a live album there, of the most recent hitmaker, non-songwriter. Meanwhile I lent him bags filled with CDs: the Eraserheads, the new ones of FrancisM, some of the older ones he might not remember, or we didn’t have money to buy CDs of when we were younger.

And then there are times like the past two months, when we spend more time together than we have in the past 13 years that he’s been away, and we realize how we remain within the same sphere as far as taste is concerned: Jason Mraz, between the two of us, without knowing it. I give him Peryodiko and Sugarfree’s Mornings and Airports, the only two OPM albums on my laptop that traveled from Manila to Kuya’s home in Holland. He introduces me to Stephen Lynch, downloads the latest Natalie Merchant. And now in Manila, the conversations of our pasts, a reminiscence and presence of music, and yes it has been mostly OPM.

Side A: Past Forward

  1. Perfect, True Faith
  2. Paglisan, Color it Red
  3. Ang Huling El Bimbo, Eraserheads
  4. Kaleidoscope World, FrancisM
  5. Babalik Ka Rin, Gary Valenciano
  6. Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang, Ogie Alcasid

Side B: (Re-)Present!

  1. The Yes Yes Show, inuman session, feat. FrancisM, Parokya Ni Edgar
  2. Oka Tokat (with Humanap Ka ng Panget by Andrew E.), inuman session, feat. Jay of Kamikazee, Parokya Ni Edgar
  3. Eto Na Naman, original by Gary V., Sugarfree
  4. This Guy’s In Love With You Pare, Parokya Ni Edgar
  5. Agawan Base, Peryodiko
  6. Bakasyon, Peryodiko
  7. Dear Kuya, Sugarfree

And for the first time, we are going to gigs. It is the teenage life of having a Kuya that I didn’t have, the one where there’s always back-up at the same time that someone has my back. Quite a liberating thing, really. It would be silly to refuse OPM this reunion.