[busy signaL]
[Friday, January 27, 2006]
jonat invited me to this year's cersa variety show at the ateneo. don't ask me what cersa is, or why they put on a show - i haven't faintest idea. most probably it's an org in need of funding, but i was in it for the music and company i hadn't shared in a long time. beyond that, they could've been a black market human organ cartel in need of harvest, so long as the chloroform kicked in after urbandub played.
although an veritable cornucopia of acts graced the stage as the night wore on, i cannot promise to account for all of them in this entry, as some of them were at the very least, unremarkable, and also due to a rather unusual turn of events that occured in the wee hours of the morning. i can promise, though, to do my best for those i can remember:
i. rivermaya
i found it disappointing for a band of a supposed international caliber to take more time in setting up than in the actual song output. i'd assumed that the use of roadies [a thing which i myself will be reluctant to turn to] meant to streamline the tuning process, not lengthen it. one wonders why endless arpeggios need to be played to ascertain perfect pitch when one run of the blue danube's opening lines is just as effective. or perhaps it was an elaborate stall to cover for rico blanco, who was, as expected, quite fashionable, if you catch my drift. disappointing yes, but not at all unexpected.
ii. cambio
i was rather excited about finally seeing my bass god buddy zabala up close and personal, but as i was watching from the second floor, i wasn't able to see much of anything after all. neither close nor personal, sadly.
iii. the brownbeat all-stars
although this band has certainly garnered quite a following for themselves [if lampungan is to be taken any measure of their musical capabilities, and i'm sure that it is], i hardly expected them to have among their ranks a left-handed bass prodigy who plays a right-handed instrument. upside-down. in a completely-buttoned up long-sleeved sweatshirt. with eyes closed.
yowza!
iv. the ambassadors
there is certainly something to be said for a band that has the audacity to introduce itself with "maayong gabi sa inyong atanan, kami po ang cuéshe." i still don't know what that something is, but i like it.
v. pupil
just as raimund has hurled himself into the jungles of electronica, ely buendia has also embarked on a safari of his own, in an opposite, yet similarly hazardous, direction. this new genre he is undertaking [briefly seen in such 'hits' as wanted bedspacer] is doing wonders for his career, similar to the manner by which child molestation restored michael jackson to the level of fame his alleged vitiligo brought him.
vi. urbandub
edit: more than a year later, i still cannot find the words to describe their set. not surprisingly, it has been paralleled only once.
vii. protein shake
i had never expected to see this band again, but it would seem that their bassist's charisma was enough to give their career a rather significant boost. and yet unfortunately for them, a slight lapse in judgment served to mar their performance quite noticeably - when one agrees to perform onstage, one must always, always remember never to go on after the main act. thus, an audience of over 500 people quickly dwindled to three girlfriends even before their first chord was struck. that, my friends, is a level of musical hell only cueshé deserves.
by the time we made it back to the dorm, it was past one. jonat insisted that before i even considered sleep, i should participate in one of his acquired college rituals, since my visit was a rare occasion. i will spare you the details of how one prepares for moments of artificial enlightenment, instead skipping ahead to that period where jonat began to consider himself physically able to turn cartwheels across the room.
by that time, i had began to think of the substance as highly overrated, considering that the totality of my "otherworldly" experience was an intense desire to sleep, which you can surmise had nothing to do with anything i had ingested. i figured that it would have been rude [or perhaps negligent] to just turn in, considering that jonat was still running around, so i decided to watch some tv to wait his trip out. as luck would have it, animal planet was showing a special on the painted dogs of africa.
"painted dogs are no stranger to the unforgiving desert, and the runt of the litter will almost certainly live no longer than a few days," the narrator explained, while an hours-old pup limped across the screen. the animal's situation was evidently compounded by the fact that it had to compete with its more robust siblings for milk, and soon its movements were limited to a ragged gasp once every few seconds. "in its final moments, the cub is surrounded by others in the litter, who will witness death for the first, but definitely not the last, time."
how cute, i thought, as the other cubs started to nose and lick their dying brother. i was thinking of it as possible evidence for filial loyalty in the animal kingdom, when the narrator interrupted my thoughts with a curt "it is not uncommon for cannibalism to occur among newborn painted dogs". i had only a few seconds to process this new information before a rather familiar scene played out on-screen.
needless to say, the sight of internal organs being ripped out and thoroughly chewed was somewhat upsetting, so much so, in fact, that whatever qualms i had about turning in had started to seem argumentatively weak. my next coherent thought was understandably only a few hours ago: belatedly telling jonat that he had missed a turn driving me home. we ended up on a rather short side road with a prominent and lopsided speed bump, which jonat insisted on traversing multiple times [afterwards christened my humps]. that was unfortunately the peak of our collective coherence; as with all humps, things dropped off soon after.
sige ingat.ü
posted by stani at 10:02 PM
although an veritable cornucopia of acts graced the stage as the night wore on, i cannot promise to account for all of them in this entry, as some of them were at the very least, unremarkable, and also due to a rather unusual turn of events that occured in the wee hours of the morning. i can promise, though, to do my best for those i can remember:
i. rivermaya
i found it disappointing for a band of a supposed international caliber to take more time in setting up than in the actual song output. i'd assumed that the use of roadies [a thing which i myself will be reluctant to turn to] meant to streamline the tuning process, not lengthen it. one wonders why endless arpeggios need to be played to ascertain perfect pitch when one run of the blue danube's opening lines is just as effective. or perhaps it was an elaborate stall to cover for rico blanco, who was, as expected, quite fashionable, if you catch my drift. disappointing yes, but not at all unexpected.
ii. cambio
i was rather excited about finally seeing my bass god buddy zabala up close and personal, but as i was watching from the second floor, i wasn't able to see much of anything after all. neither close nor personal, sadly.
iii. the brownbeat all-stars
although this band has certainly garnered quite a following for themselves [if lampungan is to be taken any measure of their musical capabilities, and i'm sure that it is], i hardly expected them to have among their ranks a left-handed bass prodigy who plays a right-handed instrument. upside-down. in a completely-buttoned up long-sleeved sweatshirt. with eyes closed.
yowza!
iv. the ambassadors
there is certainly something to be said for a band that has the audacity to introduce itself with "maayong gabi sa inyong atanan, kami po ang cuéshe." i still don't know what that something is, but i like it.
v. pupil
just as raimund has hurled himself into the jungles of electronica, ely buendia has also embarked on a safari of his own, in an opposite, yet similarly hazardous, direction. this new genre he is undertaking [briefly seen in such 'hits' as wanted bedspacer] is doing wonders for his career, similar to the manner by which child molestation restored michael jackson to the level of fame his alleged vitiligo brought him.
vi. urbandub
edit: more than a year later, i still cannot find the words to describe their set. not surprisingly, it has been paralleled only once.
vii. protein shake
i had never expected to see this band again, but it would seem that their bassist's charisma was enough to give their career a rather significant boost. and yet unfortunately for them, a slight lapse in judgment served to mar their performance quite noticeably - when one agrees to perform onstage, one must always, always remember never to go on after the main act. thus, an audience of over 500 people quickly dwindled to three girlfriends even before their first chord was struck. that, my friends, is a level of musical hell only cueshé deserves.
by the time we made it back to the dorm, it was past one. jonat insisted that before i even considered sleep, i should participate in one of his acquired college rituals, since my visit was a rare occasion. i will spare you the details of how one prepares for moments of artificial enlightenment, instead skipping ahead to that period where jonat began to consider himself physically able to turn cartwheels across the room.
by that time, i had began to think of the substance as highly overrated, considering that the totality of my "otherworldly" experience was an intense desire to sleep, which you can surmise had nothing to do with anything i had ingested. i figured that it would have been rude [or perhaps negligent] to just turn in, considering that jonat was still running around, so i decided to watch some tv to wait his trip out. as luck would have it, animal planet was showing a special on the painted dogs of africa.
"painted dogs are no stranger to the unforgiving desert, and the runt of the litter will almost certainly live no longer than a few days," the narrator explained, while an hours-old pup limped across the screen. the animal's situation was evidently compounded by the fact that it had to compete with its more robust siblings for milk, and soon its movements were limited to a ragged gasp once every few seconds. "in its final moments, the cub is surrounded by others in the litter, who will witness death for the first, but definitely not the last, time."
how cute, i thought, as the other cubs started to nose and lick their dying brother. i was thinking of it as possible evidence for filial loyalty in the animal kingdom, when the narrator interrupted my thoughts with a curt "it is not uncommon for cannibalism to occur among newborn painted dogs". i had only a few seconds to process this new information before a rather familiar scene played out on-screen.
needless to say, the sight of internal organs being ripped out and thoroughly chewed was somewhat upsetting, so much so, in fact, that whatever qualms i had about turning in had started to seem argumentatively weak. my next coherent thought was understandably only a few hours ago: belatedly telling jonat that he had missed a turn driving me home. we ended up on a rather short side road with a prominent and lopsided speed bump, which jonat insisted on traversing multiple times [afterwards christened my humps]. that was unfortunately the peak of our collective coherence; as with all humps, things dropped off soon after.
sige ingat.ü
posted by stani at 10:02 PM