The Return of Pinoy Rock

Just came from a concert last night, one of the mini concerts which is the trend these days. IT was pretty boring , got there late as My friend and I had to play cupid for another friend. We were able to catch up to the last few songs of Urbandub and the whole set for Pupil. Frankly I dont think Pupil deserves to be the last band, everyone started to go home when they played , I dont blame them even if the singer of Pupil is Ely Buendia. Pupil only has 1 hit song and in my opinion the best one in their album, the rest is so so. They did sing Alapaap , so that was 2 good songs for them. Shows my age...Old School.

I think I went thru 3 resurfacing of pinoy rock. The way I figure it Pinoy rock is the life blood of OPM, every time or decade it peaks, the foreign songs in radio take a backseat. I also observed a pattern in how things come about.
Step 1. Underground bands comeabout (ex. 80's The Dawn, Identity Crisis 90's The Youth Yano, 00' Slapshock, Mojofly)
Step 2 Coverbands Comeout , probably to ready the general public(non Rockers) and give everybody the notion that "In ang mga Banda" (ex. 80's Neocolours, 90' Side A, 00's MYMP etc)
Step 3. Rise of the Bands . Underground clubs would start to comeout again, Indie Labels become active, it would be in for college kids to be in bands, and #Hits would be coming from Alternative Bands. 80's The Dawn ,Identity Crisis became crowd drawers, 90's AfterImage, Rizal Underground, The Youth, Yano, Color it Red, Eheads, Parokya Ni Edgar 00's Siccyclemind, sugarfree, parokya ni edgar, sandwich etc and since we are still in the step 3, more and more to come.

Of course there are bands which are still kickin ass till today and have crossedover the decades, those are the bands that crossed the 1hit, 1-album wonder category and are true rock legends. Those are the bands that have been accepted in mainstream and pop music yet are still respected in the rock arena. Pucha yon ang mga astig ang mga di nagsesell out.

I almost forgot Step 4.

Step 4. New music or foreign music starts to kick in and indie bands get too much exposure. A lot of 1 hit wonders starts to disappear, Alternative goes back to being alternative and retreats to underground status. Rockers cash in and some sell out to pop and commercials. Rocker Chicks nagigint tweetums, mga me itsurang vocalists na dati naka tshirt na butas butas naka triple patong na porma with matching jacket kahit mainet na. Parang Pormang Pang ASAP. Then everything just goes into another cycle . Time again to ripen the other bands to sprouting from the underground scene.

Went Old School Trippin last week. I went with some good friends of mine to Saguijo. Told some of my younger friends that we should go to catch Imago , Orange and Lemmons, and Sandwich. Pero sa totoo ang number one na pinunta namin is AfterImage. Eh how cool ba naman ang setup.. a bands super popular during the 90's , kinakanta pa sa simbahan ang Habang may Buhay non, tapos nagbreakup...then suddenly without any big hooplah, sings as a band again in a little old Bar hidden somewhere in makati. Parang stuff of urban legends. Of course the other bands kicked ass as well. Pero since ka-era ko ang band na yon me softspot.
Three days after , as though I had no real work to do, we went to Saguijo again for E-Heads night, young new bands singing old E-head song plus their own. Double Loser kami... Kinabukasan pa pala ang EHeads Night! I even had the nerve to ask the band "Pare Ano ba tong Eheads Night" , the guitarist gave me a blank look.. KAYA PALA! In true rocker-yuppie form...Diretso kami sa IO.. sabay salang ng mga Alternative Songs with matching choreography, Pampaalis ng sama ng loob.

Next Day we still went , we reminsced as the eheads songs where done by the bands, found some new kickass bands . Every now and then we would say "Galing nito ah, Sisikat!" . But what really brought the housedown was when Urban Dub was singing then suddenly Raymund Marasigan came in from another gig and sang. To the crowds disapproval he went out..but when Shirley was being sang, true to his rocker sould, he went in , grabbed the drums and jammed with the band . Raymund really showed that he was a musician by heart , he changed temppo of the drums , then Urbandub played catchup. Classic jamming , impromptu variations ..It was surreal. Buti na lang ngayon me internet na, madali makahanap ng underground gigs. Dati sa radyo lang.