Buzz Night July 31, 2004 @ Mayrics

Hello Everyone!!!

here's this July's line-up for buzz night:

sunsetdrive
bagetsafonik
tether
children of eden
soft pillow kisses
popular days
carnival park
weedisneys
irony
five leaves left

see you!!!

oops

ralph, i think allan accidentally erased your last post about the candyaudioline website's new url when he posted the buzz night lineup. i wasn't able to read that post. could you post it again please? thanks.

i saw roel yesterday and he said he had posted on the blog. actually, he wrote on the tagboard, but that's a first step :) roel, sana makapost ka naman sa blog mismo next time. i-a-add uli kita.

ayn, i wasn't able to get the stuff lara borrowed from you. i'll ask her again next time.

Buzz Night July 31, 2004 @ Mayrics

Hello Everyone!!!

here's this July's line-up for buzz night:

sunsetdrive
tether
children of eden
soft pillow kisses
popular days
carnival park
...plus many more

see you!!!

JULY 2004 Buzz Night

Aba. Ang ganda na ng posting interface ng Blogger. Pwede na akong mag-fancy font. Astig.
 
Buzz Night is on the 31st at Mayric's, 10 pm.
 
we may or may not play.
 
Please stand by for more information.
 
***
 
As a follow-up to my last post, though not related to Candyaudioline and of a more personal nature, I sang last night for Pillow at 70's Bistro and have improved my singing. I took my recent observations to heart. There was some lyrics confusion with "Wasting", but it was laughed off. The instrumental part of "Bathing" was so fun that it reminded me of another shoegaze band very dear to our hearts. Three separate people asked the name of the band after we had left the stage.
 
Then Allan, Charles and I went to Mayric's for Kamikazee/Moonstar work.
 

ranty-rant-rant-rant

The other night, I sang for Soft Pillow Kisses at Altered Native in Fairview. I hate singing at that venue (but it's a good place to listen to music while hanging out with friends, and the staff is nice). They have a deceptive sound system there. The monitors make you think you're singing at a good level when in fact you can't be heard from the rear of the restaurant. Sure enough, when Allan sang that first song alone, I barely heard him from where I was standing. And when I approached the stage, I suddenly realized that Lara was singing, too! Shit. I knew I was going to have a tough time. I was pissed and I sang as if I was pissed (imagine Soft Pillow Kisses on steroids). It was crappy, but passable, I guess. Allan described it later as me "declaiming", enunciating words, but mechanically doing so.

Allan and I hung out by the door outside and Moonstar88 finally finished their set. These three heavyset men burst out of the bar and one of them had a sour look on his face as he said passionately, "Yung una---" He froze when he saw the two of us looking at him. He and his friends walked away and he mumbled the rest of his comment. Allan and I burst out laughing.

"Ano kaya yung sasabihin niya dapat?"

"Ano pa? Eh di pangit!" I laughed.

It was funny, and I don't begrudge that guy's feelings about the performance. I really wasn't into it that night. I'm just bothered how I'm easily affected by extraneous variables during a gig while we're performing. Like that time I got pissed at some Wuds fans because they were heckling us. I sang as if pissed that night, too. Why can't I just have grace under fire like Allan can?

I'm getting rusty. I wish we could practice. I'm not used to singing anymore. Last performance was a wake-up call for me. I'm probably taking myself too seriously, as well. Who am I proving myself to? All I need are my bandmates' approval. As long as Allan thinks the way I sing his songs are fine, then it's ok. Everything else (a good performance) follows after that. I think I'm losing touch with the original deal.

But, to be honest, I think this onstage irritability is a symptom of some deeper psychological trouble I have. I always feel indignant at whatever negative comes my way, hence, the quick reactions. I just gotta chill or something. I think that practicing would help. Just having fun playing and stuff like that, like when we did that cover for "Today".

We were supposed to practice for Superminty tonight but Charles can't make it, I think, and Allan isn't feeling well, either.

I don't know. It's weird, isn't it? It is possible to get rusty, even when all you're doing is singing.

i will once again expose my internet nescience, mwahahaha!

First, let me just say that I think you had a point there, Allan. Sometimes, we're just too puny against the established authority. Or, we grow up.

**

Anyway, I was looking at our counter's stats and I discovered that the top languages viewing our site are the following, with corresponding hits:

English (United States) 472 Hits
English (Philippines) 44 Hits
English (United Kingdom) 4 Hits
Japanese 3 Hits
French (Belgium) 2 Hits
English (Canada) 2 Hits
Polish 2 Hits
Dutch (Belgium) 2 Hits
English (Caribbean) 2 Hits
Swedish 1 Hits
English (Australia) 1 Hits
Spanish (International Sort) 1 Hits
Italian (Italy) 1 Hits
Korean 1 Hits

I think this must mean something like these are the top languages of the OSes of visitors to the site. Whatever the case may be, the fact that all these unexpected languages show up on the counter stats is amusing.

Here are the stats for my own blog:

English (United States) 309 Hits
English (Philippines) 89 Hits
Japanese 3 Hits
ie-ee 1 Hits
English (Caribbean) 1 Hits
English (Australia) 1 Hits

Again, how weird. And what's "ie-ee"?

Anyway, i'm sure i've misunderstood this all somehow. But it's just interesting to think, "what if?". What if at least one Polish dude and one Caribbean guy have strayed here? That would be surreal. And feel free to set me straight on this, Ralph.

pareh pa-kiss!!!

"Never criticize anything in public and never build the foundation of your career by attacking a specific idea. Because if you live long enough you will inevitably come to embody the very idea that you once criticized. And everyone will know." (from ayn's last post)


there's nothing wrong with criticizing (even publicly) specially when you strongly believe that such deserves criticism. building a foundation based on a specific idea can't easily be avoided. it's the focus in that certain aspect which fuels your drive to go against what you don't agree with or annoys you in general...

now, when it comes to a point when you begin to come to terms with what you once stood against, the question that will come to mind is... "why?" there could be many reasons why oppossites come to term with one another. it could be something that merely constitute the meeting of terms which could be or could not be to one's favor, like the idea of catching up to ones standards therefore making acceptance an unavoidable circumstance. another is a situation wherein the dictates of a certain era makes if difficult for one to avoid being sucked into a system. but it's still you who'll know if that's the situation or not...

times change and life is like a wheel so they say... yes there'll come a time that EVERYONE will know... but...

WILL THEY REALLY KNOW?

"I Know You Supported Me A Long Time... Somehow I'm Not Impressed"
from the song "NYC" by the band INTERPOL

more pics

hey, if you want to refresh your candy memories, check out Ralph's website and go to the photo gallery. check out "upfair 2003", "summerslam 2003" amd "scary movies" for some never-before-seen pics! included are pics of roel as the psycho barber and allan as his unknowing victim. also... ayn might find a certain pic there a bit... interesting :) tsaka may pic dun na ang payat ni allan nung si mich pa yung kumakanta. nakaka-shock!

those were the days!

real life sucks

This post is in connection with my last post on life outside the band. I noticed that the reasons we can't play these days are largely because our alter egos need to work overtime. Ralph is busy earning money for his baby's birth. Roel and Allan are busy with Backbeat gigs. Ayn is in law school and needs to put her nose to the grindstone. I have family problems, though I think that, of all of us, I'm the one who has the most will and capacity to sacrifice in order to have a candyaudioline gig.

Do things like playing in a band and meeting obligations not mix? I suppose that this is a fundamental dilemma for any band and that ours has more obstacles than the usual. But it's not like we can just up and leave our real lives for the pursuit of a really good live show. I'm just bothered at how everything always seems to have to taper off to few-and-far-betweens. Maybe this is always the case when a band grows older. Other obligations just have to be prioritized, especially because most of us still want to lead normal, healthy lives (in terms of having a family and financial security).

When I wasn't a member of candyaudioline yet, my impression of the band scene was that it was very limited, that there were only a few bands left from the early 90's Pinoy "band explosion". Once I scratched the surface upon joining candyaudioline, I realized that this scantiness was due to matters of exposure, and that there were actually dozens of talented bands who weren't getting airplay or any other means of presenting their work. This was very enlightening, and I felt privileged to watch productions like Buzz Night and other smaller ones that had rosters of amazing but unheard-of bands. I realized how very small my perception of Filipino music used to be.

But after some time, I noticed that I kept seeing the same faces all the time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. I just discovered how finite the band scene still was, although a little bigger than what I first perceived it to be. And the more I got a sense of how finite it was, the more I noticed that it wasn't even stable, but that the number of bands was actually dwindling. Great bands were stopping, breaking-up, reforming as something else and then breaking-up again, all because of shifting commitments and priorities. It's all very sad.

Well, I guess that it's just another manifestation of "survival of the fittest". It sounds trite, but I think clichés are just so because they apply universally. The band that plays together, stays together… and all such BS. Of course, there's always the hope that new blood will arise, bringing with them the growth of a genre and opportunities for the meeting of more minds for the greater good of the music.

So maybe this hiatus was inevitable, especially since most of us in candyaudioline are normal, everyday people (verging on the "baduy but lovable" hehehe). Every band goes through this phase. We just have to have faith and stick it out. Eventually, we'll find a rhythm where we can make time for each other and go on excellent sound trips again. Relax. Remember that conformity is not the evil… it's complacency and stagnation.

:D

"Fake it until they make it"

Something that Erick posted at the Buzznite mailing list:

We Will One Day Become That Which We Despise
Date: Thursday, June 10 @ 16:24:16
Topic From the Magazine

By Chuck Klosterman

Illustration by Nathan Fox

"Never criticize anything in public," a semi-wise man told me as we drank absinthe in a Colorado ski lodge, "and never build the foundation of your career by attacking a specific idea. Because if you live long enough you will inevitably come to embody the very idea that you once criticized. And everyone will know."

This is a half-truth. I've never been in a ski lodge, I've never
consumed absinthe, and I'm not sure if some semi-wise man gave me
this advice or if I just now made it up. The truth lies in the
message. Over time, every dogmatic individual evolves into his or
her ideological opposite: Anti-authority figures slowly enter the
ruling class, socialists become capitalists, Fonzie grows a beard
and becomes a high school shop teacher. But what happens if someone
can exist only by embodying their opposite?

Nothing, I suppose. Or everything, possibly. Maybe these people are
like hammerhead sharks; maybe they don't need to evolve.

I bring this up because I've noticed a curious explosion of a
certain kind of rock band: groups like Franz Ferdinand, the Stills,
the Killers, the Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, and roughly 900 other well-dressed collectives who generally have floppy hair and at least one excellent song (Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out," for example, is arguably the best rock song I've heard in two years, and the YYYs' "Maps" has become my all-time favorite track about cartography). These are generally small bands who perform to small crowds in small venues (Urge Overkill being the patient zero of this epidemic), and few of them move very many records.

Logically, these bands should represent the hyper-authentic underclass of popular music; logically, they should be cultural underdogs. But this is not the case. What these bands do best the main purpose of their existence, and the main thing people seem to like about them is embrace and embody all the signifiers of massive rock stardom. And nobody seems to realize how weird this is.

It was not long ago less than 10 years, really?that "rock star" was
a negative term; if you referred to somebody as a "total rock star, "you were generally calling him or her a self-absorbed prick. This is why people loved Kurt Cobain; they loved him because he didn't seem like a rock star. That attitude changed at the very end of the 20th century. Suddenly, it was universally assumed that being an archetypal, coke-addled egomaniac was the greatest thing any artist could aspire to, apparently because our society did not have enough of these people. Today, we've reached the bizarre cultural moment when bands are adopting the trappings of superstardom without the(seemingly essential) component of being successful. And this is not a case of groups trying to "fake it until they make it." These are not bands who think that if they act famous they'll eventually become famous. These are bands who appear comfortable being smallish, indie-ish club acts who will never sell a million records. I suppose there is no need to be tangibly successful if you've already imagined yourself a superstar.

Certainly, this movement is not exclusive to rock and/or roll. The
only television I watch is reality television, a genre whose success is measured by how accurately it reflects real life (read: good TV is anything that does not seem like TV). Nonfiction publishing has become increasingly dominated by memoirs, which are really just autobiographies by people who haven't done anything; interesting writers are people who are not necessarily interesting. The culture industry is reversing the nature of famousness.

Let's say everything about America changed overnight, and Interpol
suddenly became the biggest band in the world. None of their
original fans could possibly turn against them if they became
eccentric, narcissistic fashionistas; that was the whole idea to
begin with! If you start your career as an unsuccessful superstar in other words, if you start your career by contradicting your very
essence you cannot be changed by fame. The only way Interpol could
evolve would be to become multiplatinum boring dudes. And that will
happen; as stated in the first paragraph, everyone eventually
embodies the ideas they once criticized. And what does that mean?

It means that in the year 2008, Interpol will be the Dave Matthews
Band. Buy those skinny ties now, you future frat boys of America.

nothing much to lose

i always have this weird feeling that something not to my liking will happen to me any moment. it bothers me a lot because it has yet to happen although there are times when things do come up to me in a way that i see them as bad, it would always turn out in the end as sort or a blessing in disguise... or maybe a form of consolation. oh well, life goes on anyway so they say but that means my paranoia goes on with it as well. which isn't really a good thing for me based on the fact that because of this, my ways are a bit affected to a point wherein i can't really be myself most of the time... i've tried ignoring such thoughts but the more i ignore them the more they manifest in ways that really scares the hell out of me... for istance, i'm the type of person who enjoys loads of good times with friends and loved ones. the presence of people around me somewhat distracts me and takes away these horrible ideas and fears off my mind. but when i'm all by myself, these fears of mine creep up to me like a freezing chill on a hot summer day. when that happens i become stiff in everything. resulting in nothingness which turns out to be a terrible waste of precious oportunities and time. i become cynical to a point of not wanting to confront a certain situation or task at hand. this leads me to think and think and think not realizing that there are far more better things to do that can be productive and at the same time serve as therapy for me...

so there you go... this is my humble explanation for the unfulfilled promises that i had made to some of you.

hehehe...

sa wakas!!!

i sure am glad now that my pc's been fixed, akala ko 'ala nang pag-asa... tang-ina kasing mga virus yan eh... dapat ang mga nai-infect ng mga virus ay yung mga masasamang loob na nagiging dahilan kung bakit ang mga nababasa natin sa mga pahagan at napapanood sa tv ay nakakalungkot, nakakapanghinayang at higit sa lahat ay nakaka-inis...
case in point ko for example ay yang mga holdaper, kidnapper at rapist na nahuhuli or kung misan pa ay nakakalusot sa kamay ng batas. TANG-INA nila!!! gumagawa na nga sila ng masama eh d man lang nila makuhang mag-ayus ayos ng konti, (mag dress-up ika nga)... puro cla mukang jologs!!! ayan tuloy, lahat ng makita kong jologs ay muka tuloy masasamang loob... kawawa naman yung mga good jologs like me. yang mga abusadong pulis na yan na 'pag nahuli akala mo mga inosenteng ewan!!! pasalamat cla at hindi pa ako ang presidente ng pilipinas... dapat sa mga yan ay tinatapon sa isang isla na punung-puno ng mga makamandag na hayop. hmmm... ano pa ba... ah oo nga yang letseng kris aquino na yan!!! pagkalandi-landi (huwag tularan!!!) sana tubuan cya ng kwadradong etits sa nuo nya!!! speaking of etits!!! sana mawala na yang metro manila film fest na yan... wala namang kwenta ang pilikulang pilipino sa kasalukuyang panahon... panay basura!!! sisisihin pa ang spiderman sa mag kapalpakan nila!!! panuorin nyo nalang ang spiderman and get an idea on how to make a good comedy, drama and action situation in a film without the typical pinoy ka-OA-yan... last night me romel and popo got talking about re-runs of old local movies during the mid 80's in chanel 9, two action/fantasy movies got our attention because of it's great especial effects. the first one was "anak ng bulkan" 1963 yata eto, starring FPJ. it was the one with the giant bird flying over metro manila destroying buildings. it got revived not a long time ago. instead of getting improvements with regards to camera trickery, lalung lumala... ayoko na ikwento kasi baka lalu lang akong mainis... may isa pa nakalimutan ko yug title pero alam ko na lastikman ang hero dun at mga late-70's yata yun. kung mahanap nyo yun, compare it to vic sotto's version, maawa kayo kay vic... hay naku... tama na muna ito...
pagod na ako... wala naman mangyayari kasi nasa pinas nga tayo eh... kawawa naman tayong mga pilipino. kung d inaabuso eh nagpapagago naman... sana may totoong spiderman at sana taga-pilipinas sya... nakakabato kasi ang kasalukuyan, nag-uumapaw sa kabaduyan at kababawan. mas pinapaburan ang mali kaysa katuwiran... d bali, in the near future, we'll try to play as candyaudioline.

charles' boitday revisited

oo naman, naalala ko hehe. kaya lang tayong dalawa lang technically ang makakaalala dun ayn kasi si allan nasa mayric's tapos si ralph at roel wala. hm, ok lang siguro. baka masyadong incestuous kung nandun pa sila. iba yung satin ha. sisterly yun. ehehe... heh.

astig talaga yun. awuhwuh nga si kaye kasi dahil dun naospital siya. pero ang saya niya nun. kumanta ba naman ng j lo! buti nalang mali yung lyrics kaya intact pa ang reputation niya hahah. dapat magsama ulit tayong nymphetz tropa.

pagig ka, allan! si allan malapit na maayos ang pc niya so makakapost na siya ulit. yehey.

Remember the 'Dare or Dare'?

Guys, do you remember that unforgettable night last Chinese New Year (aka Charles' boitday party)? Ha ha. Who could ever forget the Spin the Bottle/Dare or Dare game? What was that line that I wrote in one of my entries before?

"Since that night, we never looked at each other the same way again..."

Firewerks

Drunk Indiekids

Ayn and JP

Ayn and Charles

(All photos courtesy of JP's phone)

I wasn't able to save all our pictures. The ones that I have here are the pics where I'm in. Hehe. Will try to find more pics where we're all present.

Anyway, I hope this is close enough to make you remember how unforgettable that night was :)

Selena's right when she said, "This was the height of our closeness as a band, I think." We all think that.