The already dim bar goes dark, the proverbial hour before a dawning stage explodes into the combined energy of sound and light, the clink of beer bottles and glasses with stronger stuff counterpointing the intensity emitted from the speakers flanking the center dais.
Chairs scrape as the bar denizens turn to watch the band in front of them belt rock songs out across the room, its musicians locking eyes with the bar regulars who’d come to watch them play their hearts out on this wet, blustery night.
The iconic 1970s Bistro stage has hosted many of the country’s best rock bands. On this rainy evening, Tony & Nick interviewed members of four bands that are active on the local punk rock circuit: The Wuds, Datu’s Tribe, Punk Magalona and Bonifacio Republic. Singer and musician Bael Hayena was there too, and he put in his two cents’ worth as well.
New Age Wisdom
For The Wuds’ frontman and guitarist Bobby Balingit, music is a tool for conveying social awareness: “Music is something that people connect to on an emotional level. Your music will vibrate that awareness to them.”
He radiates a serenity seemingly at odds with the high energy of punk music as he explains the band’s musical philosophy. For him, music “is about sharing what is in your heart, and sharing what you have learned.”
Drummer Aji Adriano explained: “You have to live right and follow a good path. Then you can share that, compassionately, with the people who listen to your music. We affect the world and we need to be mindful of how we affect the world.”
Alfred Guevarra, the bassist, picks up the conversation thread with an earnest light in his eyes: “It is your duty to learn what is right, do what is right and to share your knowledge of what is right.”
In their song “Nakalimutan na ang Diyos (God is Forgotten)” The Wuds combine blues-tinged, heavy punk instrumentals with vocals that sound almost like the mantras chanted by yogis.
Irreverently Relevant
Datu’s Tribe, meanwhile, is a band from the 1990s that merges the heavy, thrumming bass notes and the deep, demanding drumbeats of punk with the solid, clean guitar of rock and roll.
The overall effect is music that is “irreverent and sarcastic,” as the band’s vocalist and songwriter Eric “Cabring” Cabrera described it. Cabrera is the remaining original member of the band he and his friends formed in the University of the Philippines Los Baños for a battle of the bands competition in 1989.
Datu’s Tribe has played at Mayric’s, Club Dredd, and in major concerts in Metro Manila. The band brokered a deal with Universal Records in 1995 and came out with their debut album, “Galit Kami sa Baboy. [We hate pigs]”
Where The Wuds are contemplative despite their punk sound, Datu’s Tribe is playful, witty, sarcastic and more than capable of dragging pained laughter out of the audience.
Datu’s Tribe also has Moel Diaz, anesthesiologist by day and guitarist between patient sedations; bassist Andy Umali and session drummer Francis Aquino. Cabrera has a day job as a high school English teacher at the UP Integrated School in Diliman.
“We would be categorized as left-leaning, as a band,” he said. “That’s the tag the media gave us: We were called a ‘tibak’ (activist) band. Actually, we weren’t really tibak. It just so happened that the content of our songs was very socially-aware.” Cabrera said. He is now part of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP).
Processing, creation
Punk Magalona vocalist and bassist Ose Martija, 27, is a history teacher at the University of Makati: “Not enough people understand out history and how it affects today and tomorrow,” he said, his dark eyes as intense as they were when he took the stage with his band at the People’s State of the Nation (SONA) protests outside the halls of the Batasan Pambansa on July 22.
“Protest music does not have a single format,” Martija added. “The scope of it is so wide you can discuss anything—even what other people do not want to talk about.”
Bonifacio Republic vocalist and BusinessMirror advertising and sales manager Aldwin Maralit Tolosa’s creative process “isn’t really a conscious one, as in ‘I want to make this song.’ When I write songs, I just write what I see and feel—it isn’t about consciously seeking an issue to tackle. I write songs about what I see, sometimes what I experience personally, or what is going on around me. There is no exact process for song-writing, really. I begin with a stanza and it grows from there.”
Bonifacio Republic’s debut album “Unang Sigaw [First Cry]” makes use of transgressive and aggressive punk rock to drive home the observations Tolosa has put together from his observations and experiences.
Solo musician and sessionist Bael Hayena plays folk music, the other end of the protest music spectrum…“I accidentally made this song titled ‘Ibong Malaya.’ The concept is that you think you are free, but you aren’t truly free. I look around me daily and see so many people getting stepped on and I find myself wanting to compose songs for these people, for myself.”
“Music is consciousness and heart—maybe even your soul,” he added. “Even if the music isn’t beautiful, if it comes from what you observe, it will strike the heart.”
Image credits: Bernard Testa