Report on the 2006 NU107 Rock Awards

For a complete account of the 2006 NU107 Rock Awards -- winners, commentary and all -- go here! (Just scroll down.)

Work for Pulse.ph

We're looking for a MULTIMEDIA ARTIST to join our footloose and fancy free Pulse.ph crew. He/she will be:

Responsible for all the video editing requirements; responsible for all 3G videos, streaming, downloading and all other related matters; responsible for all flash animation, production & action scripting; answers to all animation/video/multimedia needs of Pulse.ph and other Web and Mobile Projects.

Graduate of Mass Communications, Graphics/Digital Design or any similar course; 3-4years work experience in multi-media authoring, well-adept in the use of the World Wide Web; Knowledgeable in current music trends & technologies; Computer literate and knowledgeable in Flash 8, Flash MX, Activscripting, XML backend integration, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere, After FX, Final Cut Pro

Don't delay! Join today! :D Email me at luiskatigbak at pulse.ph

BURN Pix at Pulse.ph

Lotsa pix (230+, with more on the way) of the big BURN concert, BURN BABY BURN, here! You shoulda been there. :)

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala. Hilarious stuff! But only if you grew up reading Encyclopedia Brown.

"Bugs hated being outsmarted by Wikipedia all the time. He longed to take a picture of himself with Wikipedia's hooded, naked, battered body, giving the camera a thumbs-up, like he had seen some soldiers do on the news."

Fresh BURN

Hey! The new issue of BURN magazine is available at bookstores and magazine stands now, so get yourselves a copy! As usual, we have two covers: this time, it's Bamboo and Nelly Furtado. Lots and lots of features -- Sugarfree, Hale, Imago, Narda, Julianne, Nimbus9, and others, plus reviews, columns by Lourd, Quark, and Sarah Meier, etcetera etcetera...

PLUS: a free CD as always, hosted by Zach Lucero, which this time around has tracks by Queso, Sound, Narda, Nimbus9, and even Christmas songs by Imago and Cambio! BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Like a Best of 2006 section, which covers the trends and tendencies and of course music of the past year. I am especially proud of our Top Ten Albums of 2006, which was put together by Conch, Denise, myself and our freelance reviewers. All in all, it's a ridiculously fantastic issue, and you would do well to purchase multiple copies for posterity.

And of course, I'll see you all at the big BURN concert at the SM Mall of Asia later! :D It'll start at 5PM, and roar on til midnight! Lineup below. Yay!

Radioactive Sago Project
Sitti
Orange and Lemons
Johnny Alegre
Moonstar88
Hemp Republic
Sugarfree
Callalily
Drip
Chillitees
Itchyworms
Up dharma Down
Hale
Sino Sikat?
Pupil
Imago
6cyclemind
Spy
Bamboo
Jeepney Joyride
Nyko Maca
Dice & K9 / Mobbstarr

Hello Readers

To everyone who checks out this blog (thank you thank you), please drop by the blog section at Pulse.ph too -- I've been posting there about stuff like gigs, earthquakes, presscons, music videos, etc. Eventually, we want to get the whole Pulse.ph staff (and freelancers, yay) blogging there too: Joelle Jacinto posted something about "We Are the World," Pinoy Rock style, today. :)

And please comment, if you're so inclined! Because right now, I'm not totally sure if we've configured it correctly, so that non-staffers can comment easily. It would be nice to know. :D

80s Girls

The Seven Best 80s Movie Girlfriends. Oh, Elisabeth Shue a.k.a. First Karate Kid girlfriend! And oh, Mia Sara a.k.a. Sloane Peterson from Ferris Bueller's Day Off! And speaking of Ferris Bueller's Day Off: it's one of the few movies that I would -- and did -- actually cough up money for, to get on original DVD. Result? The disc won't play on my DVD player ("No Disc," it says). Is there a lesson to be learned here? Probably not.

More 80s funniness from Cracked.com: Eight Important Lessons Learned From 80s Cartoons and The 80s Movie Montage hall of Fame.

BURN BABY BURN!

I just want to remind everyone about BURN BABY BURN: the massive concert put together by BURN magazine. It's happening this Thursday, November 23, at the Music Hall in SM Mall of Asia, and it starts at 5 PM. (Originally slated for last September 28, it was postponed when mega-typhoon Milenyo hit.)

The lineup, if I may say so, is excellent: them big rock bands like Bamboo, Itchyworms, Sugarfree, Orange and Lemons, Hale, and Imago; the sweet bossa nova of Sitti; the virtuosic (if there's such a word) musical pranksters known as the Radioactive Sago Project; reggae act Hemp Republic; jazzhound Johnny Alegre; pinoy R&B paragons Chillitees; sexycool electronica artists Drip; rock n' soul band Sino Sikat? (I hate that question mark); the electro-latin-hiphop of Nyko Maca, and lots more -- 22 artists in all. Flash a copy of BURN issue 3 (Gary V or the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the cover) or 4 (Bamboo or Nelly Furtado on the cover, out this week) to get in. See you there!

A Tune for Broken Hearts

I love XTC. They may, in fact, be my favorite band of all time. Here is an excellent feature on PopMatters, about XTC, Andy Partridge and the Fuzzy Warbles collection.

I Am a Russian Hamster

I like the bit about music especially.

What Breed of Hamster Are You?

U2 and You

Clicky clicky on the piccy piccy. :)

Also new on PULSE.PH: Kristine Lim's Top 10 Sad Bastards Who Make Sad Bastard Music. Hee hee.

Presenting PULSE

"PULSE.PH is the online destination for any and all Pinoys who want music in their lives." For those of you who have been wondering -- yes: this is my day job now! I'm still Reviews Editor for BURN, and of course I'm still writing my column for the Manila Bulletin, but my 9 to 5 gig is PULSE.

Check it out now -- we've got a review of Narda's new album, Betty Tianco's "Confessions of a Stage Girlfriend," Danisha Sison's "Top 10 Guilty Musical Pleasures," and features on Imago, Sitti, Milagros Dancehall Collective, and more! Some stuff doesn't work properly yet -- like the registration process and the downloads -- but everything should be up and running soon. :)

Narda Comes Out with Discotillion

Narda's new album is being launched tonight!

Discotillion is shot through with fierce get-up-and-dance punk energy laced with sugar-sweet hooks and squelchy electro-sounds... "Molotov" is a sonic grenade that combines yelps and croons, beeps and buzzes, urgency and sentiment; it has received airplay on NU107, and was voted no.1 this year by NU107 listeners on the Stairway to Seven countdown. "Mitsa" is an enormously catchy shout-along number, peppered with rapid-fire bursts of drumming and burning with attitude. "Kay Lab" slows things down but is no less intense, and "Alta Presyon" has a New Wave flavor but an energy all its own. "Buti Nga" is a car chase of a song: adrenaline-pumping and dangerous. Six more remarkable songs make up the rest of the new album.

It's tonight, Sept. 22, Friday 9pm at Cafe Saguijo in Makati. Aside from Narda, Bagetsafonik, the Milagros Dancehall Collective, Chicosci and Day One Movement are playing. (Invite's here.) See you there!

My Pups My Pups

I want one! Wait, correction: I WANT THEM ALL. Thanks a lot, Fran. Ever since I read your post, I've been wanting a basset hound puppy. They're SO CUTE.

Sadly, since I have a full-time job and lots of scratchable wooden furniture in my sala, I don't think raising one is feasible right now. Besides, I can't even take care of pet fish, much less furry mammals. But man, look at 'em. AAWWWWW.

Saving Sally

Here's something I'm looking forward to: Saving Sally, "a Tiny Independent Film About a Girl, a Boy, a Few Monsters and Some Ice Cream." (Thanks to Budjette for clueing us in.) "This project is a blend of live actors, illustrations, 3-D characters and motion graphics. It was shot entirely on a blue screen and is currently undergoing heavy postproduction with the use of regular mac & pc desktops. The end result is a visually delightful moving picture book."

"Visually delightful" may be an understatement, judging from the trailer. (Gotta love those little robots!) The movie stills make very nice wallpaper, btw. ;) That it looks so good will come as no surprise to those familiar with the work of Avid Liongoren -- his excellent illustrations and videos have always had an eye-catching, childlike-yet-twisted quality. (Read The Boy Who Liked Bear to get an idea of the state of his brain.)

Avid's apparently using some techniques he's employed before, as in the video he did for Kamikazee, but this is the first time he's doing something on this full feature-length scale, which is exciting. I only hope it doesn't turn out like MirrorMask, which delivered in terms of concepts, visuals, and casting, but in the end fell somewhat flat in terms of story and characterization (that last bit was somewhat painful for me to type; as anyone who knows me knows, I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan. Still, it's true).

So here's to Avid's labor of love. May it turn out to be wonderful (and robotful and monsterful).

YStylin'

There's this thing at the Rockwell tent tonight at 8 PM-- YStyle's Third Anniversary. There'll be a fashion show with Ivar Aseron, Yvonne Quisumbing-Romulo and Patty Eustaquio, and the whole thing's being done "in collaboration with HG, Furball and Sweetspot."

The music and visuals for the event are going to be interesting, I hear. Apparently, "25 musicians in an orchestra pit, 5 laptops, Wahijuara, the Radioactive Sago Project, strings and wind from the UP College of Music, and a human beatbox" will be involved. Someone will be mixing cinematic visuals in real time to the music -- I'm not sure exactly how that's going to look just yet, but it sounds good -- and it'll be conducted by Lourd de Veyra, with music written by Malek Lopez.

"Come in cinema-inspired outfits, and bring yer cameras and friends!" the text from HG honcho Erwin said. See ya there.

Back to School

"Okay, who here has read my book? All the rest of you, get the hell out of my classroom." Photo by Chris Lagman. Thanks Chris!

Yesterday I took a leave from work to lecture on Creative Writing at this Alternative Classroom Learning Experience thing (ACLE for short) at my alma mater, Philippine Science High School. I had forgotten how scary-smart and versatile Pisay kids can be; despite the fact that they’re supposed to be total science geeks, they often display an astonishing aptitude for the arts. Two budding anthology editors were planning a compilation of essays on high school dorm life by the end of the session (and asking me about possible publishers).

A quick writing exercise -- write the opening paragraph of a story based on one of two beginnings (1. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this” and 2. “When I woke up this morning, I knew something was wrong”) -- yielded a wide variety of imaginative responses. And unlike most high school classes I’ve lectured to, the Pisay kids were actually eager to read their work aloud. (Well, most of them, anyway.)

It was fun talking informally to the students after the lecture; some of them seem more like college students in their self-possession and awareness (I take it as a good sign when people can regard their writing with enough detachment to acknowledge that it tends to be “emo”). It was also great when Yvette and I hung out with the other lecturers afterwards -- most of them were former batchmates of mine, so it was like a mini-reunion. Excellent food was provided by the Regali Kitchen (hi Jabes!). Lecturer Gang Badoy feeling up bahag-clad lecturer Kidlat Tahimik was another highlight of the afternoon.

For those who are wondering how I ended up with a degree in English after having studied in Pisay, well -- I studied BS Mathematics for two years before I caved in and shifted. (Other former Pisay students who betrayed the school by turning their backs on science include Jose Dalisay, Jessica Zafra and Allan Popa.)

"The King of Nothing to Do" OUT NOW!

Haven't blogged in a while -- chalk that up to being busy busy both with BURN magazine and with my *new* job (more on that later) -- but of course I just had to tell everyone to go out and get a copy of my new book, The King of Nothing to Do, which has finally rolled off the presses, yay!

It will eventually be sold in National Bookstore and Powerbooks, but RIGHT NOW it's available at the UP Press bookstore in UP Diliman, and at the UP Press booth at the Manila International Bookfair this week, which is being held at the World Trade Center on Roxas Boulevard until September 3, Sunday.

Thanks to Elbert, who did an excellent job on the cover and the interior illustrations! Am very happy with the way they turned out. (Although since I had most of my head hair shaved off, the caricatures don't look that much like me anymore. Luckily I'm still fat.)

Milflores Publishing doesn't have a budget for launches and such, but I have been talking to Yvette and Kidlat about holding one on my own, preferably at one of the bars I usually go to for gigs. Am hoping Hong Kong Holiday will play at the launch, if we manage to pull it off. (The other week, at a dinner party, HKH lead singer Waya sang absolutely devastating covers of "Waiting in Vain"* and "Overjoyed." You people don't know what you're missing.) :)

In the meantime, go out there and buy my book! You won't regret it. Okay, there's a slight chance you may regret it, but that will no doubt be due to some sort of failure on your part, as I am a writing genius and my book beyond reproach. Thank you.

*Originaly mis-identified as "Train in Vain." Clash, Marley, whatever.

What It Is To BURN

I'm back! Holy crap, it's good to be at home and in front of a working computer again. For a while there, I had to work in internet cafes, paying by the hour whilst surrounded by people flirting by webcam and playing networked games. Luckily, my friendly neighborhood computer genius came over and finally killed the virus that had been eating my PC alive.

So much to blog about. But first, let me just inform alla youse that BURN #3 is on the stands now! It's got features on Sino Sikat?, Chicosci, Dong Abay, Gary V, Kyla, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Dorques, and lotsa others. And of course, as always, it comes with a free CD, with Actual Music (from Sino Sikat?, Bob Aves, Faspitch, etc.). Get one now!

And speaking of BURN, last Thursday's soft launch at Embassy Cuisine was a real blast. Thanks to Yvette, JB, Steph, Waya, Lala, Karlo, Fran, JP, Indira, Earnest, Aldus, Eric, Cris, Jovan, Cait, Mon, Ramon, Pat, and everyone else who went! Drip and Sitti both played excellent sets, there was an open bar (at least 'til around 10) and plenty of eye candy for the boys and girls, and all in all, it was a damn good night. I wrote the script for the event and the text for the Press Kit and threw together the PowerPoint presentation, so I was more than a little pleased that it all went well. Read all about it in my column in the Bulletin next Tuesday.

Still on the topic of BURN, Up dharma Down fans may wish to drop by Megamall later; they're playing for the first leg of the BURN Mall Tour at 5 PM. (Complete schedule below.) See y'all there!

BURN SM Mall Tour

August 05 SM Megamall 5PM (Up dharma Down)
August 12 SM Southmall 5PM (Barbie Almalbis)
August 19 SM North EDSA 5PM (The Dawn)
August 20 SM Mall Of Asia 5PM (Nina and Christian Bautista; front act - Callalily)

BURN Main Concert: BURN, Baby, BURN!

September 28 SM Mall of Asia, Music Hall 6PM

Featuring: Bamboo, Imago, Itchyworms, Sugarfree, Sitti, Radioactive Sago Project, Up dharma Down, Drip, Chillitees, Callalily, Sino Sikat?, 6cyclemind, Hale, Orange and Lemons, Pupil, Nina, Christian Bautista, Barbie Almalbis, and lots more.

Yay for Yvette!

Now that the winners of the First Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards have been announced, I can finally publicly congratulate the wonderful and talented Yvette on being one of the finalists! Though her story, Stella for Star, didn't end up ranked among the top three slots, I liked it the most, and not because I'm just generally crazy about her -- it was both genuinely horrifying and affecting.

I would also like to remind everyone that Yvette's column at gmanews.tv has fresh installments every week or so -- my favorites so far have been her pieces on X-Men 3 and the McDo Greenhills breakfast club (especially the breakfast club one), but every installment has proven interesting, well-written and entertaining, even if it weirded me out to read about my brother and sister-in-law's mating rituals. Other topics covered so far include Stephen Chow, time management, and a food trip to Quezon. Go read!