Island in the Sun

Summertime always make me think of home - the roadtrips with friends, the weekends out-of-town, sand, surf, barbeques, mangoes, fresh air, fishballs, corn cobs, the dirty ice cream in the street, drinking coke out of plastic bags,  sipping fresh buko juice or eating halo halo on a hot summer day.

These flood of memories makes me yearn to be back in the Philippines, to be embraced warmly by its familiar, welcoming shores, to leave the cruel indifferent desert-concrete jungle of Dubai and once again be treated as a golden island senorita. Yes these are the stuff of my summer daydreams.

When people, foreigners, ask me about the Philippines, I always ask them back "Do you like the beach?" If they say yes, I immediately brighten up and become a little miss unofficial tourism ambassador, happy to go on talking about the places I loved the most, Boracay, Palawan, Batanes, Pagudpud. The list goes on. If they say no, well there's always San Miguel Beer, Sisig, Balut and Karaoke.

There are usually so many good things to say, that sometimes I wonder why some Filipinos choose to brood over or highlight the bad things. 

I think of home in the summertime and I hear a song in my head that goes – On an Island in the sun, we’ll be playing having fun, and it makes me feel so fine, I can’t control my brain…

Minsan: The Eraserheads Reunion Concert in Dubai

 “Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” – Don Draper, Mad Men

The heads with Sancho, old time collaborator, friend and third guitarist, who Ely introduced to the crowd
as the “fifth Eraserhead. 

I was 13, on my first year at a co-ed highschool when I first saw the Eraserheads play at the UP sunken garden. It was my first ever real live concert. I went with one of my best friends and her cool older sister who was at the time, studying at the same University.  There were plastic balloons flying around which I later learned were called “condoms”. We know pretty much all of the songs from Circus, Ultraelectromagnetic pop and Cutterpillow, but even if you don’t have the records there’s no way you can escape them on the radio. Honestly, who can resist Ely Buendia and his witty common-guy lines about sem-break and heartache?

Such was the pull of the Eheads, it wasn’t just the music per se. In a way, there was a reason why they were always being compared to the Beatles. They were our generation’s (our country’s) Beatlemania. It was a cultural thing more than anything. They had too much influence in fact that everyone, young and old, even the resident “tambays” at your neighborhood sari-sari store would most certainly know the lyrics to  Pare Ko.

I moved to Dubai in 2009, like many other pinoys, in search of better opportunities. As a music fan, and having spent most of my adult life working for the “pop machine”, the news of the Eraserheads Reunion in Dubai was just too good to be true and when it was confirmed that they will be playing at the annual du Music Festival, all of us “Kabayans” based here were psyched.  It was collectively agreed, on all our facebook accounts and twitter feeds, that we HAVE to see them. 

When you work outside the country and your monthly budget is limited, divided into remittances, loans, and other responsibilities, you think twice about spending precious hard-earned money on concerts, but the Eraserheads Reunion, was not just a WANT, it was a NEED. We needed to be there. We needed to see Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Markus play our favorite songs. We needed to belong to that special place again. We needed a piece home as we remembered it.

The Eheads reunion couldn’t have come at a better time.  It was on the same week we launched our first Tagalog / OPM FM station in the Middle East, Tag 91.1 and all streets had banners of either the Eheads or Tag 91.1 that said “serving 645,000 Filipinos in the UAE.” It felt like, for once, the whole of Dubai, was nodding at our Community with respect, and we are finally getting the recognition we deserved.    

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the press conference and while waiting for the band, I met another Filipina, Maggie Lafuente, who came out there with her husband. She skipped work for the chance to meet the Eheads up close. She was trembling.  

 “I was working in London at the time of their first reunion concert in 2008, I badly wanted to go.” Maggie shares.  “I was ready to book a ticket. My sister had to stop me and told me it wasn’t practical. Then I heard about Ely’s heart attack, I CRIED, they just mean that much to me. I never thought I’d see them live again. You see those girls on old footages screaming out, crying over the Beatles, they look crazy but I’d be one of them for Eraserheads.”

Of course, 90% of the media representatives in room were Filipino. I came with former Pulp photographer and good friend Brutal Grace and for a second there I felt like I was at home.

We were told not ask “personal” questions and only stick to the “music festival”. There was a bit of awkwardness at first, but Markus, the more laid back member of the group, put everyone at ease with his clever one-liners. I asked them the most standard thing I could think of  - what was their impression of Dubai, of the place, of the people.

Buddy was quick to answer,  “We are impressed by the camaraderie of the Filipino Community and the incredible presence and support.  We also experienced a bit of the diverse culture in Dubai, like last night we tried Ethiopian food, which was really good.”

When asked if they learned to say any Arabic words, Markus came out with “Kebab, Kebab Dylan, Kebab Marley”, that cracked everyone up and after that the questions just came pouring in until finally somebody was brave enough to ask the obvious    - why a reunion? and why in Dubai? 

Raymund playfully sang “reunited coz it feels so good.” Buddy replies “how many Filipinos are now in Dubai? 600,000? So we have 600,000 reasons to play here and finally Ely spoke up with a cheeky retort – “peer pressure”.

More than 10,000 fans in the UAE came to Dubai Media City to see the Eraserheads perform live on stage again. 

“It was simply natural progression.” Ely explains further.  “We are all doing our own thing for awhile now and then there was this clamor to get back together again and play, especially for those who are based outside the Philippines, and have not seen us play live yet. We are music fans ourselves, and we know what its like to love a band and grow up with their songs. We are just grateful that our songs still resonate with our fans.”

About the songs that they packed for the concert, Raimund shares, “we picked the ones that we enjoy playing. We didn’t really think much about what people will like, or what other nationalities will be there to see us play, pinili namin yung masarap tugtugin.”

I would say this decision just paid off big time. There is simply nothing better than seeing your favorite band enjoying themselves on stage while singing your favorite songs. I was there during the first reunion in 2008, I didn’t feel as connected to them as I was at the Dubai show. Perhaps it was the “homesickness” but I would say the Eraserheads Reunion concert in Dubai, was in the purest sense, about “connection”, about all of us, including the band, sharing the familiar songs and the memories.

The band kicked it off aptly with “Walang Nagbago”, then went on to perform 27 of their best hits, among them the well-loved songs -  ‘Maling Akala’, ‘Ligaya, Huwag Mo Ng Itanong’ , ‘Kailan’ ‘Overdrive’, ‘With A Smile’, ‘Julie Tear Jerky’, Magazin, Minsan and Super Proxy which they dedicated to the late Francis M, who were with them at their last concert in Dubai back in 1999. With over 10,000 fans in attendance, the Eraserheads Reunion at the du World Music Festival last 4^th April was one of the biggest, and possibly the loudest, Dubai has seen this year. 

A friend wrote on his facebook status the night after the concert –

"The best thing about watching Eraserheads is not about the band itself, It's about having the greatest time with your friends, friends that mean the whole song to you, people who you can sing and relate with, banging and just having a great time!Thanks mga pare ko!"

He is right. There was this magic moment, when everyone out in the open field of Dubai Media city was  all singing along to “With a Smile”. We all knew the lyrics to the entire song by heart. It’s hard not to get sentimental, coz the song was about us, about my friends, old and new, about every single struggling overseas filipino I've ever met in Dubai, including myself. 

Lift your head, baby don't be scared / with the things that could go wrong along the way.
We'll get by with a smile / We'll get along with a little prayer and a song.

What does OPM Mean?

This is a question I’ve been asked many times, and frankly a question that I have been struggling to answer every time.  As an acronym, it refers to Original Pilipino Music, but the more difficult question is what does "Original" mean? What does "Pilipino music" mean? and more importantly, what does it mean, to me, personally.

Ever since I got here in Dubai, I have been blessed (and sometimes cursed) with the opportunity to work on, one way or another, distributing and promoting OPM. 

I am certainly no expert and I can only speak for my behalf. The truth is I am just another fan trying to get as much I can.  

So if you ask me what does OPM mean to me?  It is not one thing, but rather a flood of memories, of  familiar songs and tiny take-away moments like ....

...Rivermaya singing Himala to a small hopeful crowd at Gotham in Malate on a rainy night 

....or watching the Eraserheads live for the first time at the UP Sunken Garden with my High school friends

....hearing a blind man with a guitar singing Freddie Aguilar's Anak on one of Manila’s sidewalks while walking towards the jeepney stand

....catching Cynthia Alexander play at Fete de la Musique year after year and always taken away by how really good she is

....or simply hanging out in some dingy club in Espanya or in Saguijo watching 20+ bands plug and play. 

...or this one day at work, huddled in the boardroom, listening and getting  excited by  this unique take of one Filipina singer on Bossa Nova

... or finding a club in Dubai and being able to order Sisig and San miguel while watching the versatile all-pinoy line up go from Pop to Rock to R&B.  

... recently OPM meant singing Eraserhead's "Minsan" and being overwhelmed with that strange liberating feeling of singing along in your native tounge with your best buddies and 10,000 fans on an open field in an alien Middle East City such as Dubai.   

OPM is my cause, my community and a large part of my identity. OPM is alive, but I do believe it needs and deserves support, more than the stupid Gwiyomi or Gangnam or Harlem Shake videos that don't mean anything. 


OPM means we are one.

"Sasalubungin natin ang kinabukasan, ng walang takot at walang pangamba, Tadahana'y medyo overated kung minsan,....one of my favorite singer-songwriters Rico Blanco in Dubai October 2009.

Comfort in your strangeness... with Cynthia Alexander, another one of my OPM heroes, back in the day. 

EPIC. Me and Brutal Grace with the Heads backstage after their sold-out Reunion concert in Dubai.

Support the OPM Means movement : www.facebook.com/opmmeans Your favorite Filipino hits are now available for download in the UAE on www.musicstore.ae

Waiting for Spring

a bird was freezing in the longest winter

he hasn't flown

he hasn't seen the dawn

a little heat was all he needed

to forget, to go back to sleep

in the dead cold winter night

a flower grew in the garden

she stretched her arms

and smiled

she was waiting for the sun

a little heat was all she needed

to feel alive, to leave behind

the dark cold winter night

it wont be long, she said

it will be long, he said

the spring, she said

the winter, he said

if only i can fly, she said

if only i had roots, he said.

Stumbling upon the Dubai Underground

Back in the 80s, when you say “Middle East” it immediately conjures images of the desert, oil riggs, construction, 24carat gold, strict Arab masters and of course, our lonely OFWs. The Gulf war in the 90s and 9-11 terrorist attacks didn’t seem to improve that image much, but that didn’t stop the diaspora of pinoys in this region, especially the “open” city of Dubai.

See, I had been warned about Dubai, fake, pretentious, boring and removed of any of real soul, but lately I’ve been finding myself checking-in at more and more good art and music venues enough to make me reconsider.


Today a new cultural movement is emerging from the underground, and with that a new breed of talented pinoys are again at the forefront. We caught up with one of them one night, Filipino artist Darwin Gueverra, while he was working on this huge graffiti in some 5-star hotel’s parking lot along with other international artists who flew in for the occasion.

We went further inside, a world-famous DJ was playing, the cool crowd was trickling in and as we took a seat in the gutter with our beers, we thought to ourselves - well look at that, Dubai is not what it used to be. Ironically, despite its array of swanky places, it was there in that parking lot that night that we stumbled upon the city’s real pulse, faint but alive and definitely a sign of good things coming.

*cool photos courtesy of Brutal Grace

Homeland Security and My Alternate Life

I don’t think I ever told anybody this story.

Sometime towards the tail end of 2008, I was getting restless and well, bored , when I stumbled upon a “work abroad” site that had an opening for a “copywriter” to be based in the UAE.

Moving to an Arab country, at that time, to me, sounded absurd and dangerous yet strangely appealing.  Dubai, of course was being hyped as this city of big easy money, extreme luxury, and endless job openings. Still our people had their doubts about Dubai and it wasn’t exactly what one would consider “cool”.

Anyway, I clicked on the link and soon enough I found myself walking into one of them old recruitment agencies in Manila, the type that are always packed with applicants, with wooden floors that creaked and rooms that smelled like old forgotten cigarettes.

I looked around, most of the people were either out of jobs or in this quest for their dream to “work abroad” and provide for their families.  The first thought in my head was guilt. There I was, young, single with a stable career in what many would actually consider a dream job, I really shouldn't be there. It didn’t seem right to hoard opportunities, at least that how I felt initially and then I reminded myself that the Philippines is a democratic-equal opportunity- country and I was after a specific copywriter job that, given this dingy hole in the wall, I’m pretty sure not many copywriters worth their salt would consider. I would say there wasn’t exactly competition.

So we waited, for like a half day, for the so-called “Principal”, the much revered foreign recruiter who flew all the way to do a 3-minute interview with each of us lucky participants of the job lottery.

I was expecting some Arab guy to meet me, but when I was finally called into the interrogation room, I was surprised to find an Indian Lady. She handed me her card. I did a mental note to research this company online.  She told me she belonged to a group of companies that had a growing ad agency in the Middle East, and that they were looking a copywriter.  Predictably, it ended with “we will get in touch with you.”

I thought that was the end of it. I was somehow relieved that it didn’t go the next level, because the truth is, I wasn’t really ready to rock the boat just yet.  Then it happened, I got the call that said I passed the first round and that they will be needing me to fill out a “copy test ”.

This is where it becomes interesting.  So I got the copy test on email, and the test was to come up with a Press Release for ….well, of all things.... an upcoming HOMELAND SECURITY expo.



The reference material was for something like this.



See, I did have some experience writing Press releases for expos because in my first ever job I was writing a lot of them for the annual Travel Tour Expo, but Homeland Security -  in the Middle East -  is maybe something that is not up my alley.  I looked at the reference material, and it was indeed a brochure intended for just about any country’s Department of Defense or your regular terrorist-next-door guy, depending on how you look at it.

Despite my apprehension, I did honestly think about what to write for the next couple of days.  I tried to imagine the audience for the PR, images of military men, the secret service, arab leaders, war and terrorist attacks slowly trickled in and I finally decided that staying for the next Twilight soundtrack launch and writing radio scripts for Josh Groban might just be for the best.

I don’t recall telling anybody (especially my parents) the story, because it just seemed like the kind of thing that you keep to yourself. I eventually managed to land a job in Dubai, but nothing as deeply unsettling  and as undeniably interesting as that first overseas job offer.

I was a sheltered little girl who believed in peace and in a perfect world of pop records and movie franchises. Maybe if I knew then what I know now,  I would have grabbed the opportunity. I guess today I’ll have to be content in thinking that somewhere in a parallel universe, I am receiving Homeland security brochures, working on press kits for the latest military tech, sending out invites to some rocket launch and handling inquiries from the CIA…..

Ok, I know, I should probably stop watching Homeland.



Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?



 

Ps. I am not able to access my old yahoo account (where the copy test has been sent) for over a year now. Suffice to say, the said email account has been “compromised.”

Talk is Not Cheap

Growing up a wallflower, I know how awkwardly difficult it can be sometimes to strike up conversation with someone, most especially someone famous. The pressure is even higher if you are a writer or a journalist with a time limit.

Having worked in PR, then at a major Record label, and done some freelance writing for magazines, I would say I’ve pretty much had my share of artist interviews, exclusive press cons, and eavesdropped on enough 5-minute “phoners” to be able tell the good ones, from the decent, to the utter fails.

So I thought I’d share some tips I’ve picked up from my life backstage that might come in handy for both pros and non-pros. In case you ever find yourself in that tight spot or in that surreal defining–stuck in an elevator- moment with say Anne Hathaway or Brad Pitt, or in my case Dave Grohl or Johnny Depp,  DO NOT PANIC and try remember these few things –

How to talk to Artists / Celebrities :

William: "What do you like about music?"
 Russell : "To begin with, everything."

Put them – and yourself – at ease.  Breathe, smile, say Hi and exchange pleasantries like you would with an old friend you haven’t seen or talked to in a while. Make them comfortable and more importantly make yourself comfortable. Let them tell you about their day then tell them a little bit about yours. Assume that they are just as interested with you as you are with them (ok, they aren’t, but it's helpful to have a little bit confidence). Level with them, don’t play small, but don’t act tall either.  Limit the compliments and try not to gush like a school girl, just establish a comfort zone and pick up the pace from there. 

Be prepared, but not too much. Pack up enough ammunition, but don’t fire bullets. Let the conversation run its course. Shotgun interviews are usually the ones that end up awkward and messy. (This works out pretty well on first dates too.)

Be Relevant. If you are talking to Steven Spielberg, and he’s just out with a new movie, then its probably best not to ask him about working with a young Drew Barrymore in ET, or I’d say you would be better off not asking Thom Yorke about the song Creep, coz it reminds you of your crush in high school. In other words,  be relevant to your subject, because being relevant proves two things :  one –that you have a fairly good idea of what you’re talking about, and two – that you care enough about the artist to know what would interest him. These are pretty much basic conversation skills. Conversation is always a 2-way street.

Be Original (and try not to ask stupid questions). Understand that these people, celebs as they are, do this for a living, so it would be best to stay away from the obvious cliché questions that they’ve been asked 10,000 times before. In other words, unless you are a Japanese fan girl in Japan talking to Weezer, do not  dare ask questions like “where did you get the name of your band?”  You will probably get an answer but it won’t help your reputation (or your article). And if you absolutely must ask a stupid question, make it sound so stupid, that it is almost memorable.

 Observe. Sometimes the most important part of the conversation doesn’t involve words. Look out for the signals, the gestures, the slight facial expressions, if they are making eye contact with their managers to pull the plug. Sometimes the story is in the pause of the sentence, or that snicker after hearing another name mentioned. Plus when a subject go by one-liners and doesn’t  want to talk too much (and there are always a couple those) observing them would be very useful if you had to write 3000+words article.

Wrap it up nicely. I noticed this is a-must especially if you’re on a live interview. You can play around with the in-betweens, but there are only really 2 things you have to be ready for, the first question and the last question. Let them leave a good word, if possible hold their hand and lead them to that smart quote. Don’t, for the love of God or your fellow human beings, ever, ever ask them to invite (beg) their fans to watch the show or the movie.  They only do this in the Philippines – in the 80s. If you’re a host or a DJ on air, I believe that should be your job. If you don’t believe me, watch the late night show with David Letterman and take notes.

How NOT to talk to Celebrities :