Music hath charms...
October 23, 2006 | 12:00am
I recall an old film, a Hayley Mills starrer, where her provincial character misquotes a line when she tries to impress her significant other, a London sophisticate: "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast (sic)." The boy winces, and without looking at her, applies the correction: "Breast, darling. Breast."
What’s in a missing letter? Plenty. From beast to breast is quite a leap into acceptance, fond recall, wistful desideratum or wish fulfillment. I imagine that a play or musical adaptation titled "The Beauty and the Breast" would pack them in on Broadway or at the West End.
"Savage beast" of course sounds entirely spot-on as a two-word combo, while "savage breast" may occasion a double-take, since we hardly associate "breast," especially since it’s preferably associated with the feminine, as being beastly. It takes a while to recognize that the quote about the power of music purposefully utilizes stark contrast, and refers to a breast of a savage beast.
That breast, that beast, may be soothed and tamed by music. And with that we have no disagreement.
In any case, both music and strange synchronicity were at play a few nights ago when, having barely sat down at Chakiks on Julia Vargas Avenue off Ortigas Center to check out a jazz quartet billed as Skarlet, I was alerted by the usual buzz on my cell phone. A young lady visiting Dumaguete for a video shoot was asking for Pete Lacaba’s number. I sent a biz card and left it at that.
Barely a minute later, Skarlet, formerly Myra of Put3Ska, now reinvented as a jazz vocalist who enhances her act by donning apparel straight out of the swinging ’30s or ’40s, announced onstage that it was a pity Pete Lacaba wasn’t around. It seems she had invited him that night, but he had begged off, under the weather daw. She proceeded to sing Pete’s Filggalog version of As Time Goes By.
Used as I am to such coincidental transactions, especially pertaining to selective affinities (thanks, Goethe), the worrier in me soon had cell phone in hand, texting Mr. Lacaba for confirmation. How badly under the weather was he? Why would two ladies, in two separate, distant cities, within a span of five minutes, cause him to bite his tongue by not only thinking about him but actually uttering his name (well, the first with her SMS-ing thumb)?
Pete assured me that he wasn’t saying farewell just yet, even as time was going (and sometimes passing us) by. He requested by text for Myra, er, Skarlet, to also sing his adaptation (or salinawit as our younger bro Billy Lacaba had dubbed it) of I’ll Be Seeing You.
Yes. That was a recent request by me, in fact, for him to add that song to his growing repertory of localized fodder for the sing-along machine. Since friends first heard Pete essay, onstage, with a mic, his salinawit of La Vie En Rose, he has been widely encouraged to expand his unique, instant-hit play-list.
I strode towards Chakik’s stage (tremulously, hoping the audience wouldn’t urge a duet with the featured vocalist) to show Skarlet the texted request. Unfortunately, much as she acknowledged that she had already received Pete’s e-mail of 21 song adaptations (thus far) in Filgalog, for that night Skarlet only had As Time Goes By down pat.
After her set with the fine jazz trio on guitar, upright bass and drums, Skarlet filled me in on how Pete’s lyrics happened to gain inclusion in her repertoire. It was at Remembrances on A. Mabini St. in Malate where she first saw the Tagalized version of That’s All, pasted on the back cover of a play-list. She copied it and sang it.
A Remembrances habitué, Reli German-about-town approached her to demand where she had picked up those lyrics, as he knew it to have been penned by Karaoke-Videoke King Pete Lacaba. Mock-solemnly, she was warned that she might be violating copyright restrictions. A flustered Skarlet soon found herself talking on Reli’s cell phone to the writer/lyricist himself, who assured her that she could sing his adaptations, but that he had to catch her act one day.
So that’s how Skarlet began singing Jose F. Lacaba’s alternative lyrics for songs our mothers (Pete’s and mine) sang to us to soothe our savage breasts. But until Pete gives up his human, creative, and reproductive rights to his lyrics, they won’t yet find themselves in Skarlet’s commercial output.
She has an upcoming CD album to be titled "Powder Room Stories," for Candid Records Philippines, imaginably for its Isla label. Scheduled for release next month, it’ll have 10 original songs, including Birdie Bop, composed by Aya Yuson who served as her recording session guitarist, and as skat-ted by Skarlet, plus the retro-ed I’m in Love with a Dream from the Executive Band, formerly arranged by Angel Peña, with lyrics by Francis Manglapus, Ani Montano’s Babae Ka, and a cover of Blondie’s Call Me (featured in the film American Gigolo).
Let’s look forward to November for Skarlet’s CD; may the next include not a few of Pete Lacaba’s salinawit. Samples are boxed close by, for the benefit of any and all aficionados, even disintunados. Pete allows their publication and vocalized sharing. them here. "Singilin ko na lang yung i-CD nila," he quips.
While we’re on the subject of musical charms, here’s a brief listing of CDs recently acquired.
Isla/Candid’s Allan Fajardo sent a couple, and I’m happy that one of them is a redesigned edition of Girl Valencia’s "Driftwood Traveling," which the gifted artist composed all the songs for, and had serially soft-launched with friends as an indie CD earlier this year. The Isla release with a new cover – with actual tiny shells that rattle in that space by the disk holder’s spine – was launched last Friday at the Podium Lounge.
Nick Joaquin’s and Billy Lacaba’s favorite singer (and Pete’s, Reli’s, Conrad Banal’s, Egie Apostol’s and mine, among others), Girl continues to perform Thursday nights at Richmonde Hotel’s Exchange Bar. Until Reli, Conrad and Pete, sometimes with novelist Charlson Ong and poet Marne Kilates, bully her off the stage with their decidedly more savage renditions of... uh, anything that resembles driftwood. Make that flotsam and jetsam.
The other recent Isla release is Red Letter Day’s "Stop, Look and Listen," which was launched at the Podium Lounge earlier this October. An acoustic-alternative group, Red Letter Day is composed of vocalist Ianne Santos, who has performed with various bands overseas (in the US, Holland and Italy), songwriter-guitarist Rommel Macam, and percussionist Tarys Santos.
A clean, distinctive sound these young musicians produce, with three songs in Tagalog, including the recent hit Sana. Ianne’s voice is particularly mellifluous and blessed with clarity. The guys do a creditable finale number, the instrumental Jazz a Moment. The rest of the dozen tracks are OPM in English.
Another debut CD is "Dirty Kitchen" by the group of the same name, led by Chris Carandang, son of good friends Dr. Tito Carandang and Dr. Honey Arellano Carandang. Sorry, Chris, but I’m an unmitigated namedropper of parents’ names, especially when these hark back to the ’60s.
From the first track, Gusto Niyang Sumayaw, the group – Chris on vocals and guitar, Joel Alagao on lead guitar, Datu Arellano on guitar, e-bow and computer soundscapes, BJ Villanueva on bass and Nick Formoso on drums – heartily entertains with a lilting, quasi-ethnic-rock beat, plus conscientious lyrics (all by Chris, except for the track Waves which he collaborated on with cousin Mishka Adams).
From that first cut: "Paulit-ulit sa aking ulo/ parang sirang plaka, nakakabobo/ Makinig ka sa radyo/ wala na bang pagbabago/ hindi nagsasawang manggaya kahit hindi nababagay/ Sariling kulay ay di na makita/ tulad ng toyo ni Aling Maria/ Walang pagnanasang lasahan ang iyong pinanggalingan/ ang lahat ng ginagawa ay para maabot ang langit/ Gusto niyang sumayaw ng sariling sayaw/ gusto niyang kumanta ng sariling kanta..."
This song should turn into a hit, catchy, bouncy tune and all. Other cuts on this OPM album, half of the 14 in Pinoyese (Longganiza Blues in particular), should also get radio playtime. Check out www.dirtykusina.com and list@dirtykusina.com
Yet another recently released indie production is "Dekoding Rhythm" by AMPON, which is a cooperative of young people in their teens and 20s, a score of them, from Marikina, Quezon City, and Valle Verde in Pasig. They bill themselves as Underground Hip-hop artists. The CD comes with a Parental Advisory tag, owing to "Explicit Lyrics." That means a smattering of the F-word among the jackhammer perorations in English that often come close to poetry ("Take a sip from the concentrate.../ picture-perfect fantasies, these include catastrophes...").
Well, apocryphal as it goes, Rap’s supposed to be an acronym for "Revolutionize American Poetry." Here, make it Amboy poetry, or better yet, AMPON’s, truly our own, replete with protest, rage, nihilism, and yet conclusively, a concentrated and delightfully rhythmic form of eloquence. Some cuts are in Tagalog.
From Malimit: "Sa paligsahan ng pangungulila/ ang premyo ay dunong/ pero bago ka makasali/ palayain ang pusong nakakulong/ Sunugin natin ang bandila/ ng umuusok na nasyonalismo/ ang dating dagat ng rebolusyon/ ngayo’y dumadaan sa gripo/ Ayoko nang umasa sa bansang nagtataka/ kung ba’t di tayo umaangat/ mga ungas at mga tanga/ Ako’y naghihingalo!/ Ang oras ay tumatakbo/ patungo sa liwanag ng langit/ na umuulan ng abo/ Hindi pa tapos ang laban/ at kung matalo man ako/ ang mga ampon ng bahay ko ay haharap sayo/ Pero nasan ang talino?!/ Sa likod ng dahas/ nakikipagtaliik ang sisiw/ sa mapanganib na ahas/ Ang republika nabibiyak/ sa bigat ng kanyang mga sekreto..."
"Dekoding Rhythm" by AMPON (short for Absolute Messages Personified Over Noise) was recently featured in RJTV’s Open House with Gerry Cornejo. There’ll be a launch-gig at Kublai’s on Katipunan Avenue on Nov. 4. Other launch-gigs are being scheduled at EDSA Shangri-La Plaza’s Watering Hole, and Gweilos and OJ’s at Eastwood Libis.
Copies are also available at Mag:Net Katips, Big Sky Mind and Seventy7 Café in Quezon City, and in Bacolod from Matt Murdock of Killer Bee 106.3.
Now, to soothe those savage beasts. Er, breasts, darlings, breasts.
What’s in a missing letter? Plenty. From beast to breast is quite a leap into acceptance, fond recall, wistful desideratum or wish fulfillment. I imagine that a play or musical adaptation titled "The Beauty and the Breast" would pack them in on Broadway or at the West End.
"Savage beast" of course sounds entirely spot-on as a two-word combo, while "savage breast" may occasion a double-take, since we hardly associate "breast," especially since it’s preferably associated with the feminine, as being beastly. It takes a while to recognize that the quote about the power of music purposefully utilizes stark contrast, and refers to a breast of a savage beast.
That breast, that beast, may be soothed and tamed by music. And with that we have no disagreement.
In any case, both music and strange synchronicity were at play a few nights ago when, having barely sat down at Chakiks on Julia Vargas Avenue off Ortigas Center to check out a jazz quartet billed as Skarlet, I was alerted by the usual buzz on my cell phone. A young lady visiting Dumaguete for a video shoot was asking for Pete Lacaba’s number. I sent a biz card and left it at that.
Barely a minute later, Skarlet, formerly Myra of Put3Ska, now reinvented as a jazz vocalist who enhances her act by donning apparel straight out of the swinging ’30s or ’40s, announced onstage that it was a pity Pete Lacaba wasn’t around. It seems she had invited him that night, but he had begged off, under the weather daw. She proceeded to sing Pete’s Filggalog version of As Time Goes By.
Used as I am to such coincidental transactions, especially pertaining to selective affinities (thanks, Goethe), the worrier in me soon had cell phone in hand, texting Mr. Lacaba for confirmation. How badly under the weather was he? Why would two ladies, in two separate, distant cities, within a span of five minutes, cause him to bite his tongue by not only thinking about him but actually uttering his name (well, the first with her SMS-ing thumb)?
Pete assured me that he wasn’t saying farewell just yet, even as time was going (and sometimes passing us) by. He requested by text for Myra, er, Skarlet, to also sing his adaptation (or salinawit as our younger bro Billy Lacaba had dubbed it) of I’ll Be Seeing You.
Yes. That was a recent request by me, in fact, for him to add that song to his growing repertory of localized fodder for the sing-along machine. Since friends first heard Pete essay, onstage, with a mic, his salinawit of La Vie En Rose, he has been widely encouraged to expand his unique, instant-hit play-list.
I strode towards Chakik’s stage (tremulously, hoping the audience wouldn’t urge a duet with the featured vocalist) to show Skarlet the texted request. Unfortunately, much as she acknowledged that she had already received Pete’s e-mail of 21 song adaptations (thus far) in Filgalog, for that night Skarlet only had As Time Goes By down pat.
After her set with the fine jazz trio on guitar, upright bass and drums, Skarlet filled me in on how Pete’s lyrics happened to gain inclusion in her repertoire. It was at Remembrances on A. Mabini St. in Malate where she first saw the Tagalized version of That’s All, pasted on the back cover of a play-list. She copied it and sang it.
A Remembrances habitué, Reli German-about-town approached her to demand where she had picked up those lyrics, as he knew it to have been penned by Karaoke-Videoke King Pete Lacaba. Mock-solemnly, she was warned that she might be violating copyright restrictions. A flustered Skarlet soon found herself talking on Reli’s cell phone to the writer/lyricist himself, who assured her that she could sing his adaptations, but that he had to catch her act one day.
So that’s how Skarlet began singing Jose F. Lacaba’s alternative lyrics for songs our mothers (Pete’s and mine) sang to us to soothe our savage breasts. But until Pete gives up his human, creative, and reproductive rights to his lyrics, they won’t yet find themselves in Skarlet’s commercial output.
She has an upcoming CD album to be titled "Powder Room Stories," for Candid Records Philippines, imaginably for its Isla label. Scheduled for release next month, it’ll have 10 original songs, including Birdie Bop, composed by Aya Yuson who served as her recording session guitarist, and as skat-ted by Skarlet, plus the retro-ed I’m in Love with a Dream from the Executive Band, formerly arranged by Angel Peña, with lyrics by Francis Manglapus, Ani Montano’s Babae Ka, and a cover of Blondie’s Call Me (featured in the film American Gigolo).
Let’s look forward to November for Skarlet’s CD; may the next include not a few of Pete Lacaba’s salinawit. Samples are boxed close by, for the benefit of any and all aficionados, even disintunados. Pete allows their publication and vocalized sharing. them here. "Singilin ko na lang yung i-CD nila," he quips.
While we’re on the subject of musical charms, here’s a brief listing of CDs recently acquired.
Isla/Candid’s Allan Fajardo sent a couple, and I’m happy that one of them is a redesigned edition of Girl Valencia’s "Driftwood Traveling," which the gifted artist composed all the songs for, and had serially soft-launched with friends as an indie CD earlier this year. The Isla release with a new cover – with actual tiny shells that rattle in that space by the disk holder’s spine – was launched last Friday at the Podium Lounge.
Nick Joaquin’s and Billy Lacaba’s favorite singer (and Pete’s, Reli’s, Conrad Banal’s, Egie Apostol’s and mine, among others), Girl continues to perform Thursday nights at Richmonde Hotel’s Exchange Bar. Until Reli, Conrad and Pete, sometimes with novelist Charlson Ong and poet Marne Kilates, bully her off the stage with their decidedly more savage renditions of... uh, anything that resembles driftwood. Make that flotsam and jetsam.
The other recent Isla release is Red Letter Day’s "Stop, Look and Listen," which was launched at the Podium Lounge earlier this October. An acoustic-alternative group, Red Letter Day is composed of vocalist Ianne Santos, who has performed with various bands overseas (in the US, Holland and Italy), songwriter-guitarist Rommel Macam, and percussionist Tarys Santos.
A clean, distinctive sound these young musicians produce, with three songs in Tagalog, including the recent hit Sana. Ianne’s voice is particularly mellifluous and blessed with clarity. The guys do a creditable finale number, the instrumental Jazz a Moment. The rest of the dozen tracks are OPM in English.
Another debut CD is "Dirty Kitchen" by the group of the same name, led by Chris Carandang, son of good friends Dr. Tito Carandang and Dr. Honey Arellano Carandang. Sorry, Chris, but I’m an unmitigated namedropper of parents’ names, especially when these hark back to the ’60s.
From the first track, Gusto Niyang Sumayaw, the group – Chris on vocals and guitar, Joel Alagao on lead guitar, Datu Arellano on guitar, e-bow and computer soundscapes, BJ Villanueva on bass and Nick Formoso on drums – heartily entertains with a lilting, quasi-ethnic-rock beat, plus conscientious lyrics (all by Chris, except for the track Waves which he collaborated on with cousin Mishka Adams).
From that first cut: "Paulit-ulit sa aking ulo/ parang sirang plaka, nakakabobo/ Makinig ka sa radyo/ wala na bang pagbabago/ hindi nagsasawang manggaya kahit hindi nababagay/ Sariling kulay ay di na makita/ tulad ng toyo ni Aling Maria/ Walang pagnanasang lasahan ang iyong pinanggalingan/ ang lahat ng ginagawa ay para maabot ang langit/ Gusto niyang sumayaw ng sariling sayaw/ gusto niyang kumanta ng sariling kanta..."
This song should turn into a hit, catchy, bouncy tune and all. Other cuts on this OPM album, half of the 14 in Pinoyese (Longganiza Blues in particular), should also get radio playtime. Check out www.dirtykusina.com and list@dirtykusina.com
Yet another recently released indie production is "Dekoding Rhythm" by AMPON, which is a cooperative of young people in their teens and 20s, a score of them, from Marikina, Quezon City, and Valle Verde in Pasig. They bill themselves as Underground Hip-hop artists. The CD comes with a Parental Advisory tag, owing to "Explicit Lyrics." That means a smattering of the F-word among the jackhammer perorations in English that often come close to poetry ("Take a sip from the concentrate.../ picture-perfect fantasies, these include catastrophes...").
Well, apocryphal as it goes, Rap’s supposed to be an acronym for "Revolutionize American Poetry." Here, make it Amboy poetry, or better yet, AMPON’s, truly our own, replete with protest, rage, nihilism, and yet conclusively, a concentrated and delightfully rhythmic form of eloquence. Some cuts are in Tagalog.
From Malimit: "Sa paligsahan ng pangungulila/ ang premyo ay dunong/ pero bago ka makasali/ palayain ang pusong nakakulong/ Sunugin natin ang bandila/ ng umuusok na nasyonalismo/ ang dating dagat ng rebolusyon/ ngayo’y dumadaan sa gripo/ Ayoko nang umasa sa bansang nagtataka/ kung ba’t di tayo umaangat/ mga ungas at mga tanga/ Ako’y naghihingalo!/ Ang oras ay tumatakbo/ patungo sa liwanag ng langit/ na umuulan ng abo/ Hindi pa tapos ang laban/ at kung matalo man ako/ ang mga ampon ng bahay ko ay haharap sayo/ Pero nasan ang talino?!/ Sa likod ng dahas/ nakikipagtaliik ang sisiw/ sa mapanganib na ahas/ Ang republika nabibiyak/ sa bigat ng kanyang mga sekreto..."
"Dekoding Rhythm" by AMPON (short for Absolute Messages Personified Over Noise) was recently featured in RJTV’s Open House with Gerry Cornejo. There’ll be a launch-gig at Kublai’s on Katipunan Avenue on Nov. 4. Other launch-gigs are being scheduled at EDSA Shangri-La Plaza’s Watering Hole, and Gweilos and OJ’s at Eastwood Libis.
Copies are also available at Mag:Net Katips, Big Sky Mind and Seventy7 Café in Quezon City, and in Bacolod from Matt Murdock of Killer Bee 106.3.
Now, to soothe those savage beasts. Er, breasts, darlings, breasts.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
