I guess this is to warn our dear LCC shoppers—the whole month of May is feared to be exciting and meaningful. No longer will the
All this is new found substance, is brought to us, without a shred of shame (and loving it), by the musical cult-supported event by the infamous name of Urag-urag (grievance). Urag-urag is the brainchild of the arts and culture group ABKAT; it is also its more familiar project among a teeming of others still unnoticed. It was started several years ago, attracting bands with varied musical genres united only by the fact that they are to play nothing but original songs. Not only the event was a smashing success, but it shattered the age-old tradition of non-creativity and cheap coverage of radio or MTV-established numbers. Some bands, though, despite the good example, still remain to be stubborn slackers of cover-playing for easy recognition. And of course, they are supported to the point of fandom by the audience who can only appreciate—guess—cover-playing.
But if ever there is a real cultural revolution in this City, this is it. For with the conception of the Urag-urag, Tabaco has made its first baby step, and joined other communities in a conscious pursuit of having a real musical culture.
The last massacre of indifference to the musical culture revolution in Tabaco, just happened last Sunday. People were awed and had their mouths in a wide O, saliva streaming down their cheeks in some, for the two solid hours of unheard of renditions, straight from the underground. Some were shocked, pissed, and wanted to spit in the bands faces, given the chance, but I am sure among the audience present there in that historic event, someone had said: I want to have worth—I’m tired of playing someone else’s song. And that my friends is the beginning of fulfillment. Most of the bands in this number aren’t paid, yet they keep on—what fuels their drive to play for free? That my friends is the secret happiness shared only by those who had the balls to play their own songs in front of a hundred people or so. Let’s cut this showband attitude of playing for food, enough with the cheap boy-band antics, and chick magnetry. It’s time to ask one’s self, when. When will I ever make something that is me?
I am not saying that all the bands in the Urag-urag bandwagon are all good, the world is not as perfect as that. And Tabaco Original Sound is still a fleeting ideal. We’ll give our detractors that, but we believe that the path is already set toward that direction, and it is only a matter of time before its eventual attainment.
So this is also a sort of call to my fellow bands, and bands still out there lurking in the limbo of impersonality. Don’t just play for kicks, or because you love playing—you’ve already done that. Try playing for something else. Something that will benefit not only you or your band mates, but also those that know what good music is, and what music is, period. Something that endures even when your band disintegrates into bits of warring points, something beyond you or time itself. Something like an original sound, a sound that is us alone. A sound that was handed to us by tradition or sung to us when we were young. Something that we know with all our hearts. Lets try to touch that area. It is not enough that we are composing originals. It’s always having an original sound that counts, at least for me.
Ok, I may have cried a bit in that portion. Any way here are the bands who performed in the last Urag-urag at LCC: Play As One, YParusa, Krear Bathala, Flat Earth Society, Kalbaryo, Amadeus, Rash, Time Rosary, and Green Diary. Yay to us all.
Yay also to our kick-ass, host Richard Madrilejos.
Yay to Julius Bariso for the pictures.
Yay to Jun Lim for the Engineering.
And yay to Kuya Erwin, for just being gay and ignoring us.
