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Posts tagged ‘clementine’

Mar 16

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Our Baguio Exploits (Day 1)

Things are pretty busy lately since the release of our new single “The Sight Of Love.” Also we just recently launched a music video to support it. You can view it Here.  And if you still don’t have a copy, you can download the song for free Here.

But this entry isn’t about that. I’m picking up the pieces where I last documented happenings involving The Camerawalls. As I rummage in our backlog of experiences I came across our pics from our wicked trip to Baguio with label mates Turbo Goth and The Bernadettes.

Day 1 – February 5

The night before we left Manila, Lilystars hosted a POP Shoppe! event that featured acoustic sets by Lilystars’ artists to go along with Outerhope – our special guest band for that night. It was laid back and a perfect send-off for a long trip to Baguio. After the event we hit the road at around 3am and found ourselves waking up to the sights of Baguio pines at around 7:30 am.

The famous haunted house along Leonard Wood Loop near Teacher's Camp.

We passed by a famous hunted house in the area which was already used many times in local films. I wanted to stop and stand against the gates to have a picture taken but no one in expressed any interest (out of fear i bet) so we moved along till we reached Antonette’s (our road manager) family rest house along Gibraltar St.

The house along Gibraltar St. where we all stayed over.

We rested for a few hours inside the house, some readily took long naps, and some (including myself) couldn’t take the building hunger as morning turns noon. Ian, Cheska, Sarah, Pao and I didn’t bother to wake up our driver and rode a jeepney towards the nearest Filipino restaurant to satisfy our craving for Beef Bone Marrow & Vegetable Soup locally know as Bulalo!

Bulalo (Beef Bone Marrow & Vegetable Soup) Sweet & Sour Fish & Pork and Grilled Stuffed Squid.

The food was great and not wanting the others to miss out I ordered some more for take out. When we got back, true enough, everyone was starving.

We have two gigs on that day. A late afternoon stint at SM City Baguio and a longer, more engaging set in the night at Chill Out Bar. The weather was just perfect in the high mountains. Not too hot and not too cold. The water on the other hand was close to being intolerable for baths.

We arrived at the mall around 4:30pm, did a bit of sound check and hang around a bit while waiting for our cue to begin the show.

Backstage enjoying the afternoon sun.

Law and Ian feeling the large stage.

Turbo Goth started the lazy afternoon followed by The Bernadettes. Small groups of crowd started building up from both ground and upper floor overlooking the stage. Notice how the sky in the pictures below turns from grayish white to black.

Turbo Goth kicking off the show.

Turbo Goth kicking of the afternoon show.

The Bernadettes

Doing our thing.

Finishing it high.

We played a few songs in the mall reserving energy for a long set at Chill Out Bar. A couple of music fans oblivious of The Camerawalls performing at SM chanced upon us while roaming around the mall not missing the chance to score our debut album. We had pizza after.

I always try to accustom myself with large venues for performing although we prefer intimate settings like small bars where the crowd is within reach and attended by real music fans, making us more excited for the event happening later in the night. Gary Martin, the owner of Chill Out, is celebrating the bar’s 7th anniversary and we’re expecting a lot of friends and music aficionados to come over. Joining us in the line up are friends from a Baguio based indie band — The Edralins. Enjoy the featured videos of The POP Shoppe! performances below:

The Edralins covering a song from The Stone Roses.

A yet to be release tune from Turbo Goth entitled Weather Report.

The Bernadettes with their song Let’s Make Babies.

Us covering a Cure classic. Just Like Heaven.

It was our first time to perform out of town with The POP Shoppe! and our second time as a band in Baguio. Last time we played in Chill Out was last year when we were still a trio, now almost the same crowd and much more witnessed us with our new guitar player.

Clinically Dead For 16 Hours

We immensely enjoyed the gig, met some new friends and felt like family with the way Gary and his friends treated us. Drinks and food were non-stop. The excitement and adrenaline wore off as soon as we went downstage after finishing the set with “Woman” by John Lennon as a final request coming from an engaged couple. All throughout the night I can’t help but notice a cute 3 year old little girl dancing around and seemingly trying to sing along to each song that was played. A kid enjoying the show – now that’s entertainment!

From L-R: Me posing with the bar owner Gary Martin, with the couple Jen Bautista (concert producer) and JB Bautista (the president of University of Baguio).

Feb 2

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Of Mice & Men

After two and a half years I finally decided to sing an Orange & Lemons song via a tribute gig to remember what was once an exciting venture. The songs I have written for my former band still haunts me. And what better way to reminisce but invite musician friends to celebrate that journey.

Joining The Camerawalls on the 30th of January at Route 196 are label mates Turbo Goth, The Bernadettes, Your Imaginary Friends and The Gentle Isolation plus guest artist The Satellites as well as Ian Zafra who came all the way from Cebu to do a series of solo perfomances. The small watering hole was packed with roughly over 150 people that consists of music fans, families and friends. It was so much fun at The POP Shoppe! it was inevitable not to allow ourselves to be a little bit intoxicated. So we did.

The Satellites performed “Strike Whilst The Iron Is Hot” and “Rock-A-Bye.” A great start for the evening and kinda suited their indie rock sound. The Gentle Isolation did girl pop versions of  “Cycle Of Love” and “Days And Nights” while Ian Zafra did a stripped version of “Hey, Please” letting the crowd sing half if not the entire song. It was amazing how everyone knew the words to it.  “Heaven Knows (This Angel Has Flown)” and “Lihim” was the cover of choice of Your Imaginary Friends. Turbo Goth did a laid back version of Sarah Gaugler’s all time  favorite “Just Like A Splendid Love Song” with Paolo trying to impersonate my guitar playing at one point. The Bernadettes did a rocking version of  “I Feel Good, I Feel Fine.”  I immensely enjoyed all of it. Hearing my songs covered by my favorite bands is quite an experience. Too bad we missed the set of Patience Dear Juggernaut. He was too ill to perform.

We were the last band to play and by the time we were onstage I was already feeling a little tipsy from the scores of vodka shots I was helping myself from Jeff Saw’s table. (Jeff is The POP Shoppe’s official photographer). It was almost 2 in the morning. As I fix my guitar strap I looked around and there were still a lot of people inside the bar waiting for us to perform. Most of them standing. After a couple of songs from Pocket Guide To The Other World, we did a familiar tune from 2003. The first track from Love In The Land Of Rubber Shoes & Dirty Ice Cream called “A Beginning Of Something Wonderful” written during my college days in the late 90s.

To everyone who shared the night with us, it wouldn’t have been as much fun without you all. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. To those who missed it, enjoy the video. In the future we will try to cover more of my songs from O&L. That I promise.

A Beginning Of Something Wonderful
Clementine
Orange & Lemons

Your gentle means
And all seems to commence
A brand new pace in me
Hope it’s not a blunder
Especially when I uncover, dig deeper
And I wonder

When I get near you
I feel something deep within me
You know you bring me to new heights
I’m like a big balloon filled with hot air
Ready to explode
Each and every time I kiss you

The more I’m with you
The more it feels like
This could be the beginning of something wonderful
Yeah, yeah…

Your lips are movin’
Your voice is so oh, so soothin’
You wear a face that lives in my dreams
Where did you come from
And I wonder

When I get near you
I feel something deep within me
You know you bring me to new heights
I’m like a big balloon filled with hot air
Ready to explode
Each and every time I kiss you

The more I’m with you
The more it feels like
This could be the beginning of something wonderful
Yeah, yeah…
The more I’m with you
The more it feels like
This could be the beginning of something really wonderful…

I have avoided singing my own songs in public for quite a number of reasons. After Orange & Lemons disbanded in a loathsome manner I just couldn’t allow myself to be reminded of the very people I once called friends, the very people who tried to fire me from my own band without proper decorum and stab me in the back by telling everyone lies. It was a situation unheard of. Sure, key leaving members in popular bands is everything but normal. Ely Buendia left The Eraserheads. Rico Blanco left Rivermaya. Johnny Marr left The Smiths. John Lennon left The Beatles. It would sound ridiculous and downright outrageous if Ely, Rico, Marr or worse John Lennon will be fired from their own band. It was like killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

In all the published works of O&L I have written lyrics for 32 songs, music for 39 songs plus 2 poetry. I sang 19 recorded tracks as main vocals, have painstakingly arranged, layered and recorded hundreds of guitar tracks alone. I have spent more hours in the studio during recording, mixing and mastering than any member of the band. Collaborated with sound engineers, directors, stylists, session musicians, advertisers, label people, etc. Booked and arranged all band rehearsals since day one.

I taught Mcoy how to play the guitar and how to fake it as a beginner during our early years of live gigging. He never recorded any guitar tracks in the album. I did. Ace Del Mundo auditioned to me and I was the one who hired him as a drummer and later on his brother JM to fill in for Law’s absence. I equally shared songwriting credits in the first two albums of O&L with Mcoy Fundales as a gesture of goodwill although he hasn’t contributed anything to most of the songs in terms of composition and intellectual property. So until now he has been receiving royalties for songs he did not create. I spent a year recording and conceptualizing and developing the last album Moonlane Gardens only to be fired a week after the album launch. I dedicated 11 years building the foundation of O&L and seeing it rise to the top and falling hard face-flat on quicksand. A classic example of losing heads in the clouds.

I cite these facts not out of bitterness nor anger but to answer the question a lot of people have been asking: “Why don’t you sing your songs from O&L and perform it with The Camerawalls?” Clearly my response is an emotional one. When I fought my way from preventing my ex-bandmates from using the entity Orange & Lemons without me (which i eventually succeeded), I posed a challenge to myself  and unto them to start from scratch and create our own music instead of banking on the success of O&L music. A challenge I knew they will not accept as they continue singing the songs they did not create during live gigs after disbanding mainly for profit.

The human spirit in me obliged to the challenge. An innate drive to create something unique and new from my raw individual experience with O&L and the desire to overcome the painful journey. The need to be challenged is so strong that we sometimes make things more difficult than they need to be just so we can rise to the occasion and overcome the obstacles we ourselves have created.

I refused to sing O&L songs during the early stages of The Camerawalls nor use any of my existing and unpublished recordings or demos or songs I’ve written during my stint with O&L. I started from scratch and with the help and collaboration of my new band mates we were able to produce songs that will eventually be the tracks for Pocket Guide To The Otherworld. I’m proud to say the tracks in Pocket Guide is the most recent and most mature work I ever did. They may not be as catchy or as youthful as the songs I contributed for O&L but it sure is a beginning of something wonderful once more.

THE BEST LAID SCHEMES OF MICE AND MEN.  A popular phrase which means the most carefully prepared plans may go wrong. As did my plans for Orange & Lemons. Taken from Robert Burns‘ poem To a Mouse, 1786. It tells of how he, while ploughing a field, upturned a mouse’s nest. The resulting poem is an apology to the mouse:

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promised joy.

The poem is the source for the title of John Steinbeck‘s 1936 novel – Of Mice and Men.

+Clementine

Jan 22

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KOC, Banchetto, Atbp.

If you find the title baffling:

KOC – stands for Kings Of Convenience (a Norwegian pop duo we admire).

Banchetto – an Italian word for “feast.” also refers to a weekly overnight street food fiesta located at Emerald Avenue in Ortigas Center (Fridays to Saturdays) and inside the roadside premises of Forum Robinson at Pioneer St. cor EDSA (Wednesdays to Thursdays).

Atbp – Filipino abbreviation for the English “and others” and Latin “et cetera (etc.)”

A little over two weeks ago, musician and fashion designer Kate Torralba notified us to participate in a “We Want Kings Of Conveniece in Manila Night” and cover a KOC song. A sort of a fete for the upcoming performance of KOC in Manila on March 31 and Kate is part of the production team who will bring them to the Philippines. The most exciting news I’ve heard in while being one who seldom gets the chance to watch a foreign band I love.

As for the cover song, the most obvious choice would be “I’d Rather Dance With You,” which is one of the few full band, upbeat and groovy tracks of KOC. Two weeks is enough leeway for us to learn the song but being predictable procrastinators we were only able to rehearse it as a band during the night before the gig. A fact that made us a bit nervous. I originally planned to capture our skittish performance, too bad my handy flip cam’s battery died during the first few seconds of our set.

I know a lot of people are anxious to see us cover that song so the best we can offer as of now is a clip taken during our rehearsal. Please excuse the lyrical blunders and off-key moments.

Some pics from the actual gig taken from the camera I manage to bring with me.

Let the music begin.

Getting into the swing.

Result of too much swinging.

Swinging till the end. Producing less prominent focal points.

Posing with Sarah Gaugler and event producer Kate Torralba. She's holding a big logbook filled with pledges/requests of people reserving tickets for the KOC concert.

With the Channel V staff and crew who covered the event and interviewed the bands.

Post Gig Food Trip

We were the last to play after Waya, Kate Torralba, Outerhope and Us-2 Evil-0 ending our set at 1:45am. The night still seems young so we rendezvous at Banchetto-Forum checking out the street food and indulging ourselves to whatever our eyes and bellies hungrily agrees to chow down on.

Isaw ng Manok (Chicken Intestines marinated and grilled)

The place was mouth watering. Upon arriving the first thing that caught my attention was the Isaw Manok (grilled chicken intestines) which I’ve been craving for quite some time just recently. I readily asked the vendor to prepare two sticks for little taste test. They were very good and tender. Before we decided to order some more we set off to a nearby convenience store to buy the perfect match for street food — an ice cold beer! Sarah, Pao and Law stayed behind to look around for food choices and reserve a table for all of us.

Isaw taste test. A little dip on special vinegar with spices for the kill.

Joining me in sampling the Isaw Manok are Ahmad (Your Imaginary Friends), Ian and Cheska.

When we got back, a quick survey led me to score half a kilo of Lechon de Leche (suckling pig roasted in charcoal), Betamax (grilled cubes of coagulated pig’s blood on stick) and a grilled Tilapia (a freshwater fish) stuffed with onions and tomatoes. Sarah and Pao got some hotdogs, rice toppings and what seems like pita bread with cheese fillings. I wasn’t paying attention to what they were having being engrossed with appetizing dishes right in front of me and the beer bottle I was clutching and chugging in between bites. Ahmad of Your Imaginary friends bought some Hungarian sausages while Ian and Cheska settled for Liempo (grilled pork belly) with rice and a few more Isaw Manok.

Lechon de Leche (Roasted suckling pig) - a typical Philippine cuisine with Spanish origin.

Betamax (Grilled coagulated pig's blood), Tilapia and Hotdog!

Law squeezing some gravy sauce. On the foreground beside the Lechon is our favorite beer - a Philippine made San Miguel Pale Pilsen.

Betamax! Betamax! Betamax!

After a while a security guard with heavily set eyes approached our table to inform us that alcoholic beverages aren’t allowed in the area. Maybe he noticed the look of disbelief on our faces, or the amount of food we have on our table, or my quick offer of a solution to try our best to conceal it by wrapping the bottles with plastic bags that made him shrug and walk back to his post. That was almost disappointing had he insisted.

We spent the remainder of our time enjoying the food and booze while playing word games. Connecting silly phrases consisting of three words that’s goes around counter-clockwise forming long sentences that means nothing like fart in a wind storm. By the time we got bored with the nonsense we moved on to a name game choosing a letter and taking turns in naming every local or international celebrity we can think of whose name begins with that particular letter. Failure to name one is punishable by a bite on cold leftover pieces of Lechon dipped in different sauces (gravy, vinegar, soy sauce). And every time someone makes a mistake we proceed with the next letter in alphabetical order. It was hilariously crazy and everyone was forced to put on their thinking cap and participate. We reached the letter “Y” before deciding to call it day.

Cheers to the most boisterous group and only table in the vicinity with alcohol!

It's already 5am. Final shot before we hit the road homeward bound.

There’s a saying that goes “Man is richest who’s pleasures are the cheapest.” Indeed, cheap pleasures made our day. – Clementine

Jan 17

Moz Night

We began drinking at 3pm.

Pao, Clem, Law and I met at Lilystar’s HQ for a photo shoot. Its always a bit rough for me to pose without some sort of social lubricant, so I brought along a litre of Absolute Blue. We got dressed and Daphne took some pictures.

It wasn’t long till Pao and Sarah (Turbo Goth) introduced us to their little friend. Jose Cuervo. Antonette’s mom hooked us up with some Shakey’s. By then the sun had already set and it wasn’t too long till we had to head out to the studio to rehearse the songs on the set list.

The Moz covers we did were: Suedehead, The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get, Interesting Drug and The Last Of The International Playboys.

Here’s where it got hazy.

Lots of people. Lots of flowers. The Bernadettes. Turbo Goth doing Get Behind Me Satan. My family showed up. Standing on the drum set. It was hot. Steamy. We played a great show.

Epilogue.

Cheska and I met up with my family at Whistle Stop. I had 6 shots of Chivas, A Baconsilog, A burger, Salpicao, a tapsilog, Coke Zero, Iced tea and a key lime pie…. Got home.

Sweet Dreams.

Ian Sarabia

(Related Blog: Your Interesting Drug)

Dec 10

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My Birthday Wishes

Last night I went to a potluck party where I celebrated my birthday with dear people from my record label and some friends. It was fun. Good friends, great music, lots of food and booze. I went home at 4am in the morning. Took a bus going home to Bulacan. Got a copy of fresh newspaper from a boy half my age just to follow the news on violence and political mumbo-jumbo.

(Blowing candles with co-celebrant Paolo Peralta, who happens to share the same birthdate)

Woke up at 2pm today and realized I’m already 33 years old. Blew a candle last night but never really thought about making a wish so I decided to make time and blog about it in between sips of herbal coffee only to end up composing a new song. It became pretty intense I worked around it for 4 hours without leaving my desk and continuously plucking an old acoustic guitar.

By the time I was satisfied with the verses and flow of the song I was also completely exhausted with my fingers already giving up on the fat string gauge. I manage to record a live demo directly on my beat up laptop in the living room while everyone is doing siesta.

I don’t normally share demos to the public but since it’s my birthday paired with eagerness to relate what is currently in my emphatic mind, I decided to upload my first live demo take. This is very raw and will surely evolve overtime as I continue developing it. I hope to arrange this piece sometime soon with my bandmates and properly record it in a studio. Maybe include it in the next album. We’ll see.

My Birthday Wishes (Live Demo)
words and music by Clementine

I call upon the Universe
To never take the shine off common people
Whose eyes are still gleaming with hope
I call upon the President
To limit her ambitions
There are far more greater things in life than power

I wish for peace and love
A better country and a happy coexistence
Longevity of the people I love
All these years I think of nothing, no one but myself
In birthday wishes
Now I think of you.
Now I think of you.

I pray to you my sweetest Lord
Paint us a portrait of your Love
I sing to you my dearest friends
Never cease believing
Dreams do come true.

I wish for peace and love
A better country and a happy coexistence
Longevity of the people I love
All these years I think of nothing, no one but myself
In birthday wishes
Now I think of you.
Now I think of you.

Oh, grant me these wishes
Oh, grant me these wishes
Something good ends, something better will begin
Something good ends, something better will begin
And in this fog i use my heart as a compass
And in the darkness, my faith is my lamp
And in depression I learn the real value of living.

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