Shirley Scary Debut Videos

sobrang salamat kay charles para sa mga vids na to galing sa aming debut halloween party nung october 25 sa cubaoX. mabuhay ka charles at enjoy the videos! :) [sasamahan ka pa rin, masamang damo, theme song, tsuper duper]

=jing=

ang bandang shirley hits baguio city

ang bandang shirley was graciously given the chance to play in the city of pines with paramita for SM Baguio and Pizza Hut's 5th anniversary last november 22, 2008. our very own joe "anak ng baguio" fontanilla welcomed us into his home, where his mom had lovingly prepared us a sumptuous lunch.

at the gig, we got to meet some plucky shirley fans who've been trying to help spread the word about us in baguio (we love you guys), and we gratefully signed their cds and took pictures with them. it's too bad we forgot to take our own photos with you guys! thanks for approaching us :)

owel and jing had to go home that same night, but the rest of us crashed at heidi's cabin in camp john hay and stayed for the next two days. we raided O Mai Khan and Vizco's (awww must-eat restaurants), plus did some sidetrips to the ukay and Burnham Park.

WE MISSED YOU KATHY! *HUG*

many thanks to mei bastes, our trusty road manager for the trip :) thanks to terno recordings for getting us the gig. thanks to tita cora fontanilla and ean's tito and tita from good news academy for the warm welcome.

WE'LL BE BACK!

photos from heidi's and selena's cams

themesongs track 9

"Ang Pag-Ibig Alinsunod Sa Karanasan Ng Isang Pangkaraniwang Jeepney Driver A.K.A. Tsuper Duper"

this is probably the hardest song to write about: it was the first-born, the earliest song written for the band before the band ever took shape. and this first-born isn't a baby anymore, tsuper is a hyperactive 6 year old that knows how to read and asks you all these questions about self explanatory things ("but why?") haha.

sometimes i listen to this song and i feel like i've heard it TOO MUCH, there are a gazillion versions of this song (three lo-fi with love demo versions, an ean 8-track version that never saw the light of day, the rizal day session, and then the album version) and it has made appearances in scenes from ang pagdadalaga ni maximo oliveros, tv promos, songwriting competitions (haha) and assorted high school and college plays. i hate this song sometimes.

last night good friend and distant cousin to lourd (haha) ramon de veyra messaged me on ym, saying "u know what for someone who detests pop I actualy really enjoyed them," and i'm all "what do u mean lol" and he's all "[that's] my friend, after i sent 3 songs from your album hahahaha" and i'm all happy, thinking "yay my band is so cool" haha and then he continues, pasting another direct quote: "parang theyre not trying hard to be anything eh, i like the tsuper song the most"

and then i'm all wow, and then ok, and then fine, and then i decide to write this post about the song that started it all and i remember the time that i used to play the bassline (now the synth part) of this song between songs back when i used to play with paramita (haha old school) and norman and ria would laugh and it would be some carribean-flavored jam, then we'd stop. but i wanted to take it further and i thought it should be in tagalog, and it should be a love song, and "i dunno i wanna fall in love" haha. i was a kid.

anyway i ride this jeep, i sit in front near the driver, but between me and the driver there was another passenger, a pretty girl and she was paying her fare and the driver goes "hinde miss, sagot ko na pamasahe mo" and i'm all "omg basta driver sweet lover" and then the song writes itself and then the old cautionary tale of being careful for what you wish for happens, and the song has taken over my brain. i hate singing it cause after the song finishes my brain is still singing it and i've listened to a lot of stuff between the writing of tsuper and today, and tsuper feels amateur (hindi sya avant garde haha) and fun and it reminds me of being a kid and riding that jeep. i remember the rizal day session recording for this, me and mark v. at tracks 4am, both of us super sleepy and i'm closing my eyes playing the synth parts and while recording mark apparently has this supernatural encounter (he tells me on the drive home: "naramdaman mo ba yun?" and i'm all: "zzz") and then he dubs the song TSUPER DUPER, making this visual rhyme very difficult to say haha.

i guess the point is, if it weren't for this song, the band wouldn't be here. so yay. haha. watch out for the release of the joe fontanilla version of this song very soon. haha.

-owel

of baguio, owel, sarah g. & cosmo chicks, QLE awards and rico blanco

Hi! It's Kathy and am home on a saturday night and so i write hehe

5 Things:

1. Re SM Baguio: i wasn't able to go with the band (thank you Mei for helping out! we love you!) but according to Joe, there were lots of you who came and watched so THANK you guys!

2. Today is Owel's birthday! Happy Birthday, a! haha.

3. Ang Bandang Shirley "Themesongs" sighting inside Cosmopolitan November 2008 issue with Sarah Geronimo on the cover (haha oo bumibili ako nun minsan haha):

Get Lost In A Song. Don't you just love songs that give you the freedom to feel? When you can pin your emotions on a melody, the resulting comfort is remarkable. The debut album of Ang Bandang Shirley is aptly titled Themesongs. Their tunes can match a melancholic Cosmo chick's typical sentiments, like dreaming of true love ("Kagabi Nanaginip si Morrissey Na May Nagmamahal Sa Kanya"), being stupidly smitten ("Sasamahan Ka Pa Rin"), and evn dreading the upcoming cold, lonely Christmas ("Xmas Lights")

4. Ang Bandang Shirley is Best New Artist and "Themesongs" is Best Album Cover...at the QLE Awards that is! (Thank you Mr. Luis Katigbak! we are very honored )

The QLE Awards

By Quark Henares
Philippine Daily Inquirer

HERE come the cranky old men, sourgraping about how the under-appreciated geniuses of our time aren’t paid any attention.

You know what I’m talking about—people who blog about how blablabla should’ve won and how blearghiebleargh got the nom simply because they ladidad. But let’s face it—awards based on numbers aren’t exactly the most reliable ones; and I know for a fact that 90 percent of text votes for a certain band in this year’s Rock Awards came from only two cell phone numbers.

It just so happened that during one party Erwin Romulo, Luis Katigbak and I were sitting around and pointing out people who were really talented yet never seemed to get any loving from the RA. In other words, we were old man sourgraping. We decided to do something about it, and agreed to collectively write small tributes to our favorites this year.

Hence, the QLE Awards.

Before I begin, I’d just like to clarify that I love the NU Rock Awards. I’ve even written two and directed one. But controversy is always great, so why not use that to highlight and point towards some of the artists who have truly touched us this year?

Best new artist

[Erwin] Intolerant AND Loss Of Control
Just because they’re metal and they don’t give a f**k.

[Luis] Ang Bandang Shirley

They’re not rock gods or avant-garde experimentalists—they’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, each day. Except that they have an enormous talent for impeccable pop tunes and quirky-heartfelt lyrics. And enormous appetites as well.

[Quark] Taken by Cars

A lot of people accuse Taken by Cars of ripping Bloc Party off. I say they’re better than Bloc Party. “Endings of A New Kind” is the kind of debut that feels like it was made after years of meshing and collaborating as artists, and individually the instrumentalists have that perfect balance of standing out yet sounding completely organic.

Album covers

[Erwin] Up Dharma Down - Bipolar
Not as genuinely complex and dazzling as the band’s music contained within, but it sure does a neat job of inviting us into it.

[Luis] Ang Bandang Shirley - Themesongs
C’mon. That Pepper Roxas cover is all sorts of adorable.

[Quark] Up Dharma Down - Bipolar

....

P.S. It should also be noted that some of our choices, including Ang Bandang Shirley and Up Dharma Down, were not eligible for the Rock Awards this year.

5. I love you Rico Blanco! haha. ang random.

love, Kathy

when the large band becomes less large

i'm sure you've always wondered why there are eight of us in ang bandang shirley, and some of you may have come across the explanation that we'd like to play at gigs even with one or two less band members present and be able to maintain our sound. throughout our stint together, we've had various experiences with shirley permutations. some of them worked, some of them were enough for a certain gig's purposes, and quite a few of them were failed experiments in bravado that just ended in us retreating to our band corner in shame. these attempts have been necessary since our members' lifestyles are so varied, and thus we have different resources to draw from for shirley commitment: jing, kathy and zig have respectable office day jobs, heidi owns her own company, ean and owel are/were/etc.(?) in school, joe is "on sabbatical", and i'm leveraging my personal talents to scrape away a living as an editing whore. eventually, there's going to be a scheduling disaster somewhere along the way.

so we've been trying to figure out ways to make do. there were times when kathy and i would talk of never again accepting an owel-less gig because the boy-girl harmonies have become such an important element in the shirley sound. i believe, though, that we're finally getting into a stripped-down groove when it comes to playing with less members. owel can always sing without me because he wrote the first few songs with just his own voice in mind, and those Rizal Day Session versions were quite lovely, too. joe and ean are starting to own the "boy" parts when they're absolutely necessary, and hey, OH YEAH, we have ean and jing songs, too, that we can play live to serve as a rare treat for our lucky audience. haha.

shirley stripped has never been more severely tested than at our last two gigs. we were supposed to play at terno inferno with an already-pared-down lineup of me, ean, joe, zig and jing because owel and heidi had family matters to attend to. imagine our panic when jing called us up to say he had to cancel because of an emergency. but for some reason, the other boys said, "let's go," so we pushed through with the set with just zig on drums, ean on bass, joe on guitar and me on vox. it was very unnerving because we hadn't practiced some of the songs, but saguijo's patrons were kind to us, and some even bought our albums, which terno was selling outside, after our set. YAY. kathy was so proud of our professionalism, and i think we all felt elated by the fact that we pulled it off and had fun in the process.

also, for the very first time in history, that night's entire shirley entourage fit into zig's tiny little sedan on our way home. INTENSE!!!

the most recent shirley stripped set was held at last night's happy mondays event at mag:net katipunan. jing was part of the poetry reading segment of the program, performing a bass solo to his poem and future-shirley-song "pulso". after that, we set up onstage with just owel, me, ean on guitar and jing on bass. heidi and kathy were there that night, too, but only for moral support (which we greatly appreciated, of course). because we hadn't been able to practice our songs with that setup, we had to do on-the-spot rearrangements that resulted in fun, distorted, quirky versions that made us laugh onstage. however, mag:net denizens seemed impressed with and appreciative of our earnestness, so the set was a success.

anyway... ang galing ng mga kabanda ko! hahaha. i LOVE them. that's not to say that we can always play with less members, nor that we've got the stripped setup down pat already. many factors come into play when we accept or decline gigs. but i promise that the desire to play is always there, and i'm just happy that at least for some gigs, becoming a less-large band isn't that much of a hindrance anymore.

- selena

THEMESONGS album review - Manila Times

dear shirley friends,

album review on the manila times! :) please do check it out! :D

THEMESONGS album review - Manila Times

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

ALBUM REVIEW

Giving you your very own theme song

By Angelique P. Manalad, Contributor   Giving you a musical journey that is distinctively Pinoy, Ang Bandang Shirley guarantees everyone who’ll listen will definitely love their music without any exaggeration as they give their first installment Themesongs. Influenced by local bands and other artists they describe their music as that of Broken Social Scene if they listened to the Eraserheads, a happier Jeff Buckley with Dong Abay’s street smarts, Sugarfree’s heart inside the baby of Radiohead and Feist. But they were able to imbibe their own flavor making it uniquely their own. Owel Alvero, Selena Salang, Ean Aguila, Joe Fontanilla, Jing Gaddi, Heidi Pascual, Zig Rabara and Kathy Gener makes up the band with Alvero being the chief lyricist together with Gaddi and Aguila. Composed of 11 tracks sure to give you a dose of feel-good vibe, the eight-member band opens the album with the infectious “Kagabi Natulog Si Morrisey Na May Nagmamahal Sa Kanya.” It talks about a common dream for all the loveless out there, making you feel that Morrisey is your real name. Even the not-so-happy song “Masamang Damo” is delivered in an up-beat manner that will surely make you keep your cool even faced with that person you both hate and love. Bringing that Oh-so-OPM feel are their tracks such as “Patintero/Habulan/Larong Kalye” which transports everyone back to those afternoons playing in the streets with that kababata you secretly had a crush on. “Ang Pag-Ibig Alinsunod Sa Karanasan Ng Isang Pangkaraniwang Jeepney Driver A.K.A Tsuper Duper” is a catchy song where you’ll find yourself singing along with that repetitive line, “Basta driver sweet lover yeah,” there’s definitely a song for everyone. ”Maari ba kitang makasayaw? O di kaya kahit upo lang muna tayo habang inaantay yung ating magiging themesong?”—lines from the title track “Themesong” makes you reminisce that awkward moment of the most awaited night of JS prom or other dances that you’ve been to. Summing up the emotions of uncertainty and the beauty of young innocent love was captured by Alvero. The comic “Sasamahan Ka Pa Rin” describes the foolish side of love that most people are guiltily of. Most of us experienced those cold Yuletide seasons that Bandang Shirley sympathize with their song “Xmas lights” to expertly describe that longing feeling during those twinkly nights of December. “Sa Madaling Salita” which was used as the soundtrack of the independent film Endo, a love song that’ll make you swoon with the sincerity overload with the vocal arrangement given by the band. Salang and Alvero were able to blend the contrast of their voices resulting to that harmonious end that love can definitely bring. “Bato” is a song that talks of that last moment where the clock is ticking towards the end of the relationship making it the perfect selection as the parting track of the album. Themesongs is made for every Filipino out there who has experienced the joys and sorrows of love, a must-have for anyone searching for that perfect theme song to accompany you at that certain moment of luck or mishap in the game of love.

One Day You'll Be There, Ean

+/- {Plus/Minus} live in Manila! is all about family too haha. Here, Ean plays guitar with his uncles haha

>>Kathy

Jealous of Selena

Versus (indie rock gods aaahhh) played in Manila last week with the equally god-like +/- {Plus/Minus} haha and "the" Richard Baluyot asked our very own Selena to back him up during "Jealous" (i've always thought Selena sounded like Fontaine Toups haha)

We're all jealous of her like a good american haha ;p

Please forgive the epal singing-a-long. haha. I can't help it.

>>Kathy

plus/minus

ean playing guitar with his uncle james (and uncle richard behind him haha) for +/- (plus/minus) on one day you'll be there. congrats ean!

(pic from nicole sarmiento, grabbed from facebook hehe :D )

-owel

versus

hi guys! long time no post, i've been sick and the band's been busy. i just wanted to share this pic of last night's performance with you. way to go selena! (pic by joey alvero)

-owel