brewrats!

many many thanks to all the new contacts of the ang bandang shirley multiply! i cannot begin to express the gratitude welling up inside my heart for all of you, and especially to dj tado, dj angel, and dj ramon bautista of the fantastic radio talk show brewrats for helping make ang bandang shirley famous (haha)


non-chronological kwento in bullet points

- energizing walk from the boni mrt station to the paragon plaza building because of ricoa chocolate factory smells
- girlie kathy
- baby owel
- mahinhin joe
- "conflict kagad"
- "how many of your fans are jumping jologs?"
- novaliches -> baluarte of jumping jologs
- "sinong banda ang gusto nyong makaaway?"
- "papasikatin namin kayo; gusto nyo bang mag double platinum?"
- kathy learned how to use lights at a photoshoot
- owel learned basic use of macromedia flash
- joe learned to keep right near the manila city hall if you want to go to qc and not to sta. cruz
- "guangzhou!"
- "it's a lovely song" (pero hindi naman shirley haha)
- tado reminiscing about viva hot babe myles' "pagkababae" haha
- the jacq ruefner visit ("ikaw na yung pusher namin a")
- "idealistic ako e"
- the engineering connection.
- silent sanctuary and the right of reply
- "para kayong shoegaze na eraserheads"


haha baka may nakalimutan pa ako. next time ulet!
 

recording diary 3/13/09

photographic evidence of the band's latest recording sessions at love one another studios

Recording Diary - Tambol Version

I really intended to write this a couple of weeks ago but I...uhhh...forgot. Hehehe. But my bandmates are really good at this "documenting the recording process" thing so I guess that makes up for my laziness busy-ness.

But all's well that ends well, right? I finally managed to start working, which is the first big hurdle for any procrastinator. So here goes...

Late February, we started work on a handful of new tracks some of which, like Pauwi Na and Wealth of Nations, are already part of our song rotation at gigs. Owel mentioned to me that he wanted the drums to stand out a bit more on the new songs--news that I really liked, for obvious reasons--so I locked myself in a room with my drumkit and hammered out my parts so I could attack the recording session with confidence. During the Themesongs recording sessions (as well as the Rizal Day Sessions, er, sessions), most of my drum parts were not final yet. If you listen carefully to the playing on the album vs a gig, you'll notice a lot of changes.

Another thing I did was use a click track. We didn't use a click track for any of the songs on the first album, and sometimes you can hear portions where I got a little excited and rushed things a bit. For the new songs, I intend to use a click as often as I can. An early exception would be Jing's punk-infused Saan Na, which felt better without a click.

I'm also gunning for a more consistent sound this time around so I'm using the same set of gear for the songs. Here's a photo of the rig I used at my last recording session:

Cymbals (Zildjian)
13" A Custom Projection Hihats
18" A Custom Fast Crash
19" K Dark Crash Thin
20" K Custom Dark Ride

Drums
14" x 5.5" Ludwig Acrolyte Snare [Remo coated Ambassador on top, Evans reso on bottom]
Yamaha drumkit (13" and 16" toms, 22" bass drum) [Remo Pinstripes on everything]
 
Except for the Yamaha kit, which is the house kit at Love One Another Studios, the rest is the same equipment I lug around in my yellow gig bags (also in photo) at each and every gig. Yes, I bring a LOT of gear. It helps me play better knowing I'm playing gear I'm used to. (Btw, those two dashing icons of virile masculinity are LOA engineers, Pancho and Wacky.)

I guess that covers drums for now.

Ciao.

Zig

recording diary 03/07/09

we three shirley kids (read: me, joe, ean) spent the eraserheads evening recording new material at joey santos' famed love one another studio. aside from the early acoustic guitar jangle c/o the morris parlor guitar, it was a multi-drive pedal kind of night. we used (in no particular order): a zvex fuzz factory, a vox cooltron duel overdrive, a tech-21 gt-2, a proco you dirty rat, and the beautiful bluberri drive pedal. and instead of going back to the themesongs strat-dominated sound, we used our newly acquired maison lawsuit sg standard, and joe's neck-thru vantage. hooray for new gear hehe.

some interesting moments include:

1) pancho asking - "wala ba kayong mga kanta na may distortion?" leading to a bit of fuzz factory overkill haha

2) the new palm-muted chording in nakauwi na and the lessons learned by engineer joey from his boy elroy recording experience

3) pancho stating "you are such a mammal"

4) ean stating "nonsense yung b-string mo e" (band conflict! haha)

hahaha.

pics!

joey documenting the scene, ean tracking with the vantage, and joe chilling.

when we recorded themesongs at loa, they didn't have any of this gear yet haha

engineers pancho + wacky having a well earned panciteria san jacinto break. note pancho's penchant for calamansi.

-owel

ang bandang shirley on SOUNDTRIP!

many thanks to lawrence and the other very cool people at inquirer.net for having us on their webcast show called soundtrip!

http://www.inquirer.net/vdo/player.php?vid=2052

see how awkward it is to sing in front of a camera without a mic haha. happy holidays!

-owel

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

themesongs track 7

"sa madaling salita"

a less is more approach to words, with the simple G-C verse and the Em-D chorus, then the G-C-Am-C outro. i guess this song is a high point in my songwriting efforts, reactionary output to early comments to my work haha. the story goes like this..

vin dancel of twisted halo and now peryodiko is a great person, and when i was the excited little kid who first got to go watch gigs, twisted halo was one band that stood out, what with that intense drumming on brad, and the mindblowing outro part of hiram, and MAN THEY HAD THREE GUITARS and i was really amazed when vin went up to me after seeing deltajoy play and telling me that i could play bass well haha. then i auditioned to play bass for twisted halo (remember that day ean? hahaha memories) but then they picked some better guy (buddy zabala!!!) haha. and even though we really didn't become bandmates there was this sort of distant mentorship going on between me and manong vin, sort of, kind of. haha. i remember this gig at millenia and he was there and i was there and i was just telling him about how my studies were going (bad) and he was all finish that shit and i was all wow and anyway, when i gave him a copy of the rizal day sessions ep, he said it was good stuff, but it needed something anthemic.

so i went and thought wtf man these are anthemic but then i thought about things and i wrote sa madaling salita, exploring the duality of crippling love and incredible uplifting love in my brain, and realizing that there was no way to put it other than just really saying those words in the song and then that freed me up, anthemically speaking. the riff was a fun thing to play, and it's me studying a wolf parade song and magnificently failing, landing on some other totally different beautiful thing, and the chorus part where joe's guitar is all chicosci on top of everything, and man this song really wrote itself. i remember the practice when we were arranging this, and it was a pretty good time for shirley, getting things in place really fast.

zig's drumming (a lift from dcfc with minor revision haha) and the BASS + SYNTH W/ WHITE NOISE AND EBOW bridge part is what i think makes this anthemic, the outro just riding in like a cowboy and then the song ends with the same killer "chorus" riff except it's slow and jing's harmonizing on bass and that was perfect which was why recording this thing was such a bitch, cause it had to sound really good, and honestly the recording still doesn't sound as good as the song sounds in my head but that's okay cause we got it out. i remember doing the main guitar part and just being totally frustrated, breaking down in the middle of some takes saying "DISBAND NA TAYO GUYS DISBAND" and joe and ean and joey santos just reassuring me hahaha that was fun.

then endo came along and man endo that's a whole different story, crippling uplifting love and if you guys haven't seen it you gotta see it, and if you feel like it changed you afterwards then you're my kind of person, and if you haven't, then you gotta live a bit more i guess? that movie really killed me, i remember reading the script and crying in my room (the early drafts were a lot more hardcore emo haha) and well sa madaling salita just snowballed in meaning

cause i had this meaning X for the song, which is really hidden deep inside, and then since it's so simple and then because of endo meanings Y and Z and A-W also add up and then it's such a meaningful song because it's just about a feeling and therefore you can attach that to whatever makes you feel that feeling so the range of possible meaning only depends on the person listening so everybody can sing along to this and feel like the song is about something about them and i guess that was what vin was talking about when he was saying it was anthemic.

tayong dalawa ay dakila/alila

hehe

-owel