themesongs track 2

"masamang damo"

this gaddi-penned masterpiece is all at once the new wave-y post-punky song from the 80's showing jing's age (haha) and the funkiest cut on the album, c/o atty gaddi's groovin' bass parts. i remember playing this for the first time at the UP fair a couple of years back, jing just busting out the song at one of the shirley practices and all of us just falling in love with it. I remember it reminding me of the strokes' someday, i love that song. haha.

fun fact! i wasn't supposed to be the one singing this song, mr. gaddi was supposed to be the one on the mic, and we were maybe toying around with the idea of having joe sing the song. but then this opportunity came knocking, when we entered the world battle of the bands (upon the real christian bautista's suggestion) for the song to be on the radio. we hadn't finished the vocal recording yet, and i think jing couldn't make it, so it was me and selena doing all the singing. i think i did a good job though (hahaha)

the last verse (without lyric) was supposed to contain a jing monologue, some diatribe about how it isn't cool to steal other people's things or some other "crime doesn't pay" thing haha. but again, we were rushing the song, so in place of that i just started grunting, and i remember the loa guys enjoying that. it was a fun bit of cathartic screaming. i was going for a homer simpson on one of the screams haha. fun stuff. and then i dunno, we just decided that the screaming would be a better fit for the song, making it more of a universal "ANGST" song instead of a specific "DO NOT STEAL MY IPOD - jing" song haha.

i super super super love jing's lyric here, the wording is brilliant, and the song is APT haha.

the synths are bastardized from depeche mode (HAHA) for the verses and then we tried to put in some beatlesque organ to cover up jing's rip-off of another shirley song ("i can name that tune in 2 notes..") hahaha. but i swear i swear, the pièce de résistance for masamang damo has to be that killer drum + bass break into the harmonized guitar solo i love that i love that whole thing, i mean wow, we recorded that! it was perfect! haha

starting off with the decay of the chorus organ part, leaving zig and jing and then the "scary keyboard sound" and the big muffed solo guitar, then the "supot" harmony guitar, and it's over like that, and man i wanna hear the song again so i can get to that part again hahaha

sorry that i'm raving about a song on the album we just released but i didn't write it so it's not being boastful, i guess. haha.

BILI NA KAYO NG THEMESONGS!!!!

-owel

ultimately, however

Reklamo, Oremuz and Kaikatsuna got the top 3 slots in this year's WBOB contest.   

Thanks to all our Shirley friends who texted and helped us reach the top 10. I never thought we had that many friends haha.

It was fun while it lasted (at least yung 300 smart buddy load ko tatagal na siya beyond 1 week hahaha)

And so my dear bandmates: Let's get the album out!!!

love, kathy g.

on a lark

we made it past the second round of eliminations for the 2007 world battle of the bands!

on behalf of my nice sexy happy go lucky wonderful bandmates, i profess neverending gratitude to each and every single voter that voted for the band! this is a victory in and of itself, which is to say i'm very happy! but nevertheless a crease forms on my forehead everytime i think about how this is all going to end, because we want to win, and with every passing round the stakes are getting higher and higher and i just want to put the album out already and stuff.

we joined wbob at the suggestion of the real christian bautista without much planning, the thought process was "hey we need a song that you haven't released that has been recorded nicely that you want to put on the radio" and shirley was all "we have an album that is yet to be released that we just recorded!" and so we sent it in, 100,000 pesos and singapore in our heads.

and we didn't really campaign at the start, it was more like "hey vote for us if you have load" and people would be all "sure!" and somehow we got into the top 10 and now there's this pressure to just keep voting and voting and voting ad infinitum

last night i was with kathy and selena and the ciudad guys, and mikey said he votes for shirley every so often and i was floored, flashbacks of drunken nights at millenia and freedom bar, kafe katipunan and rock radio alabang, watching ciudad play typical ciudad sets, and me in the audience pulling my hair (i do that when i see something cool and i have no other means of expressing it) because ciudad is so cool. mikey votes for shirley!

so i dunno if this is some cop-out, a cheesy moral of the story ending, or just really cliche-d but it really doesn't matter much to me if we win or not anymore. there are lots of people voting for us that i didn't even know cared about the band.

wooooooo haha

-owel

just rolling about on the floor (just rolling about on the floor)

last night we played at nightwish bar in malate for the first leg of the pulp magazine and the world battle of the bands bar tour. apparently we are ranked 14th out of 15 bands, and if we don't get into the top 10 by tomorrow, we're gonna be eliminated.

help.

hahaha

in other news we played at the cure night @ route 196 after the nightwish gig, and even though we missed the set of our favorite band taken by cars, we were in high spirits because of slight inebriation and the wonderful wonderful powers of kowloon house dimsum :D

we played sa madaling salita, catch, why can't i be you, just like heaven, and patintero/habulan/inbetween days, then for our encore (because the shirley fans @ route 196 wanted more hahaha) we played bato.

we just love the cure so much.

our favorite bassist mr jing gaddi, also played for the cure cover band disintegration! they were great. try to catch them if the cure night happens again. haha.

-owel

mass text, wbob

kagabi (last night)

i sent a mass text to people in my phonebook who i thought would most probably go through the trouble of listening to the radio to hear one of shirley's songs

mali pala yung alam ko na oras (apparently the time that i thought was right was wrong)

so bandmate jing texted NU107 and the reply was that the wbob songs would be played at 10pm and not 8pm as i had originally texted and i was contemplating whether i should send another mass text saying "10pm pala" or something of the sort

pero nakatulog na ako (but i fell asleep already)

- owel

territorial

dear diary,

it was was another nice shirley weekend! friday night was lagare night meaning we were scheduled to play 2 gigs in 2 diff venues. heidi coundn't make it so both sets were keyboard-less. we played first at route 196 for weng weng nite and the the setlist was: themesong, tsuper...they were about to play sa madaling salita when our favorite band taken by cars requested for christmas lights! got awestruck that the guys played it right away even if it wasn't on the setlist. haha. played sa madaling salita after, then our wbob entry masamang damo, and bato for encore.

but a weird thing happened right after the set: a woman which i think was drunk w/ long bleach streaked hair went up to me introduced herself asked for my name held my hands and told me: "you're beautiful!" i almost fell off my seat and got dumbstruck (for no one has ever told me i'm beautiful and that she was a woman like me haha) but i said thank you and was shaken the whole night. haha.

anyway the 2nd gig was at bigskymind for yey friday. played last and the setlist was:  madaling salita, themesong, tsuper duper, masamang damo, sasamahan ka parin! and bato should have been the last song because hank from bigskymind was signaling for it to be the last song (it was already 3am!) but owel didn't get to hear him right and so they continued and played noodles which i think captured everyone's heart. haha.

the other shirleys went home after, while owel and i stayed. we saw JP (mr. route 196 hehe) and he graciously treated us to a round of beer. a bit more drunker, we bonded w/ our engineer joey and his lady love maite and listened intently as he told us their magical love story. haha. we rode w/ them to edsa and along the way joey thought of burger machine and again was treated to free a meal. owel unashamedly asked for double bart burger while i only ordered sansrival. haha.

owel and i got off at edsa and rode the bus home but caught traffic in south super highway. the traffic was awful and heard stories of a car flying. we even changed seats inside the bus beside the windows to see the catastrophe but none of us got to see it because i think we slept through it. haha.

the next day, saturday was the pulp photoshoot for the wbob competition: the band waited along the corridors of grey area studios and bonded over wigs (which joe brought!) while video shooting and picture taking w/ raymond gutierrez and oogling at georgina wilson.

the shoot was fast and we think ours was the most innovative and stupid looking of all the other band photos haha. we can't wait to see it on pulp magazine.  

and as per ang bandang shirley's most favorite activity: we ate at sango after the shoot (2nd time that day for me and owel) and feasted on their delicious burgers, amusingly watched the japanese version of david blaine on tv and made beautiful origamis and tear-a-gamis haha and scheduled our own band photoshoot.

after eating we decided to call it a day went on our separate lakads--the others to katipunan, heidi and melvene i think went home, selena to landmark and zig and i tagged along w/ the gaddis to fully booked the fort and ate at mr. kebab after.

at 9pm i finally got home, saw my parents eating dinner (they were in a good mood i think) because they didn't even questioned my sudden reappearance a day after haha so it was indeed a nice weekend!

that is all.

but sunday is depressing me.

love,
kath-g!

wbob photoshoot

8-3-07. grey areas studios for the photoshoot then to sango for lunch.