How I got acquainted with music

To my friend.... Marcel Magsino

My Batangueño friend Marcel Magsino and I shared a common dream for the longest time... I wanted to make music and so did he. I was the alleged musician between the two of us and himself the provincial poet. My friend has always been the demure type, the low-profile kind, the humble guy. I was the extravagant fella, the noisy one and the pessimist between the two of us.

flashback....

my first guitar teachers, Bong Billones and Abe Camado

I started my music at the age of fourteen. Envious of the playing prowess of my high school classmates Aries Santana, Joel Tanyag, Bong Billones, Jojo Ramos, Abraham Camado and some other guys...

It was the summer of 1982, I borrowed guitar from my cousin Kuya Jake and learned chords from Jingle Music Magazine. Most of the guys I mentioned turned their backs on me whenever I needed help learning guitar stuff except for two... Bong and Abe. (thank you guys... I believe that your patience with me didn't go to waste)

I guess it was harder for me to learn music at the time because I grew up without the benefit of any audio equipment in the house.

Two months after I held my borrowed guitar, I was able to buy a Pampanga-made Gibson guitar by not spending my allowance on non-essential items like food and transportation money. That meant that I didn't eat and I walked home.

A year after that, I had a second guitar. And it was with that guitar that I wrote my very first music... the Graduation Song of Batch '84... proud to say that we were the only batch with an original grad song. The others simply took Sharon Cuneta's High School Life or Raymond Lauchengco's Farewell.

I went off to College at De La Salle University and met a block mate named Jackson Martinez, a 21-year old college returnee who professionally played guitar. I learned more from him and bought my very first electric guitar from him for Php300. It was a bare naked Fender Jaguar which took me half the trimester to restore. (That Jaguar I eventually swapped for a local stratocaster... damn!)

One of our classmates, Maly Andres became a good friend of mine and we formed Clockwork Orange with a nice bloke named Raton, the band later became Violent Playground (minus me). I went on to form Insurgency with High School buddies Carlo Valdez and Noli Cuachon and met a lot of interesting characters and friends like Dominic Gamboa (Papadom) of Betrayed, Skavengers and at the moment Tropical Depression.

It was people like Maly Andres and Dominic Gamboa who essentially introduced me to band life and music in general. Though rich as they are, they were genuine friends and good persons despite the fact that I was way out of their league.

Insurgency did a couple of independent gigs in the mid 80's, we went into our majors in college making it difficult to keep up with music. Clockwork Orange was a stint and that was it. There was even an episode where a rich classmate of mine from a prominent family from Bacolod stole one of my songs and made it an entry to a contest and he walked away with the trophy and the prize. I didn't mind as I was happy enough to experience playing with "real instruments and amplifiers", and I guess that I was so dumb or naive at the time.

After college, I went off to teach at St. Scholastica's College and met Edwin Aguilar. Together with friends Raymond, Nonong Timbalope, Bong Lennon, & Sam Salazar we formed the Skalawags and played back to back with the Skavengers at Mayric's and later Club Dredd. It was the very first opportunity all of us had to record music in a decent recording studio (Greenhills Sound) produced by Noel Cabangon. (Album: Paalam Uncle Sam, 1990 -- track title: Thank You America)

After that, music became an addiction...

During the St. Scho years, I generally played with housemate and friend JC Frias who was a good instrumentalist, while playing at the same time with the Skalawags until we broke up in 1990 during Club Dredd's opening night. Dominic took half the band for Tropical Depression and I went on to form the Marginals with Sam Salazar (now with Color it Red).

The Marginals lasted a long time and I tried keeping it alive despite the hard times and despite the fast turn over of members. Nolic Cuachon (drummer) was replaced by Ric Vera and later returned to do half the album which took us almost a year to finish because of financial constraints. Bassist Elmer Diaz was replaced by Ronnie Manansala who engineered the second album. Nelius Pepito who replaced pioneer Emer Lacandazo, was a constant in the band, the only inconsistency he had was with his guitar playing. Tony Robles (keyboards), who joined us for side B or half the first album was the guy who provided the facilties for the rehearsals as well as the food for the band. Although I think that he just did it becasue he had nothing better to do.

There was a time when I thought it was going nowhere and I was right. So music for me essentially became a hobby and I gave up on whatever dreams I had left to be a real musician. At the same time, life was taking it's course on my sanity with all the problems that came with it. My mom being diabetic and all and crappy things which I'd rather not discuss at the moment.

By 1997 or '96, I bought my very first multi-track recorder. I did my fourth album on that scratch pad. I bought a cheap kawaii keyboard, accumulated more guitars and musical bling blings and eventually set up my first home studio in late '98.

I formed a hobby band called Roadhouse that year and we jammed at Tony's every weekends. I must admit that those years were the best of my life. Jun San Pedro, a brilliant musician who played with Emil Sanglay during the Pen Pen days was a good musical partner. A short fling on a new band ensued when Heber Bartolome wanted a "fresh" band in '97. We made "Nueve de Sais" with Jerk's Flor Mendoza on drums, Nosi Balasi composer and bassist Henry Cabatingo, Jun San Pedro on guitars, Gerry Torre on all wind instruments and myself on the vocals and guitars.

On the technical part, I owe what I know with Jun Domingo, a technically brilliant individual who allowed me to inherit all of his keyboard magazines and other musical accessories, home recording studio magazines and a lot of other reading materials which sent me on my way to self production. He set up my home pc free of charge and gave me softwares from his collection. Thank you Jun... you are a blessing!

During all this time, the only constant person in my music was a good friend of mine, Marcel Magsino. He produced a lot of my stuff and music. We collaborated on a lot of his songs and even made an album for Patricia Tuazon. He produced concerts, arranged gigs and generally tagged along like our manager during all these years. He helped me set up Sunset Records Limited, which we dreamt would make our dreams and other unfulfilled dreams of other musicians come true. It was set up like an NGO where anyone who wanted to record their stuff could do it for free... that is if you were over thirty, struggling, and frustrated. --- Just like we were.

During all of these years, he never asked for anything except that he dreamt that someday, he would be at the end of that darkness that seemingly always clouds up in our lives. I told him that one day, it would be. But first, one of us will have to be financially stable enough to make all our dreams come true.

This afternoon, I came about a video post on how pop stars are made... it was both inspirational and at the same time annoying to think that popstars could be manufactured that easy...

So to my friend marcel, our time has come... soon enough I will give you a call and you shall have to prepare your lyrics. If my Boss isn't jacking me off, this year he will build me a recording studio for whatever purpose it may serve... and then we can have fun... with a vision...

For soon enough we will manufacture a popstar together... and the next time I type Marcel Magsino on the internet... you will be there. -- the star builder!