So, let’s talk about Kalye Bar for a bit since the place also became legendary like Club Dredd, Hobbit House, Mayrics , and so many other clubs in Manila.
When Tirso and I first started going to Kalye, it was because we needed a place to go to get loaded on cheap booze before meeting all our other friends at the more expensive venues around town. At Kalye, they used to serve rum cokes and vodka tonics for just P15 in plastic cups so with just P200 (?) in your pocket, you could go get wasted really quick. This was around 1989-90. Originally, the bar was located in Mile Long but they moved it to Palanca St. in Legaspi Village until it finally closed down in 1994.
Tirso, myself, and our posse would trudge into the place, have a seat among the heavy wooden furniture and trip out on the jazz band that would be playing there every weekend. I didn’t and still don’t know much jazz but I would always request “Take 5” since the drummer would do a long drum solo in the middle of the song and they would oblige us loud kids in the audience. The bands would also have cute singers so that was another thing that kept us coming back. The place at the time was full of soccer dad’s who would sit around, shoot the sh*t, and watch some games on the TV’s. It seemed like we were the only kids hanging out at the bar.
As it normally happens with good show bands in the Philippines, they hone their skills in the clubs and when they are ready, they end up playing abroad when the 6-month, 1 year contracts come their way and so the bar had no band for a short time. Ricky Cui who was the talent manager of the place then started his own band of older guys playing Jimi Hendrix and the Doors stuff. Miyaki, Sampaguita’s guitar player at one time, was in the band too. All the more us guys would come around, get bombed, and make lots of noise.
Ricky called me up one afternoon and asked me to session with them since they had lost their drummer so there I was in Kalye, middle of the afternoon, learning songs for 4 sets I was to play that night! Bwiset! Aside from the stuff I already knew how to play, I learned about 20 songs that we just extended to fit the time span. Miyaki kept doing stuff to throw me off…like in the middle of “Smoke on the Water” he’d break into the “My Sharona” riff. He was such a character, God rest his soul.
Anyway, we pulled it off that night and since so many young folks came out to see what we were gonna do, Ricky then offered Razorback to guest with them the following week. We came in and played a set in between theirs and thanked Ricky profusely for having us on the mic which sort of pissed off Dodie King, one of the owners of the place. Dodie and Ricky had a falling out and Dodie called us to see if we were open to playing there every Saturday. Tirso and I went to the joint to have a sit down with Mr. King and as we were about to agree with the terms of the contract I got a phone call from Isabel our singer at the time. She was crying on the phone telling me that she could not do it. Damn! Bummer! We told Dodie that we then had no singer but if he would hang on a bit, we’d be back, raunchier then ever. He did.
We contacted Josemari and he was game from the get go. After a few weeks of practice we were ready and we then played the venue for the next 4 years with some lineup changes in the early days. After our debut at the club, everything snowballed. Dodie asked if we knew anyone to take the Friday night slot and I knew that Coco Jam wanted to move from Mayrics which was their home base so I went and told Rolly, Jun Lopito, Bosyo and the guys about it and they took it without batting an eyelash. Next was the week nights so I hooked up Johnny Besa and the rest of the Breed with Wednesday nights and Advent Call who did Thursday nights for about 2-3 months. They were then replaced by Prettier Than Pink and that was that! Ok, guys….your turn to spill the beans on what went on there during those years.
