What happened? Its people like you who can keep the blues alive. I guess there just is no mass appeal for blues in the Phil. I reckon there would be a following amongst musicians.
Well it was quite simple really, our bass player quit and we really didn't find a replacement so we just stopped gigging.
The band was the Mexicali Blues Band and we started off as a house band to a Blues night held just every Saturday at Mexicali (as in the mexican food place) in Alabang. Our axeman were real good, Walter Wirth (formerly with Petrified Anthem in the 70's) and Joey Puyat. When that scene died we continued on as Mexicali Blues anyway and gigged at places like Hobbit. We did a lot of blues-influenced classic rock by the Allman Brothers, Hendrix and Clapton and blues-influenced jazz by Robben Ford and Tom Scott.
I must say as I wasn't really into the blues when I was asked to join the band as a drummer. In fact for the first few weeks I found it really boring - the rhythm section doesn't do too much, it 's mainly a spotlight for the soloists. That's why guitar players love the blues - they get to shine , while the bass and drums plod on. I did learn to enjoy the genre later on, and learned about the role of dynamics in the blues. The Lampano Alley album for example shows that the blues doesn't need to be boring 3-chords all the time. (As a drummer I still prefer playing jazz or rock to blues though)
It was the Blue Rats that kept the blues going from the 90's till around 2003. Joey Puyat joined them laer on, and Tom Epperson (the photographer) played harmonica. Binky immigrated to the USA around 2001 so that kept Lampano Alley in the freezer for a long while.
Cacoi Legaspi (of Barbie's Cradle) is a great blues player, I think he kept his band Mr. Crayon going. Daniel Crisologo of Kharma is also a good blues guitarist. I guess they are still going along the blues route. Delta Slim would probably know if there is an underground blues scene going on... he had an underground band called the Soul Dredgrrs. Wally Gonzales is of course a great blues influenced guitarist but his band plays mostly classic rock covers.