Going indie

[Tedmod]

is the pinoy music lover ready to supprt indie bands?
Not really.
If we want pinoy music to grow, the only way is to ecourage and support and independent industy. But as far as we know here, the filipino audience still rely on the marketing arms of the Recording companies. You know, TV exposures, Radio tours and all those cosmetics! The real market should emanate from the live scene. This should be where the pinoy music lover should get their cds and stuff from the great indie bands. And as long as the prices of these indie cds are great, expect the music scene to grow and break away from the claws of the dying record industry.

[hornyblonde40]

hey dude,

you are right on here ma friend. philippine music scene is not growing, its falling. never will the "audience" appreciate what real music is. i do believe that real music is best seen at the live front and cheerfully support bands at this stage. now the problem, these band are trying to emulate things already been around for years. thats what the whole filipino attitude is, catching up or copying. why not someone do eclectic, eccentric, bold and unique music, you may ask. its because people are scared. and all these record companies will be shocked at first glance and no chance is given.

i suggest, wake up people and think outside the square. ignore those manufactured, untalented worthless "pop crap stars". look for someone unique and someone who write their own songs, play their own instruments and take control of their music vision.

don't let the swill merchants abuse you.

[Tedmod]

Our music scene has never ran out of coverbands. And I just hate it. I admit they are good, in fact, many of 'em are great instrumentalists and singers. But if only they channel their talents to music that will open new doors to the pinoy audience, it would be best. I know Filipinos (specially yuppies and the like)dig coverbands better than bands playing original music, but that should not deter the gifted musicians to take the audience farther. You know, don;t stay on a  tried formula. Be brave and do it for the music. I believe that when it comes to music, our country is one of the few countries without a music to call our own. India, bangladesh have their own, so is china or japan. Our country is surprisingly western!!? no original sound at all! Bad ! Bad BAd. And yes, coverbands contribute a lot to this sorry state.
I know times are hard and these bands need the money. But i think, getting rid of Build me up buttercup, or september might help a lot in raising our own music. Right? who knows, you might get the fame and dough that you need in this pursuit.

[hornyblonde40]

someone will definitely get famous if they push that barrier to a greater place. someone u writes thier own stuff and all will succeed.

what type of music u listen tedmod?

something interesting no doubt? something unique?

[flossman]

pinoy music will always sound like western music. hell, even our indie musicians cite western bands like the pixies as prime motivators for their interest in playing; and that's indie---supposedly free from the parameters laid by record companies, but apparently, not free from the culture. and suppose someone did try to break out of the mold and actually made a "quirky" record, how are we supposed to know it's uniquely filipino? the only band i know who at least even tries to separate itself from the pack is the radioactive sago project, and only a few people actually patronize them. we really can't blame ourselves for lacking any true identity as a people--- we've been under spain for more than 300 years, occupied briefly by japan, then by america for a couple of decades more. if you think that isn't enough to eradicate the majority of true pinoy traditions and lifestyle, i don't know what will. i guess our confusion as to who we really are is what makes us unique to other countries in the world. you need not look at the music scene for proof of this. we're all (presumably) filipinos in this thread and we're communicating in english.

---i agree that coverbands really make the music scene all the more unbearable.

[Scribing C-Ment]

What they need to do is grow as a band, evolve into something much more... say...organic in some way..original. Take the influences and get inspired by them by not becoming like them or their music but to take it as an inspiration and evolve.


 

[Tedmod]

Well ,a rock journalist friend of mine from there told me that ,sadly, the real pinoy sound is the jukebox sound. You know, Victor Wood, April boy, Mystica, aegis and all other individuals and bandswho follow their path. Do you believe that? Somehow, it could be. Because why does it always sell if it is not what the people wants? Imelda Papin for one is being worshipped there and even here in some Filipino communities. And April boy even outsold britney spears in one filipino community in New jersey! Preety unbelievable. Sometimes i wonder if we could take off from that "sound" and bring it further(maybe that would make our music grow??). Well, I listen to a lot of ,Of course,  OPm(I recently asked my brother to send me the latest ones form Rivermaya, Sandwich and barbies cradle., I have cynthia A , E- heads nd others even apo.). But I also listen to a lot of foreign stuff. Like Ny's new favorite homegrown THE STROKES, indie gods like get up kids, thursday etc. and a load of brit items like Coldplay, clinic, toploader,the verve, supergrass, radiohead and others. anyway, We cannot just accept that we are a people with chopsuey identity. and i still hope that music could assert that one, true pinoy identity that we good people deserve.

[Scribing C-Ment]

I'm still waiting for that day to come...I just hate when some people here in NA label me or us Pinoys as you know trying to be something else..I bet you guys get that a lot. And we don't really know how to rock or something like that and all the music we know are are Hip Hop(nothing wrong with that) - cuz I know there are few out there who broke through (BLack Eyed Peas - is that guy Pinoy or Chinese) well my friend told me so...not sure...or yeah those pop stars crap.
But don't you guys think that the same are happening here too?..We get these bands now...that are way too similar to the alternative scenes in the '90's. And the damn music industry are pumping so much money again on those such acts in which are not worth mentioning...what are kids gonna think today?...that it's alright to do this...and I think this too is way too similar to what's happening with Pinoy indie bands today..

[flossman]

although i do not listen to april boy, mystica, aegis et. al., i do respect their own style as far as making music is concerned. at least no pretentiousness nor false fronts are present, unlike coverbands and pinoy boy bands who talk and gyrate as if they're long lost cousins of their american counterparts---catering to equally affected yuppie-scumbags who mutter "yuuuckk" in perfect colegiala accent and affecting a disgusted look in their faces as if they're constipated everytime they hear "ang halik mo" blast through some jeepney's boom box in the traffic; like their pristine ears would fall apart as soon as the "kabaduyan" of the music passed them. please. sure, april boy et. al. won't be winning any prize for their admittedly limited (thematically as well as musically) sound, but that is the sound the majority of the people want and listen to: laborers, grave-diggers, metro aides, carpenters, etc.; in other words, blue collar workers. and, unless by some miracle that all the poverty-stricken places in the world become somewhat gifted with economic abundance, then maybe they can afford cable tvs and tune in to mtv, or buy music journals like rolling stone or spin to expose them to other genres and forms. we're lucky we've had the benefit of education as well as the financial means to expose us to knowing what is crap and what's not; it takes a lot of money to educate and teach an individual to be discriminating of his tastes and, unfortunately, the majority of our fellow filipinos neither have the education nor the resources at their disposal to care about what music genre they like, as opposed to where they'll look for their next meal. and to them, hearing april boy sing his woeful tales of lost love must be bliss as compared to hearing the woeful tales of an unknown "kano" (ingglis pa!) like jeff buckley or the counting crows. i guess poverty brings everything down, and in this case, even the music scene is not spared.

---going back to this yuppie-crowd phenomenon, the majority of these people enjoy making fun of "bakya" music but ask them what their favorite band is and chances are, it would be a show/cover band like freestyle or an all male vocal group like jeremiah. then they'd start "groovin" to the millionth remake of "september" or, as someone said earlier, "buttercup". laughable, really.

[Tedmod]

Flossman, Yo got it!
So therefore, that is the real pinoy sound!
Now since most of us there are not economically liberated to explore other genre, the burden falls on the artists to bring the "alternative" to the masses. And i am 100% sure that signing a deal with a major label will never help the artist in this task. Because the label will just package the artist the way they want it. And the way they want it is the way April boy does it, so its a stale mate. So To all good unsigned bands, solo artists, never dream of inking that contract. Its Doomsday! Go indie, build a following. Sell your own cd. Pop radio sucks, Live is better.It may be hard at first, but with hardwork, you canmake the music scene there as free as the scene here. Mabuhay.