the eraserheads showed that you can rock while still keeping it real...that's their legacy. ginawa nila yan through their LYRICS...very liberating. written in true UP fashion.
may kwento ang bawat awitin kaya it cuts deep...the emotions that you thought only you were cradling, they sang for all the world to hear. lahat pala tayo nasasawi at napapahiya!!! (that's what ultraelectromagneticpop and circus did to me...)
sharing with you an email (message truncated nga lang sorry) which i received a few months back. it might help
APRIL 2006
>
> Pop Machine: A Tribute to the Life, Times and Music
> of The Eraserheads
>
> I know I know. When Ely Buendia wrote "Pop
Machine"
> for the triumphant
> "Natin99" album, he was alluding to his own band
> only in the slightest
> sense. As any fan will tell you, it was intended to
> be a sarcastic
> diatribe denouncing the ethical decrepitude and
> outright fickleness so
> prevalent within the Mainstream Music Industry. The
> song, however, is
> also one of Their (yes, capital "T") funkiest,
> raunchiest and most
> infectious tracks ever. That's the thing, isn't it?
>
Even at their most
> cynical, Ely Buendia, Raimund Marasigan, Marcus
> Adoro and Buddy Zabala
> readily churned out instant classics. Their
> songwriting skills were so
> sublime that, were it not for the much-documented
> joie-de-vivre, you
> would swear they were scaling the charts in those
> later days out of
> sheer contempt. For more than a decade, they just
> went at it in leaps
> and bounds. Like a musical automaton. Like a Pop
> colossus. Like
> a�well�machine. And this is PRECISELY why they
were
> not a good band.
> No. The Eraserheads were a GREAT band.
>
> Let's get this out of the way. There isn't anything
> I can tell you
> that you probably didn't already know. We've all
> heard stories of how
> The Eraserheads were formed at U.P. in 1989. Cutting
> their teeth at
> places like Club Dredd and sporadic campus gigs,
> their 1991 demo ("Pop
> U") was unanimously turned down by every major
> record label. 1993 was
> a different story altogether. Their debut album,
> "Ultraelectromagneticpop!," unceremoniously
> dethroned the then-ruling
> faction of insidious Pop balladeers. This same album
> forced the
> Mainstream Music Industry's hand and unleashed the
> torrential 90s
> Pinoy Band Explosion that had been bursting at the
> seams for some
> time. In 1994, their sophomore offering "Circus" was
> justifiably
> hailed as a Pop-Rock masterpiece. With every song a
> potential
> chart-topper, Buendia (in particular) began to be
> recognized as a
> composer with considerable clout. 1995's
> "Cutterpillow" and 1996's
> dual releases of "Fruitcake" and the "Bananatype"
> E.P. prophesized a
> new direction for the boys. Gone was the innocent
> simplicity, these
> artistic departures paved the way for 1997's
> landmark opus "Sticker
> Happy." Notable for heavy experimentation with
> synthesizers, it would
> be the first fully-realized "concept" album by a
> local band. Much like
> The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and The Beatles
> "Revolver," the songs
> seemed to constitute one complete thought. 1998 saw
> the international
> release of "Aloha Milkyway," a compilation of
> previously-recorded
> English language tracks. As if by reflex, The
> E-Heads produced the
> entirely Pilipino "Natin99" in the year that
> followed. Often called
> the brown "Sgt. Pepper," many of us wondered where
> The Eraserheads
> intended to go next. 2001's "Carbon Stereoxide,"
> unfortunately, proved
> to be the band's swansong. The dream was over.
>
> When Buendia walked away from the group in early
> 2002, I was floored
> along with everyone else. It felt like a betrayal.
> It stung like an
> unexpected death. I found myself groping for details
> and asking
> questions. Stupid [gooey brown stuff] like "what was Marasigan
> eating" when he
> received that infamous text message. I found myself
> going through a
> mental catalog of E-Heads memories accumulated over
> the years. I
> remembered standing in line at Odyssey to buy my
> first cassette copy
> of "Ultra" all those years ago. I remembered how the
> boys cheekily
> performed a "Cobain" when asked to lip-synch on
> certain variety
> shows�complying with the director�but in comical
> slow motion. I
> remembered when the band, along with Yano and Teeth,
> were implicated
> in a government-approved witchhunt involving
> "offensive" lyrics. How I
> cringed at the thought of a genius like Buendia
> being compelled to
> explain "Alapaap" to Senator Tito Sotto and his
> quaint version of the
> Spanish Inquisition. I remembered the shame I felt
> as a Filipino when
> the crowd heckled The Eraserheads during the Sonic
> Youth/Foos/Beasties
> triple bill. Why was it so [strawberry] difficult for
> those idiots to be
> proud of our own artists? I remembered the lump in
> my throat when the
> boys won that 1997 Asian Viewers Choice Award
> stateside. I stood a
> little taller that day� "Mabuhay ang Noypi" for
the
> entire world to
> hear. I remembered a lot of things. But the bottom
> line was that I
> felt a door had been irrevocably closed with that
> text message. A door
> to who I used to be before the colors of this world
> had faded. I
> didn't want to let go. None of us did.
>
> The years after the split have been typified by
> promise and
> disappointment. Much fanfare has been made about the
> highly unlikely
> possibility of an Eraserheads reunion. A magical
> night when these four
> musicians put aside their differences and play one
> gig�hell�one SONG
> together. Indeed, the in-joke among us in the core
> three of saGuijo is
> that if we somehow managed to accomplish this
> improbable feat, then we
> could close down the venue for good. We would be
> satisfied. We would
> have made our contribution to Pinoy Music. It's what
> we've all waited
> for, right? But in that same daily split-second when
> I fantasize about
> this "gig-of-gigs," I also come to understand WHY
> this momentous event
> will never come to pass. Despite getting misty-eyed
> (and I'm not
> ashamed to admit it) every damn time I hear Buendia
> sing "naaalala
> niyo pa ba, binigyan namin kayo ng ligaya" from
> "Para Sa Masa," I
> understand WHY it had to end that way. Plainly put,
> the saga of The
> Eraserheads is complete. All those songs, taken as a
> whole, are so
> utterly brilliant that I fully expect my future
> children to ask me
> about this band when I'm an old fart. The
> Eraserheads owe us nothing.
> It is WE who owe THEM. And that's putting it
> lightly.
>
> When writing about a band that one has so much
> emotionally invested
> in, there is no way to remain unbiased. You would be
> a fool even to
> attempt it. For legions of fans, the Music of The
> Eraserheads
> represents a lifetime of "firsts." That first time
> you fell in love.
> The first time you weren't loved back. That first
> kiss. And those
> first awkward sexual yearnings. That first
> fistfight. That first
> bloody nose. That first cigarette. That first beer.
> The first taste of
> an illegal substance. The first time you put your
> soul into something.
> And the first time you failed anyway. It is the
> first time you got
> that nightmarish phone call. And the first time you
> had to bury a
> friend. It is the first realization that your
> parents were just as
> [strawberry] up as you were. And the first time you HAD to
> walk away from
> childhood. How can anything encapsulate such a
> miscellany of
> experiences? Because that is what music DOES.
> Because, as human
>
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