The event was themed “ISANG MALAKING KALOKOHAN”, a pre-SONA
gig to speculate the amount of bullshit Noynoy would tell in his fourth State
Of The Nation Address.
I was pleased to be invited by Southern Tagalog Exposure (STx), a
progressive multimedia collective and to be given the chance to
present one of my works, SONA 2013, a video documentation of last years’ SONA
NG BAYAN, then giving a quick talk to invite and provide some insight about the video.
The crowd was quite appreciative about what I said, inviting artists particularly musicians to inculcate the real social conditions of the people through their music, reminding them that as artists, our role is not merely to entertain but also to provoke the thoughts and invoke the vast majority of our vision.
The crowd was quite appreciative about what I said, inviting artists particularly musicians to inculcate the real social conditions of the people through their music, reminding them that as artists, our role is not merely to entertain but also to provoke the thoughts and invoke the vast majority of our vision.
I was also was delighted to meet Paul Magat of Kabaong ni
Kamatayan (KnK), metalhead icon and one of the pioneers of Philippine metal. We exchanged ideas ranging from violence and how he transcribes it
into music to how much anarchy does the people need to put a requiem to the so
callled state-violence.
I later asked him,
why is the band called Kabaong ni Kamatayan and if they really sing about
death. His response was a little different from what I expected,
“Yun nga yung irony dun eh, wala kaming kanta tungkol sa kamatayan. ‘Di ba Kabaong ni Kamatayan? Pinatay ko si Kamatayan! Kasi we thrive in this world knowing that we’re all gonna die, whether you like it or not. That’s why our music is all about transcendence and inner self."
“Yun nga yung irony dun eh, wala kaming kanta tungkol sa kamatayan. ‘Di ba Kabaong ni Kamatayan? Pinatay ko si Kamatayan! Kasi we thrive in this world knowing that we’re all gonna die, whether you like it or not. That’s why our music is all about transcendence and inner self."
We also tried to sell bunch of copies of agam-agam, a
digital short film I made a year ago and I was surprised that the crowd took interest, maybe because of the DIY cover or maybe it’s just new
for them to see a minimalist, very raw cover art.
A couple of people approached me asking firstly, what is it and what is it all about,I enthusiastically told them briefly of the plot of the film and I was happy that some of them bought it. It’s really a beautiful thing to see someone appreaciating your work and taking the effort to buy it. Gratitude is really the essence of art.
A couple of people approached me asking firstly, what is it and what is it all about,I enthusiastically told them briefly of the plot of the film and I was happy that some of them bought it. It’s really a beautiful thing to see someone appreaciating your work and taking the effort to buy it. Gratitude is really the essence of art.
The only bummer was, after the film-showing, there was a
commotion between two bands, the new school SMB and the old school Republikats,
it was something about the schedule of the bands, although the commotion nearly
escalated to violence as I heard a couple of bottles being broken on the side ,
no one was physically hurt and everyone got home in one piece, I guess.
