lieu MARCH 2013 / ISSUE No1
MEIDAY MAYDAY
Made In Music
N 1 o
lieu]
noun stead; place (esp in the phrases in lieu, in lieu of)
Live to create.
ROLL CALL
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aidx Paredes
ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Amelia Baird HEAD WRITER Chit Lacson Head Photographer Nikko Zamora online editor Mo Jaravelo CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Chi Narciso MARKETING HEAD Sol Matalam
EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS: Cheekie Albay, Jad Montenegro, Kristine Serrano
Writers Kim Fabular Pat Bacaltos Amber Hao
Photographers JM Santillan Mirjam Dalire MJ De Castro Illustrators Karlu Tayabas JV Dagaang Layout Editor Jam Allaga Social Media Head Mau Tanduyan Video Editor Deby Binalla
IN LIEU POOF
Te amo, Tea Amo / Ocular Spectacular / The Wild Child /
HASHTAG
The Laneway Pilgrims/ Hiphouse /
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS MEIDAY, MAYDAY
FILM ROLL
The Davao We See / Purple Haze / Faceless / Extraticate /
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Te Amo, Tea Amo
Written by Chit Lacson and photographed By Aidx Paredes
T
hese days, one of the most popular, accessible beverages you can purchase is milk tea. The milk tea craze has swept the Philippines, and Davao City is no exception.
This is why sisters and shop owners Chiara and April Mesiona decided to put up their own milk tea house, whimsically named Tea Amo. Tea Amo’s interior design is inspired by the multi-hued stores that they spotted during their trip to Korea. The atmosphere provides a young, modern and cozy experience, making it the perfect place for barkadas to hang out and chill in. A cafe or tea shop is never complete without music, and the house playlist represents the owners’ personal taste in music: Chiara loves tunes from independent bands, and April is fond of popular hits, creating a lovely contrast that is evident in the sisters themselves and the shop they run.
Tea Amo offers a wide range selection of milk tea blends: their best sellers are Salted Caramel, Butter Caramel and Toffeenut, and on display are a variety of cakes, cupcakes and cookies to go with them. If you’re in the mood for pizza, pasta, fries, sandwiches, and even value meals, Tea Amo offers short orders as well. What makes Tea Amo different from other coffee and tea shops in Davao is their level of attention to detail and their ability to predict their customers’ needs. Because of this intuitive planning, customers will find books for reading enthusiasts, a freedom wall for the more creatively-inclined, and tables and study kiosks suitable for students or individuals looking for a quiet spot to concentrate in. Tea Amo is truly a perfect place to celebrate friendship while maintaining a youthful, artistic vibe. Tea Amo is located at the ground floor of Sanny Sweets Building, Tionko Street, Davao City.
G/F Sanny Sweets Bldg., Tionko Avenue, Davao City
Ocular, Spectacular
A
By Amelia Baird
few months ago, while sitting on my bum, scrolling down the endless newsfeed of Facebook, I came across a quirky online shop selling vintage film cameras and knickknacks called OldBox. I flipped through the photos of cameras and saw a bright red, plastic, Fisher-Price film camera that could easily be mistaken as an underwater camera. I thought to myself as I gawked at its beauty, “Gee, Fisher-Price can do anything.” The camera had two eyeholes for the viewfinder and a bright yellow ring with a lens recessed into the camera to keep fingerprints off. It was clearly made for children; the sturdy and durable plastic evident in many FisherPrice products said it all.
When my dad and I went out to Compostela Valley for relief operations late last year, I took my camera—loaded with a Kodak Pro Image 100 film—out for a spin. It was quite an experience helping others and snapping photos at the same time. I felt like a photojournalist in the 70’s, equipped with a toy camera as my weapon of choice. There, I noticed a tiny chapel that was almost completely destroyed by the mighty Typhoon Pablo, yet it still stood. It was a fascinating subject—its roof was long gone, perhaps lost somewhere in the endless fields of banana trees, and the walls were torn, but the pews of the chapel were in place and the altar seemed unharmed. My toy camera captured the chapel’s sad beauty achingly well, its jagged silhouette and washed out surfaces immortalized in the bluish, hazy sheen of the photo that came out.
The Wild Child Photographed by Aidx Paredes
Janvie Tiu has been blogging for almost a year now. With his blog The Wild Child proudly displaying his previously won title “Fashion Blogger of the Year,� bestowed by The Davao Blog Awards, readers of his posts would say he has conquered considerable heights in the local blogosphere. Due to his love of fashion and influencing people through it, he maintains his blog by writing and taking pictures of his personal style. Janvie recalls that in the past he was bullied and criticized for overdressing on ordinary days at school--now he admits he revels in it and considers it part of his fashion statement and personal style. THE WILD CHILD / janvietiu.blogspot.com
hashtag
The Mobile Artist Collective By Jad Montenegro-Amor
Photo by Ronald Gary Bengil Bautista
W
e were restless in that sports bar, the four of us. Cheekie, Miguel, my husband John and I were crammed into an uncomfortably shiny booth painted bright red. Pennants and banners hung above us, and as Migs and John were comparing notes on the latest comic book offerings (among other things, they run a pop culture podcast), I contented myself with staring at the walls. They were, to me, an unappealing shade of bituminous green, but it was better than forcing myself to watch the men kicking pigskins around on the giant plasma TV. It was our fault, really. We saw the lone sports bar open and, despite our misgivings, went inside. I was not a sports fan, and neither were my companions. But everything else was closed – the streets were deserted and we were looking for some place to have a beer, or twenty, depending on what kind of place it was. It was going to be a one-beer kind of evening.
should just make one.” This sports bar was lovely, of course. But we couldn’t be ourselves in it. The waitress also kept glaring at my turquoise hair. “A hangout? Put up a bar? We’d have to be made of money. “ I was always a pessimist about organizing artists for anything (art plus organized don’t usually mix), but I liked the gleam in her eye. Despite my misgivings, I was excited about jumpstarting an artist movement, no – a collective. A mobile one. One that offered existing artists within the city a chance to meet and greet fellow artists, one that allowed them to showcase their work, or just hang out and let loose. A network of creatives that artists could tap into for collaborative events, who would also be willing audiences for other people’s work.
It was at that moment that HIPHOUSE was It was Cheekie, who was dressed like a fashion- born. In Cheekie’s words [with permission, able gypsy (but perhaps without the disregard taken from an article in Edge Davao], for the law), who broke me out of my reverie. “a community that welcomes individuals of “Mars, why don’t we just put up something for every artistic inclination – writers, musiartists? I mean, this is the last straw. If we can’t cians, illustrators, filmmakers, photografind anything to cater to our demographic, we phers, stylists and variations thereof—who
recognize the need for an alternative scene in Davao where young artists can feel they truly belong. Hiphouse is part collaborative outfit, part networking venue, part common interest club, and yes, even part barkada.” Cheekie and I put out the word, created a Facebook page, and made a poster for the first ever Hiphouse Hangout at the first venue we chose in the Aala Building in Anda street. We were amazed at the outpouring of support. Our artistic friends jumped into the fray, lending us their possessions (lights, a projector, a table, a carpet, pillows, their films, their photographs, their galleries, their bartending skills, even a portable mini-bar) with an undefinable urgency– as if by helping to make HIPHOUSE come to life they would also be infected with the energy of its birth. I couldn’t
fault them – I knew exactly how they felt. On March 31, 2012, the rainy night of its opening, Cheekie and I waited, impatient, wondering if this was going to be just like a party in high school that you throw, hoping the cool kids arrive, and they don’t. But they did, oh they did. The advantage I had was knowing a lot of people who knew a lot of people – and they answered our invitation. Denizens streamed in, oohing and aahing at the candle lit room and transfixed by the art montages being projected on a wall. Drinks were lined up for people to mix at their leisure, and the conversations started. They were conversations about culture, art, music, film, science fiction – and anything and everything in between. This was what we wanted, and it was happening!
The Hiphouse experience left exhibiting artists ecstatic.
Cheekie writes in Edge Davao: “Besides being a venue for artists to converge, the first Hiphouse hangout was a
steady onslaught of novel sights and sounds. Young visionaries Aidx Paredes and JM Santillan shared videos they created under The Haze, their hipster noir photography and film project. Experimental filmmaker Lucille Marnelli screened her breathtakingly shot narrative short Timing Space. Comic artist John Amor, who is also Jad’s husband, streamed a slideshow of comic illustrations that made instant fans out of the people in attendance. Yours truly was the DJ for the evening, armed with five hours’ worth of blog-favorite electronic beats. Jad and her bandmates Pjoe Sabanpan, Dave Ibao, and Khuko Luzada unveiled the music video for their latest single “Ano” off the upcoming EP Fixed Points and Pendulums, directed by prolific filmmakerphotographer Bagsy Fiola. Later, Jad, Pjoe, and Dave played a stripped down set that calmed the crowd down to hushed admiration. Far from being smug about it, the Hiphouse experience left the exhibiting artists ecstatic. “Seeing our work projected on a big screen, being appreciated by new, unfamiliar eyes, was a strong motivating force,” Jad shares. “It makes you feel more alive, it makes you want to keep creating more beautiful work, and it makes you just a little bit giddy.”
designers of Davao City an inspirational talk on design and typography. The event was a huge success, the venue overflowing with attendees. During another event, Hiphouse, with permission from the film producers, held a special screening of ANG NAWAWALA (What Isn’t There), winner of the Audience Choice Award and the Best Original Score Award at the New Breed category of the CINEMALAYA 2012. The tickets sold out, the movie screened to a full house at the Davao Cinematheque, and Hiphouse hosted an afterparty for the viewers afterwards. Hiphouse holds an event once a month, the schedule of which depends on the availability of artists willing to curate. Hiphouse was founded by Cheekie and myself, but we created a manifesto teaching other people how to curate and manage an event independent of our involvement. The less we make it about ourselves, the more it evolves into something bigger than two friends who didn’t know what to do with themselves on a Friday night—and it has.
Hiphouse “hangouts” are always different, quirky, fun, and forward thinking. Because it’s a group of people who imagine for a living, the only limit to what such a collective is capable of is what they themselves impose on it. Due to its initial opening success, HIPHOUSE And because it is probably the first of its kind, has had a slew of art, music, film and chillout- HIPHOUSE has evolved into a household themed events that have always garnered guests name that answers the question: “So is there and audiences. During an event called Sunday anything different and fun to do around here?” Graphic Sunday, Team Manila entrepreneurs and fellow artists DJ Mon Punzalan and Jowee The answer is, most emphatically, yes. Alviar came over to give the budding young
HIPHOUSE IS ON FACEBOOK /
https://www.facebook.com/groups/423978807626151/?fref=ts
THE LANEWAY PILGRIMS
(Photo by Aloysius Lim c/o Chugg Entertainment)
By Cheekie Albay
The adventures and non-adventures of a group of regular Pinoy twentysomethings at Southeast Asia’s premier indie music festival
W
e were there when The Temper Trap thundered onstage to a rain-drenched crowd in 2011. We were there when Feist hushed the gathering down to quiet awe in 2012. We were there when M83 electrified thousands with “Midnight City”, an unbelievable experience we still gush about to this day.
Onstage, Norwegian folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience—the first act of the day—were playing soothing acoustic to a suitably subdued audience. My sister Crisha and I planned to rush to the stage for Minneapolis electronica group Poliça’s turn up next, so we spent KOC’s deliciously calming set gathering strength for the rest of the day’s madness.
We were pilgrims from the Philippines, flying in through budget airlines, crashing on SGbased friends’ couches, and blundering through unfamiliar MRT routes just to catch indie’s rising stars as they make a stop in Singapore—the only Southeast Asian leg of Australia’s touring music festival, St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival.
In the meantime, we sat back, people-watched, and drank our beers and bottled waters, trying not to think about how much less the two would cost back home. (A beer cost SGD10, while a bottled water went for SGD5—that’s around Php330 and Php165 to you.)
On January 26, 2013, there were six, or eight, or ten, or twelve of us, depending on which band was onstage at the moment and whoever happened to be passing by whom we knew from back home. We were sitting on a straw mat spread out on the grass, taking in all the bodies that walked the concrete path that cut through The Meadow at Gardens by the Bay.
Holy heat One thing you should know about music festivals: they’re not always Instagram-worthy. There are moments when you will feel hot, icky, and uncomfortable, and you will long for the simple joys of a cool breeze and a working toilet.
As Cleveland-based pop-punk four-piece Cloud Nothings turned up the volume onstage, the Tall bodies. Short bodies. Light bodies. Dark sun turned up the heat. Kristine and Carms bodies. Bodies clad in band T-shirts and cutoff hied off to their hotel room to get away from shorts. Bodies sporting hipster fedoras and Doc the searing sun, while Jay left to seek reprieve Martens. Bodies that had blessedly lost their in the air conditioning of a nearby mall. tops, revealing toned, tan arms and smooth, sculpted torsos. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope it rains,” Crisha grumbled. “So many hot guys,” I heard myself say as a trio of towering, lean, blond men passed by, their This from the girl who, memories of last year’s shirtless skin starting to turn red in the scorch- drizzle-dampened Laneway still fresh in her ing noontime sun. mind, had pleaded to the skies just hours earlier, “I hope it doesn’t rain.” “No kidding,” my friend Kristine agreed under her breath.
The smiles say it all. (Photo by Aloysius Lim c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Alt-J was our favorite act this year. Cute, too. (Photo by Dawn Chua c/o Chugg Entertainment)
When music fans collide
band was set to play, PJ chose to hang back at the other end of the field. (Later, he was able to rectify his misjudgment when, after watching Our friends came back in time to catch Of Monsters and Men. I decided to sit their set out Tame Impala live, he admitted he was “now a fan”. Good man.) for two reasons: (1) because I was exhausted from cheering like a lunatic during Divine Fits’ set in a futile attempt to catch keyboardist Alex I got my comeuppance when Canadian noise rock two-piece Japandroids—one of the acts Fischel’s eye, and (2) because I really wasn’t a I was psyched about seeing the most—started big OMAM fan. belting out their boisterous brayings. I thought This last bit of news was met with mild surprise nothing of squeezing my way to the front of by my companions, most of whom had booked the crowd and standing in 40-degree heat for 45 minutes, just for the pleasure of screaming their Laneway tickets driven by daydreams of seeing the Icelandic collective in the flesh. But along to “The House That Heaven Built” and with a lineup of 14 acts covering an assortment “Young Hearts Spark Fire”. of subgenres under the indie umbrella—from When I trudged back, sweat-soaked and exhilafolk pop to art rock to psychedelia to electronica—there’s bound to be at least one artist rated, to where my friends were lazing out on our mat, they greeted me with this: “You like you’re not that stoked about seeing. that?” When Crisha revealed she wasn’t much into I grinned sheepishly. To each his own, I guess. English electro-pop singer-songwriter Bat for Lashes, it was my turn to go livid: “Natasha Good vibes all around Khan is lovely and mesmerizing and did you even listen to the new album?” Even AustralClashing preferences aside, count on music fesian neo-psychedelic act Tame Impala—one of tivals to bring friends even closer together, and the most popular artists in the lineup—had at foster buckets of un-self-conscious goodwill least one non-fan in our little tribe, PJ. As we all crammed our bodies into whatever pockets among complete strangers. of space we could find near the stage where the
Case in point: Just before Japandroids came on, Jay disappeared. He only showed up once downtempo maestro Nicolas Jaar came on, and we found out that he had spent Japandroids’ set with a bunch of Canadians. Who knows how they met, what they talked about, or if they even talked at all? All we know is that he must’ve had the time of his life, seeing as he came back even more breathless and sweat-drenched than I did. When I did a bout of dance-like-no-one’swatching to Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.”, a Singaporean dude came up to me and said, “The people are getting restless, aren’t they?” I just smiled, mostly because I wasn’t sure how I should react to that question. Not getting a reply from me, he went on to accost a random group a few feet away, and that’s when I realized he was drunk off his rocker. But my point is, a wonderful sense of community had grown among the festival folks after spending the whole day standing in the same long lines, suffering through the same merciless heat, and savoring the same phenomenal sounds. When UK art rockers Alt-J played the brilliant “Breezeblocks”, the entire congregation boomed “LA LA LA LA!” in pitch-perfect unison. It was a special moment, a sublime secret only me and the 10,000 other people present that day had the privilege of knowing.
Share your shoulders, win a friend Just before the festival came to a close, Australian multi-instrumentalist Gotye and New Zealand’s electro-pop songstress Kimbra launched into the monster hit “Somebody That I Used to Know”. Devoted yet vertically-challenged Gotye fan Kristine fumbled to record their performance on her camera, struggling to keep her arm above the sea of heads that swelled between her and the stage. Seeing her plight, an Australian guy turned to her and gallantly slurred, “Do you want to get on my shoulders?” Granted, it was more an alcohol-aided offer than a sincere act of chivalry, but when I heard about her encounter, I thought it was the nicest thing ever. Next year, 2014, will mark the fourth year I’ve been a Laneway pilgrim since the festival launched its first Southeast Asian stop in 2011. If my Singaporean dude ever comes up to me again, I’ll be sure to actually say something next time around. Who knows, he might even offer to hoist me up on his shoulders, granting me the best thing anyone at Laneway could ever hope for: a magnificent view of the mind-blowing magic being made just mere meters away.
Laneway SG drew a crowd of 10,000 this year. (Photo by Aloysius Lim c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Yeasayer, we meet again. These guys were in Laneway SG’s first-ever lineup in 2011. (Photo by Glenn Yong c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Bat for Lashes looks magnificent in her white...batsuit. (Photo by Glenn Yong c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Tame Impala’s neo-psychedelic set is as close to Woodstock as we’ll ever get. (Photo by Dawn Chua c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Raise your hand if you think Of Monsters and Men’s Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir looks like a young Björk. (Photo by Ryan Chang c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Nicolas Jaar brings some chill to a sweltering afternoon. (Photo by Nina Sandejas c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Poliça’s Channy Leaneagh may look frail, but wait ‘til she opens her mouth to sing. (Photo by Ryan Chang c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Cloud Nothings make a balls-out pop-punk racket. (Photo by Ryan Chang c/o Chugg The smiles say it all. (Photo by Aloysius Entertainment) Lim c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Only Kimbra could look adorable with crazy hair and a kooky costume. (Photo by Dawn Chua c/o Chugg Entertainment) Lo-fi lords Real Estate’s set was lusciously sedate. (Photo by Aloysius Lim c/o Chugg Entertainment)
Divine Fits’ Dan Boeckner is a man of the masses. (Photo by Dawn Chua c/o Chugg Entertainment)
close encounters
Meiday MayDAY
Written by Aidx Paredes and Jad Montenegro / Photos by Aidx Paredes
“
Artist. Go-getter. Partyphile.” In a nutshell, this is Mei Bastes. Having popularized Meiday since 2008, being credited with helping to make “indie” or “independent” bands more appealing to the mainstream palate by giving them primetime slots in her self-named production, Mei Bastes is considered something of a minor hero by musicians and music lovers alike. Having done the rounds of the party circuit, doing everything to make her events successful (including paying out of pocket) Mei Bastes has thought about not going back to the limelight she used to live in. With her myriad contributions to the now successful indie music scene of Manila, many will say that she put up an undeniable effort to create a stronger foundation for Original Pilipino Music--at least in the underground. After having been a comforting venue for underground and independent artists for four years, Meiday took its final exit. It saddened a lot of music fans, considering that it was the ultimate free rock show/party. Mei’s brainchild became one of the most talked-about parties in Manila.
ing Mei, the limelight shone too bright, the fire of popularity burned her and the only way she could save herself was to leave. “Sometimes the only way to win is to give up.” All she really wanted was to live a happy and a tranquil life: to win is not tantamount to happiness, and perhaps not everything is worth the fight. Mei recalls that when she started Meiday, she didn’t expect it to get so big that people would actually start to pry into her personal life. Putting up Meiday for her own brand of happiness was not only financially draining, it seemed to her that it cost her life, for which she is still paying the price. Speaking realistically, the local music scene will still go on without Mei. Newer indie productions have been popping up left and right, gradually relegating Meiday to a fond, yet distant, memory.
“Sometimes the only way to win is to give up.”
To lose the things one cares about and yet remain passionate about them takes a toll on someone— at one point, “My life changed direction and I had to go down a path where I couldn’t turn back.”
Faced with the choice of genuine happiness versus fame, she decided to go home, maintaining a hopeful and firm attitude about her decision not to go back. Saying she’s tired of the ungrateful atmosphere that started to shroud her productions when they started to sour, she decided she had enough of controversy.
But her love for putting up parties for music enthusiasts continued even after the last Meiday, jumpstarting Dope MNL, Fete de la Musique, Popfest, and the Ang Nawawala After Party happen. These big events were living the spirit of Meiday, so in true Meiday fashion, they were also personally funded by Mei herself. Mei declares: all she ever wanted was peace of mind and the full life that every person deserves. Just like everyone else, she admits she’s tasted both the bitter and sweet taste of life; accord- And with this decision, she finally has it.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY AIDX PAREDES DOLLED UP BY FAINA FELEO ASSISTED BY MO JARAVELO CLOTHES FROM PROUDRACE AND BLANC ET NOIR
filmroll
THE DAVAO WE SEE
Film photos by Amelia Baird, OLDBOX, Mirjam Dalire
PURPLE HAZE by JM Santillan
FACELESS by Hannah Magsayo
EXTRATICATE by MJ De Castro
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