Small, mobile intelligent units

• The Mongols A Fraction of a Second…

• Domino Fair Tales

• Cambio Live at Big Sky Mind

About a year after splitting from the Eraserheads, Ely Buendia has resurfaced, this time under the name Jesus "Dizzy" Ventura, vocalist for a new band called The Mongols. (Mongols are a type of pencil. Pencils, erasers. Get it? Playing with an alias is also a trait Buendia shares with his admitted godfather, John Lennon, who once recorded under the name of Dr. Winston O’Boogie.) A new mini-CD with five tracks is floating around, and more music promised on the way.

A Fraction of a Second… doesn’t quite suggest Eraserheads Phase II. No band could be as gloriously sloppy as the E-heads. So what do the Mongols sound like? Ely’s voice and songwriting are the sole link to the earlier band. With members from local dream-pop group Daydream Cycle (Jay Velasco on guitars, Yan Yuzon on bass/vocals and Bogs Jugo on drums) offering solid support, the sound is surprisingly tight and rockist, bending to Ely’s melodic whims. No dreamy pop songs here, the Mongols’ release has more in common with Ely’s solo effort, Wanted: Bedspacer, than the last Eraserheads albums.

Not surprisingly, the tunes that stick in one’s head are Ely’s. Case Logic features the kind of chorus that is trademark Buendia: "I, I can never tell/I’m a ghost in your shell." Guitar lines intersect, rumbling punk lines that build to a Radiohead-like crescendo toward the end.

No is bassist Yan Yuzon’s contribution, a mid-tempo affair with gravelly vocals and a melody suggestive of both Ely and Radiohead. How many local bands have been influenced by these two sources over the past years? More than one can say.

Tomorrowland and KSP are also convincing Buendia rockers: slow-building, launched from jangly riffs that then become punk-propelled to greater heights. Probably sound good live, too, if the band ever surfaces in public. Only the final track of this mini-CD, Abstraction of a Second, goes nowhere, the type of experimentalism that’s best left inside the four-track. But it does leave you eager to hear more from the Mongols.

Also released recently is an album by Ely’s sister’s band, Domino. Fair Tales features the songwriting of Lally Buendia mostly (a few tracks are collaborations with her brother, who also produced the album). It has the feel of an all-star "friends" project: all the Itchyworms pitch in, Cynthia Bauzon and Arnold Arre did the cover art, even Ely’s significant other (Diane) plays on a couple of tracks.

Harder to categorize, Domino bounces along on beds of electronica, punk-pop and a pleasant female vocal recalling Dido at times, Jewel at others. Certainly Cat Eyes has a slinky, nocturnal charm. Other standouts are King of Hearts (nice guitarwork from Itchyworms Jugs and Chino), Provocatrice which sounds a little like Debbie Harry in her Call Me days, and the closer, In Your Arms, has a distinct Sarah MacLachlan influence. All of which means this is not standard OPM by any means, but the kind of local music that picks through its primary sources carefully, standing on its own as willfully eclectic and quirky.

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A long time ago (at the dawn of New Wave), guitarist Robert Fripp wrote an article for Musician magazine positing the necessity for bands to start thinking of themselves as "small, mobile intelligent units." He was decrying the corporate thinking that led bands to stay together just for money, with little or no artistic growth. His words must have had some impact, because shortly after the article, the Police broke up.

Operating as "mobile intelligent units" may likewise be the best way for new music to emerge in the Philippines. Economically, it’s probably the only way, since band members usually can’t survive on one project alone. They have to be free agents. Anyway, I felt this while watching Cambio perform at Big Sky Mind in Quezon City a while back. Cambio is the next step in the evolution of Eraserheads rhythm section Buddy Zabala and Raymund Marasigan. After Ely left the band, the remaining Heads added singer/songwriter Kris Gorra of Fatal Posporos, but kept the old name "Eraserheads." Then Marcus Adoro dropped out. So they took an even bolder step by adding two more guitars: Ebe Dancel of Sugar-Free and Diego Mapa of Monsterbot.

Onstage, the blend of guitar parts provides three different musicians enough latitude to do their own thing within the confines of Cambio’s songs. Solos are rare (Kris took one; maybe Diego did some noise stuff). What’s there are interlocking guitar parts, arranged or suggested by Buddy, according to Raymund. "All these guys came from bands with one guitarist. So they were used to playing all the time. So Buddy would have to tell them, ‘Okay, you do an ostinato here, and you do this riff here…’"

Interestingly, Cambio doesn’t need to play extra-loud to get the music across. While their material feels a little tentative at this point (Kris provides most of the songwriting), they definitely have places to go with this format. It’s just such experimentation which keeps local music fresh and growing. We all know what happens when bands get a big name here: they become corporate dinosaurs overnight, start hawking beer, chips and other products, and gather a legion of fans who think in similar dinosaurian ways. (Hello, NU-107 Rock Awards!)

Sure, the Great Unsigned Bands out there may be the Great Unwashed – bands with zero appeal to yuppies – but they might have something of even greater importance: control over their own music. Really, why be in such a hurry to sign up with a big label? Do the record companies guarantee you protection from all the evil music downloaders out there? Do they promise promotion, distribution, a budget? More bands (like Boldstar) are doing it themselves: tracking, pressing, selling CDs on their own.

Meanwhile, what you witness inside small clubs are the germs of new music: this stuff may not survive the harsh klieg-lights of an arena stage; it’s for more concentrated ears, perhaps. But from these small, underground experiments come the country’s next bands. It’s a process not unlike high school science class: the audience is waiting patiently for something interesting to explode.