Shoegazing for fun and profit

Shoegazing is back. Literally. Back in the ‘90s, some of us will recall, there were scads of bands that played their guitars as though they were stuck in a wind chamber. They had long hair obscuring their faces and stared down at their feet a lot when performing, hence the term “shoegazing band.” We could list a lot of one-syllable bands that fit this category  Ride, Lush, Curve, etc.  but the crème de la crème of shoegazers was My Bloody Valentine, who are to this day laboring to finish their follow-up album to “Loveless” which came out in, um, 1991. That’s a lot of shoegazing downtime.

But now, shoegazing is back, after a fashion, with a roster of acts on Terno Records, Toti Dalmacion’s mad scientist lab of new, promising and not necessarily commercial bands. Once a month, Dalmacion hosts Terno Inferno at Saguijo Café in Makati. The lineup usually consists of about eight bands that run the gamut of Terno’s sound, from the crossover critical darlings Up Dharma Down to those obscure operators on the outer fringes of shoegazing, Encounters With A Yeti.

Now, I’m not into musical labels, but shoegazing is really what a number of these bands appear to be doing. Therese and I recently checked out Saguijo, initially to watch Up Dharma Down, and we first caught Musical O’s shaggy musical act, complete with angular Slint-like riffs and catchy tunes like Hey Sandy! and Ocean. The general level of their gaze? Shoeward.

Abominable noise: Experiences With A Yeti close out a recent Terno Inferno night at Saguijo Café.

They were followed by Dharma, who were impossible to actually view because of the dubious policy of telling everyone in the audience to stand up to allow more bodies to be crammed into Saguijo. Therese and I didn’t like that policy much, nor did we like looking at people’s backs instead of the band (Therese said you might as well be listening to your iPod), so we stood upon our chairs against the back wall until instructed by the club’s management to stop doing so.

Dalmacion acknowledges that Dharma is the biggest draw for Terno nights. I asked him how he manages to find such a wide range of bands for his label. Toti  whose roster also includes Radioactive Sago Project, Ang Bandang Shirley and Drip  shrugged and said, “I don’t anymore. They find me.” Indeed, his Facebook page gets a lot of queries from interested acts. Not that it’s all limos and champagne: even a highly popular band like Up Dharma Down has a hard time getting booked for international festivals, Toti confides. Or maybe Terno doesn’t want to court that kind of commercial attention? “We do, we do!” says Toti.

In truth, Saguijo is not the place to catch Dharma, but it is a cool showcase for Terno bands, such as Musical O and Sleepwalk Circus who followed. Sleepwalk is a band that likes to play in the dark, with only a string of Christmas lights surrounding the stage. They appear to be fascinated with their own shoes, but on closer inspection, this is because they are heavily into their guitar pedals, which are key to the enveloping whoosh that defines their sound. Their album “Great Secret Show” demonstrates what’s both commercial and alternative about the band, with the opener Freedom in One Second evoking not only shoegazers but ‘80s dream poppers and, at times, Smashing Pumpkins. It must be a struggle to navigate all those pedals in the dark (it was interesting to hear a flurry of Van Halen-like tapping amidst it all), but Sleepwalk Circus definitely embody why shoegazing is ready for its comeback. At a certain point, the guitars were set aside, abandoned as vocalist Francis Lorenzo and guitarist Peavey Nicholas bent down to twirl knobs on their effects pedals. Usually, this would seem like posturing, but their array of loops and layers  looping on and on after all band members had left the stage  made a persuasive case for music as blissful oblivion.

As I said, I’m not into labels, so whatever it is you call it that Mogwai and Sigur Ros like to do, Encounters With A Yeti are wandering the same wilderness. Perhaps “melancholic exultation” describes it. A herd of about four guitar players, one keyboardist, drummer and bassist onstage whip up a maelstrom of lullaby melodies that are quickly engulfed in shards of echo and feedback. A video of the animated French sci-fi classic, La Planete Sauvage, beams across the ceiling as the band plays, once again in the dark. There’s a great deal of guitar sculpting that does recall Mogwai, though with fewer peaks and valleys. Their songs  90 percent instrumental  could use, perhaps, a bit more resolution, lest they be thought of as mere “jams.” But it was enough to take us to close to 3 a.m. when Terno Inferno shut down for the night.

In truth, many of Terno’s bands recall that decade near and dear to Dalmacion’s (and most Filipinos’) heart: the Eighties. One can hear the connection in the plaintive vocals of Francis Lorenzo, and the dream pop swirls of guitar. Up Dharma Down’s professional sheen masks an experimental nature that is key to the ’80s enduring popularity. Other bands on that night’s lineup  Not Another Boy Band, Hidden Nikki, Popular Days, The Charms  all offer something different to the local music scene. One can argue that some of the bands wear their influences on their sleeves, but it’s always a matter of taste: if you like the types of music that Terno bands are influenced by, then you’ll enjoy hearing a Filipino take on it. Entry for a night of Terno music is a mere P150, so raking in huge truckloads of money is probably beside the point. Up Dharma Down is probably the cash cow that makes Terno Inferno possible: the crowds in Saguijo for that band probably outnumbered the other bands’ fans combined. But for a taste of what’s different about local music, it’s a good place to start. And don’t forget your shoes.

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Visit www.ternorecordings.com.