Mikey Amistoso, the cool nerd virtuoso

Mikey Amistoso usually sings in two voices. The first one is squeaky-high, like that of a kid with a put-upon temper tantrum, on the verge of breaking into a belabored falsetto when the high notes arrive (nevertheless charming in the Sean Lennon sense of the word.) The other is breathy: eerie-sounding, pregnant with a strange reverb, mouthfuls of oxygen wrapping every syllable sung, like that of the ghost of Elliot Smith.

Amistoso is a conundrum at best. When performing with his prized band Ciudad, he is by default the living focal point of his group, twisting his limber frame as the chords go minor, pogoing up and down with his bass like a kid starved of Ritalin. But when the music fades, and the next band starts to set up, he is back to being Mikey, a name that can have no substitute considering that Mikey is none other than a Mikey: a perpetually 18-year old-looking boy, a clean-shaven shy-type who’s nonetheless able to crack a dick joke if the moment calls for it.

But after 11 long years in the music business, Amistoso now has ripened into a beautiful maturity. What’s a clever way to say it? He’s now a man trapped in a kid’s body? A man-child? "I kinda feel old. I remember when we were teens, we got to play with ‘90s bands like the Eraserheads, and Color It Red. Now almost all of those bands are defunct and legendary and a whole slew of newer bands are already making the scene way ahead of us. We witnessed the pop-rock generation, the kupaw generation, the acoustic generation, and we’ve now come full circle and we’re still here."

Indeed, its has been a long road for a musician who started playing in Ciudad when he was barely in his teens. Now, though unjustly underrated by the public, Amistoso is hailed by industry stalwarts as one of the geniuses who will go down in Pinoy music history as one of its most versatile musicians and most talented songwriters. Amistoso has grown from vocalist-songwriter to producer (he has been producing albums for bands such as Monsterbot and The Pin-Up Girls) and film scorer (he did music for the movie Keka and other independent film projects as well). Aside from his band Ciudad, he is also busy moonlighting with his two other bands, namely, Pixies cover band Blast Ople and disco-punk dabblers The Bitter Pill.

Amistoso says of his first encounters with a music instrument, "My first instrument was the piano. I was seven or so. My mother would force me to (take) piano lessons. But I hated it because I couldn’t master reading notes and it always got in the way of watching cartoons or playing outside. So I eventually begged my Mom to let me quit." Consequently, he moved on to playing the guitar. "I joined the rondalla in grade school and learned some guitar because I thought then that the banduria sucked and the guitar was much cooler and different. I learned the chords to our national anthem. When I got to high school, I became classmates with my future bandmates and we eventually formed Ciudad."

Though a decent bass player, Amistoso is noted more for his gifts as a songwriter. Inspired by his pantheon of musical heroes such as Evan Dando, Ben Folds, Ben Gibbard and Brian Wilson, Amistoso often oscillates between inane concept songs such as Strawberry Jam and beautiful melodic numbers like Call It A Flick. Amistoso elaborates on his standards when writing a song and his ever-growing fascination with the talented Brian Wilson, "Ever since I started writing songs, I wanted each song I wrote to be as catchy as a Beach Boys song. That was always the peg. I guess it’s pretty much apparent in half of my songs like Make It Slow, Mascot, and How Did You Know. Believe it or not, I only heard Pet Sounds for the first time two years ago. But that just strengthened my belief that you can never go wrong with Brian Wilson’s sensibility of catchiness."

After releasing two albums, including the near-perfect Is That You, Dad? Yes Son It’s Me, Ciudad released a B-side collection of songs late last year, It’s Like A Magic. Amistoso recounts, "We got sentimental and remembered the time when we were just starting as a band as high school kids. Then I realized that we wrote a lot of songs then that are still unheard by the public. There were, I think, a hundred songs or so. We decided to make a list of the ones we remembered best and won’t be embarrassed to let others hear."

Now, as the band approaches a rough time, with the departure of their guitarist and secondary songwriter Jeff Cabal (who may be leaving permanently for Chicago) and the nagging question of whether to soldier on and continue to play as Ciudad, as a band with a strong cult following but without major label backing, Amistoso can only offer, "We will be coming up with our fourth album and we’ll take things from there. It could be our last. Who knows? But I’m hoping this last one will be a good one for us."

Amistoso doesn’t smile. He goes to their living room piano, plays the first few bars of God Only Knows, and starts singing with eyes closed.  

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