Fête Fetish

It’s that time of the year again: when music fans can gather in one spot, for one night, and partake of a glorious banquet of bands: an array of the best local acts, ranging across genres, from rock to reggae to jazz and blues and beyond.

Yes — I’m talking about the Fête de la Musique. This year, the Philippine part of the festival is happening on Saturday, June 25 (that’s tomorrow), at The Fort, and the theme is “Vieux vs Neuf: Old School meets New School.” It aims to showcase “the best of the Philippine music scene across 14 genres. The Main Stage at the Fort Plaza (the courtyard in front of Pier 1) shall be showcasing at least six genres while the seven other stages around the Fort, all within walking distance from each other, will showcase the rest.”

We talked with two gig organizers who are both very familiar faces in the local music scene: Mei Bastes, founder of indie production night Meiday, and Cris Ramos Jr. of Revolver Productions. Their groups are in charge of the Indie and Rock stages this year, respectively.

“There is a team of organizers this year headed by Giselle Tomimbang (Alternative Assets) and Anna Sobrepena Ong (MamaSun/B-SIDE),” explained Mei. Cris added that these Alliance Francaise-chosen people “entrusted the indoor stages to different prods (production nights) so they can centralize things and concentrate more on the main/outdoor stages.” 

“They gave the indie stage to Meiday, most probably because of its ‘cred’ — modesty aside — and the fact that it has a considerable following now,” said Mei. “Revolver considers it an honor and a privilege to do the rock stage,” said Cris. “I also have to do Paranoid City’s album launch that same night, so I asked Nicole Sarmiento of Red Ninja productions to step in as well. She’s one of the best and most promising young indie gig producers out there.”

Meiday at the Fete: “This is going to be legendary.”

These responsibilities, of course, came with their own set of obstacles. “Taking charge of this Meiday collaboration with Fete De la Musique 2011 was almost impossible, because I got confirmation just two days before a planned one-month vacation out of the country,” said Mei. “While usually a one-man prod, I had to have a Meiday team back in the Philippines take charge of the band bookings, sound system rentals, security and location venue. Through email, Twitter, and Facebook, specific tasks and instructions were given and delivered. (Special thanks to my homegirl Val Tilos and the team for taking care of the event while I was away.) I had to go back to the Philippines three days before the event to finalize things. This collaboration will put Meiday in a different spotlight, and until now I still find it overwhelming.”

Meanwhile, Cris got some online flak for some of his band choices. “I am proud of being able to book both (Sino Sikat and Turbo Goth), they’re great bands and what they do rocks harder than some of those antiquated rock bands these purists seem to seriously give way too much credit to. Which brings me to my point: rock has evolved so much throughout these years that it’s kind of annoying and pretentious how people can claim to know what “real” rock is and delude themselves into making ‘heto lang ang gusto ko, kaya heto lang ang puwede’ pronouncements. I love the mix of this lineup, there’s some old school stuff and some new school stuff, there’s some old people doing new things and young people doing old things and everything else in between.”

And what can we expect this year from the Indie and Rock stages? What are they looking forward to?

“This is going to be legendary,” said Mei. “I think this is the first time and Fete specifically had an indie stage and getting Meiday to handle it is absolutely amazing — it’s been a three-year struggle to promote the local indie music scene and I think it’s high time that my homegrown bands get this kind of exposure. Everyone who has been to any Meiday party knows it’s going to be crazy. Expect to hear from acts like Pedicab, Ciudad, Us-2 Evil-0, Ang Bandang Shirley, Arigato, Hato!, The Discoball, Kate Torralba, Halik ni Gringo, The Strangeness, BeeEyes, The Dorques and DJ sets from The Diegos, Kiko Escora and Gian Romano.”

“Looking forward to how Hijo will do on the Rock stage,” said Cris. “And of course there’s Franco, Intolerant, Hilera, Pinoy Stories, among many, many others to look forward to.”