(A
story by STIFF - Proprietor at Loudhouse Music Enterprise,
lead vocalist of Rizal Underground and a musical voyager to some of
the most beautiful destinations of the world.)
This journey begins
in 1988, after a five year stint in Los Angeles that I return to the
Philippines. In one of my first ever trysts outside of Manila and with the
encouragement of a dear friend, Madam CRISTY FUENTEBELLA, I visited
beautiful hideaway called
COCO BEACH, an exotic destination in Puerto
Galera, Oriental Mindoro owned and operated by a close family friend.
And from that point never looked back.
In my succeeding visits, I journeyed
towards the center of the island and met the natives, who in my
surprise, were quite informed with the growing popularity of reggae
music and thus
COCO JAM, fronted by my favorite songwriter and
mentor, ROLLY MALIGAD. This coincides with my upcoming venture into
music and the formation of
THE RIZAL UNDERGROUND.
It was 1992 – the height of the
twelve hour brownouts, during the production of
Loudhouse’s largely
successful, independently released compilation album entitled ALERT
LEVEL that I became close to another pioneer of reggae music in the
Philippines, the late PAPADOM, whose
TROPICAL DEPRESSION together
with CHARLIE YSMAEL’S THE BREED,
RIZAL UNDERGROUND and COOKY
CHUA’S
COLOR IT RED filled this lineup of up and coming bands.
As the rise in popularity of bands in
the country grew exponentially, all four bands received radio
airplay, TV guest appearances and were signed to major labels.
Biggest of the four was
TROPICAL DEPRESSION, who in 1995, got an
invitation to perform in the first ever PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL
at White Beach, organized by Ms.
LOU BONNEVIE. Wow! Performing at one
of the first ever beach festivals has always been a dream and so I
decided to tag along, had a remarkable time and remember quite
fondly to have crashed on the beach that evening. And the dream comes
closer to realization.
On the other hand,
RIZAL UNDERGROUND, my band, that featured a very talented core of young musicians like
MIKE VILLEGAS, ANGELO VILLEGAS and future
P.O.T. drummer HARLEY
ALARCON, was enjoying quite a comfortable ride with the success of
our self-titled debut album that included the popular SAN MIGUEL BEER
commercial “SABADO NIGHTS”, featuring the beautiful MS.
INA RAYMUNDO.
.
And due to the extensive promotions for the campaign, I
unfortunately missed perhaps a more glorious 2
nd offering
of the PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL in 1996, this time organized by
JAMIE WILSON and the future MISS SAIGON lead star
MONIQUE WILSON.
An elaborate stage and great show I’m told plus the integration of
an art facet to the festivities that featured the Philippines most
prominent such as SANTI BOSE and
AGNES ARELLANO, to name a few.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYIkGYZXejzi6Cdf0eX9did0CBEjRMqO0WUYmdQtn9mZiILamDItibeg-_f-7qnrYmQURhc6MpKJvaMpS07lTsHtu_W1VUsPPQFSTZMFpARkUYHF9BVcF3nLgKBfIFMF4bcQt5Zf3BLXk/s1600/mbike1.jpg)
The dream continues to elude me. But
after the success of ALERT LEVEL though, I decided to expand
LOUDHOUSE and venture into concert production to fulfill my lifelong
dream of performing in a beach festival. And so the partnership with
COCO AROMA proprietor
JOEL DE VEYRA blossomed, with the help of my
growing connections with the SAN MIGUEL BEER marketing group, we
organized the third offering of the PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL in
1997, integrating sporting events. Thus with my links and passion
for football, I tapped original AZKAL,
LUDWIG FUENTEBELLA, proprietor
of
ENCENADA BEACH RESORT, and current
PHILIPPINE FOOTBALL FEDERATION
Beach Football Chairman MIKE AHTAB to organize the first ever BEACH
FOOTBALL tournament in the Philippines.
To soup up the promotions for the
event, we got very lucky to be granted by the Singapore based
MTV ASIA as media partners to this event. It was then that I met the
popular and amiable VJ MIKE KASEM and his sister
KERRI KASEM, whose
lineage comes from the late great CASEY KASEM of the long running
AMERICAN TOP 40 fame, currently hosted by none other than RYAN
SEACREST. Also included in the crop of talents brought in by
MTV ASIA
to cover the event was VJ
REGINE TOLENTINO and
MTV NEWS host
LEE LAUREANO.
In cooperation with the local
government of Puerto Galera, we brought together an exciting weekend
of merriment that included the first ever OFF ROAD MOUNTAIN BIKE
RACE, AQUATHON, BEACH FOOTBALL and culminating with a marvelous
concert program featuring the finest Filipino artists namely:
RIZAL UNDERGROUND,
BLUE RATS, NATIVE SCION,
COCO JAM,
SPY,
PUT3SKA and
LOLITA CARBON.
With the success of the partnership
with our sponsors, we decided to bring it back in 1998. This time,
the festivities got boosted with a little more action - the sporting
events grew both in popularity and participation. With the help of
ENERVON, we organized the first ever OFF ROAD TRIATHLON, way before
it’s time and the Second BEACH FOOTBALL CUP. More media
personalities came to cover the event, former
MTV ASIA and CHANNEL
V VJ
KAMAL SIDHU for
AXN and long time local TV sports program
GAMEPLAN, hosted by the lovely couple – PAOLO and
SUZIE ABRERA.
In 1999, the results of our two
previous efforts became too obvious to ignore as PUERTO GALERA become
a favorite destination amongst the bohemian population of the
country. There was a clamor to do it one more time and headlining
this editions’ lineup were internationally acclaimed artists
KULAY,
BLUE RATS,
RIZAL UNDERGROUND,
PUT3SKA and
SPY.
It wasn’t easy nor lucrative yet
priceless in terms of experience. It is only now that I begin to realize
the accomplishments promoting Puerto Galera as a destination for
tourism with a cool taste in music, a proper venue for sporting events
and a great overall vibe. 17 years on, I keep coming back and am still
amazed at the beauty of this place and shall always remain one of my
favorite destinations – MY PUERTO GALERA!
wow! great chronicles! I was witness to those events that happened, man! until now, it still is the most reggae-ish place in the country! hehe. most remembered when WHITE BEACH still has no electricity and runned by generators. Bonfire and Ginebra San Miguel Gin "bilog or cuatro cantos"at night and acoustic jamming of Bob Marley songs with the local barkadas( singing "General Rasta" instead of Dreadlock Rasta. hehe),then eating up our baon SkyFlakes and canned YoungTown Mackerel before "hitting-the-sack" in a small kubo( Nipa Hut) by the beach for the night (courtesy of our host, Don Pino Hernandes and Kuya BIMBOT of SAILOR SHACK...CocoRol always makes me laugh with the restaturant/bar sign" SAIL OR SHOCK" hehehe!)...Flashbacks are good,too.. My first trip on this side of Mindoro is more special, if your with the late,great PAPADOM ( wherein FOOD & EATING should always be a priority, hehe) .This is where we got to really "feel" our own version of Jamaica and talked about the "What-Ifs" and the "Where-Tos", our newly formed band, TROPICAL DEPRESSION... is going to create a "storm of our own" in the future.
ReplyDelete