From Gen-X to Gen-Y: a journey in film

In search of  a credible female protagonist from Reality Bites to Frances Ha

Clockwise from top-left: Stills from Reality Bites (1994),
 Kicking and Screaming (1995),
Frances Ha (2012) and Damsels in Distress (2011).

A-stigmatics, pare!

“Here’s a song, baby, and I sing it to you” goes the opening line of the opening track from Straight Down the Bitter End the freshman album of the concept band Stigmatics under Terno Recordings the indie outfit of Toti Dalmacion which is based in the Philippines (hence the flag in the photo).

The duo is comprised of Grandi0s0, musical alchemist who manages the instruments and vocalist funb0y. With a name like theirs, you truly wonder what sort of scars both psychological and spiritual they intend to expose. No wonder these evil geniuses prefer to use stagenames in lieu of their true identities.

Laneway Festival

Candido Apokalyps takes Eclectikpagan out for a pre-Valentine night on the town.

10 February, Adelaide—A  quarter before five and Candido who works at an undisclosed office in the CBD clocked out and proceeded on foot to the University of South Australia, site of the Laneway Festival, where he was to meet up with Eclectikpagan.

The big draw of the night for Candido was the Brooklyn-based band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, while it was The Drums, also  from Brooklyn, for Eclectikpagan. To guide them both, a carefully highlighted copy of the night’s line-ups was on hand. Candido arrived right on the dot at five pm to find there was already a rather lengthy line. With Eclectikpagan half an hour away, he decided to wait for her inside while sussing out the place. With his ticket/wristband on, he proceeded through the gate. Here’s an account of what followed.

An unexpected discovery

The Bernadettes opening their set at Saguijo.

With an opening that sounds like the BMX Bandits’ Serious Drugs spiked with some serious attitude and irresistible popish hooks, and a bridge that's reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain, The Bernadettes will leave you chanting along during the chorus of Let’s Make Babies.

I caught them serendipitously during one of my nocturnal adventures while visiting in Manila. Their mini-set started off with a four-and-a-half minute period of silence. Afterwards, the band simply erupted with a flurry of songs which I thought at first were covers. I was delightfully surprised to learn that they weren’t.

The best thing about The Bernadettes is captured in this single. Simple. Direct. Immediate. They’re a band you feel like you’ve listened to for years and years. The gratification is instant. No need to churn them over and over to dig their vibe.

Editor's note: This excerpt from a review posted on the eponymously named blog of @Baudelairean originally came out on December 31, 2010. See the rest of it here.

Time for some strange luvin’

                                          

It is not that hard to picture the lads of Dr StrangeLuv a band out of Laguna in the "greater"part of the Greater Manila Area, trudging along the terrain of their suburban environs like the mythological Sysyphus moving back and forth from home to school to mall to church and so on for all eternity. Sissypuss their debut album is no doubt inspired by such travails.

The duo comprised of the “obnoxious brothers” Grandioso and El Scum aka “the Ingenious Bastards” are the strangest thing to come out of Manila’s outer rim of late. It is out in suburbia where bands like this (Pavement that quintessential alternative rock band out of Stockton, California being a prime example), comprised of perfectly normal kids isolated from the city-center, with loads of time on their hands, are able to lazily stumble into a sound that teases out the mundaneness, absurdity and sinister aspects of middle class existence.