Oct 31, 2007
I was going through my multiply and found that my friend and former officemate, Mel, replied to my previous post about rants. Don't worry Mel, i'm okay now. It's all cool... so anyhoo, passed by her account and found this post of hers about Basti (which was posted more than a month ago. i can't believe i read it just now. sorry mel!). and i thought, oh yeah, Basti, vocalist of the ever famous band, Wolfgang. And it all came back to me again....
I guess it started about 5 or 6 years ago when me and my fanatic wolfgang siblings went chasing after the band one gig after another. well that was when i was in college, first college that is(haha!), and was finally legite to go out and drink. of course my parents didn't know. they might have guessed but then i was with my siblings so it was fine. anyway, we were fans eversince they first got their album released. it was the era of cassette tapes back then. allowance of P20 was enough for a day (don't ask me how old i was then because i honestly can't remember). and a week without snacks was the ulitimate sacrifice just to get a tape of wolfgang's first album. hey, if you were rakero at heart, you'd do anything to get to buy their tape. can't remember which company got to record their first album but i remember that it was something to do with being white. hold on for a sec..... ivory. it was the only album they had with ivory, if my memory's still intact. and if i do remember correctly, when the band was already so big, ivory decided to release a sort of like the legends album of wolfgang's debut. sheesh. i don't know if the band got a cut from that...
going back, wolfgang is one of those bands who survived through the evolution of music by still making it good. and when i say good music, it's not because it has a catchy tune. it should be good in everything, the lyrics, the sound, the harmony of the instruments. exaggerated i know but if you know how to listen, then you'll know what i mean. and wolfgang had that, and it didn't matter if the song was in English or in Filipino, it was still really good.
i remember the Black Mantra album. it was the very last album they had before the band temporarily broke up. back then CDs were still amazing when it came to secondary data storage. so they had it released still in cassette tapes with a boot leg too. damn! i bought at least 3 of those. and i kept buying and buying and i gave it as presents to my friends and fellow die hard wolfgang fanatics. never got the CD of it by the way. my sister bought one but that was the time when we weren't really updated with the music scene anymore. she also bought the Volume album when it was released in US. well she didn't buy it personally but had one of our cousins in the states to buy it for her. a couple of years later, Volume was released here in the Philippines. haha! oh well. she does have the US released album of Semenelin in which Mata Ng Diyos became Watermarks. the Filipino version is better if you ask me.
Attending their gigs was by far one of the highlights of the times i've enjoyed and bonded with my siblings i guess. We never left the house if one of us was missing, well most of the time. I was usually the one missing because I was still in college then. projects to do and getting ready for exams, all that crap that served to be useless because i soon found my self following wolfgang's vocalist to the other side of Taft Ave. Yep, despite not having any soil where it can grow, the grass was greener there.
My mom always blamed the fact that i've always agreed to go out with my siblings to those gigs, for the reason why i sought out for greener pastures. As if la salle wasn't green enough, eh? I've always denied it. Because again, I was having the time of my life. I wouldn't remember any of these memories if I didn't. it's not that i'm actually proud of what happened, but those times were like long, hot, relaxing baths at the end of the mind-twisting, shoulder-tensing, eye-soring days of ehem, my first college.
There's more to remember, more to share, more that i've always treasured back then, but i'll leave it at that. if i keep on blabbing about this, you'll soon find out how much more exaggerated and how much of brat i was back then. Past is past anyway, and there are things that I'd rather keep to myself.
