updates and a little food for thought.

first of all, i would just like to apologize for the agonizing delay of the pictures and the report from the December 7 show. a combination of conflicting schedules in school and a slight lack of coordination with the photographers (well, anybody with pictures) sort of get in the way of that every now and then. so yeah, expect something, but it might take a bit more since some of us have work/reviews/school/exams, whatever.

anyway, i've been thinking to myself about this a lot lately. almost everybody who was at the show last December 7 is still hung over in some way, be it Astroboy from local NYHC-style hardcore band, Clobberin' Time or Ian, the guitar dude from Futile Homicide (who have a nice story behind their name, by the way) . everybody isn't going to be over that show in a long time, and personally, regardless of the fact that Caitlyn Bailey played a relatively messy set, i think everybody in my band had fun as well. people seemed to see something in us other than the fact that we are a fairly new band. thinking deeper, i was asking myself, what made this show good and why did it end up like that in the first place? if you people were there, you would've seen a small, shitty bar filled with sweaty asian hardcore kids dancing/playing/standing on a floor drenched entirely in human sweat and an assortment of bodily fluids. putting things into perspective, the only logical answer i had in my head was "this is hardcore, this is a hardcore show." there was little or no drinking inside the venue, and whoever was inside when the show started stayed inside for the whole show. people paid a relatively small fee to come in, and they all made the most of it because they all believed they had a reason to be there, an ideology perhaps, a school of thought, an opportunity to engage in good clean fun. whatever it may be, everybody there was there because they believed in something. it wasn't a beer party organized by some prominent production with bands playing as long as they get 5 people to come in and pay X amount of money in the name of profits. this is not an attack on anyone i know personally, however. it is merely an insight in regards to the concept of shows vs. gigs.

should you reside in the greater metro manila area, you are probably familiar with the latter given the saturation. now, whereas gigs are legitimate sources for entertainment, i feel that it's a breeding ground for the bastardization of all i feel is "sacred" in punk and hardcore. i used to organize gigs prior to my immersion in the DC hardcore scene. in a sense, i should know how it feels. there is absolutely no sense of unity and/or brother and sisterhood in that cold, empty scene. i never felt any principles that would link me or put me on the same level as the people there. i saw no immediate reason to stay with that circle of people because at the end of the day, it did not make me a better person and it subjected me to a whole slew of derogatory slurs. i ran the whole fucking gamut twice, and i didn't like it. eventually, i stopped organizing, and my old band fell apart due to internal troubles and the fact we stopped playing. (we only played shows we organized back then)

as fate would have it, i started a new band with my previous band's guitarist and tried our damn best to get into the hardcore scene. after a quarter of a year's worth of idle time, and we seriously thought we weren't getting anywhere because nobody invited us and nobody was aware of our existence. we went -this- close to breaking up before playing a show, seeing a few gigs within that span of time further cemented my disdain for the concept of productions and gigs. it all paid off though, because eventually, by way of a few select contacts, we were able to organize an all hardcore show. we were new, we stuck our necks out for people to prey upon, but in the end, we met people we ended up being good friends with. we felt the concept of community, we felt that it would lead somewhere, and a few months later, it did. we played, and IT MEANT SOMETHING. something that i know i will never get from being lumped in with people who don't get what we are doing and what we want to do. it's incredibly bigoted to say
that this is the only way all bands should work, but this is what is relevant to me, this is what is relevant to us, this is what matters.