Essential Punk Records from the Philippines: Bad Omen’s self-titled debut (or “the Black Cat” album).

Essential Punk Records from the Philippines: Bad Omen’s self-titled debut (or “the Black Cat” album as it is called).

Bad Omen released by Middle Finger Records in 1994 first in cassette form and on vinyl in 2014.

This band rode the second wave of punk bands from the 1990s. And is arguably the best-selling album in Pinoy Punk Rock history selling over 20,000 copies from cassette to vinyl.

If you talk to the band’s sole remaining member, founder and guitarist Fishbone, he will cringe and wonder why this album makes the list. However more than being a best-seller in the local genre, it spawned a classic, “Maling Sistema” and “a Black Cat” logo that is now iconic. When you see it, you know it’s Bad Omen.

The band wears its influences on its sleeve on the album’s music. You’ll hear traces of the Dead Kennedys, Stiff Little Fingers, and the Ramones among others. And perhaps more than any band, local crew the Urban Bandits, who are a major influence. In fact, Bad Omen, with its line-up of the last decade, have sometimes performed as a back-up to UBs vocalist Arnold Morales for his recent solo shows (the punk legends should return pretty soon with its second album after 32 years).

You have to consider the climate in which this album came out which is the post-EDSA years with all the massive brownouts, coup d’etats, and whatnot plaguing the country. Bad Omen just like their progenitors, decry the “Maling Sistema”…

“Kung papansin ay iyong nakikita

Ang maling sistema

Na tama sa kanila

Bukod sa pagyaman ang mga hangad

Pagsilid ng salapi pa ang inaatupag.”

They demand that you do not close your eyes to the world in “Buksan ang Iyong Isipan”. Yet being in a punk band isn’t easy, the genre doesn’t get the props its deserves as the general anger of the scene is interpreted as harbingers of chaos. Hardly fair since their songs aren’t nihilistic. So they take aim and wonder why the world is so fucked up. It ties in – the name of the band’s own label is “Middle Finger” and they flash it and yell, “Fuck the World” to a litany of woes.

Yet the album isn’t all political… there’s that weepy love song “Claudine” and “Can’t Find Someone”.

“Just Go Loony” is significant because it was inspired by the classic Batman story, “The Killing Joke”. As a comic book fan myself – and someone who thinks that “The Killing Joke” is one of the best comic book stories ever -- this is cool. Bands like the Ramones or even Weezer were into comics. Has anyone immortalized the great comics scribe Alan Moore’s words into song?

I think not.

Bad Omen started out by pointing out what is wrong with the system. They end the album by calling for concrete action in “Change the System”.

-------------------

Other Essential Pinoy Punk Rock albums:

Signal 3's "Convergence Zone" and "Kingsley United"

Half the Battle's "What We Have"