Someone asked – with fascination, I might add – about all these music posts and articles.

Someone asked – with fascination, I might add – about all these music posts and articles. I answered him, I guess you don’t know me at all.

If you went to school with me, if I wasn’t lugging a football or a comic book, I was carrying vinyl records. That was a huge bond between me and my classmates Jun Neri, Ben Reyes, Hec Garde, Reggie Ocampo, Mike Co, Al Roño, Paul Arellano, Bam Quimson, Jori Ignacio, Nick Ramos, and a few others. We were the cool kids – into New Wave while others were into disco and jazz. New Wave hadn’t exploded onto our shores and we were already listening to the B-52’s, Devo, the Ramones, and others. It sure helped that Nick and Hec would bring records back after their summer trips to the US or the UK.

As a group, we’d go to the old QUAD Cineplex in Makati (now Glorietta to those who didn’t grow up in the 70s and 80s) to watch that concert film, No Nukes. We watched the Beatles’ Let It Be in the old Remar theater in Cubao. And some of us learned how to commute to go to Harrison Plaza to buy these punk rock tapes from Twisted Red Cross.

In fact, in Grade 7, XL Tajonera and I formed our first band and we were all classmates from 7-St. Peter Canisius. We hung out at 99.5 RT where we’d all ride Jori’s Hi-Ace and catch one of the jocks snorting coke. Those old RT stickers? Yep, they were prized possessions. Then later on, I started hanging out at DZRJ when my dad nearly bought the station.

But before all that, my love for music started at home. My dad was president of Disc Corporation and they distributed records from Donna Summer, Teri De Sario, Kiss, the Village People, Charo, and KC and the Sunshine Band among others. Dominic Gamboa -- or Papadom to the world at large  - and I became friends because we were both in the Kiss army together. Now, Domeng? He was a huge influence on me as well. 

Then when my dad became the president of the Philippine Association of the Record Industry, he’d take me to bars, lounges, and rock clubs all over the country. I remember watching the New Minstrels at the Manila Hotel, the Juan dela Cruz Band in Olongapo, Basil Valdez at my late Uncle Roger’s steak house in Timog called, Sacred Cow. A couple of times, we even went to the old Hobbit House to watch Asin.  

I’d wake up on weekends to find people such as Freddie Aguilar, Rico Puno, Zsa Zsa Padilla, the APO Hiking Society, Florante, Ella Del Rosario, Joey De Leon and Tito Sotto, and Jose Mari Chan in our living room. Sometimes, I’d answer our phone and it would be the late Bobby Ledesma on the phone asking for my dad.

I’d hear my dad playing records on weekends and while I had gotten into Kiss followed by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd, I learned to love Frank Sinatra, Burt Bacharach, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Barry White, and of course, the Beatles. I remember thinking when I first heard Karen Carpenter’s voice – is this how an angel sounds like? When we’d go to the homes of my parents’ friends, my sister and I would spend time in front of the turntable playing records by the Ray Conniff Singers, Sergio Mendes, Paul Williams, and Simon and Garfunkel.

I lived down the street to where the old Jingle magazine was published so I hung out there. That’s where I met Ces Rodriguez, Pennie Azarcon, the late Butch Maniego, Les the Croc…

And I even formed my own choir at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish called… Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. Yep, half the choir were all Ateneans so the songs we sung were Himig Heswita.

It was great, I tell you. Comics, football (and then baseball as me and my friends play nine-a-side baseball in parks against those guys from San Beda), and music. I wrote poetry and did a lot of water-color paintings. I remember my mom buying all these children’s books that Nick Joaquin penned and I got them all signed. By sixth grade, for our nascent band, I began writing songs with my bandmates. When my cousin Donald was a DJ for KIIS-FM, I’d sometimes visit him with my brother John. He’d go out sometimes for bite or what and leave me in the booth to spin stuff (for about 10 minutes no more than that).

What a childhood! It was filled with lots of activity and diverse pursuits that served me well later in life.

When I moved abroad and even when I travel to this day, you can be sure it is always a part of my itinerary or routine that I go to a book shop, a record store, and a football shop. Not in that order.

When my dad was stricken by multiple strokes curtailing his movement and activities, we’d spend time listening to records and talking. Talking about a lot of things. And I tell you, it is great. Songs, I guess, have this uncanny effect akin to a time machine. They take you back into time and resurrect old and forgotten memories.

I have seen Dionne Warwick twice. And each time, most especially last Valentine’s Day at Solaire, I was grinning from ear to ear. I thought of my dad and how he inculcated my love for music. I sorely wished he could go with me but he couldn’t.

So if you’re wondering where all this is suddenly coming from…. Well, now you know.