The 50th Anniversary of Anak Bayan

 

OPM Rock History: 50^th Anniversary of Anak Bayan.

By Rick Olivares

 

When one talks about the origins of Pinoy Rock, one has to start with the Juan dela Cruz Band. Of course, you have the guitar-instrumental bands of the 60s like the Electromaniacs, the Firedons, and other guitar instrumental combos. However, it’s its real sludgy, feedback, and beer guzzling rock that got everything rolling in the 1970s.

 

Out of the ashes of the clean cut and radio-friendly sound of the Mersey Beat came a harder edged and raucous brand of rock typified by the Who, the epic soundscapes of Led Zeppelin, the progressive sound of Yes, and the psychedelia of Jimi Hendrix and Santana rose Anak Bayan. 

 

When Edmond “Bosyo” Fortuno returned from a successful seven-year stint in Japan with D’Swooners that saw them play Rhythm and Blues to a highly-appreciative Japanese audience, he was flush with inspiration and excitement from the music he was hearing, listening to, and experiencing abroad.

 

Bosyo was blown away by his experience in the Land of the Rising Sun. What Fortuno had in mind was to record rock songs sung in the vernacular. 

 

In Japan, he saw the furious debate among the Japanese on whether their version of rock music should be sung in English or in Nihongo. While there were bands that performed in both languages, many eventually shifted to their native language setting the stage for what would be called, J-Pop.

 

With a vision of forming a rock band singing in Filipino, Edmond reconnected with Wally Gonzalez and over some eats and brews, and formed the earliest incarnation of the Juan dela Cruz Band of which Fortuno bequeathed the name.

 

Explained Fortuno, “If rock music was for the American John Doe everyman, then it can be the same for Juan dela Cruz.”

 

Edmond didn’t stay long however, as it didn’t seem like the band was going to materialize (it eventually did and recorded its first album Up in Arms in 1971). So, he formed Anak Bayan with co-vocalist and guitarist Vic Naldo, Bing Labrador on keyboards, Alex Cruz on saxophone, Sonny Tolentino (son of National Artist for Sculpture Guillermo Tolentino) on bass, with himself on drums and vocals. Marlon Ilagan, brother of actor, Jay, was also a part of that band playing bass.

 

Anak Bayan was a regular in the Manila rock clubs like Reno’s, Romulus, Los Indios Bravos, Flames, 

 

The album was recorded around the same time as Juan dela Cruz’ Himig Natin record in 1973. The self-titled debut featured eight songs that were a merry mix of acid rock, jazz, and folk leanings. You could feel the music of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and the Moody Blues influence Anak Bayan’s music. 

 

“Jeepney Rock” and “Ang Probinsyana” led the way. “Double Crosser” had this Doobie Brothers vibe.

 

“Bangungot” featuring Bosyo on vocals and Alex Cruz’ lilting flute is a standout track; one that evoked San Francisco band It’s a Beautiful Day’s “White Bird.”

 

However, much to the dismay of the band, the album was shelved (due to financial concerns by the record label) and only released in 1977. By then much of the original Anak Bayan had moved on with Fortuno adding a new crew.

 

It was in 1978 where Anak Bayan scored its biggest hit and is the one they are known by – “Pagbabalik ng Kwago” that was also released as a seven-inch single. 

 

“Pagbabalik ng Kwago” has since been recorded by a diverse array of artist’s and bands from Gary Perez, Kapatid, Hey Moonshine, and Pedro’s Cannabis among many others.

 

One of them is supergroup Kapatid that featured the late Karl Roy (Advent Call and P.O.T.), Nathan Azarcon (Rivermaya, Bamboo) on bass, original Anak Bayan member Alex Cruz’ son Ira (Passage, Bamboo, Hijo) on guitar, J-Hoon Balbuena (Kjwan) on drums, and Chico Molina on guitars. 

 

Said Kapatid’s bassist Nathan Azarcon of the decision to record the Anak Bayan classic, “Familiar kami mga old guys sa band. And yung chorus, pasok sa vision ng banda.”

 

“Dadalhin tayo sa paraiso.

Sa pugad ng langit ang lahat ay magkapatid.

Pantay pantay lang.

Walang lamanggan, nagkakaisa.

Magbibigayan.”

 

While Pinoy Rock held its own with the Juan dela Cruz Band, Maria Cafra, Sampaguita, Judas, Anak Bayan, and the Olongapo-based groups like the Frictions, disco was in full swing in the mid-to-late 1970s. 

 

Anak Bayan went on with members coming and going with Edmond its one constant. The band’s second iteration was star-studded as it included Gary Perez and Jun Lopito on guitars and Gil Cruz on bass.  

 

However, the band effectively ended when Edmond “Bosyo” Fortuno passed away in 2000 due to meningitis. 

 

And yet, Anak Bayan, and Fortuno’s place in Pinoy Rock and Original Pilipino Music history is secure.

 

Recalled Jingle magazine co-publisher Eric Guillermo, “Jingle magazine produced Triple H (Hot na Hot Happening), a three-night concert at the Meralco Theater in the early 1970s. We had Bits ‘n Pieces, Boy Camara & Afterbirth, Soul Jugglers from Gapo, our folk rock group Jingle Clan, and Anak Bayan with Vic Naldo on guitar, Marlon Ilagan on bass, and Edmond Fortuno on drums.”

 

“They played their extended instrumental jazz rock numbers and I was dumfounded to say the least for it was my first time to hear ‘kawala’ music. Remember that cover songs were in vogue during those times. Pinoy Rock was unheard of during those years. So it could be said that Anak Bayan started everything.”

 

 

Filipina rock musician Lala Frischknecht’s Journey from Mayric’s to Wacken

 

Filipina rock musician Lala Frischknecht’s Journey from Mayric’s to Wacken

By Rick Olivares

 

“Hey, it’s Gene Simmons!”

 

Lala Frischknecht spotted the famous rock star of American band, Kiss, walking around during the 2019 Sweden Rock Festival. Lala, along with her bandmates in Swiss heavy metal band, Burning Witches, immediately swarmed Simmons and asked for a photo or two. 

 

Six years into Burning Witches – three records with a fourth one on the way this May 28^th 2021 plus a few Extended Play singles and massive shows across Europe – Lala, who hails from San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, still has to constantly pinch herself and ask herself or even the band’s manager if this all real and happening.

 

It seems like yesterday that Lala Ortiz (her maiden name) left her hometown to study in Manila. It was in the capital where she found an outlet for her love for heavy music and she performed with bands like Cherry Bomb and Resurrected (with Fin Santos and Alvin Esperanza) at Mayric’s, John’s Place in Marikina, and UP Los Banos among others in the mid-to-late 1990s. 

 

“I always felt like the odd girl out because I liked loud music and wanted to play it,” related Lala. Even this day when I meet fellow Filipinos here in Europe, I find it difficult to relate to them because we have different tastes.

 

After leaving her band, she went to Japan to work and it is there that she met Marco Frischknecht, an engineer who was in Tokyo for work and who she would later marry. From Japan, she moved westward to Zurich, Switzerland in 2011.

 

“I moved her thinking I’d just be a housewife and do other things,” thought Lala. 

 

It took the prodding of her step-father, Urs Froelicher, who played with the Burning Blues Band and the Cleans, to play the drums once more.

 

“As I was starting my new life in Switzerland, my father-in-law urged me to return to music. How cool is that, right?  When I did, my drum teacher, Imad Barnieh, said I had potential,” recalled Frischknecht. 

 

Three months non-stop playing, her drum coach informed Lala about this all-female heavy metal band, Burning Witches, was looking for someone to work the drum kit. “I auditioned for the job and got it,” said Frischknecht. “I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t.”

 

On the strength of their independently released self-titled album in 2017 that sold out, word spread among the metal music community about this all-female band that was kicking butt and taking names.

 

That led to Burning Witches being signed by the world’s biggest extreme music record company, Nuclear Blast, from Germany. The German label includes American hardcore punk heroes Agnostic front, French darkgaze pioneers Alcest, symphonic metal heavyweights Epica from Holland, Brazilian masters Sepultura, and Rob Zombie among many others.

 

Their Nuclear Blast debut, Hexenhammer (2018), put them on the map with bigger sales (as the album and EPs hit the charts) and being featured in top industry magazines like Metal Hammer. This led to the band performing in bigger venues all over Europe. 

 

“We got to perform with bands like Kreator who I only listened to as a teenager and here I am next to them,” gushed Lala. 

 

It was during the 2019 Wacken Open Air Festival in July of 2019 where the Swiss crew got a taste of its biggest audience that was attended by 75,000-plus fans. 

 

“I am the first Filipino to perform there,” she noted. It is in that same festival where she connected with Filipino metal band Valley of Chrome that also made their Wacken debut. 

 

The band’s rise can also be attributed to the support of Damir Eskic of the bands Destruction and Gomorra. Eskic is the husband of Burning Witches guitarist Romana Kalkuhl.

 

Frischknecht on the other hand, has also been recognized for her stick work, and she endorses Istanbul Mehmet cymbals and Kim Custom Drums. 

 

Her parents Oscar and Lolita, back in Nueva Ecija, tell everyone who is willing to listen that their daughter is doing well as a musician in Europe. They show guests this well-read copy of Metal Hammer and other magazines that feature Burning Witches.

 

As much as Lala feels embarrassed because she feels that she is still the same lass who left her hometown to see the world all those years ago, family and home remain dear to her.

 

Following Wacken, Frischknecht visited her family in Nueva Ecija for a long overdue vacation. In this last trip that bridged 2019 and 2020 right before the pandemic shut the world down, Lala was asked to judge a battle of the bands – on the condition that she not be introduced. But the organizers, proud of their own, still introduced her as the drummer of Burning Witches. 

 

“Sa bahay sa Switzerland, lalo ngayon pandemic, nandito lang ako nagluluto, naglilinis, lahat ng gawaing bahay. Paguwi ko sa amin, ang tawag pa rin sa akin ng kapatid ko na si Czarina ay ‘Annie Batungbakal’ – sa kanta ng Hotdog – kasi pag umaga parang dispatsadora na nagwawalis, naglababa tapos sa gabi nagbabanda.”

 

Her band made be one of the more popular ones in metal music now, but Lala is hardly on social media. “Our manager, Schmier (who plays bass for German thrash metal band Destruction), always tells me I am the only one from Burning Witches who isn’t active on social media. So it is only recently that I began to post. But if I had my way, I’d post about doing the home stuff – cooking, cleaning, knitting…”

 

With the pandemic putting all live events to a grinding halt, Lala and her bandmates are home with a lot of time on their hands to work on their fourth album.

 

“This is a record where we spent a lot of time working on the songs,” described Lala. “And because we had time, I think we were all able to try out a lot of things and record it to the best of our abilities.”

 

For now, though, the band does interviews in anticipation of the new release. Prior to talking to abs-cbnnews.com, she was interviewed by a British site and other music journalists. 

 

“Hindi pa rin ako makapaniwala sa lahat ng ito. It’s like a dream,” gushed Lala. “It wasn’t long ago, I was performing in Mayric’s and watching shows at Club Dredd. I was working in Japan and buying all these albums of metal bands at Disk Union in Tokyo. Now, I am Switzerland and performing with Burning Witches. I guess the lesson is to keep going for your dreams no matter what. You’ll never know.”

 

Well said. After all the journey from San Antonio, Nueva Ecija to Manila’s Mayric’s and Club Dredd to Tokyo and now, Europe.

 

“Am not dreaming am I?” laughed Lala Frischknecht.

 

The story behind local Jazz releases Chasing the Sun & Turtle Bird

 

The story behind local Jazz releases Chasing the Sun & Turtle Bird

By Rick Olivares

 

Jazz music, defined by its improvisation, syncopation, and poly-rhythms finds its roots in blues and ragtime. The music has gone on to be reinvented in many forms and sub-0genres as it migrated from the United States to other hemispheres.

 

And one particular trio is having a blast making music. 

 

On “No Social Relevance,” the opening track of the album, Turtle Bird, Rick Countryman’s alto saxophone flutters, like a wounded bird struggling to find flight. Japanese drummer Sabu Toyozumi and Filipino bassist Simon Tan’s subtle playing hope to encourage the mournful sax to “fly now” to crib the words from American composer Bill Conti’s stirring “Theme from Rocky.”

 

It rises but eventually stays grounded. 

 

Yet on the contrary, and certainly pardon the title, there is social relevance for Filipino jazz and it isn’t grounded at all… it’s on a resurgence. 

 

There have been the two Adobo Jazz releases, there’s the Simon Tan Trio, and we’ve just seen guitarist Paolo Cortez release his debut contemporary jazz album, Not By Sight, this late March; all most welcome additions to the Filipino jazz canon.

 

In terms of proclivity when it comes to local releases, it is Countryman and Tan along with either Toyozumi or Switzerland native Christian Bucher on drums.

 

Countryman and Tan have put out 10 albums working with either Toyozumi or Bucher all in the last five years. Most of them on compact disc except the most recent, Chasing the Sun, that aside from the CD release, received treatment on glorious vinyl. 

 

As such, Chasing the Sun is perhaps the first locally recorded jazz album to be released domestically in a long time. The kick is… it was done independently. 

 

Not since Japanese harpist Tadao Hayashi, who also called Manila, home, has an expatriate put out so much. 

 

Out of his eight albums, Hayashi put out five on them while residing in Manila. 

 

Making up for lost time?

 

Countryman laughed, “I never thought of it that way.”

 

The man, along with his fellow musicians, is just doing his own thing for the love of the music.

 

Rick grew up in American Air Bases all over the world as his father was a serviceman. They eventually lived in Tucson, Arizona, before the family settled in Seattle, Washington.

 

The wanderlust from his youth continued as he grew older. After working for Microsoft in the US, Rick headed east to Japan for a couple of years then to the Philippines because his Filipina wife, Annie, preferred life in the tropics. 

 

For the most part, Countryman occasionally dabbled into music. It wasn’t much until he met Simon Tan who played with a bunch of rock bands but preferred to play jazz.

 

“Simon was giving me these constant ‘do-it-while-you’re-still-young” talks and that’s how it happened,” related Rick. “I recorded a lot of what I performed and I learned on how I can improve.”

 

Countryman became friends with Frenchman Julien Palomo of free jazz label, Improvising Beings. The two bonded over a love of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and most particular, American saxophonist, Sonny Simmons (who passed away just this past April 6^th) with Palomo hearing the influence on Countryman’s style.

 

Improvising Beings put out the first album of Countryman, Tan, and Bucher, in 2016 titled “Acceptance-Resistance” – a melodic and spirited effort. 

 

Reflected Tan on the work with both Bucher and Toyozumi, “Christian is like a freight train (when he performs) … you gotta hold on. Sabu, on the other hand, is more colors and tones.”

 

Added the Filipino bassist, “Free jazz is the pleasure of playing; the complete freedom to play in and out and to play the form or not.”

 

For his part, Countryman felt the same about Tan’s playing, “Simon is amazing. He’s a sensitive performer who has a good feel for free jazz.”

 

“I was trying to break into Japan when Julien introduced me to Sabu. And that’s how this partnership began,” related Rick. 

 

It was Toyozumi who introduced Rick to Takeo Suetomo who had his own jazz label in Japan, Chap Chap Records which released most of the collaborations between Toyozumi, Countryman, and Tan.

 

Toyozumi, like Bucher, would oft fly into Manila for performances. 

 

“That’s just for the love of the craft,” pointed out Tan. 

 

The most recent releases are the twin albums, Chasing the Sun and Turtle Bird with both recorded during a live performance at the Tago Jazz Café in Cubao, Quezon City on the night of December 12, 2018. 

 

“You had to block out the crowd and all the conversations going on so you could concentrate on the performance,” recounted Rick about the show. “There was this one guy sitting by himself and was really getting into the music. I made myself look away from him because you start feeling influenced by the crowd while you’re doing free improvisation and you want to stay communicated with Sabu and Simon. It’s hard not to think, ‘Oh, I want to do more to make the guy excited’ but that will mean playing with artificial intent. So I just have to focus on my bandmates.”

 

And Countryman and Tan had to because Toyozumi was intense that night. 

 

“During the song, ‘Chasing the Sun’ it was the most powerful I have experienced with Sabu and he was driving it. He’s a very spacious performer. He was roaring.”  

 

And that electricity from the show is captured on both Chasing the Sun and Turtle Bird. 

 

Chasing the Sun, released on both gatefold vinyl (via Chap Chap Records in 2019) and compact disc (2020 on FMR Records), contains two tracks – the title song, and “Impermanence” that aren’t on Turtle Bird which boasts of the complete 18-minute exposition “No Social Relevance” that was edited on the record. 

 

Turtle Bird also features the tracks, “Red Turtle Bird,” “Lower Depths,” and “Blue Turtle Bird.”

 

“Each one complements each other and is meant as a companion piece,” explained Countryman. “I hope music fans like it.”

 

 

Note: For jazz fans interested in the music of Rick Countryman and Simon Tan, you may reach them in their respective Facebook pages.

 

New Filipino jazz release: Paolo Cortez’ Not by Sight

New Filipino jazz release: Paolo Cortez’ Not by Sight

By Rick Olivares

 

Jazz guitarist Paolo Cortez’ debut album Not By Sight is sending a strong message to everyone willing to listen that they must “have faith” because it will get better for us.

 

The 11-track album released on compact disc by Swingster Jazz Mecca Records absolutely drips with that message of hope.

 

From the cover that depicts a hot air balloon sailing away to the breezy and uplifting tracks and their song titles such as Brighter Side,” “It’s Alright,” and “Godsglory” as well as the album packaging, Cortez is telling is that even in this midst of this wretched pandemic that has sent everyone’s lives in disarray, that we have to hold on and do what we can because it will get better.

 

Released at the end of March this year just past the one-year anniversary of the lockdown that Metro Manila still finds itself in, Not By Sight breathes life into this sordid life and the percolating jazz scene. 

 

The album title is taken from the second book of Corinthians in the Bible Chapter 5 Verse 7 where Paul the Apostle wrote, “For we live by faith and not by sight” that translates into “we live by believing and not seeing.”

 

Throw in “doing” as well.

 

“Not By Sight is a 10-year labor of love that was fast tracked over the space of two days at Tago Jazz Café in Cubao,” said Cortez. “The pandemic that kept us at home gave me more time to work on the songs. When it seemed like 2021 was not going to get any better in terms of our lives going back to normal and us having shows and traveling to perform, we decided to record it once and for all.”

 

It is obvious that from the vibe of the album and the songs on the album, Cortez and the band (drummer Chuck Menor, bassist Josh Tulagan, pianist Emman Rodulfo with Paolo on guitar) have taken a positive and lighthearted approach.

 

From the album art to even recording over two full days, it is all about going out of one’s comfort zone. Just like this pandemic.

 

And as a whole, it makes for a delectable listen. It’s light and yet pensive. It’s music you best listen to when not busy as you kick off the shoes or flip flops and immerse in the simple beauty of these audio paintings. 

 

Cortez himself was an idealist when he went into performing jazz. He eventually realized that much of the local scene is still DIY. “I guess that is why it took me longer to get this music out,” he reasoned. “But at least, the songs have been refined and are much better than when I first wrote them.”

 

The drive that guitarist and his band have is to compose original music. “It’s easy to do cover music as that might what most people want,” added Cortez, “but new songs; our original music is what will make the jazz scene grow.”

 

“Recording at home, doing everything in terms of production, you come away with a healthier respect for the specialists who do this. And personally, it was fulfilling.”