Folkerie

SB19 (From left to right: Stell, Josh, Pablo, Ken, Justin) Back in my teens, I was mostly updated with music. Music channels like MTV and Myx, which were available on free TV, and radio stations like NU 107 made it possible. But as I got older and priorities changed, my appetite for new music waned. I just listened to what I grew up with or whatever I came upon by chance, and what I found would set the tone for the next few years or so. I have had phases of folk, 90s hip-hop, and K-pop, but never OPM. My relationship with OPM was not as strong as I would have liked. For instance, my pre-teen mind shunned OPM rock at its height in the 90s. Then when I developed a respect for its artistry, music began to change its course. Many new releases were either formulaic, low-quality songs or just not my type of music. So my OPM playlist was sadly stuck in the past. That is until SB19’s 2021 EP Pagsibol . Boy Bands A friend once asked what my guilty pleasure was. I told him I liked boy bands. Wes...

What do the Middle Ages and 2020 have in common? One, there’s the pandemic. The second one, however, is rather unexpected — the production of medieval music, or some form of it. The past few months have seen the rise of a phenomenon called Bardcore , a music genre consisting of medievalesque adaptations of modern popular songs. It is coined from the word bard , a medieval storyteller and singer, and the combining form -core extracted from another music genre hardcore . Although medieval remakes of contemporary music already existed before 2020, most notably Algal the Bard’s cover of System of a Down’s Toxicity in December 2017, it was two viral YouTubers who finally pushed it to prominence this year: Cornelius Link and Hildegard von Blingin’ . The consensus is that this particular trend started on April 20, 2020, when German web developer Cornelius Link released a remake of Tony Igy’s Astronomia . He then followed it up weeks later with an instrumental version of Foster the People’s b...

There are bands that you listen to in passing and there are those who engrave their mark so deep you can’t get enough of them. For the authors of this blog, The Head and the Heart (THATH) belongs in the latter. For years, The Head and the Heart has been consistently on our playlists, and while we have been on the receiving end of these rewarding songs, we’ve realized we have not even given a proper tribute to the band. To make up for that, and to celebrate THATH’s 10th year anniversary, two of us will be answering four questions about our journey with the band. How did you discover The Head and the Heart? Julienne: It was in 2013 when I registered on a music website called 8tracks and there was this one playlist that I really, really liked. Composed of 11 tracks, the playlist featured new releases that time of indie folk music. Because of its upbeat and happy sound, it became my go-to playlist while working in the morning. One of the songs was The Head and the Heart’s “Shake.” In tim...

Song One starring Anne Hathaway and Johnny Flynn This and the following years will be eventful for us folkies. Who wouldn’t be excited to have a bunch of singer-songwriter movies coming our way? The first one out, from director John Carney who gave us the award-winning movie Once , was well-received by viewers. Begin Again stars Keira Knightley as a musician left on her own in the big city who meets a disgraced record executive played by Mark Ruffalo. “From this chance encounter emerges an enchanting portrait of a mutually transformative collaboration, set to the soundtrack of a summer in New York City.” (The Weinstein Company) Watch the trailer below. In the next film we’ll see Anne Hathaway, but in a non-singing role. It features folk musician Johnny Flynn as a, well, folk musician. I am both curious and delighted because…Johnny Flynn, and I’ve never seen him act yet. The trailer for Song One below. This last clip is not a trailer, yet it may well be a preview of the coming Hank W...

Running out of Bon Iver tracks? Then add The Careful Ones to your playlist. An indie-folk band from Lakeland, Florida, The Careful Ones are Joshua Robinson, Benji Bussell, Steele Strader, Stephen Howell and Jon Santana. So far they have released one album from 2011 ( Moths, Flames, Etc. ) and two singles. Listen to Paper Knees below: Listen to Moths, Flames, Etc. on Spotify Buy the Album

I feel the need to praise two works of art in this post. Last night I was sent a preview of Irish singer Róisín O’s music video for her upcoming song Hold On . With only a short text to introduce me to this new artist from Dublin, I didn’t have any expectations. So I put on my headphones and watched a moving short film. Yes, you read it right. Ever since outgrowing them, what I miss most about music videos are the stories they tell. This one brought me back to that time when everything felt younger, though what I was seeing on-screen was as old a story can be—about us in our everyday lives, reminiscent of Mike Leigh’s subjects. I couldn’t help that the film itself got my first attention. We see a man with a military haircut wake up at 6:30 in the evening. We suppose he is of Brazilian ancestry because of the flag beside his dining table. There’s something written on his door. He works the night shift… Ahh, the details! Kudos to the director, Simon Eustace , and the cast, Aaron Heffern...

This song confused me seriously. At the time, my sister was looking for a Christmas carol to sing at their office’s Christmas celebration. We decided to look for a simple soft song to go with her simple soft voice. I started with the Christmas albums we had and made a list of the songs she could sing. “Away in a manger” was in two, one in Nat King Cole’s album and another from a choral group. When she came home, she listened to the songs and narrowed down the list, which includes Away in a manger . Next stop, youtube. The first video we found was Celtic Woman’s version. I thought that was perfect! My sister always loved Celtic Woman. So we watched a live performance… wait! That’s not Nat King Cole’s Away in a manger , is it? Again we listened to Nat King Cole, and after reading wikis, that’s how we found out. That there are two accepted melodies for this song and that the choral group version I was listening to was the same as Celtic Woman’s. Play the tracks below. The “Mueller” varia...

As a follow-up to the previous post about kudyapi (2-stringed lute), I give you the master himself, Manlilikha ng Bayan Samaon Sulaiman , a folk music artist from Maganoy, Maguindanao. He was awarded the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (National Living Treasure Award) in 1993. As envisioned under R.A. 7355, “Manlilikha ng Bayan” shall mean a citizen engaged in any traditional art uniquely Filipino whose distinctive skills have reached such a high level of technical and artistic excellence and have been passed on to and widely practiced by the present generation in his/her community with the same degree of technical and artistic competence. ~ NCCA He died in May of last year. A year later the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) paid tribute to Sulaiman with Mamayog: the Music of Samaon Sulaiman , a set of audio recordings with a book containing more than 300 pages of transcriptions of these recordings and a monograph about the Maguindanaon kutyapi, published by the Gawad ...

by Fr. Joemar Sibug, OP (from his Slice of Life column) photo courtesy Hans Brandeis I ARRIVED in Davao City for my new assignment last September 5, 2011. One of the things we needed for our mission house in Bajada was a bell. Our religious community uses the bell for our wake up call in the morning. We also use the bell to gather the members of our community, like for example at meal time and prayer time. And so I tried to look for a bell in Aldevinco. I was hoping to find one that is “Mindanao inspired” and at the same time functional – one that would fit the purpose. Then I chanced upon this souvenir store that sells all sorts of “antiques” or old items. They have a wide range of items for sale – from small furniture, to house decors and traditional musical instruments of Mindanao. They also have what I was looking for – bells of various sizes and sounds. It took me a while to finally choose and buy a bell that will answer our need. But what caught my attention was the array of tw...

My mom’s music was what I grew up listening to. Records of the more popular folk and country “with a dose of rock” artists like Loggins and Messina, Dan Fogelberg, Jim Croce, and John Denver were played in family get-togethers. And by high school, the term “country rock” for me was synonymous to the Eagles. It wasn’t until 2007 that I came across The Flying Burrito Brothers and by sheer luck nonetheless. But let’s talk about an English band called Starsailor first. I have their first two albums, which were distributed in the Philippines in early 2000s, although no one else seemed to know them. Imagine my surprise when I got hold of their Love is Here Live DVD , a rarity (in my case) which features a full-length live concert. Two of the tracks were covers: one is an acoustic solo performance of a combo, Born To Be With You/Rocket Man ; the other one is that of Hot Burrito #2 , a Burrito Brothers original. Finally! So to make the long story short, I read about The Flying Burrito Brothe...

by Lorie Ann Lisa Hannigan is the millennium’s new Joni Mitchell. Well, that’s how I’d like to put it because these female artists are both my favorites. I will be telling about them in more details, maybe later. But, for now, let me introduce to you dear readers, especially fellow folkniks, these two folk artists–one a Canadian, and the other an Irish. Before we’ll talk about their music, let’s have an overview of their basic information and sense of fashion. Joni or Roberta Joan Anderson by birth started as an artist with folk music in 1964. Now 68 year-old, she was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. A musician, singer, songwriter and painter in one, Joni plays guitar, piano dulcimer, ukulele and auto-harp. Aside from folk-rock and folk-jazz, she also composed plain jazz and pop music. Check out Joni’s fashion with these I lifted from other sites. When I grow old, I would wear folk… Lisa Margaret Hannigan, 31, is an Irish indie folk singer and musician who lives in Kilcloon, Cou...

There’s a folk movie coming and it’s from highly awarded siblings. Here’s three reasons to watch Inside Llewyn Davis : It’s the Coen brothers and they’re tackling folk music. The movie, which is about a singer-songwriter navigating New York’s folk music scene in the 60s, is currently set to be released early next year. Although highly unlikely, a proper cinematic showing in the Philippines would be very much appreciated by moi and company. Awesomely versatile actor Oscar Isaac will be playing the title character , Llewyn Davis, loosely based on 60s folk musician Dave Van Ronk. From what I’ve seen of Isaac’s previous performances — as charismatic St. Joseph in the Nativity Story, evil King John in Robin Hood, and a scene-stealing antagonist in Sucker Punch — I couldn’t ask for a better lead. By the way, he’s also in the Bourne Legacy, which I still have to watch. All music performances in the movie are played live , not pre-recorded. Just like the new Les Miserables, eh? Looks like we...