|'BOB-A-LOU' (And Other Rock Fantasies) | - Quiapo Review

| Band of Outsiders | By Eric S. Caruncho

DAZZ ENTERTAINMENT
(John Jayvee del Rosario, Sleepyheads drums/vox)


November 11, 2009. After work at the U.S.T. Registrar's Office, I went to see ERICK THE BASS PLAYER at the SLEEPYHEADS' Stereotone Studio in San Mateo Rizal. We met at the F4 eatery near the place and ate rice, lechon steak and hototay soup. After that we went to the studio and drank Erick's almond-roast brewed coffee, listened to The Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" and  old Sleepyheads live recordings, and talked about band matters.

    As we were talking about The Sleepyheads and our decision to remain an ART band (as we have been doing for the last nine years), heroically "starving" instead of selling out, I noticed Erick's "anti-painting painting" of variety-show host/icon GERMAN MORENO looking down at us-- with showbiz grin and Freudian cigarette in mouth (see photo)! The funny painting has been resting on Erick's overhead shelf since he started recent "operations" on his computer-shop/band-studio place. He painted it about two years ago at LOUIE CORDERO's Cubao art studio when the Sleepyheads were resting from the exhaustion and disillusion of the "indie" music scene (plus the turbulence of our personal lives during those times).

    After Erick had put his final "DADA" touches on the painting, nobody who saw it (including fellow artists/painters GARY PASTRANA, POKLONG ANADING, ROMEO LEE, etc.) really understood what it was about. Except that it was FUNNY! Imagine the veteran Filipino TV host German Moreno transformed as ADOLF HITLER with the words "DAZZ ENTERTAINMENT" at the back? Yes, the people who saw the painting knew that the word "Dazz" means the DAZZ DISHWASHING PASTE that Mr. Moreno was endorsing years ago (detergent soaps being the number one sponsors of TV shows in the Philippines; they bring CASH to the TV stations!). And, yes, they thought it was obvious that Mr. Moreno's name--"German"--was the reason why Erick transformed him into Hitler, a German. But they were looking at it superficially.

     Which is were my REALIZATION of the hidden meaning of Erick's painting comes in. It goes like this: After the coffee and the music and the Sleepyheads talk, I bade Erick adieu and took a ride home. As I was on the bus, I recalled all our talk about how HARD it is to be a band playing "non-commercial" music in the Philippines. Music that's strange to the ears of local people who only listen to "mainstream" stuff like Eraserheads, Beatles, 6cyclemind, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, etc. The Sleepyheads are never commercially successful because we are never POP enough for these "normal" people's tastes. People could never "get" why we have (BOOTLEG) ENGLISH lyrics, philosophical topics, droning melodies, a funny-looking band set-up (a stand-up drummer drumming and singing and DANCING at the same time!?), and obscure musical influences (not very many people in the Philippines know who the Velvet Underground, The Shaggs, or the Modern Lovers are!). "Mainstream" music fans all think we are SNOBS and so they snub us! They'd prefer to listen to LOVE RADIO and "POKER FACE" instead! Damn us for aspiring to be "artists"!

     And so being artists in these islands are akin to being SICK WITH SOME KIND OF MENTAL DISEASE. Why be WEIRD and be an OUTCAST when you can GO WITH THE FLOW and EARN MONEY and be POPULAR (play on GMA 7's "S.O.P." variety show-- German Moreno's mother station-- or be aired on the number one radio station "Love Radio"!)? Being an Unsaleable Artist in a Land of Commercial Entertainment is just like being a JEW in HITLER'S GERMANY-- you ain't One With Us, so DIE (for Jews, Concentration Camp; for Philippine Artists, No Money/Starvation)!!! And this is where I realized the reason why Erick painted German Moreno as Adolf Hitler; he wanted to show that this icon of Philippine Commercial Entertainment is a "FASCIST OF COMMERCIAL ENTERTAINMENT"!!! If your "entertainment value" does not sell, he damns you to SHOWBIZ LIMBO and people will never get to hear your music or see you on TV anymore!

     And Mr. Moreno shows such a "KIND" face to people! But he really HATES performers who don't sell-- these so-called "artists"! He will NEVER support "artists." He'd rather donate money to construct a MUSEUM for these unsaleable people (the "artists") and BURY them there so that the BUYING PUBLIC (they "buy" by watching the shows and allowing themselves to be brainwashed into BUYING SOAPS and other PRODUCTS being advertised!) could never get to see or hear them anymore! The "artistic" BORES! Just like these goddamn SLEEPYHEADS!!!

     And Erick, realizing the GREED of these Fascists of Commercial Entertainment (represented by the "pioneer" German Moreno-- responsible for NORA AUNOR (!))-- and including present-day harbingers of CRASS entertainment like WILLIE REVILLAME of ABS-CBN, plus that other Tower of Entertainment Babylon, GMA 7), painted it all in GREEN!!! Not because he has a CONSCIOUS motive to put these crass entertainers/TV and radio stations down, but because he is ANGRY at the Sleepyheads lack of EXPOSURE and COMMERCIAL SUCCESS!!! This anger was converted into an "anti-painting painting" of Mr. Moreno showing his GREEDY SIDE-- the greed that could kill musicians and actors and performance artists who do ART FOR ART'S SAKE (to come up with true, aesthetic beauty), but could not be given a PASSING GLANCE by commercial TV/radio honchos because these people could not "sell" them, and so artists could DIE OF STARVATION!

       Therefore, Erick's "Dazz Entertainment" painting is a funny-- though, I think, SUBCONSCIOUS-- attack against the entertainment industry's greed and callousness in IGNORING the true saviors of local entertainment/media: the ARTISTS!!! And I say "subconscious" because Erick himself did not tell me what his German Moreno painting means-- which probably shows that HE DOESN'T CONSCIOUSLY "KNOW" what it's about!!! He just painted it and that's it! But the meaning was CLEAR anyway! I was able to "read" it: THE COMMERCIAL ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WANTS TO WIPE THE RADIO AND TV CLEAN OF ALL UNSALEABLE ARTISTS; "DAZZ ENTERTAINMENT!" IS SOAP-COMMERCIAL ENTERTAINMENT FASCISM!!!

      HEIL, KUYA GERMS!!!
                                                     
                                                     

 

 

 

 

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