Monday, October 18, 2010

The Life and Bands of My Husband

When I first met Mark my junior year in college, he was the vocalist and guitarist of a band that mostly did rock covers. Their drummer migrated to the US and the group disbanded. A few months later, he and my best friend's husband got together with a couple of other guys and formed a rap rock band (this was during the height of metal rap popularity - sometime after Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine, but before Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park - hated this genre!!!). I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think the group just fizzled out. People were beginning to focus on finishing college. After this, he took over as bassist for another band, (I think I'd just graduated from college this time) which did more mellow but alternative covers (I remember them doing Alice in Chain's "Heaven Beside You" and Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" - this is more my kind of sound; I love rock music with three-part harmonies, hehe). People started getting jobs, I think, and then the guitarist migrated to the States too. Soon after, Mark replaced the drummer of this new band, the genre of which I still can't identify to date... from what I can remember of it, there was something like narration - I can't call it singing - backed by really heavy instrumental music... Yeah, well, that group kind of fizzled out too, especially since Mark decided to join this cover band (it was probably two shades cooler than a real show band, but the garage doors symbolically closed on him, lol), which might not have been his usual thing, but was the one that finally gave him real money doing music. They did everything from pop to ballad to ska to classic rock, depending on the crowd at the venue. They got to record for a couple of collaborative CDs  (which I gave as Christmas/birthday presents for a couple of years, hehe) and then Mark got married and moved to the mountains. His work there didn't really give him a lot of leeway to moonlight with a band although he did play the drums for this worship group people from our workplace started for the community. He didn't get to do a lot of it since I was pregnant-ly puking all over the place and was just so pathetic, he had to take care of me. We moved back to Manila and for a couple of years, all the music he did was for our church. Just when it was beginning to look like his band days were over, he joined another one. This band, SamMustSwim, is going to launch its album "Let's Get Wet!" at the Hard Rock CafĂ© in Makati on Wednesday, October 20. You can find out more about it here.

5 comments:

Sharkbytes (TM) said...

Wow- pretty talented daddy for little M!

I Love-Hate America by Bing said...

That narration part is , you're right---not singing. I still think it's rapping. I hate rapping. My husband is a musician by profession who studied Professional Music , with Jazz as major , and Rock for minor, and had a Masters in Music Education, cannot , for the life of it, appreciate rap too.
It's hard to stomach...it's hard to appreciate rap because it's mostly sampling and "narrating."
That's good news that Mark went back to his passion---music, and I hope it's not rap this time....hehhe
My husband's music is found here---http://www.stevecoyne.com

spinninglovelydays said...

@Sharkbytes: I hope she takes after him, lol

@Bing: The one with the narrating is actually more reminiscent of a performance art thing. The lyrics don't rhyme (unless it was actually a poem), but the beat and rhythm are different from rap. It's pretty hard to label, lol. I actually like some rap (very few) songs - for instance, I like On the Rocks' version of "All the Above".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNl_-_Gf0Fk

No, SamMustSwim's music is rock. :D
I'll check out Steve's site now. :)

The Kano said...

I'm impressed. Mark must be one very talented guy!

spinninglovelydays said...

Thanks, Dave. I guess that's his true passion. :)