July 9, 2009

Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 4:51pm

While the dying embers of the Bonfires for Peace in the Conspiracy Café’s garden is mournfully crackling in the background, the fingerboard of Joey Ayala’s Taylor guitar is made aflame by Boy Dylan’s riffs and twangs. Boy Dominguez is on stage with his trademark harmonicas and rendition of Robert Zimmerman hits.
You are prevented from believing you are in the seventies, in the Folk House, only by the absence of room-filling smoke from the flower-loving habitués. Being thrown back in time is good vibration...groooooovy, as what my generation would quip.
Retros, golden oldies…most boomers know it by heart. This night however, gen-xers in the audience surprised me by singing along with correct lyrics to mellow Beatle songs rendered by Joey Ayala, Babes Alejo and Boy D. And even if the playful Joey carried us to Porter, Brothers Four, Platters, Jim Morrison, etc, they plodded on really well. No generation gap there. Pastiche of Queens, Doors, Cole Porter, Beatles, Animals, Donovan Leitch, Eric Clapton, back to more obscure Beatles (Joey seems to be enjoying testing the limit of his audience’s familiarity with the favfour’s rarely played songs), James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, and more than my pilsen-addled brain can remember, filled up the room. Buoyed up by the audience response, Joey let go his by now classic Lailailailai repertoire: medley of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer, Mary Hopkin’s Those were the days, America’s ?, Trini Lopez’s ?, can’t recall anymore and I’m not blaming Alzheimer here. A real virtuoso, this Joey.
Without the stacked up beer cases with empty bottles waiting for us to pile another case with empty bottles in the background, I am properly oriented that this is real time, not a virtual memory of an Annapolis, Cubao bungalow in the 70s. Not since my Jingle Clan days did I jam with such accomplished musicians. Practically all contemporary musician of note visited this bungalow. And memories retrocede to Rox Lee, Ludwig Ilio, Dengcoy Miel, Noli Vilar, Dave Ogan, Ogie Tupas, Bert, Ben, Nes, Red, Hexel Hernando, the Guillermo brothers, the Jamir brothers, Ces Rodriguez, Penny, Nini Valera de Ungria, Eric Gamalinda, Juaniyo Arcellana, Eric Caruncho…Jingle Clan all.
Last night’s wine was fine. Embed in my mind in eternal loop this night. Noted.

ArtVentures@Conspi group

In Joey Ayala’s intro/spiel to his Mil ocho cientos noventa y seis song, he lightly posited that the Indios Bravos of the last century birthed the propaganda movement in some cerveza joint in Madrid. Predictably, the Philippine revolution ended up like all usapang lasing.

The ART VENTURES @ CONSPI had the same beginning, maybe not egged on by the same altruistic ethereal, think maybe Mona Lisa or Megan Fox, a more earthy aspiration. Hatched up in Sarah’s one inebriated night (as all nights in Sarah’s are) by Arnold (google me!) Molina Azurin, Boy Dominguez and some. It was decided that the scene of the crimes will be the Conspiracy Garden Cafe in Visayas Avenue. Although it has reaped a full year of fruitful saturdays, it is dangerously teetering to oblivion (another usapang lasing). We hope not!

But lucky dogs we all are (azurin kami). We never ran out of avatars of Venus and Caryatids worthy of Leonardo and Michelangelo’s time, who lent to us poor mortals their effervescent presence. We can all thank Arnold’s purported charms, debatable but not an issue. Arnold’s keen eye for beauty is what kept the group satiated with blessings. Soma of the gods and the eternal dinuguan are the other regulars that nourished the group. And not to forget Tita de Quiros, Ed Coronel and Adi Baen Santos’ music, which shooed away the Sandman from dusting our models but did not stop the artists from dreaming on and on. From Bach to Bacharach, Beatles, Jobim, Evans, Porter and more Beatles, good feel for old dogs.

Time and tide ever flowing. Time heals, and time destroys. Maybe the models were full aware of this. Ephemeral youth is borrowed. Her apos will believe her vague allegation of sultriness if she showed the sketches made of her sometime less thirty pounds ago. No one will or can disprove that of course. Some have more personal reason. Some really enjoyed the atmosphere of the group that they posed for them more than twice.

It will be a shame if this shared artistic synergy be put to an unwarranted demise. What a drag life will be.

C DARIO NOCHE