Jay Eigenmann has his head buried in the mixing console, twisting knobs and raising channel faders, as toe guitarist Hirokazu Yamazaki gives instructions in broken English onstage. Eigenmann levels his mix to a specific rawness that guitarist Takaaki Mino — who is also an audio engineer — prefers for the stage and house, filling the hall with their signature blend of electronic and organic tones. This is the Japanese post-rock band’s third time in Manila, and Eigenmann’s first time to work the board for them in the country, opening their 2016 Asian tour on a Sunday evening. Having worked with toe as their FOH engineer outside Japan for over a year now, Eigenmann is confident and psyched to finally be home again. He’s been all smiles since he arrived from an excruciatingly long flight from New York, and his welcoming committee seems to get larger and larger as members of the crew spot him at the tech booth at the far end of the hall. Before working for toe and becoming Director of Production at Le Poisson Rouge, a club in New York, Eigenmann was all over the place. Like a true Millennial, he searched for his calling, hopping from school […]
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Last Sunday (Nov. 27), the day began with a silent calmness as toe fans appeared at the doors of Samsung Hall in SM Aura as early as noon, hoping to score tickets to see the Japanese post-rock act for their third time in Manila. Unfortunately for those who didn’t make the effort to buy their tickets earlier, organizers had to turn down the number of hopefuls at the door. “Sorry, it’s sold out,” security had to tell fans. Some decided to stay behind to at least get a glimpse of the instrumental quartet through the glass doors, and the persistent ones were able to steal a few photos of the band just as they entered the hall for sound check that afternoon. Behind the mixing board was Jay Eigenmann, who was beyond ecstatic to be back in Manila. Now based in New York, Eigenmann has been working with toe over the past year as their touring FOH engineer outside Japan. “It’s not really very often that you get to work with people you look up to,” he says. “They’re the sweetest guys. They’re such talented musicians. It really makes my job easy. They’re really amazing to be on the road with and they […]
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Whatever you create—whether it be a visual piece, a dance, or a limerick—a little bit of your soul becomes a part of it. You dedicate hours of effort to your piece, loving it more and more as you go. And when it’s complete, you reach a point where many aspiring artists take a sudden halt. This is the first test any artist must face—hiding away to watch your stars fade or baring your true self to the world. This is where Moonwlk singer Gabbi Buencamino took a leap for the latter through her music and now with her debut poetry book When Words Fall. When Words Fall is a collection of poems Buencamino once kept to herself for half a decade, featuring illustrations by artists who interpreted her work into their pieces. Released into the wild through self-publishing, When Words Fall will definitely have something all readers could relate to. While traveling Europe, Gabbi Buencamino spoke with BillboardPH about her first book, the struggles of being a self-published author, and her future plans. Who are your favorite authors and how have they influenced you as a writer? I have more favorite stories than authors, but the writers I come back to include […]
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When she isn’t writing the next heart-wrenching song capable of drowning listeners in tidal waves of emotion, you’d find Up Dharma Down frontwoman Armi Millare in a corner devouring a book. Though Millare has yet to write a song based on a book, reading about social sciences and how the brain works gives her a better understanding of human emotions and relationships by exploring the realms of non-fiction. “It’s nice to observe from afar and also dive deeper through books, because there’s always a new development especially in these fields,” she tells BillboardPH. “Sometimes certain people respond to stimuli because of their genetic limitations or disabilities, but also the expanse of human emotion and psychology sometimes validates many things we’ve experienced—and to know more gets us to understand better.” With a penchant for non-fiction over novels, Millare’s vast collection mostly covers topics from empathy to fields in neuropsychology and sociology. “I just got into reading these kinds of books, because I wanted to know why or how I felt certain things.” She notes that it isn’t safe to self-diagnose, take these books too literally, or to base everything on them, and to see them merely as guides. Here are the books that […]
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Mark Holcomb is possibly the happiest nerd in the world, and being one of the three guitarists of progressive metal act Periphery is just a small indication of that. From his hilarious onstage antics, having his own signature PRS 6-string guitars, to holing up in his room playing video games for days on end, and coming up with the strangest (though impressively creative) Snapchat video stories, Holcomb surely loves where the tides are taking him. Born in Clark, Pampanga in 1982, Holcomb holds great pride in being Filipino-American, and has a soft spot for adobo. “My mother is Filipina,” he tells BillboardPH. “She raised me to be close to all of the Filipino side of my family. When I was young, she constantly cooked Filipino food, and encouraged me to stay in close contact with my relatives in the Philippines.” Four years before releasing their fifth studio album Periphery III: Select Difficulty, which peaked on the Billboard Independent Chart at No. 2, Periphery visited the Philippines for the first time to perform at PULP Summer Slam 12, finally giving Holcomb the opportunity to return to his motherland since relocating to the US in 1991. “It was a bucket list dream of mine to come back and play music […]
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There’s a Post-it note of personal goals Mario Jose carries; a note he would check once in a while to help him stay on track of his dreams. With one of the brightest smiles in Los Angeles, it is certain that he has accomplished one of those goals—to step out of Berklee College of Music an educated musician. And now with the release of his debut record Heart of Gold, the world now has the opportunity to hold its breath and listen to the golden voice its long been waiting for. The lively 28-year-old has always been surrounded by music. His father, a first-generation Filipino trombone player, and his mother, an Italian singer, brought Jose up with all the support that would lead him to where he is today. They raised him on the soulful voices of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, and powerhouse singers Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Céline Dion. A life of music was inevitable, and Jose knew right from the start that it would be his main focus. He attempted writing as a teenager and while he was a student at Berklee, but didn’t feel that he was giving his all until he sat down with songwriter JP Saxe. “I don’t want to […]
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When the first part of this season’s The Loft Sessions was released, Los Angeles based producer and former guitar player of Kjwan Jorel Corpus couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it. The season opens with Filipino-Italian singer Mario Jose, backed by a band, a full orchestra, and a choir of music graduates and incredibly talented kids from the Pascale Camerata, a professional level chamber orchestra featuring middle and high school students. They filmed at The Warehaas in downtown Los Angeles, which was a bit of a challenge for Corpus to record as one of the production’s engineers in the unconventional space—setting up at least 40 mics in the area for the 50 musicians in the warehouse. All the hard work the team behind The Loft Sessions truly paid off as the final product of the one day shoot turned into something more of a spectacle, and without a doubt, a benchmark for whatever creator and musical director Evan Chapman has in store for future projects. The Loft Sessions started back at Berklee College of Music in 2012 as a platform to showcase emerging artists. Chapman tells BillboardPH, “The overarching goal from the start of the Loft Sessions project was to create an atmosphere where incredible […]
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