pinoydrums eb3

its been 4 days since the pinoydrums event and i still have a hangover. my ears are still ringing from bagets' powerful drum solo. i still havent put my cymbals back on my kit, no time to play anyway. still regret the fact that i dont own a camera and did not have one during the event.

being one of the organizers, man it was a gruesome day. leaving home at 10AM to pick up rommel and his tama superstars from valenzuela. ate brunch at wendy's sm while waiting for rommel. we met at past 11 then went to his house to pick up the drums. i realized i can fit a 22x18 kick drum on the backseat of a lancer (what a relief). then its on to penguin bar in malate.
it was sunday so there was no traffic on edsa. took 45 minutes to get to the venue. could have been there a lot faster but i was driving extra careful because of rommel's babies. i sure dont want them get beat up during the ride (but they did get quite a beating during the event).

when we got to penguin, i said to myself, "is this really penguin bar? why do they have pigeons as mascots?". we waited a few more minutes for sandy to arrive and then we set the kit up. after that we walked to 7-11 and grabbed something to eat. when we got back, jp was already there waiting and it was time to rearrange the chairs and the tables. the other rommell g., the host of the event, arrived with his gf sunshine. dennis started working on the name tags with the help of sunshine. a little later, ernest parked his pickup with bennii along with his monster kit. it was starting to rain so we had to get all of bennii's gear inside, he had a lot of gear and ernest, his brother and me got soaked up trying to bring in the last of the stands and all the cymbals.

it was a feast for every drummer's eyes to watch bennii set up his dw kit which is a 6-piece wrapped in marine white pearl. i think he brought a pearl metal snare. his cymbals, ooohh so shiny, love to hit it but never got the chance to. it took over an hour for bennii to finish up at the same time, rommell g. started working with the video crew. rommell g. interviewed bennii then bennii introduced his kit and obliged to do a short solo with stick twirling. next to be interviewed was rommel and talk about his superstars but got shy and let sandy do the honors. rommel g. proceeded interviewing all the organizing committee including yours truly, ha, mine was the shortest and senseless interview of the bunch (cant wait for the dvd, i hope they included that stupid interview).

drummers started coming in as early as 4pm. the guys started jamming and then a kid came in with his dad, anthony dio brought him over to bennii's kit and this little dude did a monster solo! everybody was watching him wail and flail his arms utilizing all the cymbals and drums. his name is arien pulumbarit, first time i saw him play was on mike mangini's clinic.

6pm, clinic time! five were invited to share and perform. first up was andre quimpo, an excellent speaker, he started his speech about the beginnings of pinoydrums and moved on to drumming and rudiments. later on he invited bennii to jam, well to be honest, they dont match up at all. i can barely here what andre was playing. aside from bennii having bigger cymbals, he also plays like john bonham = LOUD.

next on the hot seat was robert dela cruz of skychurch. this is the first time i met him and wasnt what i expected at all. he plays loud aggressive stuff but he's humble and a very cool. he played wickedly fast double bass. he used rommel's tama and i wish i could see the look on rommel's face when robert began his assault. add power and speed and what do you get? a moving bass drum. poor ernest, he was sitting beside the bass drum and he held it down all through out robert's performance. errrr i found robert's secret to playing fast double bass, gulp red horse beer before and during your performance ASTIG!

after that, it was anthony dio's clinic and he brought along the bassists from his band, ian tan. they covered groove playing, drummer/bassists relationship in the band and played 3 grooving tunes. well i wasnt paying attention to what dio was playing at the time because i was watching ian so i can steal some of his licks on the bass. sorry dio =)

i guess if franklin benitez cant do drums, he'll be a hit being a stand up comedian. his hour on the drums was very informative, full of wit and humor and yes technical drumming. he did a swiss triplet fill that i commonly hear rnb drummers do and it inspired me to practice rudiments again.

finally, mar dizon came on board with his band playing jazz standards. all i can say is WOW!. i stood outside the gate beside mar's kit or rather rommel's kit just to have a close encounter. watching mar do his thing is exciting and unpredictable. his dynamics and phrasing are too advanced for me to comprehend but still inspiring. cant take my eyes off or i might miss an interesting lick. later on robert dela cruz came and he was sharing stories with us (while watching mar).

it was jam all night long. i was too shy to join in the fun but it was nice to see the other guys have their turn on the drums.

then comes a surprise performance, past 12pm some guys walked in while we were having our very late dinner. bagets was with them, one of the baddest drummers around and i didnt think that he would play anymore. i was already too tired to care and was already outside the venue when i saw bagets stand up and walk up to bennii's kit. i ran inside to grab a seat, everybody else did the same. then there was silence and no movement, i think everybody held there breathe too. then thunder and lightning came from the dw kit. speechless. awe. what happened must be experienced rather than be put down in words for you to read. nobody took a video so to all the guys who left early, ITS YOUR LOSS BWAHAHAHAHA

well i got home 2:30AM after dropping off rommel and his kit. couldnt sleep, tired but still hyper from the inpiring performance of the drummers earlier. i put on the modern drummer 2005 dvd and started working on my swiss triplets...till zzzzzz