1st Tatt Awards: Up Dharma Down wins Indie Rocker of the Year!

I went to The Manila Peninsula last night for the 1st Globe Tattoo Tatt Awards to support my most favorite band in the entire planet, Up Dharma Down. They were nominated under the Indie Rocker category. Other notable Independent artists like Johnoy Danao, Giniling Festival, JR Aquino and Paramita were also nominated.

Yes, the band was up against the industry’s crème-dela-crème, but I am certain that they had this in the bag from the moment they were named one of the finalists. Why? Because Up Dharma Down has alwys been an 'online' band. In 2005, they started spreading their music by putting up a MySpace page and creating a Yahoogroups where the band actively interacted with their fans.

From MySpace and Yahoogroups, the band crossed over to the now more popular Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr and still garnered an amazing number of followers that liked, tweeted and reblogged pictures, audio post, videos fan arts etc.

The band had also been actively tweeting back to their fans who send them tweets, posting updates on Facebook, and sharing exciting news on Tumblr.

I have never seen a band that is so connected with their fans online like Up Dharma Down. 

All of the nominees under the Indie Rocker category performed at the show. Armi, Ean, Paul, and Carlos were the last artist to perform among the nominees. The reason: because Up Dharma Down is Tatt Award’s Indie Rocker of the year! 



Everyone at the event cheered when they were announced as the winners. I was among the fans who nominated them for the category. I cannot explain how happy I felt (like that moment when I had the answer to the question 'how to find my ring size') when they were finally announced as the winner. It’s like I won the lottery! :D

After the event, the band invited me to join them for dinner. Here I am with Armi after that yummy dinner. :)

The Reader

The last book my Mama read was Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. I gave it to her as birthday present last 2009. My mother’s not really a ‘novel’ reader. She'd rather spend her time reading collections of inspirational stories and other kinds of materials that can be useful to her profession. She was a teacher. Teaching was her life. So to give her a sort of break to the usual books she reads, I gave her Niffenegger’s book as it was recommended by a friend’s wife through her blog.

But then late 2009 and the rest of 2010, she started to get sick. She’s been a diabetic for 20 years now and it was only recently that complications started manifesting. First, it was kidney failure that she had to start undergoing Dialysis sessions twice a week since March of last year. Then her left eye lost sight at the start of that year. My mother, she’s a bit hard-headed. Despite having only one functional eye, she'll make it a point to read.

Then she got entirely blind August of last year. Which made me realize that she’s been like that exactly a year already.

Those first few weeks were hard. Hard for all of us. There’s one point that my mother do not want to touch any books or magazines because she only end up crying. Months passed by, then she started asking me to play Bo Sanchez’s talks uploaded on YouTube. Also, she spends most of her time at home tuned in the AM radio. I admire my mother and her drive to learn.

Last Sunday, I was watching the rebroadcast of Lollapalooza (that was held in the glorious city of steel buildings, Chicago) on YouTube and she listening to her usual Sunday afternoon radio when she suddenly stood up, went out of their room and asked me:

Anak, ano nga ba yung ending ng The Time Traveler’s Wife? Malungkot diba?
(How did the story of The Time Traveler’s Wife ended? It was sad, right?)

I answered yes and gave a brief of the how the novel ended. Then she continued and asked me if I’ve heard of Sam Sotto. I said I read about her on a website. My mother then asked if I could get a copy of her book, Before Ever After, because she heard on the radio that the story was inspired by The Time Traveler’s Wife. What got her really interested was to find out how the story will end this time. It was noted in the radio discussion that this time, the story will end on a happy note. :)

She asked me to read it and then just tell her what happens in the story. But I said why I’ll just buy us a copy and I will read it to her. This is the first in a long time that my mother got interested about a book. Or wanting to ‘read’ a book.

I bought our copy of the book yesterday. I had to visit three bookstores and  was only able to get a copy of Before Ever After on my fourth bookstore stop! My mother was really excited when I handed and described the cover of the book to her. :D

I tweeted about purchasing the book yesterday and tagged @samanthasotto with my tweets. She retweeted all of my messages earlier today and sent me this message:



I cried after reading her message. Thank you ♥

My mother proposed last night that I start reading the book, or should I say we start reading the book this weekend instead. I am looking forward to this bonding time with my mother. And I have Ms. Samantha Sotto to be grateful for.

Dear Ate Nats,

I saw your Google+ page yesterday. Of course, I was really excited because it had been five years since the last time I heard from you. I added you to my circle, but when I logged in today your profile picture and username were different. Like you were never there.

Before anything else, I must apologize for the times my e-mail address sent you any chain letters, virus and something similar. Someone hacked my account, you see. Four years ago, some sicko computer nerd hacked into my account. I was only able to retrieve my username last year. I know you HATED those kinds of things. I remember you scolding me for sending you some announcement via Yahoo! Messenger from those last two chats we had. The first one, I sent that. But the second and the rest that followed, I had no knowledge of since I wasn't the one who's manning the account. 

Now why am I explaining this when I know deep inside that there will be no chance you'll be able to read this. But I guess I just had to let this all out. 

I still cannot explain it, but there is still a part of me that's always looking for you. Maybe it's because the communication line was abruptly cut. One day we were talking and the next we're not. 

There was no goodbye.

I know I am not the person you can be proud of. And  I know I have never been (and maybe never will be) the writer that you wanted me to be. But I would like to take this chance to thank you. Thank you for everything you taught me. Thank you for those meaningful chats we had. Thank you for making me feel that my thoughts and ideas are worth listening to. Thank you for reading my poems and the other things I penned. Thank you for letting me know I mattered.

Thank you for being the big sister I never had. Glad and grateful to have met a person like you in this lifetime.

This will be the last time I will talk about you. The very last time I will be looking for you.

Maraming salamat. 

Up Dharma Down gig sched: August to September 2011

Incubus Live In Manila 2011

This post is long overdue! I wanted to write something about my Incubus experience the minute I got home but was reminded that I still have to go to work in a few hours and write about Baptism invitations.  The concert was last Thursday,  28 July at the Araneta Coliseum (but a lot of people say it is now called Smart Araneta Coliseum). Brandon Boyd and his band did a 20-song set at the sold-out concert. And up until now, I still am in awe and still cannot believe that I was actually at an Incubus concert for FREE, and with Patron seats at that!
I won the free tickets when I attended the Incubus Tribute Party at B-Side last 14 July. The party was organized by the Incubus Street Team where they invited independent bands to play songs from Incubus and their original songs as well. They had these contest in-between sets. To make the long story short, I tried my luck and joined the last contest of that night where they asked us to name five sponsors of the event. I was the third one to try and I got really lucky.


I decided to bring my best friend Marife with me at the concert. Here are some of the pictures I took that night using my  Nokia X3 phone.