Boldstar: You must have been a beautiful something

Voted as Best New Artist at this year’s NU107 Rock Awards was the provocatively-named Boldstar, a band that can truly be called independent. Walang label. Walang corporate endorsements. Walang video. Just the talents of songwriter/bassist Jazz Nicolas (shifting from his drumming role in Itchyworms), drummer/singer Marie Jamora, and the guitar tandem of Echo Singson and Justin Sunico. (Plus production help from veterans like Eraserheads Buddy Zabala and Raimund Marasigan.)

The result of their home-recording endeavors is You Must Have Been A Beautiful Something (paired with a batch of more experimental tracks entitled What Are You... Really?) Like the Itchyworms’ debut, Little Monsters Under Your Bed, this is fast, furious fun, with hooks aplenty provided by Jazz and his cohorts.

Part of the fun of Boldstar (besides the band’s name, which I am happy to admit I proffered and the band adopted) is their sense of humor. Jazz Nicolas possibly has the strangest outlook on relationships to be found in local pop music (check out the giddy Something About Twins and Surgery for proof). Singer/drummer Marie Jamora adds a sweet naiveté (or is it?) to her songs, including the much-played single Accident Prone, Betamax, Fly On Countryside, Maliban and Public Transportation. There’s something decidedly childlike about the whole Boldstar venture, sporting a wide grin and one eyebrow cheerfully raised – from the unique packaging (baby shots and retro-kitsch photos; the CD sold in a DVD case) to the piano-exercise minimalism of Marie’s fifteen years old.

Jazz Nicolas, of course, is crazy like a fox, dividing his songwriting energies between this and the "poppier" (by his account) Itchyworms. In the process, he can give his alter ego experimental side free rein. Out to prove he can write sludge metal like the rest, he offers the "unique" Pork Siomai (with lyrics about eating, crapping, then eating again). More dubious experiments are drum ’n bass tidbits like Tran and a rather pointless remix of Fly.

Boldstar began as a side project but soon became a full-fledged band, one sly enough to grab two NU107 nominations (the other for album packaging). Since the members of Boldstar are all local music veterans, there’s an effortless skill to their playing. Of course, taking six months to record your CD under cut-and-run circumstances – overdubbing at home, mastering when you can scrape together enough cash, etc. – lends more care to the project. Having said that, the CD could definitely use some heavier bass at the bottom. But the guitar work provided by Echo and Justin is sharp, tasteful, well-deployed (check out the luscious slide runs on Public Transportation, or the reggae-punk riffs on Maliban). Marie Jamora’s drumming is more than capable of navigating the twists and turns of the songwriting, and more than makes up for her occasional off-key note.

Ah, yes. The songs. There are 19 on You Must Have Been A Beautiful Something, and it’s no surprise that the strongest belong to Jazz. My favorite is Anchor, a loungy almost-ballad that floats on the memory and stays there way past the fadeout. A typical Nicolas strategy is to hang the song around a jazzy two-chord turnaround (from major to minor), like the catchy hook on Something About Blue Hair. Even a throwaway song like Boom Desire reveals a deep knowledge and respect for pop hooks, from the ’60s and ’70s up to and including bands like Foo Fighters.

At this point, it’s unclear where Boldstar will go next. With their drummer off studying in the States, the band continues touring. They are still unsigned, selling their CDs at gigs one at a time, relying on word of mouth. With a Best New Artist trophy in their hands, that’s likely to change. Meanwhile, the eclectic fun of this debut CD shows they’re a band with plenty of ideas and hooks to spare. Who knows? Jazz may even have to start another band to support his songwriting habit.