Ascending Mount APO

For those who’ve followed the OPM movement over the last 30 years, Jim, Danny and Boboy, collectively known as the APO Hiking Society, are pillars of just how far high up the pinnacle you can reach as mainstream performers and composers without losing street cred. If one looks at artists abroad like Bono of U2, and admire him both for the music he has created and the way he has used his celebrity status to bring home messages of humanitarian importance and social consciousness, APO have time and again put their careers and commercial viability on the line, never shirking from sending out similar messages. To them, it was always more than just the music and popularity; and it’s great that Universal Records has put together a compilation, Kami nAPO Muna, that shows how their music has aged like wine, and does not need to mellow. In fact, with the roster of rock and alternative artists enlisted to interpret the APO songs, it’s impressive to hear how so many of the tunes sound as good as they sounded oh-so-many years ago.

I’ve often found these tribute albums conceptually stale, discovering that nothing beat the original versions of the songs; but in this case, I find myself drawn to several cuts that give us a fresh take on these classic songs. The new versions don’t replace the originals but act as fine complements to how my mind will now remember these songs. Itchyworm’s Awit ng Barkada with its ska/reggae touches; Imago’s Ewan; Sugarfree’s anthem-like Batang-bata Ka Pa; Sound’s jazzed-up Di Na Natuto; Moonstar 88’s Panalangin; and Kitchie Nadal’s Pag-ibig are rating high on my car’s playlist right now.

Chords and lyrics of these updated versions can be found in the maiden issue of the MYX magazine – a great new music magazine that plies both the mainstream and the edgier side of the music industry. The first cover will be immediately recognizable as it has all the MYX VJ’s posing together for posterity.

Thanks to Universal Records for making us remember that the legacy of a band like APO will always be their songs; songs people like me may have grown up to, and songs that can now have meaning for kids like my boys, who sat up and sang along to Kamikazee’s version of Doo Bidoo the first time I played it and they were in the car with me. Boy, was I surprised!

Fishy business

The recent, highly successful TechnoNegosyo affair of Joey Concepcion and the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship highlighted the tech-savvy world and the promise that budding entrepreneurs could find by converting their available home space to Internet "sari-sari’s" (as opposed to cafés). We have to give credit to Joey and PCE for constantly pushing awareness of how entrepreneurship is the most viable avenue for creating a groundswell of local economic success stories; and providing the "converted" with options that could really work, even if with multiplier effect. In the works, there’s even a book of Joey’s Top 50 Inspiring Entrepreneurial stories – something that all entrep wannabe’s and school programs can look forward to.

In this book, there are several tales with the stuff from which true-to-life legends are born. It was through Joey that I first heard of Boni Commandante and his "fish out of water" business story, a non-conventional tech-savvy story with a twist all its own. By accident, Boni found that a fish put on top of a cooler with just a bit of ice and no water, could be "revived" six hours later. As there is a strong demand for live fish in many top seafood restaurants all over the world and rule of thumb for airing these fishes is to put them in water three times their weight, Boni saw that one was practically paying air freight for water and that there was a commercial angle to being able to put the fish to sleep, and just on ice, and yet be assured that they would still be alive after this state of hibernation. Boni has now refined the technique such that even after 12 hours on ice, the fish can be revived! His company, Buhi Worldwide, holds local and global patents on the process and after attracting serious capital from an Australian investment group, is ready to go "public."

In true entrep fashion, Boni is not one to rest on his laurels, and has now embarked on a new project with strong ramifications for our diet and health. Putting muscle into our mussels, I like to call it! Called the Micronutrient Express Project, it’s a patented process that takes advantage of filter feeders such as shellfish. Given the fact that commercial vitamins are a low priority for poor families, Boni has embarked on this project that gives such families access to vitamins, minerals and trace elements such as amino acids, in the form of shellfish fortified with microscopic algae. One creates a network of growers signed up to the process and by feeding cultured algae to clams, oysters and mussels, one creates added value for the shellfish these growers bring to the market, and one puts shellfish into the market that potentially has 15 times more nutrients than a capsule of Pharmaton, and yet, at a much lesser price. The clincher? Boni has called the process, Seafood ViaGrA – for Seafood Vitamins and Green Algae.