Admit One's Last Hurrah

MANILA, Philippines - Back in 2001, almost every musician I personally knew had a day job. Well, maybe except for the Eraserheads, but even they would disband soon. Still, some of them were already dabbling in commercial scoring and other projects, while the rest of us were slaving in corporate eight-to-five jobs in all sorts of industries. In my case, I was a marketing supervisor for a magazine distribution company. I also played guitar for a band called Twisted Halo, and we had just released our debut EP and started getting some airplay on NU107. And as every band with a new record and a song on the radio should, we tried to gig as often as our schedules permitted, even if it meant getting memos for sleeping on the job. And believe me, I did receive a few.

The main drawback was, in those days, there was only a handful of venues that entertained acts that played original music. There were already a number of independent productions that were open to holding auditions or offering guest slots, but that meant that it would take a while before we got invited to play again, that is, if they even liked us in the first place. So, instead of looking for gigs or waiting for them to come, we, along with the then-fledgling rap-rock quartet Dicta License and the all-female trio Fatal Posporos, decided to book a vacant weeknight in November that year and put up our own show. The plan was for these three bands to headline that particular evening each month, book several other acts we admired or were on friendly terms with, and rock the hell out, without caring about conforming to anyone’s standards, because we were among friends and peers. We wanted Admit One — we took the name from those generic yellow tickets that were used mostly at fairs and amusement parks — to be a party where people could hang out and enjoy the music, be it as part of the audience, as a performer, or as a friend dropping by. And for the next 10 years, it essentially was.

Just last week, the Admit One production team held its final meeting, and we enumerated all of the bands, solo artists, and other acts (we’ve had dance groups, poets, and even stand-up comedians) we’ve invited to share their talents over the last 10 years, from our earliest days at Freedom Bar, our brief residency at the now-defunct Rock Radio Cafe in Alabang, our occasional shows at Bigskymind and Mayrics, to our last seven years at SaGuijo Cafe, a venue which took Admit One in almost as soon as it opened in 2004. We ended up with a tally of 235 acts (give or take a few we may have overlooked), a sizeable fraction of whom have called it quits, moved on to other things, or were simply never heard from again. Even the core bands were no exception: Fatal Posporos’ drummer migrated to the US, both Twisted Halo and Dicta License parted ways, and most recently, Sugarfree (a later addition to the regular Admit One lineup) disbanded early this year. But in most cases, new acts ultimately emerged from the old ones, like Cambio and Peryodiko. Somehow the constant cycle of moving on seemed to be the catalyst for the Admit One team to decide long ago to pull the plug after reaching the 10-year mark. Times aren’t as hard as they were for bands back then; there are significantly more venues for performing original music now, each one boasting a monthly calendar with a different production occupying each date. Before, we only relied on Yahoo! Groups and SMS barrages to promote our shows; these days, you could wake up to multiple Facebook event notifications from different productions like Revolver, Tubby Trousers, Meiday! Meiday! and many others.

We will definitely miss those days when we played music as a much-needed release from the drudgery of our day jobs, in front of our friends and our growing circle of peers, and almost without a care in the world. I will always remember such moments as seeing bands like Urbandub and Death By Tampon for the first time at Admit One and being completely blown away, or forming one-off projects with friends from other bands just so we could try something new without all the pretensions. Now we’re all older, and while some of us still have day jobs (like myself), most of us make music more like our lives depended on it, which is definitely not a bad thing, but we figured it’s time we left the production work to the younger ones. But before Admit One finally disappears off the face of the local gig scene, we celebrate a decade of doing our own thing, and giving performers and fans alike some of the most memorable shows they’ve ever been part of.

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Jason Caballa is the guitarist of Pedicab.

Part 1 of Admit One’s 10th Anniversary and Finale was held last Wednesday, Nov. 16, at SaGuijo Cafe, with performances from AkoSiChris, Cambio, Chicosci, Ebe Dancel, Imago, Pedicab, Peryodiko, Sandwich, and Urbandub. Part 2 will be held next Thursday, Nov. 24, at Freedom Bar, Anonas St., QC with Boldstar, Bullet Dumas, Dicta License, Fatal Posporos, Fuseboxx, Happy Meals, The Ronnies, and Twisted Halo, and will be webcast live over DigRadio.Ph.