Shameless blog: A look into New York's Filipino-authored music blogs

MANILA, Philippines - There isn’t a school in sight that teaches music-blogging. Despite this, music bloggers are standing their ground, merging the music store — the free sampling portion of it, at least — with the opinionated sensibilities of a traditional blog. From the get-go, music bloggers have been a godsend to the music industry — a reliable conduit that delivers fresh, unclouded music reviews to the fore, while eluding copyright infringements of any sort. Even record labels are quick to allow music blogs to post the occasional copyrighted tracks, largely because of the free advertising bands get from these sites.

Enter New York City’s Asian Dan and Musicphileosophy. They’re music blogs run separately by two Filipinos, of roughly the same age, city, heritage, and physical built, even. They hardly know each other personally but their extensive taste in music somehow shrinks the gap and enables us to evaluate blog-specific variables and quirks just for the fun of it. Find their friendly face-off below:

The basics, please.

DANIEL DE LARA: Daniel de Lara, 24, New York City (AsianDan.com)

EJ GARCIA: EJ Garcia, 24, New York City (Musicphileosophy.com)

When and why did you start blogging?

DAN: I decided to start a blog as a means for friends to check out what I was digging at the moment. Eventually through the power of the Internet everyone became my “friend.”

EJ: Ever since I was young, I was already a music aficionado. It was the weeks leading up to my departure for a summer in Manila back in 2009 that got me in the mood to start the blog.

Specific music genres you play favorites to?

DAN: The blog started with Electronica and French Touch. I try not to focus on one genre but I like to post well-written, composed, and produced music that is fresh yet understands and pays homage to the lineage and history that is music. If I could, I would just blog ‘70s Yacht Rock.

EJ: Nu-Disco, bossanova, and a classic Motown track on occasion. If I can’t listen to a song from start to end, without fast forwarding, it isn’t going up on the blog.

Any musical pet peeves?

DAN: I hate mash-ups.

EJ: Voice manipulation, vocoders and the like. Too much of it ticks me off!

Proudest blog moment?

DAN: The time I blogged about a band, Jamaica, then filled in on bass and went on a two-week North American tour. I got to share the bill with LCD Soundsystem, Miike Snow and Four Tet.

EJ: I was invited to cover Calvi On The Rocks in Europe. The only thing they could give for free was a 3-day all-access pass. The other $5,500 in expenses would have to come from my pocket. Thanks, but no thanks!

Best concerts you’ve been to in the past year?               

DAN: I had the pleasure of witnessing the one and only Paul McCartney live at Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago which was, hands-down, one of the best shows ever. But as far as contemporary acts go, I saw Metronomy, live on a pier here in NYC and it was fantastic. White Denim down at SXSW 2011 was quite a show — a perfect blend of pop and proggy-jamming.                 

EJ: I haven’t been to any this past year, since I was busy finishing school, but I wish I could have been front-stage for Arcade Fire at Coachella. Watched it via YouTube streaming and I cried myself to sleep that night.

If NY were to burn down tomorrow and you had a spaceship to bring along five NY-based bands, which ones would you save?

DAN: This is a bold question since there are too many NYC bands that mean too much to me so I will pick five new acts. I would take Emil & Friends, Blood Orange, Fort Lean, Lionshare and Lana Del Rey into space in order to create the most emotional cosmic feel-good music ever.

EJ: Nicolas Jaar, The Stepkids, Midnight Magic, Holy Ghost!, and Bebel Gilberto,

Future plans?

DAN: I have been in this MP3 game since 1999 when I first logged onto Napster. I am gonna keep hustling in this MP3 game in hopes of ruling The Hype Machine. I am gonna keep blogging as if no one is looking. Just remember to keep on blogging in the free world, aka The Internet.         

EJ: Well, I’m definitely going to be getting people on board with the blog. Hopefully make it into a revenue-generating site.