E-heads overdrive

Can't help it. With their songs on my playlist, I am on an E-heads overdrive. Browsed through some reviews of their reunion last Saturday and came across this article by Reggie Gulle where he wrote:

"... seemingly out of the blue, four school chums, who looked and dressed as unassumingly as the typical college-boys in tee-shirts and jeans and sneakers casually hanging out in front of dormitories after class, had a stroke of inspiration and put together an LP of their original compositions. It was titled, rather in come-what-hither fashion, "Ultraelectromagneticpop”, and credited as being presented by “The Eraserheads”.

...What was different about the sound of the Eraserheads was that it somehow had a grounding in musical forms that other Pinoy bands hadn't explored as frequently...Most noticeable about their first album was how the band didn't attempt to sound as angry or blistering as punk or thrash metal ( which Metallica allegedly first popularized ), nor did they try to ride along the remnants of the “New Wave” sound ( reduced to the generic term “alternative rock” ).

Instead, they managed to produce a distinctive amalgamation of bouncy rhythms and deceivingly simple arrangements which drove the Pinoy folk-rock-and-pop sensibility up a few hard-driving notches, together with upbeat smatterings of reggae, ska, and for the most part--yes, that unmistakeable Beatles-like energy.

“Pare Ko”, the first hugely successful single from that album, could very well epitomize the almost unexpected infectiousness of the band's musical appeal...The song is tongue-in-cheek, it never took itself too seriously despite its theme of betrayed love, it sounded Pinoy, and it was rock and roll.

..The band broke up in 2002, yet their songs still enjoy a considerable amount of airplay, and the ever-ubiquitous videoke singers out in the streets and inside smoky bars continue belting out tunes such as “Alapaap”, “Overdrive”, “Ligaya”, and that thoroughly overkilled ditty “Ang Huling El Bimbo”.

I confess that I have never been a rabid fan of the Eraserheads, but I also have to say that I could mention no other Pinoy rock act which could muster the sheer patronage which Ely Buendia, Marcus Adoro, Buddy Zabala, and Raymund Marasigan still demonstrate, even after six years of not performing together.

Because, in sum, the Eraserheads' sound, far beyond the others I get to hear from most other local bands, is quite essentially the spirit of the Pinoy. Buendia's schoolboy vocals draw in Pinoys from all walks of life because it sounds so much like everyone of us..."