Sadie Stinson is a 27-year-old musician who's finally getting everything she's ever wanted: street-level fame and a tour that's bringing her band to parts of the world she swore she'd never see... But why does it feel so empty?
Marco Rodriguez is a...
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The Playback: Friday night, June 23rd, 2017. Somewhere past ten in the evening. SaGuijo, Makati City.
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Contrary to popular belief, the boys from The Procrastinators were never late for a gig. Not that they were the kind of band to turn down gigs, but they were always a reliable last-minute substitute to take a spot in case a more respectable band couldn't make it.
Surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke and buckets of San Miguel Pale Pilsen, The Procrastinators held court- attracting everyone from gig-regulars, music nerds, and just about anyone who needed to waste idle time.
"Fine, you guys want me to be honest?", Marco shot out. "I fucking hate Incubus! I think they're the worst band to ever record music. Each time I hear them, I just imagine a horde of bros finding themselves on a beach!"
"Bold statement yun, pare!" Noel chuckled, cracking a fresh bottle of Pale open as a cigarette dangled beneath his handlebar moustache. "Gets yan. Pa pogi naman si Brandon Boyd, pero he's got no substance."
"Remember a few years ago?" Marco shot back. "It was like every band had a Brandon Boyd-wannabe fronting them."
"OO mhen," Noel nodded. "Baduy!"
"But isn't that a good thing?" asked TK, a legit music nerd who was a regular at virtually every gig in Metro Manila. "I mean, no one else plays the music you guys make."
"You'd think, pero hindi kaya yan," Noel replied. "At least not today. People moved on."
"Most people today don't have the balls to listen to a band like us!" Marco shot out, pulling the cigarette away from his lips. "Sure, we could play in front of a crowd that could like us, but that rarely happens because we get sandwiched between thirty other bands."
"We could set-up our own shows," Mark, The Procrastinator's drummer, added as he adjusted his glasses. "But we're better off just using the money to record."
"It's not worth it," Noel said. "It's why we take these gigs, pare. We stick out like a sore thumb and people remember us."
"I don't want to say rock is dead, we just live in a different world where people don't appreciate guitar music the way they used to," Marco began. "I mean, unless a song is on a stupid show on Netflix, no one's going to give a shit about old bands like, I don't know... The Feelies! You guys ever listen to the Feelies?"
Outside of TK, not a single person nodded their head.
"You guys are missing out! They are one of the best bands of the 1980s... It's simple, summery guitar music that anyone could fall in love with," Marco began. "But are people listening? Are people, even the ones we know who actually like the music we do, are they actually going out and looking for music the way we once did when we had access over our Tito's record collection? No... It just doesn't happen anymore.".
