Lampano Alley

Songs From The Alley

Side A
Losing You

You've Got A Hold On Me

Alley Song

Major Fool

I Get Weary

Side B

Trouble

I've Got The Blues To Keep Me Warm

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Mess It Up

Ganyan Lang

Whatever the founder and chief-instigator, Ray "Binky" Lampano, Jnr., of Asia’s mighty blues band Lampano Alley played before the Blues was a matter of convenience not conviction – not that he didn’t already suffer for the music. More than a band, Lampano Alley is a long drawn-out process. An epiphany alone cannot explain it; rather, something more akin to pulling teeth.

Lampano grew up on a staple of gospel, rock, folk, jazz standards, and Manila AM-radio programs, whose narratives became grist for the mill of his imagination. Long before Lampano became a cult-figure in the Manila alternative music scene in the ‘80s, he was always fascinated by stories behind music from the time the Blues was but a distant chug.

In the '70s, the Blues in the Philippines funneled through the hyper-decibels of Pinoy Rock where it was, by and large, a mere frame of reference than a way of life. The movement itself became almost as distant a memory in the 80s even as the Blues became a sideshow for pointless jams.

In the late-'80s, Lampano was already restless and already hearing-impaired after a few years in the trenches of alternative music. A lukewarm solo album in the 90s signaled 180-degree turn to the Blues. Chance collaborations with like-minded musicians – like the amazingly funky pianist-keyboardist Butch Saulog – divined strains of a dream band, if yet still largely amorphous. Around this time, Lampano began to amass a collection of blues and jazz oddities, and soak in their sounds.

Lampano met Asian Development Bank executive and blues harpist Thomas "Tomcat" Colvin one fateful night in 1992 over the old jazz-blues tune Since I Fell for You. This led to the formation of the acclaimed blues-jazz-rock supergroup, the Newly-Industrialized Combo (NIC). Not long after it made the cover of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Magazine in March 1993, the NIC went the way of supergroups that succumbed to the weight of their own design.

Unfazed by the setback, Lampano went into hibernation to nurture full-time the thought of his imaginary band and internalize its future dynamics. The idea was simple: the Blues was the brush, the band was the palette of colors, and the thin air was the canvas - the aim was to be felt and not heard.

Members of the imaginary group were eyed at jam sessions and gigs. Guitarist Edwin "Kwachi" Vergara and bassist Simon Tan were the first candidates. Vergara was an acquaintance from Lampano's alternative music days whose impressive style went beyond the categories of the time. Tan, who switched from guitar to bass in the late-'80s, was a very thoughtful player whose style was as egoless as it was authoritative.

Lampano left for the U.S. in 1994 intent on a return to form the imaginary group. In the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, the soundtrack was gangsta' rap and grunge on its last legs. Fortunately, he fell in the company of musicians from the doo-wop era and was introduced to the modern chitlin' circuit. The music sessions set up in storefronts and dives in Crenshaw District, where $5 gets soul food and good music, became a laboratory for musical ideas. Lampano wrote his Manila cohorts regularly to bounce ideas and outline future musical plans.

By 1996, the stage was already set for a comeback. Upon his return, he hit the ground running with a series of meetings with Vergara and Tan, who brought along the up-and-coming drummer Jojo Lim. Rehearsals and gigs followed soon after through the help of old friends and associates in the scene.

The still nameless group first saw action in mid-1996 at Jim Turner's musical landmark - The Hobbit House - in Ermita, alongside fellow believers, The Blue Rats, amid skeptical initial reception. Colvin joined the band shortly and became a permanent fixture when he retired from his cushy job to fulfill a lifelong ambition to play music fulltime. He was instrumental in naming the band Lampano Alley – a tribute to the alleys of Pasay City, where Lampano grew up and that Colvin first encountered while working for the Asian Development Bank.

With nothing but blues standards and an adherence to musical dynamics – hitherto unexplored in a local music scene dedicated to stentorian musical dramas – Lampano Alley soon caught fire. It wasn’t so much the musical material that mattered than how it was played with just as much fire and passion at quite moderate levels. The band’s restrained interplay was and still remains the stuff of legend. On one turn, the listener can almost hear a pin drop; on the next, an incendiary burst of sound to punctuate a blues statement that leads to another dramatic silence.

The crack rhythm section of Tan, Vergara, and Lim with Colvin on harp allowed Lampano to push the musical envelope and explore the personas that always informed the Blues – the preacher-charlatan, the social commentator, the snake-oil salesman, the stand-up comic, the man down-on-his-luck, the hard-nosed philosopher, and the street fighting man.

The ironies were always cleverly disguised as Lampano and Colvin traded one-liners and commentaries about everything under the hot Philippine sun against the even hotter poker-faced rhythm section. The Blues in the Philippines was never the same again!

Several performances at the Concert at the Park, Martin Late at Night, radio and television guest spots, and the release of its album Songs from the Alley later, Lampano Alley achieved a status yet attained by a "blues band" in the Philippines.

Despite Lampano’s departure in late 2000 for an extended stay in the U.S., Lampano Alley still reconvenes regularly for special reunions and music festivals. They reunited for the 2003 Fete de la Musique Festival in Manila, and Singapore’s Mosaic Music Festival in 2005 and 2008, where old and new audience alike witnessed and experienced the undiminished strength of their music.

-wiki, last.fm

Whatever the founder and chief-instigator, Ray "Binky" Lampano, Jnr., of Asia’s mighty blues band Lampano Alley played before the Blues was a matter of convenience not conviction – not that he didn’t already suffer for the music. More than a band, Lampano Alley is a long drawn-out process. An epiphany alone cannot explain it; rather, something more akin to pulling teeth.

Lampano grew up on a staple of gospel, rock, folk, jazz standards, and Manila AM-radio programs, whose narratives became grist for the mill of his imagination. Long before Lampano became a cult-figure in the Manila alternative music scene in the ‘80s, he was always fascinated by stories behind music from the time the Blues was but a distant chug.

In the '70s, the Blues in the Philippines funnelled through the hyper-decibels of Pinoy Rock where it was, by and large, a mere frame of reference than a way of life. The movement itself became almost as distant a memory in the 80s even as the Blues became a sideshow for pointless jams.

In the late-'80s, Lampano was already restless and already hearing-impaired after a few years in the trenches of alternative music. A lukewarm solo album in the 90s signaled 180-degree turn to the Blues. Chance collaborations with like-minded musicians – like the amazingly funky pianist-keyboardist Butch Saulog – divined strains of a dream band, if yet still largely amorphous. Around this time, Lampano began to amass a collection of blues and jazz oddities, and soak in their sounds.

Lampano met Asian Development Bank executive and blues harpist Thomas "Tomcat" Colvin one fateful night in 1992 over the old jazz-blues tune Since I Fell for You. This led to the formation of the acclaimed blues-jazz-rock supergroup, the Newly-Industrialized Combo (NIC). Not long after it made the cover of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Magazine in March 1993, the NIC went the way of supergroups that succumbed to the weight of their own design.

Unfazed by the setback, Lampano went into hibernation to nurture full-time the thought of his imaginary band and internalize its future dynamics. The idea was simple: the Blues was the brush, the band was the palette of colors, and the thin air was the canvas - the aim was to be felt and not heard.

Members of the imaginary group were eyed at jam sessions and gigs. Guitarist Edwin "Kwachi" Vergara and bassist Simon Tan were the first candidates. Vergara was an acquaintance from Lampano's alternative music days whose impressive style went beyond the categories of the time. Tan, who switched from guitar to bass in the late-'80s, was a very thoughtful player whose style was as egoless as it was authoritative.

Lampano left for the U.S. in 1994 intent on a return to form the imaginary group. In the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, the soundtrack was gangsta' rap and grunge on its last legs. Fortunately, he fell in the company of musicians from the doo-wop era and was introduced to the modern chitlin' circuit. The music sessions set up in storefronts and dives in Crenshaw District, where $5 gets soul food and good music, became a laboratory for musical ideas. Lampano wrote his Manila cohorts regularly to bounce ideas and outline future musical plans.

By 1996, the stage was already set for a comeback. Upon his return, he hit the ground running with a series of meetings with Vergara and Tan, who brought along the up-and-coming drummer Jojo Lim. Rehearsals and gigs followed soon after through the help of old friends and associates in the scene.

The still nameless group first saw action in mid-1996 at Jim Turner's musical landmark - The Hobbit House - in Ermita, alongside fellow believers, The Blue Rats, amid skeptical initial reception. Colvin joined the band shortly and became a permanent fixture when he retired from his cushy job to fulfill a lifelong ambition to play music fulltime. He was instrumental in naming the band Lampano Alley – a tribute to the alleys of Pasay City, where Lampano grew up and that Colvin first encountered while working for the Asian Development Bank.

With nothing but blues standards and an adherence to musical dynamics – hitherto unexplored in a local music scene dedicated to stentorian musical dramas – Lampano Alley soon caught fire. It wasn’t so much the musical material that mattered than how it was played with just as much fire and passion at quite moderate levels. The band’s restrained interplay was and still remains the stuff of legend. On one turn, the listener can almost hear a pin drop; on the next, an incendiary burst of sound to punctuate a blues statement that leads to another dramatic silence.

The crack rhythm section of Tan, Vergara, and Lim with Colvin on harp allowed Lampano to push the musical envelope and explore the personas that always informed the Blues – the preacher-charlatan, the social commentator, the snake-oil salesman, the stand-up comic, the man down-on-his-luck, the hard-nosed philosopher, and the streetfighting man.

The ironies were always cleverly disguised as Lampano and Colvin traded one-liners and commentaries about everything under the hot Philippine sun against the even hotter poker-faced rhythm section. The Blues in the Philippines was never the same again!

Several performances at the Concert at the Park, Martin Late at Night, radio and television guest spots, and the release of its album Songs from the Alley later, Lampano Alley achieved a status yet attained by a "blues band" in the Philippines.

Despite Lampano’s departure in late 2000 for an extended stay in the U.S., Lampano Alley still reconvenes regularly for special reunions and music festivals. They reunited for the 2003 Fete de la Musique Festival in Manila, and Singapore’s Mosaic Music Festival in 2005 and 2008, where old and new audience alike witnessed and experienced the undiminished strength of their music.

-wiki, last.fm