Guitar gang

Last night I met with two Davaoeño guitar players to plan the formation of a group for guitarists in Davao City. Dante Arevalo is the guitarist of Punch 9, the band that represented Davao City in last year’s Global Battle of the Bands (Philippine finals) while George Tujan is the guitarist of 9Volt Lemonade. The two of them have known each other for some time and recently talked of forming such a group, and they invited me to sit with them to plan it out. George and I know each other only virtually, having exchanged emails through our common interest in Palm handhelds and, we later discovered, guitars. We met face-to-face only last night, although he had seen me play with my band 220.

(The three of us have something in common: while we love guitars, we have day jobs that keep body and soul together. Dante works with Anflocor, George with NCCC, and me with the Mindanao Daily Mirror. I guess that just goes to show that, at least in Davao City, one can’t make a living being a full-time musician.)

We met at BluGré Coffee, and over a few cups o’ joe we made some tentative steps for the creation of the group. If I remember correctly, our personal goals are for guitarists in Davao City to:

• get to know each other
• learn from each other
• appreciate other genres of music
• exchange information and knowledge on gear
• have a venue to buy and sell gear
• popularize the use of guitar
• popularize guitar music to the Davao City crowd

One of the concerns is setting the criteria for membership. It was suggested that there be a minimum level of skill, but that is difficult to qualify and quantify. I suggested that members should at least know how to read chords, but I struck it down myself when I remembered that journalist and media critic Vergel Santos, the father “Mr. Acoustic” Paolo Santos, told me last year that he doesn’t know how to read chords but plays a mean guitar just the same, all by ear.

So we’re still trying to figure this one out; meanwhile, we’ve set the first meeting on May 15 at the Elevation Bar along Jacinto Extension Street here in Davao City (in front of the Central Bank Convention Hall). George, Dante, and I visited it after our meeting and found that that second floor would accommodate the 10 initial members we’re planning to have (including ourselves). There are amps and a drum set for the jamming session, so we should be good to go.

This should be exciting and challenging. I’m not an accomplished guitar player by any stretch of the imagination, so meeting with other guitarists will make me want to play better. For all of us, it should be a productive group.