news

Last October 30, 2010 was Eternal Death Wake, an annual Halloween event organized by Subkulture Productions.

Stressful night for me because I had to deal with circumstances I can't do anything about. That usually translates to having a bad mood. And there were a lot of pissed and pissed off people that night.

Saving grace was seeing members of Psydoll dancing during my set. Bless them. Unfortunately we weren't introduced but we got Internet to remedy that.

It was also one of those moments that I wish I were not performing and just part of the audience. Dressing up during Halloween was not a luxury I experienced when I was a kid. Also being carefree and just goofing around is something I miss doing.

More than a year after Mick Mercer wrote me directly through email and the NAFT MySpace account, I finally got my copy of his goth catalog book Music To Die For. I was lucky enough to find a school mate living in the UK where I had my book delivered to and he had a friend who went home to the Philippines and brought the book with him. (Thank you very much Arnel & Me-Ann Mabbayad for the assistance!)

There had been some discussion about the list after I shared the info with another featured band (and they later posted it) in Multiply. It went in the direction of who should be there instead of appreciating that at least the Philippines was finally put in the goth map. The mission now is to provide a regular supply of info to Mr. Mercer for future volumes of this awesome catalog.

My MP3s, particularly songs from the EP/album Swans, had been getting a lot of downloads lately. I should be thankful that people are grabbing them. Unfortunately, they just link directly to the songs bypassing the website. That, of course, I found rude.

I refer to the Chinese site BAIDU.COM and its users. So, if you're from that site, and you could read and write at least an elementary form of English, I believe some "Thanks" is necessary.

Names Are For Tombstones, along with 7 other groups/individuals from the Philippines, has been included in the book Music To Die For by Mick Mercer. It catalogs bands from the early years of Goth to present day experimentalists of the noir kind.

Here's Mick's form letter to bands that are part of the book:

Hello,

My new book is out, and obviously you’re in it. Below you will find the info I am sending everyone, as I am naturally asking people help spread the word by adding the Music To Die For myspace page 

http://www.myspace.com/musictodieforbymickmercer

and putting it in your Top Friends, mentioning it in your blog, or mailouts? If you can help I thank you, in advance.

It can be ordered from: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/books/book_musictodiefor.php

Cheers!
Mick

Here we go:

My fifth book concerning Goth has now arrived.

Restart 9 is now available for download in the media section of the website. If you want to go directly there, please click here. It is the collaboration of Names Are For Tombstones and 16 of his electronic music contemporaries meant to establish creative relationships and a medium to learn from each other in terms of music production.

Nono (Names Are For Tombstones) considers it groundbreaking because (to his knowledge) it is the first time a collaboration of this sort was tried independently in Manila and on a single song for that matter. A number of the participants have this as their first remix assignment and claim to have enjoyed the experience. For NAFT, it was a challenging but rewarding experience. And it would be something he would be proud of and appreciative about for years to come. He hopes that it would be inspirational also for other creative groups to try.

Meet The Artists

Here is information on some of the participants in the project, supplied by the artists themselves: