Goodbye 2008

Whew, time sure flies by so fast. As the year 2008 comes to a close, allow me to recollect some of the most tumultuous as well as the memorable significant events of the year. It was during this year that our band made some drastic changes in our lineup. Ironically, we opened the year with an anniversary concert celebrating our 2 year existence as a band. Little did we know, what comes after would be our biggest challenge as a group. I momentarily decided to break up the band due to the fact that there were some shuffling going on with the lineup because of geographical issues. Like most college bands, some band members would be returning to their respective hometowns for an indefinite period of time (for us, it was Tim Marquez and Alvin Carreon). I experimented on hiring session musicians to help fill the gaps. Anthony Rosquesta, Joshua Manguiran, and Raphy Sescon would briefly play with us for a couple of months as we tried to figure which definitive lineup that we should take. I briefly let go of Adonis Berongoy to allow him to explore his other options as he was offered to play drums for a fellow Christian Rock band called Paid. While there was a lull of our live gigs for a period of two months or so, our presence was continually felt thanks to Kevin Sardines for commissioning us to write a product jingle for them which was massively played over at Love Radio CDO during our brief hiatus. As well as a radio guesting at 89.3 Killerbee for the indie top 20 countdown where our song Brand New Day made it into the charts. We also had a chance to catch the nation's attention when Pinoy Magazine featured us as well as two of our songs in their songhits portion.

On April, armed with the new session musicians that we were able to hire, we had a fitting resurrection as we played in a Praise Music Fest (see attached video) back to back with an event by Gang Badoy of Rock Ed fame. John Fernandez, our former vocalist/guitarist, jammed with us on this event. What follows would be a series of gigs wherein we experienced our busiest year thus far. On May, we were honored to be invited to join the O2 Jam battle of the bands competition courtesy of Globe. June was our busiest month of the year as we made way to guest in RPN 9's Ang Bagong Kampeon monthly finals. We were also lined up to play at Punchbowl Sonata's thursday night band events at FU. Southrace, CDO's premier bisrock band, would also invite us to guest during their album launching. And we capped off the month by playing at Skypark Restobar, the newest resto bar in the city.

On July, the band would grace the Launching of an online fanzine that I created (which can be viewed at www.rubatothezine.multiply.com) which highlights on news about the CDO music scene. We were also invited to front act for Christian Bautista's major concert here in CDO. The month of August was also a busy month for us as it is the City Fiesta month. We were lined up to play at Punchbowl Sonata's anniversary which was highlighted by a guest band from cebu, Smooth Friction. We would also have a fiesta mall tour as we visited Gaisano Mall, headlining a mall show back to back with Nobelista Pasta. And on fiesta day itself, we had a very rare back to back gigs as we celebrated the city fiesta guesting for Love Radio's event which was highlighted by an all girl Manila based R&B dance group called Mocha. Which was directly followed by a CDO Rock Festival event where Ram Chavez (of Pinoy Idol Fame) and his band guested. 

But this year wasn't just all about Thoughts And Notions. On September, Thrina and I took time to revisit our Praise and Worship music roots as Thrina rejoined our church's singles group music ministry team. We also joined our fellow CDO indie bands at Ghana the site to celebrate the new gigging venue. This month also featured our second straight Regional Finals appearance for Nescafe Soundskool as the band made it's way to Davao. 

October would be our most special month as we shared the stage with the comebacking former Rivermaya frontman Rico Blanco's first solo concert here in CDO, which gained us a considerable amount of milege as the event was featured on two locally produced ABS-CBN shows . I have always been a fan of Blanco's works. And I acknowledge him as the person that influenced me most to write songs. Wild Fm also invited us to guest in their band events. This was also the month that we regrouped and unveiled the final line up for the band (which I hope would really be the final line up, no more revisions) as we took in Thrina's best friend Doris Bangot as our new bassist and got back our drummer Adonis Berongoy . November on the other hand netted us only one single gig, On/Off production's Friday night Madness. Most of the time, we spent the month holed up in our recording room to record new materials for the new album. And finally, the last month of the year, we got invited to play at a private corporate party for an exclusive acoustic set. And to cap off the year, we played at our guitarist's Church for an anniversary event. It was indeed a fruitful year for us and a lot of growing pains. We are hoping that 2009 would be even a better year for us. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!