And Then There Were Four: This Gabe is Not an Archangel

From previous entry, "Cy Plays No Mystery but Will Always Be A Mystery"

"He was with a band, a band formed and disbanded ad nauseaum with members playing revolving chairs. But he was always playing with one guy I only knew by reputation, a close brother of his. They played since the Gameroom and Cactus days, from new wave to Metheny to Azymuth, an English speaking guitarist who was a game apart the rest." (read full entry HERE)

(Continuation)

Magik 103, the first FM Radio Station in Western Visayas, had a phone in contest. One of my best buds Glenn joined and won a dinner for two to a restaurant which served steaks as bestseller. “Tulughungan” (a local word loosely translated as a refilling station for fuel, and all concoctions and spirits) stood where Sky Cable compound is now, and where our common friend worked while studying.  We dropped by and as we were getting ready our friend said:

“You see that guy there, that’s Gabe Ascalon. THE Gabe Ascalon. He’s a regular here.”

Glenn and I were wide eyed for the unexpected bonus. But I was too shy , wasn’t familiar with the scene – and do not even know what a scene was at that time – except for a common friend Cyril. While I was mulling of a good approach, our friend was up to his job.
“Hey Gabe, here are my friends who are fans of yours, and they want to meet you.”

“Hi Gabe blah blah blah. We’re friends of Cy and we attend the same fellowship, I’m the son of Nani – you jammed with him at Gaisano Food Plaza.”

“Man, red Japanese strat  - mixed strings, right? I was so drunk at that time woooo. You play guitar? Come over to my place, I’ll teach you 8 finger tapping.”

Yes yadda yadda, Side-A credo, and the blah goes on. But Geyb was above that.

True - he coined the name Side A, at its earliest incarnation with the brothers Gonzales and Mar Dizon on drums. True, he was with Destiny. True, he was Eddie K.’s guitar player, and the rest of the Katindig bands.  True - he was written in Pinoy rock documentary as a wildfire from NY, armed with rock jazz fusion in the Mclaughlin fashion as written once by Juaniyo Arcellana in an Inquirer feature I have long forgotten. True – he joined a battle of the bands at UNO-R doing blistering covers of  TFFs “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and  Yngwie’s “Rising Force”.  True – he played with an 18 year old Louie Ocampo ‘s original (on Youtube) at Meralco Theater. True – they turned nation’s ears around by a jazz rock fusion rendition of The Beatle’s “A Taste of Honey”, that which he performed with Richie Quirino on national TV. True, he almost attended the Norman Rockwell Illustration school when he was younger, but the call of the guitar was stronger - and louder.

 

Life found us together – troubleshooting management issues in his sugarcane farm, I was one of two principal sponsors when he got married, I’d eventually marry his niece, so he'd end up as my godson, but is also technically my uncle - so I simply call him Gabe. Gabe, for the record, is the first Ascalon I'd love before my wife.

We’d play together and share the stage in the most courteous of musical conversations, play festivals, play a wedding, play weekly gigs, talk about conspiracies and the never ending abhorrence for bureaucracy. He taught me how to eat pita bread with liver pate and why German ale isn’t supposed to be cold, tone testing pickups and capacitors and bridges and all the bolts and nuts stuff – but no 8 finger tapping lesson happened. 

None. Ever.

(to be continued)

And Then There Were Four: Cy plays No Mystery but Will Always Remain a Mystery (1 of 4)

Nope, these are not the four strong winds, the four corners of the earth, names of archangels, or far from it - the horsemen of apocalypse. 

At a time when there were no formalities, but strict unspoken rites of passage to the world of music – these men served as my beacons, whether they were aware, admitted or not. “Mentoring” wasn’t a corporate buzzword then, but these folks lived and breathed it way beyond any ISO approved trainer. I will always be indebted to these four souls who are bright contrasts of immense talent while remaining real everyday folks – a rare pairing in today’s talent-obsessed-entertainment-happy world. 

Restless genius – artist, sculptor, thinker, spiritual sojourner, chemist, quantum physicist, writer, mystic - the real renaissance one. And though I have always been closely learning as much from him, all is consciously subdued under our friendship. Weekends and loose mornings on college was with him three blocks away from our home, talking about everything from quarks to Herbert to Corea to fiction to the Bible to free radicals. 

It began in a full gospel church setting where we we both served as musicians.  I knew he was from a seminary. We got acquainted, and he showed me his painting on a wall from their old place, a big beautiful pastiche of patterns done in three days. My brain disintegrated.

Cyril preceded IT standards of multi-tasking by decades. Far from a jack of all trades, he delivered everything in excellence. Resolved equations, done novels, timed sketches, songs – and don’t get me started on his powers on the keyboards and piano. 

His out of tune Winkelman upright sounded correct, every extended harmony - the 11ths, the #9s and 6ths jumping clear as he played originals like City in The Sky, Ashes, and more. It was too much for my feeble comprehension.

“Cy, can you do a traditional gospel progression?”, I asked, trying to detox from the barrage of Holdsworth worthy harmonies one morning. 

“Like this Bet?”. He switched the Korg N364to a B3 patch. 

I was not in his house anymore. I saw pews, revival preaching and my soul shouted Amen. 

Nowadays, we don’t see each other that much as life has twisted and turned us , I am glad though that he is actively mentoring a team, and a worthy prodigy Goy Pabuhat. I hope that the wheels would turn and afford us a time long lost.

He was with a band, a band formed and disbanded ad nauseaum with members playing revolving chairs. But he was always playing with one guy I only knew by reputation, a close brother of his. They played since the Gameroom and Cactus days, from new wave to Metheny to Azymuth, an English speaking guitarist who was a game apart the rest.

(to be continued)


click HERE for Cyril's Youtube Channel