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Friday, September 19, 2003
Randy Pages: playing by heat
By Yin Caseńas
There are people in the music business who sell their music by dressing it up a bit.
They wrap their music around their looks and then they throw in a couple of writhing sexy bodies as accessories and spend a lot of money on awesome music videos.
These people are sort of telling you, ‘love me so you will listen to my music’ even if it’s in Taiwanese and you don’t understand a word they’re saying.
And then there are artists like Randy Pages who tell you, ‘Forget I’m here and just listen to my music.’ No entertainment stunts, no skin parade, no fancy moves, just the song. Imagine how that would fare here in the Philippines where everybody from the mass consumer to the jeepney driver believes that more is better.
But that’s Randy, whose favorite song is something nobody has ever heard of. Okay, okay, it’s Lateralus by Tool, now do you get the drift? So it’s a good thing he’s not bad-looking: long jet black curly hair, intelligent brown eyes, a quick sense of humor, t-shirt and jeans, a mean guitar, and more cool than is healthy for a clutch of hyperventilating girl fans who’d gladly forget the music and love him for himself.
I’m sure you’ve seen him around. When he’s not fooling around and keeping things lively with witty comebacks, he’s at Vudu on Thursdays or Kaona Grill on Wednesdays, where you’ll catch him playing the guitar with his band Anino.
He sits on a high stool, with his head bent low, and has a running conversation, up close and personal, with his guitar. You can tell that he’s enjoying himself, which of course is enough to get everybody over three years old to start sniffing around and try to get in on the fun. Someone occasionally calls him from the crowd and he looks up, smiles distractedly, and then, as if he can’t help himself, goes back to his music.
So it sort of works like this: here’s Mr. Nice Guy, he’s funny and he’s smart, but he has a tendency to go off in a bluesy cloud by himself and the crowd can’t help but follow him to this wonderful thing that has him completely mesmerized.
Randy taught himself to play the guitar at age 14. He began auspiciously, in a very supportive environment, as lead guitarist for the music ministry of Bukas Loob sa Dios (BLD), a Catholic renewal movement. This is where Randy learned what he calls playing by heart, as opposed, I suppose, to de nota or, and I guess there must be a delicate difference, by ear. Soon after, Randy was playing for other bands like Eve’s Garden, Johnny and the Walkers, and the Blues Band.
It is not surprising that, along the way, he has written several songs of his own. Two of his favorites are called Sleepwalker and The Shire.
But there’s more to Randy than being musicman. He’s also a visionary who’s in the thick of two major projects. Now 24, he is setting up a Cebu television channel with partners Johann Young, Mike Solon, Kerwin Go and Bunny Pages. They are going to showcase all the talent that Cebu has to offer on television. And they’re calling it the “R Channel.” So watch out for it because you might find yourself on it.
In addition, Randy, fresh from the Musicians Institute in Hollywood early this year, is putting up a music school in the uptown area called Cebu School for Modern Music.
Unlike traditional music schools where students are steeped in the technology and technique of stringing sounds together, his school will focus more on training the ear and gut toward the heart of your music.
“Your hands will do the rest,” Randy says, with the innocence, I suspect, of the naturally gifted.
(September 19, 2003 issue)
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