Introducing…Upcoming
Industrial Techno Trio, FIRST DEGREE
by acid42@yahoo.com

printed in Fly #004: Sep/October 98

Daytime, fly office, DJ and fly contributor/consultant Toti Dalmacion hands me a tape. You’ll enjoy this, he says. Place tape in walkman. PLAY.

Sudden din. “Cold or hot, I don’t know where to stand/ To make you understand I am… unstable./
Ice and fire, I don’t know where to be/ I’m in the First Degree, I am… unstable.”

Whoa there. KMFDM-meets-Prodigy. Wicked keyboard programming and rock guitars. Vocalist sounds hoarse from all his screaming. Look at demo tape’s case again. Stare at homemade inlay card. The band’s name is clear: First Degree. So is their manager’s name and number. Set a meeting. In true rock & roll style we talk over iced café latte and breakfast in Greenbelt, Makati on a Staurday morning. Band gives me the full bio and background. RECORD.

Members: Tristan Suguitan, keyboards and programming, Shadrach Barinaga, guitars, Alvin Baes, vocals (he’s absent, having had to go to the US for family reasons). Fourth member of the team is their manager Jimmy Barinaga, also Shadrach’s brother.

Sound: well-polished fusion of death-metal vocals with industrial techno and funk. It’s got the angst for headbanging but the beats for the booty-shaking.

Influences are typical for a 90s band: Prodigy, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Incubus, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, 80s new wave.

Album: not yet.

Record deal: not yet.

Live performances: only to captive audiences (i.e. irate family members and lovers). Airplay: yes, thanks to the support of Francis of NU 107’s In The Raw. Then one of their tracks entitled “Freedom” was used by an indie filmmaker for a video called “Industria KKK”---one of 2 Filipino works used to open a contemporary museum in Tokyo.

PAUSE. Tristan is the driving force of the trio, being the music programmer and recording engineer behind First Degree’s meticulously pieced-together sonic canvasses. Shadrach and Alvin lay in tracks straight onto hard disk on top of Tristan’s electronic sequences and samples. How’d he get the smarts? His dayjob is laying in sound tracks for AVPs and making commercial jingles. First degree is his expressive outlet. Shadrach, on the other hand, is still a student. But his age is of no consequence when he wields his axe.

I ask about their name. They wanted the word “first” in there somewhere. “Wala pa kaming naririnig na local group na may music na tulad sa amin. Well, Eraserheads (referring to the Planet G side project---ed.) gumagawa pero it’s all samples lang talaga. Then there’s supposed to be another techno group in Bacolod (Food-Shelter-Clothing---ed.) but it’s more new wave daw. Kami, aside from samples we have live guitars and angst, hindi lang basta dance. Originally our name was First Degree Casualty, but we cut it for marketing purposes, and so that hindi hardcore ang dating. Tapos, since 2/3 ng grupo panganay…”

They have 9 original songs with titles like “Unstable”, “Broke” and Grind”. But they can also play covers like the Chemical Brothers “Block-Rockin’ Beats”, Prodigy’s “Breathe”, “Firestarter”, “Diesel” and NIN’s “Head Like A Hole”. Only problem? Amount of gear they have to hustle.

Their live set-up consists of a PC which holds all their samples, a sound module rack (which includes a Korg 05R and Alesis DM5), Roland JP-800 keyboard, electric guitar, amplifiers. And just in case their computer crashes? There’s a back-up in MiniDisc format. All Tristan has to do is press PLAY. They’ve even timed how long it takes them to set up all their stage equipment so that they can get it down to a science. Record: 10 minutes.

But they have yet to perform in front of a real audience. Every time a gig has come up in the past, something happened to delay their debut. First off, they were invited to play in Puerto Galera but their vovcalist Alvin had to go to the US. (Nowadays, they’re looking around for a temporary session vocalist, though Tristan and Shadrach can very well cut it as a duo if need be.) Then just recently, they had a gig scheduled when Tristan accidentally crashed into a glass sliding door and had his hands all bandaged up for a month or so. He intends to create a song entitled “Sliding Door” in honor of the event. Meanwhile, the band is rehearsing and recording even more songs as they prepare for upcoming gigs.

Q: What is the future of First Degree? Recording the real album, live gigs?

A: The record companies here, takot pa. Bagong tunog kami dito. Kung walang tumanggap, independent release. We just want to share the music. Trip lang namin. We’re not in it for the money, we’re in it for expressing ourselves. Actually doon na papunta (indie release) ang lahat. I mean, you can now burn your own CDs, do your own hard disk recording, like we do.

Q: Why the industrial route? Why not just pure dance?

A: Not all people appreciate pure techno. Nag-iba na pala ang DJ na tumutugtog, ganoon pa rin ang tunog. Ayaw namin ng traditional techno na 32-bar loops na paulit-ulit, wala masyadong nangyayari. Sa music namin, parating may nangyayari. We want things more dynamic.

Q: Do you think people will go for industrial here?

A: Yeah. Filipinos are open-mindied. You just have to tap into the audience. Like when the Eraserheads came out, the scene was mainly about hardcore punk, and people were saying sisirain daw nila (E-heads) ang scene. Tapos ngayon nasaan na sila. It’s just a matter of getting the people used to your sound.
Watch out for these guys. Because if ever local recording companies finally gamble on something aside from jukebox ballads, there’s a great chance First Degree will hit record shops. Meanwhile, we wait with bated breath.

STOP. EJECT.

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