FAUST! AND FURIOUS
Art-Rock Band Faust! Rips Up Their Cedula And Reveal Their Secret Identity
By Lionel Zivan S.Valdellon

printed in FLY#002: June/July 1998


FAUST!’s first album, Toons From An Alien Broadcast, (released a few years back) was a combination of the Manila Sound, industrial rock, massive guitar atmospherics and youthful exuberance. Imagine Cibo Matto teaming up with Sonic Youth. They were originally with Vicor Records, a label known for pleasing the masa (they’re the record label of the April Boys, for goodness’ sake), but now they’ve torn their Vicor cedulas and decided to program a destiny independent of outside forces. Perfect for the Centennial, eh?

But there’s more. FAUST! is Mickey, Beany, Aegee and Magoo Syjuco, children of acclaimed artists Cesare and Jean Marie Syjuco. And dig this: their average their age is 16 years old! I got quite a shock when they told me this. Made me feel like an elder of the universe. Anyway... yes, they’re siblings, and no, they’re not anything like that foreign candypop group that sang “Mmmbop.” These guys kick major gluteus maximus, particularly because (A) they make music unlike anything you hear on radio and (B) they’re not just musicians. They design their own web pages, produce visual art on the side (they held a week-long art exhibit at Penguin Cafe last year) and design their stage costumes.

Their second album is out now. But you won’t find it on shelves. In an inspired gesture, FAUST! have decided to offer the album free on the Internet first before putting out the hard copies. The album’s title is My Secret Identity(or simply MSI) and this time the Syjucos have pulled out all the stops. Without the usual artistic “choking” of a recording company (they used to hear: “That won’t sell!” or “That sounds too old for you!”) they’ve let their creativity run as wildly as they desire. Aptly enough, I interviewed them over the ‘Net for this article regarding their freedom, and their message is one of joy: “It’s great to be free!”

WHEN WILL THE HARD COPIES (CDS OR TAPES) OF MSI BE OUT? WILL THEY BE SOLD IN STORES?
FAUST!: Two volumes of three songs each have already been released on the ‘Net, April 4 and May 2, 1998. Two more volumes are scheduled for release on June 6 and July 4. All of the twelve tracks from MSI are downloadable free of charge. People w/ Internet access can even write to us at <faust@webquest.com> or <artlab@webquest.com> for free cassette copies of each volume that will be mailed to them at cost.

Considering the experimental nature of the album, and the fact that it's enjoyed a prior release on the ‘Net, we're considering a unique repackaging of MSI for sale in stores. In fact we've organized a side project for MSI that involves over 20 experimental visual artists from here and abroad. They’ve been invited to interpret tracks from the album in a series of "alternative music videos" (a.k.a. "Anti-MTV Emteevees"). We hope to incorporate at least some of these videos in an MSI CD-ROM for commercial release in August. Cheaper cassette versions are also a possibility, with the inclusion of two or three bonus tracks that weren't released on-line.

But we'll have to see later, when the videos come in and we've had a chance to assess public reaction to the album. It's not really playing on the radio or in record bars, so it's hard to tell. Also, we have a third album in the works that we'll probably have released by then. Whatever happens, and whatever form it takes, MSI will definitely be in stores by August.

WHY DIDN'T YOU OPT TO USE THE CONVENTIONAL ROUTE TO PROMOTE YOUR ALBUM? IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO PROVE OR SAY BY GOING THIS ROUTE?
FAUST!: MSI is actually FAUST!'s gift to the world for the Philippine Centennial Year. We wanted to celebrate our 100 years of freedom by actually exercising that freedom to the utmost. The Internet is the perfect vehicle for this. There's no censorship, no commercial considerations, no broadcast media pull or payola required. It also makes MSI instantly accessible worldwide without the complexities of commercial distribution and licensing. It's almost like “pirate” radio but global, sustained for any indefinite period of time, and perfectly legal.

We've learned in our two years with the music industry that an album is never completely free from molestation and muzzling. By the time the label and its producers have tampered with it, there's very little left of the original concept. Then there's the radio stations, who want to get paid or romanced in some way or another and who'll only play one or two tracks from the album -- usually the ones you like least! There are the buyers who'll only buy what they constantly hear played. Hardly anything of any real importance ever gets out!

Our parents (themselves experimental art pioneers) were faced with a similar dilemma in the ‘80s because commercial galleries wouldn't show, and certainly wouldn't promote, their less saleable works. They found a way out via "alternative exhibition spaces"--- exhibiting their work in public parks, abandoned buildings, classrooms and anywhere else directly accessible to people. Critics say that Philippine art jumped 10-20 years forward because of them, and because they refused to submit to the system as it was then.

We're trying to do the same thing with the Internet. MSI is only the beginning, the groundwork on which we hope to build. Our foundation (The FAUST! for New Music Foundation chaired by poet-painter Spike Madriaga, and stirred by a board that includes our Mom) will be recording newer, younger and more innovative bands whose music we plan to promote on our Website. We also hope to buy commercial airtime in the very near future to get their music heard. MSI is like the trumpet blast before the cavalry charge.

HOW HAS THE RESPONSE BEEN TO MSI?
FAUST!: Honestly? The response has been so overwhelming! The FAUST! Website chalked up over 11,000 visitors in the first four weeks alone. We've had a great deal of e-mail response, some from as far away as Finland, the U.S., South America, and Australia. We've gotten e-mail in languages we don't even understand! These have been some of the most exciting -- and fulfilling -- weeks we've ever experienced as a
recording band.
We've also made some people VERY angry, apparently, but that's to be expected. Brainless hecklers aside, some of the more negative comments have been as gratifying as the positive ones. A lot of people seem to think that we've gone way over our heads with this one, but they're mostly people who haven't heard the album for themselves. As you might expect, some of the more enraged reactions have come from the conservative quarters -- people who think that MSI is more noise than music, or those who are pissed off because they can't hum our tunes in the shower.

Rather interestingly, we've gotten some flack from the hardcore rock community as well. Some of the club bands, especially the diehard '70s rockers and metal freaks, are pretty upset. The first three tracks from MSI Volume One were played the other week on a local rock station. Their phone and fax lines burned into the night w/ unprintable invectives. The comments, good and bad, didn't stop pouring until they had run out of fax paper. We caught the program in the end, and it was terribly exciting!

Mostly, though, the reaction has been surprisingly favorable. Critics and writers have been generous in their praise of MSI, and that includes some very orthodox people.

The other day, we got an e-mail from Danilo Olivares, president of the influential Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI), which regulates the release of records in this country and organizes the Annual Awit Awards. He was extremely enthusiastic about MSI, and wrote to say that "PARI salutes FAUST! for its landmark experimental album". He admonished us to keep up the fight for the good of everyone in the business, and ended by saying that "the local record industry needs more bold, innovative and creative artists like you to make it truly attuned to the present and intrinsically linked to the future. PARI is very proud of the band."

We were awe-struck, and it took us a little time to write back and thank him. A few days later, we got another e-mail from PARI, inviting Magoo (FAUST!'s drummer and the youngest in the band at 12) to be a judge for this year's Awit Awards. We haven't recovered from that one yet!

ANY LESSONS YOU'VE LEARNED FROM THE MSI EFFORT?
FAUST!: We've learned that it pays to be free, whatever the cost. We've been languishing with a major label for almost two years, and it very nearly drove us mad. We were signed up within a couple of months after we formed as a band, so this is our first real taste of independence. We hadn't realized how much we'd developed musically until we were set loose. We gave up all of the money still due us from the label, but God, it was worth it! We would have paid through the nose to get an early release from that three-year, three- album contract.

We're talking to other labels now, but we wanna think things over really well before we jump into anything like that again. The first thing we'd like written into any new contract we sign is the freedom to have independent projects on our own outside of the label's jurisdiction. Commercial work is fun when it's not the only thing you do. We've got an awful lot of ideas we'd like to try on our own. MSI was one of them. Who knows what we could've been doing now if we had been given the room to grow and flex our muscles?

ANY PLANS FOR UPCOMING LIVE GIGS?
FAUST!: We're leaving for a performance tour of art and music centers abroad, later this month. It will include parts of Australia, Southeast Asia, and Europe. We'll be back by mid-June in time for school. That doesn't leave very much time for live gigs here, but we've booked concert dates at the CCP and at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila for August. We can't tell you very much about those concerts, other than to say that they will be multimedia performances of a very different nature. We plan to be around for a very long time, but playing in the usual band venues has never been our thing.

ANY MESSAGE FOR THE YOUNG, HIP READERS OF FLY?
FAUST!: Freedom is a great and very sacred thing, and we too often take it for granted until we lose it. That's why we wanted to celebrate the Philippine Centennial from the point of view of the present, and not the past -- that is, by living that freedom to the max.

That said, and while we're still on the subject of freedom, we'd like to make a plug for Levis 501s. They're well-ventilated and painless. "Walang sabit."

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