the dancing robot vs barrel man 2000

from INC.KWAIRER today: Back from Pluto By: EriK ES K@runch0 WHATEVER happened to Yano? In 1993, in the wake of the Eraserheads' commercial breakthrough, the folk/punk band crawled out of the erstwhile "underground" music scene to spew their bile on an unsuspecting public. Seething with class hatred and bristling with barbed humor, such unlikely hits as "Trapo," "Tsinelas," "Kumusta na?" and the classic "Banal na Aso" with its madcap "hee hee hee hee" intro took dead aim at a variety of targets, from religious hypocrites to clueless colegiala types to the liberal middle-class establishment. The songwriting duo of vocalist Dong Abay and guitarist Eric Gancio coupled the authentic stink of the underclass with a sardonic lyrical bite and a knack for instantly memorable tunes. Together with bassist Onie Badiang and various occupants of a revolving drum stool, the band zoomed to the top of the charts. Yano's self-titled 1994 debut album went quadruple platinum. The band embarked on a grueling tour schedule that had them crisscrossing the archipelago. As a measure of the group's mainstream acceptance, February 1996 found them performing their anti-Edsa anthem "Kumusta Na?" at the 10th anniversary of the Edsa revolt. (The irony was, apparently, lost on the organizing committee.) To mark the occasion, Yano appeared on the cover of this magazine, riding a rag picker's pushcart on Edsa in front of the People Power monument. And then -- nothing. The band released two more unmemorable albums -- both of which sold sh_t -- but for all intents and purposes, it was as if they had fallen off the radar screen: one moment there, the next gone. Most people assumed that the band had simply used up their 15 minutes of fame. It happened to everyone, eventually. For a few months, Yano tried to soldier on, but lead vocalist Dong Abay was conspicuously absent. Eventually, guitarist Gancio split for his native Davao, while bassist Badiang joined Ang Grupong Pendong. Within the music community, a few dark rumors started surfacing, most of them centering on Dong Abay. Some said the singer was in rehab, a common enough occurence in the music biz. But others hinted that he had flipped out, suffered a nervous collapse so complete that it effectively scuttled the band's career. Some years later, the Philippine Collegian lent some credence to the latter theory. In an article on "The Most Influential UP Students of the '90s," it said that many believe the singer to have gone insane. The truth is not quite so dramatic, but no less crippling. "What do I tell people when they ask me where I've been for the last five years?" muses a robust-looking Dong Abay in a UP café. "I tell them I went to Pluto. That I just got back, that I still have jet lag." More seriously, he says: "I lived inside my head for the last five years." In fact, Abay has only recently emerged from a deep, dark depression that lasted nearly five years, most of which he spent alone in bed, locked in his darkened bedroom. "You can describe it any term -- manic, clinical, even bipolar pa - I can't explain exactly what it was," says Abay. The entire episode seems like a distant, barely-remembered time. He simply stopped caring about anything, and retreated from the world into his own mind. Warning signs began showing while Abay was still active in the band. Stressed out by the band's touring schedule, feeling the pressure for a follow-up to the first album, singing his songs in front of a live audience stopped being fun, and began to feel more like a merciless grind. "I felt like a machine. I stood there before the audience, then I'd open my mouth. It wasn't fun at all," he says. It came to a point when the rest of the band would pick him up at his place, they would do the gig, and he would go back home or to his hotel room - all without saying a word. Like a zombie. After a while, he stopped going to the gigs altogether. The rest of the band tried to pick up the slack. For a time, Gancio or Badiang did the vocals. Yano's third album was recorded pretty much without Abay's participation. By this time, he was past caring. "I stopped talking," recalls Abay. "I'd only say yes and no. I had back pains, head aches, muscle spasm. But I wasn't into drugs. For the record, it was not drug-related." Alarmed, Abay's parents took him to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed clinical depression, and put him on a regimen of anti-depressants. But none of them, not even Prozac, seemed to work. After weeks in fruitless therapy, the psychiatrist told Abay's parents that he thought they should consider electroshock therapy. They understandably balked at the thought of having an electric current pass through their son's brain, and Abay simply stopped going to his doctor. "I don't know what happened," he says, "I just didn't want to go out anymore." Finding the sight of the outside world distressing, Abay shut his windows. He even covered up the cracks with newspapers and blankets, so that the room was in total darkness. "It was like being in a dungeon," he recalls. "I didn't see the sun in five years." In the early weeks and months of his self-imposed exile from the world, Abay says he underwent a kind of spiritual crisis, in which he wrestled with a "faceless god," death, the devil. Many people at one time or another in their life ask themselves the Big Questions: who am I, what am I, what's the point of all this? But most of them manage to function in everyday reality while doing so. For someone in the clutches of deep depression, however, such soul searching can be torture. "I have suicidal tendencies," Abay admits. "I am not violent to others, but I am violent to myself. I tried to kill myself several times, but I always failed. So maybe I'm still sane, because suicide is irratioal." Abay started to sleep through most of the day, sleeping 19, 20 hours each day. "My life started to revolve around sleeping and dreaming," he says. Strangely enough, he notes, in his dreams he was normal. "I'm always alive in my dreams. I go out, I swim, I fly. But when I wake up, I become dead." Months passed, and then years. In his darkened room, Abay had lost track of time: he had no idea what time it was, what day, or even what year. Throughout his experience, Abay held on to one lifeline: writing. Although he had to be forced to eat, and left his room only to use the toilet, he kept scribbling. The dark thoughts in his head spilled onto the page. These early writings he now considers "too dark, too grim" for public consumption. After months and years, however, his writings began to take shape as stories and poems. A Philippine Studies major at the University of the Philippines, Abay even began to consider becoming a novelist and writing a historical novel, if only to leave some kind of legacy when he made his final exit. Music had long ceased to matter. But at some point, Abay found himself turning on the radio, just to hear something. Eventually, he started listening to music again, at first classical music, and then digging out old tapes of rock 'n' roll. He knew he was still in the grip of depression, but perhaps some kind of healing process had begun. One day, recalls Abay, while he was writing, a young nephew asked him what he was doing. "Are you a singer? I said no. I am a writer. Then it flashed before me: I am a songwriter." He began to realize that the poems and stories he had been writing were actually songs-in-progress, waiting to be set to music. And he found that he wanted to make music again. Much to Badiang's surprise, he received a phone call from the long-lost Abay last May, asking if he could borrow a guitar. In the following weeks, the pair began to put Abay's words to music. The songs started to flow, a trickle at first, and then a steady stream of words and music. In a matter of months, he had written enough songs for three albums. Abay calls this work-in-progress "Parnaso ng Payaso," and envisions it to be a trilogy. "I have realized I am happiest when I am writing," says Abay. "I enjoy writing songs. I regained my confidence. I want to prove something to myself and to the people. That gave me a sense of security." Just a few months ago, a recovered Dong Abay ventured out into the sunlight after nearly five years in the darkness. (On the bright side, he has absolutely no recollection of the Estrada presidency.) Among the first things he did was to re-establish contact with old friends such as Marcus Adoro of the Eraserheads and singer Jess Santiago. Soon he felt well enough to move out of his parents' home. Not long after he and Onie Badiang were in a studio, recording demos of his songs. For the past few weeks, the pair have been recording a few of the tracks in what will eventually be the first installment of "Parnaso ng Payaso." "People who know Yano will be surprised," he says. "I'm over my angst, my 'f***k you' attitude. I don't wait for the world to reach out to me, I am reaching out to the world myself." A cursory listen to a cassette of Abay's demos offers reassurance that he is, indeed, back among the living. On the whole, the tone of the music is mellower. There is even a love song or two, although traces of the old sardonic wit are still there. Among the first questions that Abay is invariably asked is whether a Yano reunion is in the offing. He says that Yano, like his lost years, belongs in the past. He is looking toward the future.