Eroplano

Hello itchyfriends! Eto na po ang gig sked natin para sa buwan ng Nobyembre! Kitakitch!

4 - 70's bistro w/ Marcus Highway
6 - MYXMO!, SM Mall Of Asia
7 - MVP Finals, New Ynares Gym, Mandaluyong City
7 - Padi's Point Cavite
8 - SMB Oktoberfest @ Toril Gym, Davao City
13 - HP Consumer Awards, Glorietta Tent
14 - Oktoberfest @ San Miguel By The Bay, SM MOA
14 - (Tentative) NHA Event, Metro Bar
14 - (Tentative) Mapua
15 - 5pm Circle C mall, Congressional ave, QC
15 - school leadership congress, LSGH
15 - Nescafe Soundskool Finals @ ULTRA
16 - Singapore
22 - (Tentative) Pampanga
24 - Mayric's
29 - WRR101.9 Campus Tour, Lourdes School
29 - SMB Oktoberfest @ Robinsons Lipa, Batangas
30 - SM Fairview, QC

visit http://www.itchyworms.com/
for bookings and info contact
KERWIN ROSETE
One Big Family Management
+63917 8634123
rosetekerwin@gmail.com

The following is a blog I wrote in the hours before Vitto was born. Karen had just called me with the news that her Ob-Gyn was having her admitted to the hospital because our Vitto was on his way! I tried to write this as I was battling pre-delivery daddy jitters, so you'll understand if the entry is rather, uh, angular.

05 July 2008 2:55 PM, Cainta homestead

Today, about an hour after I got home from CamSur, Karen called me on the cell to say Dra. Lagman was having her admitted to World Citi hospital probably because she was going into labor. Good thing mommy was with her the whole time. I think Karen had been getting to the onset of labor because 2 nights prior, she was complaining about her tummy being unbearably uncomfortably tight, with the little man kicking up a storm inside.

The imminent birth of my firstborn son is making me unusually nervous, which is probably natural. I’M GOING TO BE A FATHER!!! So I’m journaling, before the nervousness gets the better of me. (Hopefully it won’t because I have to the drive to the hospital to contend with.) This is probably my fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in. What’s racking my nerves at the moment is the anticipation. Mommy will call me when it’s time, and it’s the waiting that’s driving me batty.

Anyway, I’ve finished frantically packing Karen’s stuff into an overnight bag. Thankfully all my own important stuff is already packed – still in my tote bag from yesterday’s trip.

It’s noteworthy that although the little man is not yet physically here, he already has possessions that fit into half a tote bag. His name, sadly, is one possession that has not been finalized as of this writing. Better get cracking on that one.

I’m at home at the moment, and thankfully, people are being understanding about everything.

The house is being renovated, and I’m worried about all the dust and dirt. Hopefully I’ll have time before mother and child get home to clean our room.

12 - MaxFM Tunog Kalye (330PM)
12 - Motorola Event, Cafe SaGuijo, Makati
13 - Coke Event, Fuente Osmena, Cebu City
17 - Boy & Kris, ABS-CBN Ch 2
17 - Dayo Bar, New Manila, QC
18 - Umagang Kay Ganda, ABS-CBN Ch2
18 - River Grill, Marikina Riverbanks
18 - Mandaluyong Gym, Mandaluyong City
19 - Route 196, Katipunan, QC
24 - Club Dredd, Eastwood City, QC
25 - 19 East Bar, Sucat
28 - 70's Bistro, Proj 2, QC
28 - Mayric's, Espana Blvd, Manila
31 - BigSkyMind, New Manila, QC

FOR BOOKINGS, PLEASE CONTACT KERWIN ROSETE AT 0917-8634123

Want PENGE as your ringback tone? Just text SB962 to 2332

This is my newborn bundle of pure joy, Vitto, at 1 day old. He was born at 840PM on July 5 at World Citi Medical Center, QC.

03 - DWRR Event, A-Venue, Makati Ave, Makati City
04 - CWC CamSur, Pili, Camarines Sur
05 - Comic Central Bar, Pulilan, Bulacan
10 - Overtone Launch, Cafe SaGuijo, Makati
11 - Tentative: Hard Rock cafe, Makati
12 - Mag:net High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
13 - Coke Event, Fuente Osmena, Cebu City
17 - SELF-TITLED ALBUM LAUNCH!, Venue TBA
19 - Route 196, Katipunan, Quezon City

FOR BOOKINGS, PLEASE CONTACT KERWIN ROSETE AT 0917-8634123

Finally, my band's third full-length studio album Self-Titled is in stores. There are 16 tracks chock-full of rock goodness for your listening pleasure :-)

JUNE
27 - Gateway Mall, Cubao, QC
28 - Cafe SaGuijo, Makati
29 - Yamaha Event, Clark, Pampanga
30 - Mayric's, Espana

JULY
03 - DWRR Event, Venue TBA
05 - Comic Central Bar, Pulilan, Bulacan
10 - Overtone Launch, Cafe SaGuijo, Makati
11 - Tentative: Hard Rock cafe, Makati
12 - Mag:net High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
13 - Coke Event, Fuente Osmena, Cebu City
19 - Route 196, Katipunan, QC

Motorola ROKR E2
Price: PhP 5,500.00 (negotiable)



O2 Xda IIs
Price: PhP 8,500.00 (negotiable)



Or get both phones DIRT-CHEAP for PhP12,000.00!

Call or text me at +63-927-505-2177 if interested!

Last weekend, I was able to fulfill one of my musician's wet dreams -- to watch the Police live. When tickets for the Singapore leg of their reunion world tour went on sale last December, my bandmates and I booked tickets right away. Good thing we got wind of the show early because I hear that tickets sold out in minutes.

Anyway, it said on the confirmation emails and on the tickets themselves that cameras were not allowed, so I refrained from bringing my trusty S3IS, which would have been perfect. All I had on me was my Motorola camphone, so my pictures and videos are, for the most part, sucky.

The Songs:
1 Message In A Bottle
2 Synchronicity II
3 Walking On The Moon
4 Voices Inside My Head
5 Don't Stand So Close To Me
6 Driven To Tears
7 Hole In My Life
8 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
9 Wrapped Around Your Finger
10 De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
11 Invisible Sun
12 Can't Stand Losing You (medley with Regatta de Blanc)
13 Roxanne

(Encore 1)
14 King Of Pain
15 So Lonely
16 Every Breath You Take

(Encore 2)
17 Next To You

[EDIT]
The overall mix was good with vocals and Andy Summers' guitars standing out, but Sting's bass guitar was a bit buried in the mix.

It's surprising that while Sting could still hit all the high notes on Roxanne, he chose not to sing the screaming pre-choruses on De Do Do Do to pitch.

Most notably, they played a rearranged version of Wrapped Around Your Finger. It featured Mr. Copeland prominently switching from his humongous percussion rig to his drum kit. Galing!

The whole show lasted about 2 hours, and we would have stood up the whole time, but our feet were killing us! :-(

The tickets!


Fiction Plane

These guys are FictionPlane, the 3-piece opening act led by Sting's son, Joe Sumner. Joe is a chip off the old block all the way from his Fender bass to his soaring lead vocals. Note Stewart Copeland's cloth-covered drum kit in the background.

The stage


Just so you know I'm not bluffing


Sting


Stewart Copeland


Andy Summers


Nice eh? I'd been truly disappointed about the camera thing, even after we'd gotten back to the hotel. But the next day, dumb luck gave me a photo that would make up for all the bad ones.



Karen and I were finishing buying pasalubongs in Chinatown when we bumped into none other than the legendary Mr. Stewart Copeland himself. I just had to take a picture with him. What were the chances?

My Dubai thread has kind of dried up, don't you think? Sorry 'bout that. Something new has been occupying my life as of late, so you'll understand.

Last Saturday Karen took a home pregancy test and, yes, it came out positive.

Today, we went to an ObGyn, and heard our child's heartbeat for the very first time. We saw the ultrasound pictures as well, and we found out that it's 11 weeks along, about 2 inches in length and boisterously twitching inside its mommy's womb. And, thankfully, all is normal for mommy and baby.

Yes, folks, Karen and I are going to be parents in 7 months. We will know the baby's gender at 20 weeks, so stay tuned!

I'm at an internet cafe on Kamias road near EDSA, killing time before rehearsal starts at 7PM at nearby Blue Light studios. I'm stoked because this is the first-ever internet cafe that I've seen where some of the machines are running Linux (freeSpire to be exact). At first I thought it was just one of those fancy Windows skins, but it isn't. Cool.

My Facebook peeps are still at it passing on invitations and applications and whatnot. Those requests sure can build up on you if you don't get online often. It can get tedious going through all those when you finally get the time to open up your account. Bleh.

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Sorry, folks, if I've been long in writing about the Dubai trip. I hope you guys enjoyed my pictures. Anyway, here goes.

We thought we would not get to Dubai on the day we set out to leave. Everything was set. Tickets on Thai Airways, check. Passports, check. Visitor visas, check. Pocket money, check. We got to NAIA about 3 hours before the flight was supposed to leave at 2PM and did the requisite baggage checks and check-in and terminal fee payments. But some jerk-off at the immigration desk had to hassle us all by asking for some POEA permit that we didn't need. Bastard.

I actually made it through immigration, but the other guys didn't, so I had no choice but to get back to where the others were. Sure enough, we missed our flight and our baggage was off-loaded.

Miffed, pissed, hassled and feeling other double-consonant words, we had to get on the phone with the organizers in Dubai so that we could get underway. They were able to get us a non-stop flight on Emirates but it was set for 1AM the next day.

So with time to kill, we headed to Makati to stuff ourselves senseless at Razon's. After that, we headed to Andy's apartment complex to shower and change clothes for a 10PM MyxMo gig that Kerwin thought we should play to show good will to the media folks. [You know how sensitive them media folks is.] And amid all that rain and mud on one of the open fields near Mall of Asia, we played 'Beer' to an umbrella-ed but rocking crowd.

Right after the one song, we packed up and headed back to the airport to check in to our Emirates flight. Luckily, Kerwin called up one of his friends at immigration to help us get through smoothly, so we were finally on our way.

Looking back, it was a good thing that we got on the non-stop Emirates flight (economy, of course) because the Boeing 777-300 was ultramodern, and the in-flight meals were delicious. I could have used more legroom, though, and could have done without the married couple avec bawling infant in my row.

It was all good because I got to watch Ocean's Thirteen and Spider-Man 3 during the flight on the state-of-the-art inflight entertainment system. [But that turned out to be a bad idea because I was jet-lagged for the next 72 hours.]

Our landing was delayed for 2 hours because of heavy morning mist in the city, so we eventually touched down at 7AM local time (11AM Manila). The DXB International Airport was, in a word, humongous.

Finally we were in Dubai.

photos as promised

Dubai is awesome. Those Discovery Channel specials didn't do justice to the way this city looks and feels. The city has a sprawl that is quite the opposite of Manila's oppressive urban development (or lack thereof). Think Bonifacio Global City but on a much larger scale.

About 48 hours into the ordeal that was our journey to Dubai, this is all I can muster because it feels like I've been awake for days.

Pictures and a longer blog entry soon.

I love you all.

---

Hunny, I miss you. xoxo

This looked to me like a place where the disabled could be healed, leave their wheelchairs behind, and climb the stairs they could never climb on their own.

I'm in pre-departure at the Bacolod City airport, waiting to board for Manila. After yesterday afternoon's frightful bombing, I'm glad Karen and I weren't at home. When the text messages started coming in around lunchtime yesterday, I assured my brother and parents that the wife and I were fine. Now that I've been living in Makati, the realization that terrible things like that can happen so close to home is indeed frightening.

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In other news, our gig at the annual Masskara Festival was OK enough, but not completely. The monitors were TOO LOUD and they were hurting my ears just about every song. Ugh. It kind of threw off my vibe for the whole set. I wasn't able to concentrate on the groove because I was having a hard time hearing my own voice. Then about three songs in, these two white guys in the crowd start going at it UFC-style! Even the 4 soldiers and cops could do nothing to tear them apart.

Good thing the locals didn't join in, which seems consistent with the Negrenses' friendly nature. People were all smiles and singing and dancing throughout our set. That, at least, was consolation for the crappy monitors.

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As with every out-of-town gig, there's never a food shortage, which was good. It was nice to spend time with the wife on an out-of-town gig as well.

Last night we played a whole set of songs from our first album. It was a real treat to play some of those songs again. But somehow it felt like I was playing old covers. I was afraid at first that with almost no practice, we wouldn't be able to pull it off. When the count-ins and intros started, all the muscle memory and ear training started to kick in, and it was one big endorphin rush. Saya! You shoulda been there.

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Found online: Balut in a Bottle

In a few weeks' time, my brother-in-law Carlos will be flying to Vancouver with nothing but clothes and faith to start building a life with his wife Corinne. You have to admire people who strike out on their own to do things "they gotta do".

I may have written about this here before, but 15 years ago, my own mother did the same. With nothing but her suitcase, she flew to the US to make a living for us. She stayed there almost a decade and missed most of my formative years, but we survived because of her.

And so it is that I have decided to quit my job and do the band full time. A big part of me wishes that I had done this a year ago, but that's water under the bridge, so to speak.

Clothes and faith.

Wish me luck.

My Lakbayan grade is C+!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Friends, can anyone recommend a good Dismemberment Plan album? Thanks!

When we were still musical virgins.

[cross-posted from Jugs's blog]