Plaka Notes #11: Method Adaptor by Ely Buendia
The Pinoy pop legend does not need to prove himself... and yet his latest solo effort has every reason to exist today.
How do you start with Ely Buendia?
I mean, how do you start without going for “legend”? It’s an easy description, and one much warranted. As the frontman of Eraserheads, perhaps the most successful and influential band the Philippines has ever seen, he has provided the soundtrack to many Filipino millennials, while also gently pushing the boundaries of what can be done within the country’s pop music scene. (Arguably, their success brought alternative bands to the forefront in a way that their predecessors couldn’t quite do back in the 1970s and 1980s.)
But reducing Ely to just his work with the Eraserheads diminishes his wide musical scope. (Not to mention the contribution of his other bandmates, Raimund Marasigan—who would also reshape Pinoy pop in his own way through his work with Sandwich and Pedicab—Buddy Zabala and Marcus Adoro. But I digress.) When he left the band in 2002, he found himself forming new bands and working with many other musicians—and it was never the case that he seemed to be a past-it musician reliving the old days. The Mongols, and its successor Pupil, provided a grungier take on his pop sound. The Oktaves—a collaboration with Nitoy Adriano of seminal Filipino blues band the Jerks—was not afraid to swing when the rest of the scene was going in another direction. The same was the case with Apartel, which leaned heavily towards soul.
What defines this era is the collaborative nature of his work. While he shared vocalist duties with Raimund on the Eraserheads, we all perceived it as his band. It wasn’t quite the case with his other work. Pupil had most members contributing vocals, for instance—my favorite off the group, “Dulo ng Dila”, was written and performed by bassist Dok Sergio. Apartel was initially characterized by the soulful vocals of Jay Ortega, who also served as frontman for Gnash and DRT, both bands of a heavier persuasion. Also as rewarding was his collaborative effort with Francis Magalona, In Love & War, in what would turn out to be the rapper’s final album before dying of leukemia in 2010.
And this goes beyond the music he releases. Ely founded independent label Offshore Music in 2016, initially to distribute Apartel’s debut Inner Play, as well as two collaborative singles with Itchyworms. The label has since housed some of Filipino pop and alternative’s more interesting names, notably Ena Mori and the Ransom Collective.
So, “legend”—not quite, in the sense that he continues to be active on stage and off it. But the intensely collaborative nature of his work makes it easy to bypass his solo work. Method Adaptor is his first… nope, his second solo album. The lead-up to the release of that album reminds us of his first solo effort, Wanted Bedspacer, released back in 2000, when Eraserheads were somewhat poised to break the world stage. But in an interview with The Daily Tribune, Ely said he didn’t consider it an official release:
I decided to make a solo album this year mainly because I want to do something new, and the only thing I haven’t done is a solo album. And I don’t want to consider the last one, Wanted Bedspacer, as an official release dahil, kumbaga, parang laro-laro lang ‘yun, nag-experiment lang ako sa kuwarto ko (because I was just playing around then, I experimented in my room) and I decided to release it.
Listening to Wanted Bedspacer as I headed to Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district via their MTR, it did strike me as an unusual effort: this is truly the sound of Ely working alone. Sure, he did get some help: the instruments are all real, but the record’s sound is characterized by its electronica leanings and its lo-fi nature. You can easily imagine the title track being recorded alone in a bedroom, as Ely sings about wanting to be with someone.
I’d say the album was almost a forgotten work—it was released, but didn’t get a lot of promotion, apparently—until it got a rerelease in 2009. But I remember hearing it a few years earlier, back when the Mongols were performing on RT Sunday Sessions—remember that radio show? Late on Sunday nights, a whole three hours, ad-free, with one band playing songs and answering listener questions and just messing around. Hearing that song in my bedroom in the dark at around eleven in the evening did it for me. But I digress, again.
Wanted Bedspacer could, and should, sound of its time, and yet it felt applicable to 2024, unlike, say, his work with Eraserheads, which was so ingrained with 90s pop culture that you can’t remove it from there. I feel that timelessness is what’s also going to define Method Adaptor. To be honest, no song will pop out and hit you the first time, but what will strike you is the musical polish Ely brings to the record, and those little surprises that, well, should be surprising, but actually make sense if you know what he’s done before.
In that same interview with the Tribune, Ely talked about how he dealt with what fans expected of him as a musician by effectively compartmentalizing his post-Eraserheads groups, the way Pupil is more rock-centered, or the Oktaves are more rockabilly-inspired. That process inspired the title of this album, but it’s not a collection of him showing off what he can do. I mean, we all know that at this point. Instead, we get an accessible pop-rock record with those little surprises and the musical flourish—and that earnest-but-not-really songwriting—we’ve come to know from Ely. I mean, try resisting “Bulaklak Sa Buwan”, ostensibly about misinformation but can be really just about confusion.
But, again, it’s no callback to his previous work. He does say there are a few references, but this is no victory lap. Some have compared the songs to Eraserheads at its most sonically adventurous, but I couldn’t help but hear Method Adaptor as Ely’s and Ely’s alone. Here’s the legend not trying to relive the good old days, or to prove himself again. This record is out there because he wants to, and he finally has something to say, again, from the defiance of “Tamang Hinala” to the heartbreak of “Tagpi-Tagping Paraiso”.
A lot of the press surrounding Method Adaptor focused on the writing and recording process: how he dealt with all the expectations of him and the writer’s block he had for a while, or how tracks like “Kandarapa” and “Deadbeat Creeper”—I think I know what it’s about specifically—were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, somehow finding the time in between supporting Ena Mori in her London tour. At some point the press would’ve been about how awesome it is that Ely, frontman of “the Beatles of the Philippines”, would record where the Fab Four made some of their most memorable work. Here, it doesn’t matter where he makes the songs or how he finally got to them. Method Adaptor, in its rejuvenating power, has every reason to stand here.
So, how do you start with Ely Buendia, without going for “legend”?
This album gives us a few more ways, no matter how we were first exposed to his wide, wide oeuvre. Prodigious, innovative, restless, almost effortless…
A little housekeeping before I go: this is the last Plaka Note for the year, as the next installment would’ve fallen on Christmas week and the Once Monthly would rather take a holiday break. That plan didn’t account for the fact that, in January, I’ll have to do a Ben&Ben and Moira dela Torre doubleheader… at least there’s a theme there, right?