Great Pinoy music
you can't find in record bars

C. H Pardo

Philippine Daily Inquirer, 12 August 1999

...THE FIRST ALBUM is "Straight Off the Board:  Live at the Hobbit House" with the nearly legendary Binky Lampano of the Dean's December band fame in the '80s.  Binky went to Los Angeles, was transformed and came home chained to the blues.  The last years he has worked with his Lampano Alley.  They did a TV gig recently and have had their repertoire in menu form for easy reference by club managers.

     Tom Colvin, master blaster on harp, holds balance in the five-piece band and surely plays off Binky's vocals with ease.  They really get along and in a band, that's everything.  Fourteen cuts and over an hour of album time is fair enough with a slice of blues in all its genres -- New Orleans, gospel, funky and classic Delta styles with some contemporary Robben Ford and BB King.

     The wide variety of songs is probably due to the fact this is their first recording attempt.  "Mustang Sally" is on the album with other standards, "Wanna Make Love to You" and Got My Mojo Workin'."  What is absent is any original composition, which may be why it's called an "unauthorized bootleg."  Why put your songs out before you have a distribution deal at the least or a major recording company contract.

 

C. H. "Cousin Hoagy" Pardo hosts Manila's major weekly blues radio show "Crossroads" on NU107 and organizes blues concerts.

 LAMPANO ALLEY at the Hobbit House:


photo:  Mike Taboy, Daily Tribune

 


photo:  Gerry Kaimo, PhilMusic

 


photo:  Gerry Kaimo, PhilMusic