photo:  Roger Pullin

"Binky's voice is legendary in town," related Thomas "Tomcat" Colvin, who plays harmonica in the band Lampano Alley. "There's not a night that expats in the audience don't tell me how amazed they are at his vocals. Personally I think his voice will carry us all the way to international blues festivals."

For three years up to 1996, Lampano lived in California, eking out a living by day and taking the stage at LA blues clubs at night.

"It all starts with Edwin. He plays rich, complex chords, putting together interesting progressions. He is extraordinarily attentive to his guitar's sound and 'comps' the chords rather than just strum them."

 There's Simon Tan, who finds the bass more interesting than other sonic tools. The 28-year-old observes that "We play mostly traditional blues, yet we want to put in our individual sounds."

IN RECENT ENCOUNTERS with Reynaldo "Binky" Lampano Jr., we talked movies. He was blown away by The X-Files film, which I thought didn't compare to a good Files episode. He found The Truman Show, my favorite 1998 movie, "a waste of space." And he deems the poetic The Thin Red Line too slow and prefers the more straightforward Saving Private Ryan.

     But lest he be mistaken for a local Roger Ebert or a budding filmmaker, the 32-year-old Lampano is actually a blues singer. And he isn't just another Filipino vocalist aping a foreign genre -- we're talking one mother of a belter. "Binky's voice is legendary in town," related Thomas "Tomcat" Colvin, who plays harmonica in the band Lampano Alley. "There's not a night that expats in the audience don't tell me how amazed they are at his vocals. Personally I think his voice will carry us all the way to international blues festivals."

     So far, Lampano's vocal has carried him throughout the Manila music scene of the last two decades. He was the frontman of Deans December, a mid-'80s folk-blues outfit best known for the cult hit It Doesn't Snow in Manila and for inadvertently being a chong (read: new age) answer to the Pinoy punk scene. It would only be a matter of time before Lampano shed some skin and focused on the blues, which he first heard in high school via Eric Clapton. In 1991 he released a soulful "solo" album, the little-heard I Read the News (past tense, that), which yielded Kuwentong Loob and a happenin' take on Ray Charles' Hallelujah I Love Her So. Two years later, he jammed with seasoned musicians under the bluesy and jazzy NIC (Newly Industrialized Combo). For three years up to 1996, Lampano lived in California, eking out a living by day and taking the stage at LA blues clubs at night. The man became a balikbayan in the summer of '96, paving the way for what is now Lampano Alley.

     "We first thought of 'Binky Lampano Group'," shares Alley guitarist Edwin Vergara, 32, of their moniker, "hanggang sa nalsip na lang 'yung 'Lampano Alley,' 'Alley' kasi ibig sabihin 'teritaryo,' the blues being our turf." Adds Colvin, the NIC cofounder who joined Alley in '97. "We started off with traditional names like Binky Lampano And The Whatchat-ma-callits and Binky And The Alleycats. But we realized that we needed a name that would be unique and not cause trademark problems if we decided to pursue an international career. We settled for Lampano Alley [and] weeks later, a graphic artist came up with our alley lamp-post logo. That cinched it."

     Lampano clarifies that "I may be the backbone to this band pero importante rin ang ibang members." True enough, anyone who checks out Lampano Alley -- say, at The Hobbit House on A. Mibini in Manila, their weekly haunt for several years now -- will learn that Binky won't be the same if he had so-so players for company.

     Colvin himself muses, "It all starts with Edwin. He plays rich, complex chords, putting together interesting progressions. He is extraordinarily attentive to his guitar's sound and 'comps' the chords rather than just strum them." Vergara, who recently sidelines for cowboy musician Ka Roger, was advised "to listen to the blues, it's the basis" by a guitarist uncle. "Una kong narinig sila Johnny Winter, Clapton, Jeff Beck," he recalls. "Binky got me to listen to Albert Collins and Robert Cray." Lampano himself whispers, "Walang sinabi ang ibang gitarista ko Edwin."

     There's Simon Tan, who finds the bass more interesting than other sonic tools. The 28-year-old observes that "We play mostly traditional blues, yet we want to put in our individual sounds." Says Colvin of the six-string bass player, who fancies the jazz of Davis, Coltrane and Holiday, "Simon plays a lot of chords and underpins everything with walking bass lines. He reminds me of Ray Brown, the way he drops notes to create a strong jazzlike pulse. And that's no accident [but] the result of a rigorously crafted technique."

     On drums is Jojo Lim, 22, the last in the quintet to discover the group's genre du jour. "Wala akong idea about the blues noon," he remembers of his initial jams with the Alley, having worked with the pop-oriented Kulay (with Tan) and Wiseguys. "Raw na raw ako sa umpisa. I listened to study tapes for a year and I'm still learning." Lim is in fact still a UP student, with Ryan Cayabyab as music theory teacher (he played in Cayabyab's orchestral Meralco Theater gig last month), and remains a session player for other, non-blues bands. "There's no conflict of interest for me," Lim explains. "Mas gusto ko nga ang iba-iba kasi mabilis akong ma-bore." Colvin notes that "Jojo is our engine room. He creates a lot of energy but knows how to back off the pedal, allowing us to play quietly, too."

     And there's Colvin, a pushing-60 North Carolina native who has been a Manila resident since '86 and is the Alley cat with the smoking harp, as blues lovers refer to the harmonica. "I'm told," when asked to describe his playing, "that my tone is more hornlike, full and round, rather than distorted in the usual Chicago harp style." Moreover, Tomcat's blowtorch-hot solos "reflect my jazz background," counting a young Chick Corea and trombonist Phil Wilson among his early peers in the US. He stuck with the harmonica after being blown away (pun unintended) one fall day by Paul Butterfield, who "played the harp like it was a saxophone." Of the Alley instrumentalists, it's Colvin who is mainly self-taught. "I literally learned how to play in the car while waiting in traffic. Which makes me wonder why there aren't more harp players in Manila -- think of the huge amount of time for practice!"

     Put them all together and we get some of the genuinely best live music around. On any given night, regardless of how many Hobbit-tues show up, Lampano Alley plays at peak level. "I'd guess our dynamics are broader, from whisper-quiet to energetic than perhaps any other blues band in Manila," Colvin notes. "Even at our loudest, we're quieter than most other bands. We'd like our audience to be able to talk comfortably even as we play quite aggressively. Besides, we don't want to suffer hearing loss."

     This whisper-to-a-scream dynamic and concern for the audience is evident in nearly anything Lampano Alley delivers, but a choice case in point is its rendition of the Them/Van Morrison ditty Gloria. Often, in the tune's quiet middle, Binky would be off the stage and roaming the tables. He'd spot any stranger and engage in small talk (if not use a viewer's name as a song lyric, like when he suddenly bellowed, "Hmm, Bertsulat," one night at ye old Club Dredd) while the rest of the band serviceably stretches the instrumental. Once Lampano rejoins his mates, he roars "G-l-o-r-i-a!" as the rest of the band rips right along. The sound, even the scene, is nothing short of spectacular, as if the song wasn't just about a girl but about glory itself.

     This brings us to erroneous yet common notions about the blues. "Simple lang ang blues pero malalim," Vergara believes, adding that its depth is not of the pretentious kind but "malapit sa buhay." As for the music's depressant stigma, given the apparent aural and lyrical sadness in standards like B.B. King's The Thrill Is Gone (briefly heard in Mel Gibson's Payback) and Bessie Smith's Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, Colvin counters that the way to dig the blues is cathartically, not literally. "Listening to the blues can actually help drive your blues away," he stresses.

     Binky, now a family man, has his own reasons for doting on the blues. "Give me another music to play," he remarks. As for the secret to his singing prowess, "Nandito 'yan," he says, pointing not to his vocal cords but to his heart. "Kung ano ang nararamdaman ko, 'yun ang lumalabas," What needs to come out now are Lampano Alley's original material and the resulting debut album. "We'll probably start recording some tracks this summer," Colvin divulges. "We already have four songs close to final shape, and others are germinating." But whether they make an album or not, the band wants to reach more ears here and elsewhere, eyeing bluesfests in North American and Europe and amassing more local gigs, such as tomorrow at Oracafe as part of the First Manila Blues Summit and on the March 28 Concert at the Park. "This is a good band," Lampano states, matter-of-factly. "We've been between the devil and the deep blue sea. Tiyaga lang dapat."

     Which reminds me of yet another quip by Binky the film critic. "I think The Avengers," speaking of last year's TV-show remake turned box-office bomb, "will be like Blade Runner. It will be more appreciated in due time." It should likewise be just a matter of time before more people start sauntering up Lampano's Alley.