16 NOVEMBER 2005

GOOD, GOOD TIME: APO HIKING SOCIETY'S AMERICAN JUNKET A RESOUNDING SUCCESS
(Reposted from Blitz Magazine's website)

Apo Hiking Society talks shop with fans after their triumphant performance in Southfield, Michigan on 22 October 2005. Seated, left to right: Boboy Garrovillo, Jim Paredes and Danny Javier (Photo by Michael McDowell).

"Got to get back to who I am".

That uncompromising assertion from the chorus of their 1985 signature tune, "American Junk" has doubled as the ad hoc mission statement of Apo Hiking Society since their debut in 1969. Indeed, few groups have been able to demonstrate as consistent a level of originality over such a long period of time as has this veteran trio.

Like the Kingston Trio, Apo Hiking Society best asserts their highly original musical persona as a live entity. They spent their first five years developing a stage presentation with a consistently edgy blend of deftly structured originals and acerbic (yet highly accessible) social commentary.

However, by 1973, the group (then known as the Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society), fresh from college and weary of toiling in relative obscurity, planned to call it a career. But their 1974 debut album (culled from live performances) became a smash hit, thereby derailing their plans.

That transitional moment was not without casualty. A fourth member opted for the corporate world, leaving co-founders Jim Paredes, Danny Javier and Boboy Garrovillo to carry on as the Apo Hiking Society. The trio not only persevered, but in the process established and sustained themselves as front runners in the not always comfortable marriage of music and political satire.

The most obvious (however unintentional) reference points in Apo Hiking Society's highly distinctive musical persona are the Four Preps and Harpers Bizarre. Interestingly enough, Jim Paredes (who shares the bulk of the songwriting responsibilities with Danny Javier) maintains that he was not familiar with Harpers Bizarre's blissful blend of sublime vocal harmonies and wry wit until he was introduced to their work by Blitz Magazine several years ago.

However, the Four Preps' seemingly incongruous distillation of lush vocal harmonies and outspoken and somewhat abrasive lyrics (as evidenced in "Draftdodger Rag", "More Money For You And Me" and "The Big Draft") served as an ideal prototype for Apo Hiking Society, who time and again over the ensuing decades found themselves on the front lines in the war against both musical mediocrity and social injustice.

To fully realize Apo Hiking Society's impact in the latter category, consider that Jim Paredes' call-to-arms original, "Handog Ng Pilipino Sa Mundo" (also known as "A New And Better Way") became the anthem for the people power revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power in Manila, Philippines in 1986. Their uncompromising stand did not waiver in the ensuing years, as evidenced by their wry comparisons of the shortcomings of then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and Philippines President Joseph "Erap" Estrada during their landmark show in Pasadena, California in the late 1990s.

But Apo Hiking Society has not limited their observations to the political spectrum. Any topic is fair game. This includes music, which has endeared them to the aesthetes and musicologists who have suffered with them through the permeation of the mundane mainstream into all facets of contemporary culture over the past several decades.

To that effect, the aforementioned "American Junk" is an all-encompassing amalgamation of the disenfranchisement felt by musical purists in the face of the declining state of the art and the group's own curious propensity towards jingoism. In the process, the two factions have become strange bedfellows, with each side deferring as necessary to such disparate elements as the dismissal of the faceless, soulless pap that characterized commercial rock in the 1970s and 1980s (complete with a bitter reference to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" program) and the group's professed disdain for individuals who would sacrifice their birthright to identify with this latter day opiate of the masses.

Nonetheless, like the Four Preps and Harpers Bizarre, Apo Hiking Society is no one trick pony. Both on record and in a live setting, Paredes, Javier and Garrovillo transition effortlessly between topical material and good natured humor (highlighted by their tireless rendering of the Beatles/Ray Charles standard, "Yesterday" as if it were a vinyl record played on a defective turntable, complete with skips, pops and rapidly varying tempos).

The group has also produced some of the most sublime and musically astute original material of the past three decades, typified by the absolutely gorgeous, "Mahirap Magmahal Ng Syota Ng Iba" ("It's Hard To Love Another Man's Girlfriend"), with an arrangement that is as worthy of inclusion in Harpers Bizarre's landmark 1967 "Anything Goes" album as anything in the Van Dyke Parks catalog. Likewise, Javier's "Show Me A Smile" and "Good Good Time" and Paredes' "Love Is For Singing" display the group's upbeat side (as do such lighthearted concept albums as "Songwriter" and "Dating Alternatib"), while CDs like 1993's "Barangay" and 2001's "Banda Rito" (with its nod to their like-minded disciples the Eraserheads and other artists) maintain an undercurrent of the dark side that by definition follows a mission statement with a political foundation.

Still, like the Kingston Trio and the Four Preps, Apo Hiking Society continue to excel in a live setting, as evidenced by their triumphant 22 October 2005 performance at the Millennium Centre in Southfield, Michigan as part of their current American tour. Drawing from such diverse musical sources as John Philip Sousa, Queen and Carmen Miranda to underscore their ever-evolving repartee, the group kept the highlights of their vast catalog (nearly two dozen albums) vital through ongoing reinvention and a passion that has not diminished in the 36 years since their debut.

But conspicuous in its absence at the Southfield show was "American Junk"; a rare deference by the group to perceived sensitivities.

"It was mentioned to us that it might not be a good idea to do 'American Junk' on stage in America", Danny Javier told Blitz after the show. "We were told that it might offend some people".

Javier's concerns are most assuredly unfounded. If nothing else, "American Junk" (which ironically is still largely unknown to American audiences) remains a timeless rallying cry against the suppression of various aesthetics by miscellaneous corporate interests. If nothing else, it has certainly swayed the relatively few here who have heard it to their cause.

Indeed, if Apo Hiking Society has any shortcomings, it is with their presumably unintentional geographical missteps (for example, "American Junk" mimics "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" by the Police, who most assuredly are not American, but British; and in concert, the group referred to Curtis Mayfield's Chicago, Illinois-based Impressions - who recorded for ABC Paramount and Curtom - as a Motown group).

And if such minor peccadilloes represent the group at their most vulnerable, then obviously Apo Hiking Society has little cause for concern. Indeed, if their Southfield, Michigan show was any indication, this most venerable trio remains at the peak of their creative powers. To be sure, as Danny Javier noted on their "1-2-3" album, a whole new audience in America awaits them "Just A Smile Away".