THE DAVAOIST: Davao Music: Short Report on Davao Music Scene and 15 Local Bands That You Should Check Out

Davao Music: Short Report on Davao Music Scene and 15 Local Bands That You Should Check Out

The “dark times” of our local music scene is finally over. An entire era of "covers-only” local bands is now slowly rotting and being eaten away by worms in its rightful place in the past. Its memory might still causes nostalgia to some but that feeling will be gone as quickly as it came as one starts to discover the evolved version of Davao music.

The Davao music scene is on its way up! A collection of new interesting bands have come out, each of them offering their own brand of music to the audience, all of them contributing in making the voice of our young music community louder, and its waves more intense than it has ever been. The slew of upcoming Davao-bred acts is also intent on creating and sharing their own original compositions. I remember, there was this one guy who told me that, “This is the best time to watch local acts.”, just before the first band was about to play during a local music event. It was 2010, and I was reeking with skepticism towards the whole idea of Davao Bands playing their original songs in a music event. I was being stupid and I was quite certain that listening to them would be torture. However, as the band on the stage started to perform, my view changed. I was totally wrong! They didn't suck at all. In fact, they were great and all the bands that played after them were equally impressive. Local music fan boy was totally right! (Local music fan boy, if you are reading this. I still owe you a high five.)

How or when this whole phenomenon started? I’m not really sure. But this whole revolution was probably produced from the “energy” created inside the four walls of the early underground music spots like “Durian Bar” and others. They were the first to provide a creative space for our young musicians. They were also the first to provide the local bands with the freedom to create their own identities. And most importantly, they were the first to provide the bands a unique crowd— young Davaoeños who are both fed up (or even loath) “mainstream” and are hungry for something new.

Since the demise of the mighty “D-Bar” the “energy” is now being cradled and fed by new music hot spots in Davao like Saless Tekanplor. We also now have Davao Music Nation, an independent online publication that acts as the Davao Music Community’s hype agent. The pieces of the puzzle are actually already in place and that just gives you a really good feeling when you think about where this scene is headed to.

There is movement and there are clear signs of progression. The tipping points might still be a mile away however, if the whole just keeps on trudging forward, it will get there. Speaking about trudging forward, last month, five of the most premiered independent Davao bands rocked two of the best music venues in Manila. A few weeks ago Jad Montenegro and her band bagged the 2^nd place in the Converse Get Loud Band Competition. These are actually just some of them. In just a span of five years, Davao music which used to be “non-existent” and “unheard of” is now starting to command attention nationally.

If this piece has tickled something inside of you and made you want to start discovering Davao’s local music, we can help you out on that. Here’s a list of bands which we think you should really check out. We are pretty sure that there are still a lot of awesome bands out there and we are still yet to enjoy them. So yeah, here’s the list.