UP Baguio's high music achievers

n August 1982, the University of the Philippines (UP) College Baguio was barely two weeks away from holding its annual Student Council elections. My good friend Leo John Romero ("Blinky") had decided to toss his hat into the ring. He ran for Student Council president against a very low-key but potent opponent Peter Payoyo. Peter enjoyed very strong support from the conservative student demographic--which I thought well outnumbered any other group at the time. 

   Blinky was supported by a militant multi-organizational (or "multi-org" in UP parlance) coalition called the Alliance of Concerned Student (ACS). This was an amalgam of mostly left- or left-of-center student organizations who, for the limited strategic goal of snagging the UPSC presidency, had entered into an awkward alliance with centrist student groups (and even a few right-of-center groups, mostly the so-called "Jesus-people").

It was this man's run for the UP Baguio 
Student Council presidency that gave
birth to a little-known folk-rock band named
Montañosa Band. Blinky Romero was the
band's main vocalist and frontman--which
won many hearts but few votes. 

   At the time, I was in my sophomore year struggling to understand why I ever took up B.S. Math. Simultaneously,  I was associate editor of the Gold Ore, back in the day the most powerful local newspaper in Baguio City to go by its influence over the general public opinion. Since Blinky was one of our reporters, I needed to inform the publisher Benjamin Salvosa (we called him "Daddy Ben") of Blinky's plan. I asked him if he thought I should tell Blinky to go on leave. I remember also asking him pointedly if we should even encourage Blinky on his crazy idea.

   I'll never forget Daddy Ben's words as he almost fell off his chair laughing so hard, "Kung gusto mong makaganti sa iyong kaaway, itulak mo sa pulitika! hahaha!" (To get even with somebody you hate push him into politics).

   I must hate Blinky because, against my better judgment, I did support his bid. It was a true mission impossible. Blinky was bourgeouisie as one can ever get.   The only son of renowned film director Eddie Romero and legendary 60s actress Mila del Sol, and brother of legendary Spin-a-Win noontime show host Jeanne Young, he lived in a posh art deco-inspired unit in Europa Condominium.  When all of us either walked or commuted to and from school, he drove a cream Toyota Corona liftback. Even when we prohibited him from using it during the campaign, he still stood out like a sore thumb being one of the first kids in school to own (and flaunt!) a Yamaha scooter.

Grace Nono was the most stellar element of 
the band. She went on to become a celebrity
icon of alternative music and has won so many
awards I stopped counting.

"Ang hirap sa iyo Blinks, mahirap ka ibenta sa masa," we kept telling him. We needed to find a way to make the average UPian  relate with him. His girlfriend at the time, Glenda Valdez ("Pinky") came up with the solution. We would hastily form a folk rock band, which we named "Montañosa Band" and put up a series of free concerts at the UP Auditorium to drum up support for Blinky.

   Blinky recruited Lingling Maranan, Grace Nono and Noemi Aragon as lead female vocalists,  adding Steve Granadosin and myself as male vocalists. The unique thing about the band was that every member played the guitar. The girls all played classical nylons, Steve was all over the neck on the steel guitar. Blinky had a Fender vintage folk guitar, and I played a Gibson 12-string. When we all played at the same time, we sounded like a busy train station located in the middle of a fish market.

What distinguished Grace Nono's music,
apart from her hauntingly beautiful and
rare female alto, was how she transforms
music into a multi-dimensional stimulus.
You don't listen to a Grace nono song:
you heard it, saw it and felt it. 

   Blinky was the lead vocalist and frontman, so that he gets maximum exposure--which was the whole idea behind forming the band. With just two weeks in the run-up to the elections, we were mostly a cover band channeling Asin, Florante, Pepe Smith and his Juan dela Cruz Band, with a smattering of Crosby Stills and Nash (CSN) songs. There was simply no time to experiment with original material.   

   Grace Nono was probably the most stellar element in the band. I could write an entire article just about her, and I intend to. She was a rare alto when every other college girl of the era would channel Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell's stratospheric singing. This made Grace our logical go-to vocalist when we had to cover Inang Laya, another UP-based group that already enjoyed celebrity following in the campus circuit. Grace's hauntingly deep female alto was spellbinding as it was spectacular for her original vocal embellishments. Grace Nono would go on to become a big celebrity icon in alternative music and has won acclaim for almost every material she put out. Everytime I listen to one of her songs and hear that familiar drooping vibrato that trailed off into the void, a style that is uniquely Grace Nono, I know where I heard it first. I heard it first in UP Baguio's "Montañosa Band." 

Noemi Aragon now has her own YouTube channel
as well as her own store folder in iTunes and Spotify.
She's the main engine of a three-man music collective
called Las Vegas OPM with concerts and a radio tour
booked solid a full year ahead.

 It has been many years since Grace and I last saw each other. She came up to Baguio to do this installation-music performance at the Burnham Park lakeside in late 1989--a cross between installation art and musical concert. I caught up with her as she was launching these tiny floating candles out into the lake, to provide the backdrop for her performance. It was a small reunion of sorts since we had briefly gigged together in college. After the usual sentimental hugs,   she introduced me to her first child whose name was--and I'll never forget it--Tao.

   "You know, Grace, it's so you to name your child Tao. I know you hate prejudice and popular names come with the baggage of other people's histories that trigger all kinds of prejudice, so you thought up a name that is not only original but genderless. It's so totally neutral, so totally peaceful and an absolutely beautiful name, Tao..."  I said.

   Grace broke out laughing with that girlish alto voice of hers I missed so much. She laughed so hard her eyes disappeared and could barely catch her breath as she said, "You know, Joel, it's so you to tell me all of that in one breath!"  She wanted to know how long it took me to come up with that. We were both Visayan and kindred spirits in that regard. So she knew me quite well and was sure i had not said what I just said spontaneously. I must have given it a lot of thought, which means I must have been thinking of her before our meeting. In truth, I was. I had followed her career through the years and I owned all of her CD's. I never stopped thinking of her as the one member of the band who had the most potential to make it big someday. She did not disappoint.

   I reconnected with Noemi Aragon just a week ago. She has become a big OPM artist with a huge niche audience in Las Vegas, Nevada where she lives. Back in college, she was the perfect pinch-hitter for Lolita Carbon, the lead vocalist of Asin. The minute she broke out the first lines, "Sa pagsapit ng dilim, ako'y naghihintay pa rin..." of "Awit ng Pagibig," the UP crowd broke out in loud cheers and went completely wild. She was easily the most applauded member of the band and also the coolest dresser among us. She chanelled Taylor Dane with her flowing scarf and horned-rim glasses (I wondered if they were prescription) while at the same time mimicked the aura of John Denver with her complicated finger-picking guitar-playing style.

Travelling incognito, Noemi Aragon (left) was
in Baguio City only last January 2020 just
before the COVID-19 pandemic plunged
the city into hermetically-sealed isolation.
No one recognized her in the local pubs
where she had gone hoping to find old
gig-mates. She only ran into Vicky Bautista,
also one of our UP Baguio classmates.

   Today, she's part of three-man  all-Filipino music art collective Las Vegas OPM that gigs regularly in Nevada's music town and runs concerts with a calendar that's booked full a whole year ahead. She has tandem-gigged with Florante, the biggest OPM artist to emerge from the Manila Sound Era of the Dekada 70 genre.

   "I can't tell you enough how proud I am to know you," I said to her on Facebook's Private Messenger (PM).

   "Ikaw din, bok, astig your blogs, you totally rock dude!" she answered, and I could almost hear her voice talking that way back in college. I promised to do an article about her and to link it to all music forums in the internet, So she directed me to her own YouTube Channel Noemi Aragon where she posts her music videos. The channel also has forward links to iTunes and Spotify where people can download her songs.

Noemi Aragon was the not only a guitar virtuoso
who could cover any R&B singer you could think
of, she was also the zanniest in the group. When I
asked for a photo for this article, I wasn't surprised
she preferred the goofiest she could find.

   Actually the idea to do this short article came up in the conversation after I reconnected with our former band manager Pinky--who is now Glenda Shultz. Going through her Facebook photos, which only a handful of friends can access, I lose track of the places around the world where she has been--including some really exotic places in Eastern Europe. She said she tried to locate me unsuccessfully in Facebook years ago, "I was convinced you've gone off-grid."  

Glenda Shultz ("Pinky") was the band manager
of Montañosa Band. How she managed to keep
the six super-egos who made up the band working
together was nothing short of a magical feat.

   We spent a long time exchanging PM messages  reminiscing college memories. She asked how I was doing with the flute, since she remembered I used to play it with Tante Foronda and Steve Granadosin. In fact, the flute was the 70s generation toy which had spilled over into the 80s when we were in UP Baguio. Every other guy played either the flute or the cheaper plastic recorder.

   Pinky was beside herself elated when I said I had transitioned to the saxophone. She immediately booked a "personal concert reservation" and I answered, "If it will bring you home here, I'll play the bloody thing all day for you." We went on for quite a spell  and when she asked if I still did gigs for a living, my answer moved her to tears. I said, "Pinkz, paying gigs aren't half as much fun as just us laying out on the grass in front of UP Oblation, with the whole barkada, with guitar, flute bongos and shet (favorite word of our generation), just killing time 'cause we were boycotting classes.."

   "True dat," she PM'ed back,"haaay, kaka miz UPCB. Ang liit ng school natin ano?"   I only decided to let off when I was convinced I was making her cry already. "We had the best of times in UP Baguio, didn't we, Joel?"

   I said,"Yes and that's part of the reason why I do this Baguio blog. I was hoping I would flush out all the missing barkada. So don't be a stranger and keep in touch now, ok?"

   It's a wonder how a small school like UP Baguio--our population back then was only 840--could be the germinating pod for so many artistic talents that went on to distinguish themselves in the world's stage. In the words of Steve Granadosin, "it must be something about the school, or the times, or the people of our generation, or whatever we were smoking back then, but creativity was part of our generation's DNA."

Florante, he of "Ako'y Pinoy" fame is the
de facto patron of Filipino talents in the US
Mainland, helping discover and promote
many young upstarts, including our very
own Noemi Aragon who opens for him 
in his Las Vegas, Nevada shows.

   Ironically, it is Lingling Maranan I haven't reconnected with after all these years, despite the fact that we live in the same city to this day. She is not off-grid, we're actually friends on Facebook. But she elects to stay awfully quiet. Back in college she was a very private person, a profound personality--a mystery. She was the kindest person you could ever meet but she exuded a delicate aura typical of the tortured artist persona of the 70s in the likes of Joan Baez, Judy Collins and James Taylor.  

   Musically, I can only describe her voice as enchanting beyond imagination. She was one of the first to ever sing the song Awit ng Petty Burgis written by Bong Ramilo, also one of our contemporaries and in my book one of the greatest Filipino composers this nation owes wider recognition to. Bong Ramilo compositions totally dominated the annual Himigsikan original music competition sponsored by the UP Philo Circle.  It was the most prestigious contest open only to UP Baguio original composers--the cash reward was nominal, but the honor of landing the trophy was priceless in UP Baguio. You did not only get bragging rights but your song usually also wove itself right into the fabric of the school's cultural tapestry and musical art tradition.  I only joined Himigsikan once, in 1983, with a song I jointly composed with Steve Granadosin.  We came in a far second to (who else) Bong Ramilo with his song "Ang Bata" sung by (who else) Lingling Maranan.

   The only detail missing to complete this account is what happened to Blinky's run for the Student Council presidency. He got clobbered by Peter Payoyo in one the most lopsided landslide victories that, I believe, still holds the record. Ⓒ 2020 Joel R. Dizon

NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It  is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:

 Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON