Ardie Sarao’s Guitar, Scarred but not broken

 Levy Abad -Aug 4, 2016 (4:30pm to 10:00)

Courtesy of Ardie's FB page

I really want to write about the history of Pinoy music in Winnipeg from 1974 to 2016. I thought that the best way to do this is to interview Ardie Sarao who was gracious enough to give me an overview. When I went to his place, I met another musician named Ed Esteban, whom I met at Portage Place playing the piano. Unfortunately, after Ed played Elton John’s Skyline Pigeon and Ardie singing with his husky tenor, he has to leave with his church buddy Kenneth Ferguson to play for a 6 p.m. Sunday service.

Ardie shared that as far as he can remember, he used to hang out with Mikrobyo Band in the early 80s. Mikrobyo band was composed of the following: Butch Miraflor who plays awesome lead guitar, Teofilo “Teo” Mance- acoustic (briefly then went solo), Tony Igonia – Bass and Celso Bueno –Vocals. Sometime in 1977, he became a member of Friends Folk Duo that later on became Sarao Brothers Folk Duo.  In 1981 to 1983, Ardie became a member of the Juan Tamad Band. From 1984 to 1986, he was part of the Laguna Sunrise Band and then in 1987, Off Limits Band. Ardie decided to go solo afterwards and ventured outside the Filipino community.

Friends Folk Duo, 1977-78 The members of this duo were Francisco “Boy” Sarao and Arman Reyes. Eventually this group will evolve and will become the Sarao Brothers Folk Duo of Boy Sarao and Ardie Sarao.  Ardie  said that the repertoire of the Friends Folk Duo includes CSNY, Travelling Wilburys,  James Taylor,  Rolling Stones, Beatles and any Folk Rock of the 60s and the 70s era. The Friends Folk Duo performed at barbecue parties, small gatherings and socials.  Back in the days, the population of Filipinos in Winnipeg was just around 35 thousand.

JUAN TAMAD Band (1981-83) This period saw the transition from folk and country to a new genre of music and the new role that Ardie assumed as a lead guitarist. The members of the Juan Tamad Band, according to him, were the following:  Francisco “Boy” Sarao, Napoleon Medina (vocals), Tony Igonia (bass and band leader), Ardie Sarao (lead guitar and vocals).  Juan Tamad Band covered progressive metal songs of the Rush, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Quite Riot.  When asked where they performed, Ardie said it was at the Balmoral Hotel, weddings and socials and Bueno`s Lounge, a place owned by Celso Bueno.

LAGUNA SUNRISE (1984- 86) 1984 marked another change in style from progressive metal song to pop rock ,latin and  jazzy types .The members of this new group were:  Celso Bueno (vocals) , Tony Igonia (bass), and  Francisco “Boy” Sarao (lead vocals) and Ardie Sarao (lead guitar).  Laguna Sunrise covered songs by In Excess, Los Lobos, Billy Idol, 70s classic ballad and some Earth Wind and Fire songs.  The band also played at the Bueno’s Lounge and at the basement called Maharlika Hall. Ardie added that basically Laguna Sunrise is the evolution of Mikrobyo (Interview with Ardie Sarao- September 3, 2016).

OFF LIMITS Band (1987) The following were the members of Off Limits Band, which was formed in 1987:  Jojo Yso, Ardie Sarao, Willy Liwanag and Lito Balmes.  Ardie Sarao would leave the group later on. Off Limits played at the Casa Bueno Lounge (now known as Pampanga Restaurant), every Friday and Saturday.  They covered PInoy Rock songs.  Joso Yso remembers when they were still a four-piece band, they took on Glam Rock. Glam Rock is like the music of POISON, Motley Crue, The Cult, Def Leppard and Cinderella.  Jojo explained that Glam Rock is a short term for Glamorous Rock because of the way the pioneers of these bands dressed up (Source: text messages of Jo Yso -September 2, 2016).

Briefly in 2006, Ardie Sarao performed at a Valentine Party at Pampanga Restaurant with a new group called FRIENDS (without Boy Sarao).  He played with Mike Lazatin, who was 2003 ABS-CBN’s Star of a Million semi- finalist, doing vocals, Darius Dandan on saxophone, James de Nieva (percussion) (September 5, 2016 interview).

From the experiences that Ardie Sarao went through, starting from his classical training then folk  and country in the early years and later moving on to different schools of rock as a singer and guitarist, one will not wonder anymore why he managed to do all the guitar performances that he posted on Youtube. If the persona of Ardie Sarao intrigues you, I suggest that you view him on YouTube channel @ 
www.youtube.com/ardiesarao https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnsq14ldp7NrsNSvlx2tfWg  and listen to his covers and own compositions.

Ardie Sarao’s Guitar, Scarred but not broken (part 2)

Levy Abad

Courtesy of Ardie's FB page

 Aside from Ardie Sarao, I would also like to write about Neil Bondoc. When I mentioned the name of Neil, Ardie became excited and told me that he had a lot of encounters with Neil as the latter is a senior musician friend in the community. He shared that Neil Bondoc started out in the city with the folk and country tradition, but eventually evolved into Rock and Roll etc. He said that he was also inspired by Neil’s great talent in singing and playing the guitar.  He recalls hanging out at the Sherbrook and Sargent apartment of Neil Bondoc in the past. Neil, Ardie added, is a master of Eddie Peregrina and Boy Mondragon’s songs to the delight of the Filipino community.

Ardie became a bit emotional when he shared that he was not able to attend the last birthday of Neil Bondoc before the latter passed away. He called Neil instead and they had a nice two-hour talk about life, music etc., the kind that created ripples in his life .This was months before Neil passed away. Ardie shared an eerie story that he was playing at Concorde Hotel and just finished his gig and was already fixing his stuff when he saw Neil Bondoc enter the bar. He was excited to see his friend. It was then that Jojo Yso, another musician friend, came up to him and told him about the sad news of Neil’s death. The news came as a shock to Ardie because he just saw Neil minutes ago in the bar. Kind of a believe it or not thing. Ardie said that another musician that was close to Neil is Arman Reyes, who also was deeply shaken by Neil’s leaving for rock and roll heaven.

We took a break from the sharing of memories and I sang some of my original compositions such as Heading to Manitoba, Dito sa Winnipeg and Souls Taken Away (a tribute to residential school victims). For his part, Ardie did some back-up guitars a la Maury Muehleisen, the buddy of Jim Croce (a folk singer legend who wrote “Time in A Bottle” and who perished in a plane crash in 1976). We chatted about a possible project like recording a song together at his basement, doing some gigs for fun and posting it on YouTube.

I asked Ardie about his influences and he gave me a handful. He mentioned Paco de Lucia, the King of Flamenco, Joe Santana, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple, Jimi Hedrix, Al Di Meola, Steve Vai,  Van Halen , Yngwie Mamstein and  Mike Hanopol of  Juan De la Cruz Band (September  5,2016 interview). He said that, nowadays, he kind of systhesized all these influences in the way he does with his music.  He showed me some of his postings on Youtube and I could somehow discern his development and the time that he devoted in mastering his craft.

Our discussion moved to the topic of guitar. According to Ardie, guitar for him is like a woman and he even told me that he misses his old Ovation guitar with its great sound and curvy shape. He laughed out loud while saying this. “You have to love your guitar and should always be with it holding it close and always making music with it to be able to produce great music and memories,” Ardie said. Furthermore, Ardie revealed that he got the analogy from his basic classical guitar teacher in the Philippines named Jojie Samaniego who is a contemporary of Lester Demetillo. I told Ardie that as far as I’m concerned, guitar is an instrument of peace. It is like a weapon for organizing and rousing and raising consciousness of folks for social change, explaining that the dominant culture nowadays promote systemic cooptation and inertia. I told him that my favorites are Jim Croce, Bob Dylan, W. Guthrie, Jackson Browne, Gary Granada and Heber Bartolome.

We then talked about musicians who visited Winnipeg, and to my surprise, he shared his music days with Mike Hanopol of the famous Juan Dela Cruz Band when Mike had a concert here back in 1997.  Ardie said he used to drive for Mike Hanopol in the city and also session with the Legend.  On the other hand, I shared that when Mike visited Toronto, I met him there and Mike even stayed at my house in Mississauga. Mike and I talked for long hours about religion and philosophy.

When asked how long he’s been here in the city, Ardie replied that he arrived here in 1979 and followed the musicians of the day like the members of the Mikrobyo, Teo Mance, Celso Bueno , his brother Boy Sarao and  Arman Reyes of Friends Folk Duo (which became Sarao Btothers later), a certain Vladi (a talented folksinger  back between ‘81 to ‘83, who covers Don Mclean, James Taylor, Jim Croce and countless greats).  He clarified that his older brother, Boy Sarao, was the one who started him out in singing and performing when he was a kid.  He reminisced his Vancouver days where he did some gigs and busking and where he met a band called Twin Lovers Guitar Duo, Choy Vergara and Buddy. Ardie noted that Choy Vergara also stayed here in the Peg and performed in a lot of places in the 80s. Back in the days, Ardie used to busk even here in the Winnipeg.  Aside from him and his brother Boy, Ardie has a sister, Luz Sarao –September, who played at Lounges here in Winnipeg in the mid -80s. He added that she is known in the folk circuit in Manila as Luchi Sarao.

Ardie said that he has been in the music scene playing with bands when he eventually decided to play solo. He witnessed artists being ripped-off like being issued bouncing cheque after a great night of performance. He became serious at this point and said, “I experienced the hagupit (pain) of a musician’s life. Times when I don’t earn enough for food, not even money to buy a good set of strings.”  As early as ‘81 or ’82, he said that he already played in public places like in the old Portage Place where most of the musicians do basking during that time. He continued, “I experienced performing for a burger and fries, do some pass the hat for some loose change. Oh boy, those were the days, bro” (September 5, 2016 interview).

These experiences, according to Ardie taught him to be realistic, not set high expectations and just express his passion of playing music.  He asked me what’s the difference between a busker who played great music and a damn famous musician who plays a four-chord song with non-sense lyrics in front of a wild crowd?  Where is the sense in it? He regretted the instrumentalist treatment of musicians in the community without considering the time or life expended in honing the craft.  Ardie was kind of blunt in his honesty that if you are a typical Pinoy, you may be offended and might not come back for another chat or jam. If you are intrigued by the persona of Ardie, I would suggest that you visit his postings on You Tube, just type Ardie Sarao and you will find his heart and soul.  After talking with Ardie, I can say that Ardie is like an old guitar scarred and bruised but still sounds great like my 50-year old Morris w40.