#tekateka

Community quarantine and lockdown gave us some time to pause and ponder. Time to look at old photos, reminisce memories of family, relatives, friends, teenage angst, domestic rebellion without a cause and old band mates.

In the early 90s, during college years, my friends and I started a music group. Okay, it’s a band. We formed a punk group called TekaTeka. We were inseparable band of brothers. 

Francis played the bass (he can play any musical instrument), Maiko was the drummer, Jun played rhythm guitar, I played a little bit of rhythm guitar but my real task is to shout (sing) and Dondon played the lead guitar like Paul Gilbert from Mr. Big 😁. 

We always had friends and other musicians around us who we practiced or played music together. Karlito Mendoza (Mapua Football Team Captain and one of first drummers for Rivermaya), Dodong Cruz (The Dodong Cruz), Jojo Salazar, Edsel Cortez, (the original members of) Advent Call, Ampalaya Juice, Paul “KNK” Magat, Noel Libanan, Dondon Sindac, Balahiboompuza and many others. 

We would get invited to play at the UP Fair in the sunken garden alongside the then up and coming Parokya ni Edgar, well known group called Color It Redd, Grupong Pendong, Tame the Tikbalang, Feet Like Fins, Inquisition, After Image, Tribal Fish, Dahong Palay and many others. We shared the stage in a concert with Rivermaya when Bamboo was their frontman and the Philippine Violators together with our punk band friends, Jet Torres, Randy Jardeleza, Vincent Lara and many others. It was an honor even the mere mention of TekaTeka among those great ones. Many of them became famous and made a career in the music industry.

We’d play in small music scenes, concerts and school events that always had mosh pits and audience who were teens like us who liked punk and rock music. While it was always the usual ‘wild’ music event, we were always sober. There were also groups like us who had mineral water instead of Red Horse or Rum at the backstage while waiting for their turn. 😅 

We never took drugs. We made a pact to stay out of it till the end of our days. We used our group to share our little pact with others by having to shout out to the audience a constant phrase every single time we played on stage - “Stay away from drugs! Study Hard!” 😅 That was our signature line. It was not a very popular farewell line in a punk music event at that time. A few called it really corny, but we really didn’t mind. 😁

That phrase, corny and annoying to some, gained us our little share of unexpected ‘fans’. We were given the most genuine appreciation by the moms and dads who would come up to us on stage and would personally thank us for shouting it out loud to everyone, including their teenage kids, in the audience.😍 It was heartwarming.

Remembering old friends puts a smile on my face. ☺️  Those were fun times. This video on Youtube sums it all up. 😅