03/17/2011: Pinoise Rock: Re-imagining Filipino America

Department of Ethnic Studies Calendar: Pinoise Rock: Re-imagining Filipino America

Pinoise Rock: Re-imagining Filipino America
Lecture | March 17 | 4-5:30 p.m. | Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), 6F Conference Room

Speaker: Christine Balance, Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies, UC Irvine
Sponsor: Southeast Asia Studies, Center for

The first annual Pinoise Pop music festival was produced at Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco in 1998. Conceived by musicians Jesse and Ogie Gonzales, the all-ages festival gathered diverse acts under the banner of OPAM (“original Pilipino alternatib music”), later expanding its scope to include indie Asian American musicians.

While also indicative of a late-20th century Asian American creative class energy to produce and distribute music independently, this talk centers Pinoise Pop at the intersection of two Philippine musical histories—1. the punk/hardcore music scene that emerged under Ferdinand Marcos’ martial regime (1972-1984) and 2. the mid-1990s resurgence of OPM (original Pilipino music) indie rock. In each instance, improvised, oftentimes contraband, musical exchanges happened in ways familiar (radio shows, record stores, cassette tapes) and sometimes unexpected (military bases, airline stewardesses, underground radio transmissions), resonating the martial cultures —everyday practices articulated through war and its aftermath — of Filipino America.

Christine Bacareza Balance is an Assistant Professor in Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Asian American Studies, Women & Performance, Theatre Journal, and the online journal In Media Res. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Irvine, Balance was a UCOP Postdoctoral Fellow in UC Riverside’s Department of Music from 2007-2009. In 2009, she was awarded a UC Pacific Rim grant to conduct research on and interviews with musicians, festival organizers, and Philippine popular music scholars in San Francisco, New York, and Manila for her project on Pinoise rock. A member of the New York-based indie rock band The Jack Lords Orchestra (www.thejacklords.com), she is currently writing a book on popular music and performance in Filipino America.

[PinoisePop artwork by Dino Ignacio]

Event Contact: CSEAS, 510-642-3609