Lomi in heaven: blaming PapaDom for my rock & roll life

You are a high school junior, early eighties. It is around 7 p.m. on a weekday. The De La Salle Lipa campus is lit sparingly, the corridors eerily quiet. From the small conference room emanates rippling arpeggios played by the choirmaster on an upright piano riddled with a few out-of-tune keys.

The rock & roll bug found you (or the other way round) and you join the glee club as one of the bass voices just to be able to get a taste of playing music, any music. You will soon rehearse with maybe 20 other people for an upcoming competition. You practice your assigned harmonies as you open the back door…

And there it is: a black electric guitar you only see in pictures—a “Gibson Les Paul” guarding a tiny Fender Champ amplifier. You want to grab it, turn it up, even if you have no idea how to… but a tall senior spots the goodies and attempts the solo to “A Horse with No Name.”

The moment I wanted to be in a rock band

The senior then hands you what is equivalent to Excalibur but you resist and say: “Kay Dominic Gamboa yan! Ibaba mo na, baka maputulan ng string!” You start rehearsals but remain distracted: there’s a curvy woman-like thing back there that feels like it’s seducing you.

A week or so later, you win an oratorical contest at the school fair…but also encounter the guitar and its owner. They crank out a few rock & roll numbers including a rousing “Titser’s Enemy No 1” dedicated to a known truant. The music’s volume and the subject of the dedication make the gym erupt in cheers and hoots.

It is, in fact, your very first experience of live rock music. The orator inside slowly bids farewell and the rock musician begins to gestate. You’ve been hearing rock music on radio and records but seeing on stage that sad-eyed bear of a kid, transplanted from Manila, playing his beautiful electric guitar inspires you to say: “I want to be in rock band!” You want to rock the gym they way you just experienced. Years later, you will have the chance but fail very miserably the first time.

Mom loved Dominic

He is, fortunately, your older brother’s barkada. Both of them are older than you but, because they were naughty schoolboys, end up one batch behind you. You try to learn Deep Purple and Scorpions licks until he visits the house regularly… and scoffs, but with a beatific smirk, at you.

He leaves a few compilation tapes of punk and new wave music, and the occasional videotape of live rock concerts, specifically “Rock for Kampuchea.” It is through him that you learn to appreciate and love The Jerks, Chaos, and Betrayed: three local bands writing furious original music aired on RJ-AM.

He is well-mannered enough to earn your mother’s grace. Most of brother’s other friends are suspect, but not Dominic: he was always welcome and the whole family is always happy to have him around.

A touch of tension

You graduate from high school and lose touch. Eventually, through the pages of Jingle magazine, you see his picture and… Oh wow, he’s now a member of Betrayed!

Later, he grows facial hair, forms a reggae band called Tropical Depression and becomes PapaDom. You join The Dawn.

There is a touch of tension early on when both bands occasionally play the same gigs because you’re in a band that has a major corporate sponsor. But you don’t take offense, not personally anyway, knowing his punk ethos. Besides, he and your brother and their Lipa-based barkada are still in touch. And you both reminisce about that lomi place in Lipa.

He eventually mellows a bit about the whole “corporate rock” thing.

‘Dominic is in the news again’

On NU107, he hosts a regular show called “Dread at the Control” where he showcases reggae, ska, dancehall, dub and all other variants.

His authoritativeness, coupled with an almost comical hair-trigger temperament, does evoke more than a few misunderstandings with other local reggae artists.

Sometimes, he will be in the news not for his music but for his collection of wild animals, and the local authorities are not pleased. Your mom will text you, “Dominic is in the news again.”

Guitars, lomi and hanging with the older bro

Schedules converge and your on-air slot overlaps with his show… and he usually runs quite late and apologizes profusely. The conversations off-mike revolve around guitars, “that lomi place in Lipa” and how he met up with your brother and their high school barkada the other week, or just last night. “My brother was in Manila last night with you and he didn’t tell me??” They will remain friends until your brother’s untimely passing.

On occasion, he hands you a replication of interesting releases (“Dub Side of the Moon,” Sinead O’Connor’s reggae foray, etc), just as he did in high school.

He has owned many valuable guitars but doesn’t have that black Les Paul anymore.

Domeng and Pepe Smith

At a gig one night, you find yourself tipsy and sentimental. You point to him as a profoundly important catalyst for your musical life beginning with that high school gig. Surprised, he puts his hand over his mouth, which he always does when he begins to laugh.

His shoulders quake and he says, “Bakit ako ang sinisisi mo?” He pauses, and points to his friend and hero, “Si Peyaps (Pepe Smith) ang may kasalanan!”

You already told your story to Pepe Smith (whose voice powered ‘Titser’s Enemy No. 1’) who already said, jokingly, “Pusher pala noong high school si Domeng?”

Musically, absolutely.

Looking for lomi in heavean

He passes on a day before his birthday .

You are about to play a gig and inform the band: “Wala na si PapaDom/Domeng.” You text people who knew him using the exact same words.

But the message you send your mother is slightly different: “Wala na si Dominic.”

The sadness is profound but you find a smile and wonder if your brother and he are now looking for lomi in heaven.

God bless you Dominic “PapaDom” Gamboa.

Read more stories from Francis Brew:

2013 Elements Songwriting Camp: The business of music making

Welcome to the camp: Songwriters descend on Dumaguete