BATAAN MARCIANO LORE: Tito Mode Activated
Our resident music columnist, Jamin Reyes, writes an intimate essay about his latest incarnation: part memoir, part alternative screen name, and largely a history lesson wrapped in a karaoke night.
You know that feeling when a relative drops the most left field personal family lore out of nowhere? Where it floors you not because the chismis is hot, but because the realm of human experience and understanding of those around you is constantly growing and unfolding beyond your comprehension?
Like you didn't know that's how your cousin Shawna lost her tooth - or that's the real story of how the fourth sibling was lost from the maids - or that your great grandfather ran the traveling circus complete with the globe of death back home?
That feeling where the tales are so tall and the lessons so wild that it almost sounds like fiction?
Like what do you mean there's a high school in Sorsogon named after mama? What do you mean you, Grandpa and Tito Jeff had to forcibly kick the Beamer off its jack stands out of the garage once it caught fire? What do you mean you and your brother marched 60 miles through heat, starvation and exhaustion as prisoners of war and still made it out?
It seems as though Filipino and Filipino American storytelling is just like this: ridiculous, heartbreaking, inspiring- yet told so casually, like it's nothing.
Like the experiences that crafted them were just the hands they were dealt and the resilience needed was just happenstance.
As I get older, I’ve started to realize I’m becoming that tito who'll share left field anecdotal stories of humanity—and I’m fully embracing that role in my family. FilAmJam, and my contributions as a writer, will be no exception. So I’m here to drop some lore and share a few things to come.
Tito BM’s Story Time
It's my understanding that jazz came from knowing the changes - knowing the material and patterns in an endless repetition of the chorus. It was this freedom outside of the chordal structure through improvisation that jazz really emerged: the joyous celebration of the present and the creation of new ideas that dance through the restraints of the form and changes. Improvised harmonies and melodies elaborated on various details of the foundation, transmuting the suffering and creativity of the African American experience into something constantly reinvented into an eternal present; lest the otherwise dehumanizing portrait America cast upon them triumph.
In kind, the Flammarion Engraving—a 19th-century pastiche from an unnamed artist appearing in a popular meteorology publication—reveals to us the nature of our structures, much akin to the ‘wheel within a wheel’ from Ezekiel’s vision. Depicting a traveling pilgrim at land’s end who has pushed their head just beyond the celestial barrier, such cephalic presentation grants a fleeting glimpse and ecstatic revelry in an unknown-yet-knowable deeper reality.
Now if you're still with me, pare, I believe there's something to be said here about playing the game and knowing the rules - if only so you can bend and break them. Indeed, through all of this, there's something to say about the pursuit of chasing subversion, seeking transcendence and a greater truth all while navigating the bounds of the cultural, familial and societal expectations instilled in us every day.
Or in short: How to creatively move through the world as a well-adjusted millennial 2nd gen Asian American middle child and "How to Stay out of Trouble while Getting Away with the Most".
There's a careful balance of leniency, discipline and self-pursuit when aligning oneself with the cultural norms, behaviors and experiences as a Filipino-American growing up in the 90s/2000s - the creative and social fruit of which I believe we're now seeing in an endless bounty of Fil-am creators, businesses and media representation. As someone who has been pursuing music and art for 15+ years now, the "rules of the game" or "trouble" I was to stay out of always remained as follows:
- Take care of family
- Remain dutiful
- Pay rent/bills on time
- dont do dat dont go ober der dont take dat dont put dat /points with lips/
Beyond the usual expectations of obedience, respect, and being a conscientious hard worker—traits familiar to most Asian Americans—I felt free to do what I wanted, so long as my loved ones were cared for and my rent was paid. And of course, as an introvert who always got their work done, I didn't feel compelled to necessarily tell them *everything* I was up to.
It's here, in those moments between the foundation—the eternal present, the edge of the barrier—when left to my own devices, that I find the liberation to build.
I've always been a multifaceted individual with many interests that speak to a diverse inner pantheon of selves (I believe many Fil-Ams are like this). And each self has come with a branching path down a road of many side quests - from kickboxing under Zsolt Szilagyi in New Mexico, cosplaying as an oil technician at a high volume service center for 2 years, spending every Sunday as an FM radio host in Boyle Heights, to studying ASL, oil painting and accounting for a semester in Santa Rosa under the name Marciano just to feel something.
Life and the discovery of the self always felt like a very fashionable RPG when viewed through the lens of art and music - and the entrepreneurial and creative vehicles for this expression can always be found as manifestations through the art projects and identities associated with those times. For example, Rent Money Business—my first music publishing company at 21—was a tongue-in-cheek entry into the entertainment industry during the rise of streaming services, when indies were just starting to get in the game. Meanwhile, U.N.L. Rent-Network, my current venture, represents an educational conglomerate focused on retrofuturist and revisionist media aimed at dismantling and understanding our habits with technocapitalist platforms.
Whether it was serving drinks to Michele Lamy in DTLA warehouses or playing shows on the Astorian coast and Taos mountain (where yes, your Kuya took a few things here and there), the side quests, while not always on the main path, where always influential to the overall build, experience and stat development of the game itself.
In my current iteration of the self (Mars calls it a rebirth), I've been rekindling my guitar studies, creating educational content, and playing Filipino "edutainment" live sets under the name Bataan Marciano - a pseudonym that honors my family and carries on the tradition of Filipino crooners, composers and storytellers. BM is your tito’s favorite music history channel - a long haired, long legged, baritone gearhead/tuner with a San Mig and essay in hand who quit the habit but'll still bum one if it's around - like a contemporary Bonifacio and Sakay trying to start a Youtube channel with a growing Betamax/VHS collection and an anti-imperialist agenda.
Upon further embracing my role as lore-dropper and story-doter, I’ve come to realize: this isn’t just a side quest—it’s the main one. It’s the culmination of every detour I’ve ever taken, now converging into a cohesive representation of my progress in the game overall. This project includes every experience in music production, musicology, music history - '70s-'90s Japanese consumer electronics - live performance - installation art - anti-colonial rhetoric and the disambiguation of the contemporary Filipino-American for a liberated diaspora.
All previous symbols, iconographies, thoughts and pieces are in review and will be integrated into the larger narrative. I’m calling it now, the 70’s style broadcast network music edutainment channel with a full OPM big band will come in full force.
As the time is coming, here are a few initial things to look out for:
Bataan’s 1st single release on 6/13/25
Musical Scoring for upcoming Fil-Can animation, ANG MERKADO
Bataan Marciano - FilAmJam at Teofilo Coffee, Carson 6/27/25
Other events of interest:
NSNR OPM Night Bar10Corbin 6/6/25 7pm
Makina Drivers Club Eagle Rock 6/29/25 11am
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