The long journey to get Eraserheads albums on vinyl
If you know the hit songs of the Eraserheads, you would no doubt be familiar with Ligaya, Toyang, Shirley and Jay.
But have you heard of Allen, Haro, Maida, and Levan?
Probably not, unless you were listening closely to “Balikbayan Box,” the nostalgic closing track of the hit docu “Eraserheads: Combo on the Run.”
Although all four, it turns out, are names of real-life Filipino Americans who once crossed paths with the Eheads, the fourth one stands out for quite possibly being the ultimate Eheads fan.
LeVan De Guzman, who is based in Azusa, California, first met the Eheads in April 1997, during their first ever US tour. “My friends were the ones who produced the tour and back then, the Eraserheads came to the US without their roadies,” De Guzman said. “I, my brother Haro, some friends like Allen, eventually became their alalay, drivers, tour guides, etc. Then when we became Happy Box, we had the opportunity to set up their tours in 1998 and 2000. We hung out and got to know each other pretty good. I don’t think that we were close friends, though, since we never really communicated on a regular basis, especially after their breakup and after the tours stopped.”
Despite De Guzman’s modest perception of his relationship with the Eheads, he, along with his brother Haro and friends Allen and Maida, must have made quite a positive impression on the band for their names to land in “Balikbayan Box.”
That’s not his only connection to the Eheads.
Rallying fans
Back in 2013, the idea of OPM albums coming out on vinyl was still a pipe dream. Vinyl enthusiasts spoke excitedly about their dream OPM vinyl reissues on Wired State, an online forum for Filipino vinyl and music enthusiasts. Among the most talked about were albums by the Juan de la Cruz Band, Bong Penera, Apo, Rivermaya, The Dawn, and of course, the Eraserheads.
De Guzman, however, did not just talk about his dream vinyl release. He put up the Facebook page “Eraserheads on Vinyl/LP Record” on May 21, 2013.
De Guzman’s big idea of rallying Eheads fans to clamor for the vinyl release of the first three Eheads albums started when he posted photos on Facebook and Instagram of his DIY Eheads replica vinyl project which he called “Dirty Little Vinyls: The 7” Singles.” When one of the Eheads saw a picture of the mock-up, he wrote to De Guzman to ask for a copy. They then started a lengthy thread about releasing the albums of the band on vinyl.
You’d think that such a fateful meeting of minds would suffice to make his dream vinyl reissues happen. But it would take six years for De Guzman’s campaign to bear fruit. The Eheads’ “Ultraelectromagneticpop!” came out on vinyl in November 2019 under Ely Buendia’s Offshore Records in collaboration with Sony Music. “Circus” was reissued on vinyl in March 2023, while “Cutterpillow“ was released in April 2024.
Hurdles
Blame it on the protracted task of reissuing albums on vinyl format, which is by no means easy. Hurdles abound. There is the licensing and royalty consideration, distinct and separate from securing the rights to the original sound recording. There is also the management buy-in of each of the band members.
The most critical, though, according to November Hi-Fi Show founder and 78-45-33 jazz bar owner Tonyboy de Leon, is the use of the analog tapes of the original recordings—something that, he points out, plagued the Beatles stereo reissues.
To avoid a similar fate, the tapes should be mastered and cut for vinyl recording. De Leon shares that the task is as tedious as “making a mix cassette tape and converting it into a mix digital file. Do it wrong, and serious music lovers won’t buy that crap even if on sale.”
By all indications, Buendia and his vinyl project team appear to have taken all these into consideration as they tapped no less than the legendary Bernie Grundman to remaster the original analog tapes to achieve “audiophile-grade sound.” Grundman engineered the mastering of Steely Dan’s “Aja,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Prince’s “Purple Rain,” and Joe Satriani’s “Flying in a Blue Dream,” among others.
Asked about how he feels about all these, De Guzman shared that he is “excited for all the fans.” Perhaps, it is not an exaggeration to say that they too are “puno ng tuwa’t galak,” albeit this time around, it is not just because of a balikbayan box.
