Nothing Fragile About Rocker Joanna Glass
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Glasspirits Band - Abe Perez, Joanna Glass
One theory relates to Filipinos having become assimilated into American culture too much and too soon, in our case circa 1898 just after the Spanish-American War. While other immigrant populations formed tight-knit communities and were further isolated by language barriers when they arrived in America, Filipinos with their English fluency plunged right into the deep end of the mainstream. For example, Korean and Hispanic artists developed their own music in their own language for their own market. Recently, they broke out of their shells with distinct music — think K-pop, Tejano, and Latin rap — and millennials and youth were enthralled.
At the same time, American popular music wasn’t static, moving from blues to Tin Pan Alley to swing to bebop to rock to Motown and so on. Filipino artists were not pioneers in any of the dominant genres. As counterintuitive as it sounds, staying derivative is a full-time job when musical styles change multiple times in a generation. Any success Fil-Ams achieved was fleeting in an environment where copycats are as memorable as cover bands. Filipinos didn’t invent a distinct sound, so we were indistinct aside from our physical traits. Filipinos came across as foreign with nothing new to offer.
It’s way too late to merge Tinikling with soul. Joanna Glass, age 31, of Glasspirits is doing the next best thing by giving Filipinos a distinct voice in alternative rock with a hint of Cuban flair from her partner Abe Perez. According to Joanna, “Glasspirits is an alternative rock band that makes commercial rock pop songs with influences from classical music and Afro-Cuban music.”
Joanna was born to Dante and Benedicta Asis in Metro Manila, spent her first three years with them and her older sister in Sucat until the family immigrated to Long Beach. She now lives with her two rabbits in Long Beach.
Joanna’s parents, Dante and Benedicta Asis
The Hardest Working LA Club Band
Joanna sings and plays guitar and violin with Abe on drum and percussion. Their first and so far, only LP, “Mysteries of Rhythm: Dusk” has proved to be the rare album that remains relevant four years after its 2016 release. Glasspirits has remixed and remastered album singles beginning with its cover of DePeche Mode’s “Strangelove,” “Charlize,” and “Mexican Baby.”
The video for its cover of Depeche Mode’s “Strangelove” broke 180,000 views in four days. Joanna’s red guitar stands out in the video. “I think everyone grows out of their first guitar, but I still have my first Gretsch.” She fondly recalls, “When I went to Gretsch headquarters in Arizona, Joe Carducci, its Product Marketing Specialist and master guitar technician, helped me put together a modified guitar that is capable of creating a ‘bassy’ guitar sound. That really helped make our band’s live show sound fuller.”
Further proof that Glasspirits has the technical chops, experts at Ex-Gear chose Joanna to endorse their guitar pedals.
This investment in technology, music videos, and a film documentary is rapidly expanding Glasspirits’ fan base with a loyal crowd who sings along with the lyrics.
From Bows to Picks
Most children transition from ukulele to guitar. Joanna took the classical route, starting with violin at age nine. “While the guitar is still very different from the violin, they are both instruments where the left hand moves towards your body, you generally play higher notes and your right hand creates a majority of the sounds,” observes Joanna.
Joanna in Sucat with neighborhood kids
“I would say that that general musicianship in terms of rhythm, dynamics, collaboration with other musicians has transferred over from my orchestral background, but the area where the violin makes the transition unique is it gives me a sense of prioritizing single-line melodies because the violin can be a solo instrument that plays a lot of unaccompanied single-line melodies.”
Glasspirits has endured the whole obstacle course on the way to becoming a working band. “I often hear of people saying, ‘Well, so-and-so band hasn’t come out with anything in a long time.’ It is drastically more difficult for an independent artist to produce more.
“Until a band signs with good management,” Joanna says, “reaching out to venues, press and radio can take five emails and ten calls each. Promotional outlets have tons of artists bugging them to promote their music on radio, TV and at venues. Until artists can get to the point where they’re not concerned with paying rent and working a temporary job, they are pretty much making music in their spare time.”
If it isn’t hard enough for a young band to bring in fans other than the kind that cool a hot barroom, add on the travails of being Asian in the entertainment industry. Joanna finds that limiting and demeaning stereotypes propagated by American television and film harm all Filipinos in the arts.
“The media, particularly film and TV, play a huge role in what gets normalized. We see Asian women as either nurses or prostitutes. Filipino men are depicted as being good at boxing and billiards. People get a limited perception of the wholeness of an Asian in general or Filipino in particular. The most important thing is for Filipinos to create Fil-Am stories and cast them with Filipino actors.”
The Black Lives Matter movement and activism provoked by toxic politics are making the American conscience more receptive to minority voices. Anyone who has experienced karaoke hour at a Filipino party knows the group’s reputation for being talented singers. Once the Covid-19 pandemic recedes, Joanna says people will also discover, “We’re down to earth and can give them a good time with music and singing.”
F-pop?
While Glasspirits won’t be hiring a choreographer in the foreseeable future, Joanna has become an autodidact on the K-pop music craze. Of the commercial roots of the genre, she says, “Companies train K-pop idols for years before they make their ‘debut.’ It’s like a boot camp of singing and dancing. Many of them are actors in a musical group.
“South Korea is also known for skincare and makeup,” she continues. “It’s a double reward for the nation to have stars advertise their products. Besides the promotion machine, I think the popularity of K-pop stars in America is also related to the decline of American and British teen pop stars.”
She doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that “One Direction ended in 2015 and BTS started to gain popularity in 2016. Music industry executives know that music groups that cater to a younger demographic will always be popular.”
In relating the Korean example to her community, she suggests, “We as Filipinos should support each other in all our industries, produce content of the highest quality and either stay in touch with trends or create them.”
The unique instrumentation of Glasspirits is establishing Joanna as a trendsetter who represents the aspirations of Filipino men and women embarking on their own musical journey.
A music video for their single “Mexican Baby” is due out later this year. Find out what Joanna and Abe are up to at their website and on Facebook and Instagram.
More on Joanna Glass at her website: http://www.joanna-glass.com
Anthony Maddela
Anthony Maddela writes government grants in support of the 14 housing projects operated by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles. Follow him on Instagram @anthony_maddela.
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