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LISTEN: No-No Boy, “Gimme Chills”

Apr 28, 2021

LISTEN: No-No Boy,

Artist: No-No Boy
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Gimme Chills”
Album: 1975
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Release Date: April 2, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Gimme Chills’ is a laundry list of proper nouns from Filipino history working backwards from Duterte, ISIS, Marcos, Admiral Dewey, the Americans, LĂłpez de Legazpi, the Spanish, and all the displacement, westernization, mixing, death, love, survival, and living which surround those heavy words. If you simply Google every one of those names, you’ll get a pretty good history lesson. A while back, one of my students called ‘Gimme Chills’ a ‘fucked up love letter to the Philippines’ — well put. When I sing it, I picture myself fronting one of the early 20th century Filipino transpacific cruise ship bands who helped spread jazz, blues, country and other sonic styles of their occupiers across Asia. Closest I ever got was a beautiful, one-night-only jam session with three of Providence, Rhode Island’s finest Filipino American musicians Marlon Battad, Jeff Prystowsky (Low Anthem) and Armand Aromin (Vox Hunters). It was January. It was New England cold. We played this song. Chills twice over.” — Julian Saporiti, No-No Boy


Photo credit: Diego Luis

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LISTEN: No-No Boy,
LISTEN: No-No Boy,