By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor

The space—despite cool lounge tables and chairs—doesn’t leave much room for audiences. The paint scheme and the lights—as pretty as they are—aren’t optimized for your eyes. The money you pay at the gate—as welcome as that may be—isn’t what keeps this place going.

It’s the cameras, babe. No less than four of them record simultaneous in discreet, strategically placed mounts as well as hand held ones, capturing the energy and talent on stage in high definition (HD) video and 16-track audio to produce well-edited broadcasts for radio, television, Internet and mobile devices.

The new Six Underground (6UG) is a different kind of rock music venue. And it is purpose-built for an audience far beyond than its four walls. It’s breaking ground with a radical business model—a high tech SME taking Pinoy rock industry into the 21st century.

“What’s unique about it is the business model. It’s not just a bar. In other bars, the business centers on the patrons. As for us, our business centers upon on those who perform. Why? Because we document them and we transfer the performances to different media,” explains Russel Dacasin, head of marketing. These uncontrived yet well-produced performances are packaged as 6UG Live and Raw.

“We are available through the Internet. You can check us out at underground.ph and www.6ugliveandraw.tv and we have a program right now in Youtube, youtube.com/6ugliveandraw,” adds Lem Francia, head of production at 6UG.

“The business is not merely based on consumption. The business is about content and how it is shown onsite and outside. As for our revenues, the first stage is sponsorship and the second stage come from sales,” reveals Dacasin. 6UG plans to sell their catalogue to television stations. Already it is available on radio as well as the internet.

Most rock venues are converted apartments in residential areas. These leads to walls and posts blocking the view, entrances and toilets oddly located beside the stage, patrons and waiters bumping into each other on the narrow paths in front of the stage and early closing times because of neighborhood complaints.

The new 6UG—located at the second floor of a commercial building in Pearl Drive, Ortigas Center, Pasig City—has two panoramic glass walls that are a complete contrast to the often claustrophobic feel of gig venues. The stage—a generous expanse that affords even large ensembles elbowroom to play—is located not at a corner but at the center of the room, giving its cameras various angles. Brightly lit and painted, the place looks just right on camera. The acoustics are ideal and a sound engineer tucked way in his booth ensures great audio for both recording and live entertainment. Besides a production crew manning the video cameras onsite, there’s a postproduction to edit each and every video and audio track. There are also three HD flat screen television sets hung from the ceiling that show menu boards, previews of Live and Raw videos as well advertisements from sponsors—even more opportunities for revenue.

More than a rock bar, 6UG is a studio. But so unlike the typical television studio, it is designed to capture the vibe of an intimate rock gig—the rapport between performer and audience that’s at the heart of the rock ’n roll ethos. 6UG is all about high fidelity. And that’s because it’s run by techie geeks who are rockers themselves.

Dacasin is bass guitarist and co-founder of Sugar Hiccup as well as marketing head of Thumb Interactive, a pioneer digital musical downloads for the Filipino market. “6UG is a product of Thumb Interactive,” he explains.

Bel Sayson—owner, operations manager, co-founder of the original Six Underground in Palanca Street Makati, co-host of Six Underground Live and Raw radio show every Tuesdays, 10 p.m. at NU107.5 FM—is also the guitarist of the band Ozawa (formerly Pearl Drive). “It [6UG at Palanca Street] started back in April 2004 and closed in 2007. We picked up where the former owners left off back during the last quarter of 2007,” recalls Dacasin.

More than a groundbreaking business venture, 6UG is also a pioneering effort in documenting and supporting independent Filipino rock musicians.

“We are the first ones to catalog more than 800 bands. Networks are shocked as to why we are doing this. We said that it’s because nobody is cataloging contemporary independent Filipino music that they are thinking of doing. We’ve been doing this for almost three years,” he attests.

“The problem of indie bands, even up to now, is that they don’t have demos or music videos. So, what we do is we catalog it and the good thing about it is there are a lot of social sites and they embed it on their sites. They get that for free. The bands also get a share of the money earned from the gate tickets. We talk to the band and say that we are actually promoting them through the medium,” Francia explains.

“A band’s worth is its catalogue,” Dacasin explains.

Besides many promising new bands, 6UG has hosted the most influential rock artists of our time. Rico Blanco, Urban Dub, Up Dharma Down, Radioactive Sago Project, Typecast, River Maya, Sugar Hiccup and Joey Pepe Smith are just some the many musicians that 6UG has captured in Live and Raw.

Dacasin admits, “With this business model, we are still in the process of realizing the profit. But I also discourage those who want to try something like this because the capitalization is high.”

Besides investments in HD and post-production equipment, 6UG maintains a high overhead with its production and post-production crew. Dacasin notes, “In a month’s time, we use two terabytes of videos and audios. One terabyte can cost you around P6,000. Adding that up to the electric bills and the labor, the figure can make you fall off your set.”

He cautions, “It’s no joke. It’s not something you’ll do if you want a quick ROI [return on investment]. You really have to be a visionary to pursue this.”

Their vision for 6UG for the future is bold indeed. While other rock venues look to expanding their patrons by putting up yet more bars within Metro Manila, 6UG wants to tap talent outside the capital to provide more content for its catalogue. Dacasin reveals, “We have plans to put up another 6UG in Cebu. That’s where we’ll harness more talent.”

For details, visit www.underground.ph.