Eraserheads: The Circus is Back in Town

So I first heard about it over a week ago -- the Eraserheads reunion, that is. Text messages from Cris Ramos Jr told me that the event that hordes of Pinoy rock fans have been hoping for for half a decade is about to come to pass: Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Marcus are going to be sharing a stage again, as a band, this August 30. The news reaffirmed the extent of my feelings for the band, which is to say, smack dab between indifference and enthusiasm. People assume I'm a big E-heads fan -- someone even wanted to interview me for a docu on the band recently -- but the truth is that while their early albums were an important part of my college life, I took the news of their breakup quite well. It was time, it seemed. And it's not as if the members stopped making music, or stopped making good music. (The last Pupil album, in particular, deserves more attention.) They just stopped being able to make music together.

I still remember being backstage at that recent MTV awards show where Ely was accepting some special honor on behalf of the band and said "I'd like to thank the three people that made this possible..." and went on not to thank Raimund, Buddy and Marcus, but Diane and two other people whose names I can't remember. It was an ugly moment, with animosity being snatched from the jaws of reconciliation. But apparently money can do what time and memory cannot.

The emphasis on the money, and the sponsor -- even in the very headline of the news item on Philmusic -- is off-putting of course, but then again let's not kid ourselves. That was the only way it was going to happen, and we are morbidly fascinated by the details of the deal. Besides, these guys all have families and day-to-day needs and they have arguably never been compensated sufficiently for their contribution to Philippine rock music. I don't begrudge them their payday at all, and in fact I'm happy for them. (It's unfortunate that the cash comes from a cancer merchant, but whatever. People are going to smoke with or without an E-heads concert to spur them.) Hopefully it means that Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Marcus will be less plagued by whatever financial concerns they have, and freer to work on their creative pursuits.

(This just in: the Age of Brillig points out that "just last week, a total ban on cigarette advertising took effect in the Philippines, and the ban covers the sponsorship by tobacco companies of concerts or cultural arts events. So the Marlboro rumor is probably incorrect.")

And if this event somehow serves as a shot in the arm for the music scene, no one will be happier about that than me. But even if it's just a one-afternoon nostalgia trip, that's good enough. I'm just hoping -- and this is probably a futile hope -- that it doesn't get too chaotic. It has the potential after all to be more of a draw than the past three or so Summer Slams slapped together. Unless friends or duties drag me to the event, I'll be staying well away, happy enough to watch the inevitable DVD. And looking forward to future albums by Sandwich, Cambio, Pedicab, Pupil, The Dawn, etcetera etcetera, not to mention the many bands who may not count ex-Eraserheads in their ranks but who owe a debt to that quartet who, over a decade ago, gave us songs that served as soundtracks for our days.

Rico Returns

When Rico Blanco was wandering in the desert, a vision came to him: a glowing kitchen sink, floating in mid-air. "Heed me, Rico," it said. "I am the only thing that you will not throw into your next song."

When I was at the Imagine launch, I heard that Rico Blanco, former lead singer of Rivermaya, had recorded a new song, and that it was some kind of musical Frankenstein's monster, some freakish creation stitched together from the corpses of different genres and jolted to life by electricity. I admit to being intrigued, so when I saw the MySpace link on Mari A's blog I checked it out right away.

The song, "Yugto," sounds like a collision of Rivermaya, Kula Shaker, Big Country, Queen, and, um, Hagibis, with some nameless 80s hair metal band thrown in near the end. Oh, and some horn blasts and a spoken-whispered bit, too. It's pretty crazy, though not in a genuinely transgressive asylum-ready way, more like, "What are you -- crazy?!" Well, you can't say it's not ambitious.

Listen for yourself here.

A Goofy Bungle in the Filipino Jungle

"At last I've found the lost tribe of Filipino cavemen!... And thanks to the power of my ring, they'll soon do whatever I command! Nyahahaha!!"

Holy crap, is what I say. I don't remember ever seeing this on Saturday Fun Machine:

"The plot -- evil Western scientist takes control of a lost tribe of Filipino cavemen (who resemble Bluto-sized Caucasian cavemen) found in Mindanao. He then steals a "power energizer" from a Filipino scientist who looks suspiciously like Lino Brocka (then fresh from his late 70s Cannes success). The power energizer is then used to empower said cavemen with superhuman strength. Rather than use the new and fortuitous strength to take vengeance on our foreign invaders, the cavemen are put to use to steal jewels from "the royal palace in Manila"."

Read all about it (and watch clips!) on the always-witty, frequently-updated, occasionally mind-blowing Age of Brillig blog, here.

(A look at the Wikepdia entry for Fangface reveals that the director for the series was one Rudy Larriva. Perhaps he was a Fil-Am?)

Old Books, Like Old Friends

Thank you to wysgal, from whose blog I found out about Fine Lines: "the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth." That's YA as in Young Adult fiction -- I had such a blast looking through the titles, recalling preteen days of haunting the shelves of Natio and Bookmark. A Wrinkle in Time and The Girl With the Silver Eyes were particular favorites, so I was happy to see them featured. And Lizzie Skurnick's opening for her Wrinkle in Time reread is priceless:

"If I had my way, none of us would have to read this review at all. Instead, we'd join hands, hear a great dark thunderclap, and be whisked off to a rambling house in the country, where we'd view odd things bubbling in a lab with a stone floor, then eat limburger-and-cream-cheese sandwiches while swinging our legs at the kitchen table. We'd sidestep for a moment onto a planet inhabited by gentle gray creatures with dents for eyes, then be inserted into some mitochondria. We'd battle for the soul of Madoc/Maddox, and eat small crayfish with our lesbian kind-of aunt who insisted on calling us our full name (Polyhymnia). We'd hop on a freighter and solve a mystery, then go to boarding school in Switzerland. We would make a brief detour on the Upper West Side by way of Portugal, and be concerned with cell regeneration in starfish. We'd be smacked on the ass by a dolphin. Most important, whatever happened, we'd know we could get through it—because we are creatures that can love. GOD, HOW MUCH DOES IT KILL ME THAT WE CAN'T DO THOSE THINGS, ESPECIALLY THE DOLPHIN PART!"

Go, read, remember. There seems to be something wrong with their tags sometimes though -- keep trying. (Fran, I think you especially would love Fine Lines. Heck, I can imagine you writing it.)

I miss the bookstores of my youth (funny, a friend was just telling me earlier today about how when she was a child, her parents would take her on Special Trips to National Bookstore Quezon Avenue, as if it were a Disneyland of sorts, which it was, in a way). I know that's just the nostalgia talking, though -- the YA sections in bookstores now are more vast and colorful and captivating than anything I remember. And on top of all these flashy new books (he said geriatrically), all the old stuff is still there, the Judy Blumes and Madeleine L'Engles and Louis Sachars and Jerry Spinellis and Katherine Patersons and all, old friends who never really get old.

Music Matters 2008-0704

1. Your New Influences

Fluxblog condemns the "seemingly infinite wave of faceless, deeply unimaginative indie bands and their tired, worn-out influences," and challenges the bands who fit that description to stop recycling the work of the same old artists, to come up with something fresh, to find new influences. His first suggestion? Janet Jackson circa Rhythm Nation 1814. Don't laugh, he's serious. And he makes sense.

2. Rolling Stone Feels The Rush

The music magazine critic guy over at Idolator says that historically, "Rolling Stone's past and present staffers regard [Rush] the same way as every American woman and non-nerd male: as an abomination." Apparently it no longer holds true: they finally featured the Canadian trio in a recently-released issue. Welcome news, I suppose, for the people in my life who adore the band. You know who you are. ;) "Let's have some more like this, RS! And to you what don't like Rush: reading Norris' article will begin the process by which you will acknowledge how very very wrong you are."

3. Taken By Bores

In the often too-cautious world of local music journalism (for lack of a better term), Erwin Romulo is like Daredevil, The Man Without Fear, except that maybe he shouldn't wear red spandex. When I clicked on the title of his latest column ("Being Boring,") I was looking forward to a discussion of the melancholy pop genius of the Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour. Instead I found an evisceration of Taken By Cars' debut album, Endings of a New Kind.

After describing one of the tracks as lacking "any imagination in approach or innovation," and saying that "it would’ve certainly been affecting if it didn’t sound so phony," he goes on to quote New Order’s Bernard Sumner -- "[Sumner] said he’d rather have exciting sounds made by machines and synthesizers than boring music made by people with guitars. However, Taken By Cars’ Endings of a New Kind sounds as if it’s been made by people with guitars and synthesizers who are as boring as machines." Holy crap! Tell us what you really feel, Erwin!

Any idiot can write an album review, as the interwebs proves every day. Sadly for Taken By Cars, Erwin is not some anonymous ignoramus -- his musical knowledge is vast and deep and I have no doubt that his distaste for the band stems from his unshakeable ideals of what popular music could, and should be. For the record, though, I like TBC's debut, even if they forgot to thank me in their liner notes.

What It Is, by Lynda Barry

Q: What is an idea made of?
A: Of future, past, and also meanwhile.

Will be on the lookout for this new book by Lynda Barry: What It Is. Vulture describes it as a "memoir-as-master-class, a gorgeously illustrated guide to creativity and the power of images. Part collage, part autobiography, part inspirational lesson."

They have a 6-page excerpt up and it is great. It will have you thinking and reminiscing while you admire the art. (That stuff about the dead kingdom just gets to me.) More previews and info here and here and here. The publisher put up a 13-page PDF here. All of these excerpts online taken together give one a pretty clear idea of what the book is like. And it seems like it is well worth the search.

(Fun fact: Lynda Barry is one-quarter Filipina and spent at least one summer here, which she recounted in her book One Hundred Demons.)

If You Like Lists

So Entertainment Weekly magazine has hit the 1000th-issue mark, and to celebrate, they're featuring what they call "the New Classics" -- in other words, the "1000 best movies, TV shows, albums, books and more of the last 25 years."

Since this is EW we're talking about, the lists are a little more, shall we say, populist (ha ha, popu-lists, get it? I slay me) than you might expect from anything with the word "classics." The Breakfast Club, Spider-Man 2, and Back to the Future all make the Movies list, for example -- which I think is great. (But WHAT?! No Ferris Bueller?) And over in the Books list, both High Fidelity and Bright Lights, Big City make the grade (and I admit, I thoroughly enjoyed both books, though I wouldn't have ranked the latter so much higher than the former).

The people over at Newsarama are happy, of course, that there are so many comics and comics-related properties mentioned in this special issue. Meanwhile, over at Vulture, they cite "The Ten Most Head-Slapping Pairings in the EW New Classics Lists."

Oh, and speaking of comics, I haven't read through the whole issue yet, but much as I enjoy lists, I'm willing to bet that the best thing in the magazine is a comic -- this comic, to be precise, by Alison Bechdel. "If you really want your children to read something, for God's sake keep it to yourself!"

J.G. Jones: Comics' Most Wanted

Hey, check it out: the first issue of the free, freshly-redesigned official Fully Booked magazine! (Or, The Magazine Formerly Known as 'In Print'.) The cover doesn't really look like that, btw. I 'negatived' it, because I think it looks cool that way, and because this is my blog and I'll do what I want. (Not that the real cover doesn't look cool.) If your computer can display .pdf files, go HERE right now to read it. If your computer can't display .pdf files, I feel sorry for you.

Lotsa good stuff, such as articles by Yvette Tan (yay!), Cris Ramos Jr, and Tals Diaz on subjects like Kurt Cobain, the Kindle, and other things that do not necessarily begin with the letter K. (Fellow typography geeks will love Miguel Mari's "Top 10 Letters of the Alphabet and the Font They Look Best In.")

And yes, the cover story is by yours truly. Probably the best assignment I've gotten in recent memory: to interview comics creator J.G. Jones himself. (Thank you thank you to Editor-in-Chief Gabbie!) The very thought still sends me into paroxysms of fanboy glee. :D My favorite bit: when he talked about his upcoming creator-owned projects. They sounds inneresting.

FULLY BOOKED: Tell us more about the creator-owned projects that you're planning to do.

J.G. JONES: I need to finish Final Crisis so that I can quit talking about it and just do the thing. Both are period pieces, but about five hundred years apart. One is a horror thing and the other is more of a thriller. No spandex, I'm afraid. I also have worked out an adventure story set in the 80's and an idea I'm working on that involves a lot of religion and weird physics. We'll see how that goes.

Night Monkeys, Night Monkeys / We Know How To Show It

"The Night Monkeys, Tahanan Books' much-anticipated collection of Palanca prize-winning stories for children, will be launched on Monday 30 June, from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M. [NOTE: That's TODAY] at Mary Grace Café in Serendra, Fort Bonifacio Global City. The public is invited to attend. Ten stories and full-color illustrations from the country's best and brightest talents in Philippine literature appear in this charming edition featuring entries handpicked from Palanca archives from 1998 through 2005.

"The book is the long-awaited sequel to The Golden Loom, Tahanan's critically acclaimed first collection of Palanca prize winners published in 1997. The new anthology celebrates the exciting diversity of writing and illustrative styles that have vitalized the face of Filipino children's literature in the last decade. The genres of fantasy, social realism, and historical fiction illuminate this eclectic mix of tales ranging from a haunted old aparador to a magical chicken to an unusual World War II friendship between a Filipino child and a Japanese soldier. Lauded by children's book critic Carla M. Pacis as a collection that "raises the bar for Philippine children's literature," The Night Monkeys is a book sure to delight boys and girls (ages 8 to 12) as well as parents and teachers."

Word. And who are these "best and brightest talents" mentioned in the press release, you may ask? Ahem ahem! My story "Mico and Friends" is included (illustrated by the insanely talented Marcus Nada), as is Yvette's story "Kulog" (beautifully illustrated by Brian Vallesteros). Then there's Cyan Abad-Jugo's "Behind the Old Aparador" (wonderful art by Lala Gallardo), and Nikki Alfar's "Menggay's Magical Chicken" (art by Conrad Raquel). Artist extraordinaire Joel Chua did the cover image, based on the title story by Bing Sitoy. Other authors are Herb Fondevilla, Raissa Rivera-Falgui, Natasha Vizcarra, Celeste Flores-Coscolluela, and Honoel Ibardolaza. Plz to behold the illustrations here!

Hope y'all can drop by! :)

Gaze Upon These Comics And Weep -- Or Laugh, As The Case May Be

"God, why is Napoleon eating cookies so funny?" These, and many other questions you have never thought of, are addressed in an online collection of utterly hilarious, wonderfully drawn comics with subjects that range from family and friends and childhood to fishing and dancing and pooping. You must go to katebeaton.com now and thank me later after you laugh your ass off. (My favorite sections are "Maybe It's a Journal," "People and Places" and "Nonsense.") My thanks to girl-wonder.org, where I first read about Ms. Beaton and her comics.

Beaton has made a name for herself doing funny comics based on historical fact, and those are great, but my favorites are the little personal and/or nonsensical ones (see: the magnificent Kate Beaton Stop Being So Hard On Yourself), the stuff involving writers, and anything and everything to do with Pope John Paul.

Wordled

Oh, yay: yet another way to fritter away my hours! See that image above? It's my short story "Tell the Sky" in word cloud form. (Click on it to behold its full niceness.)

"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends." Go to Wordle now and make yer own!

And now, the first page of my blog, word-clouded:

Imagine the Future

Who's that gigolo on the street, with his hands in his pockets and his crocodile feet? That's right, it's Imagine magazine!

As some of you may know, I'm one of the contributing editors of this shiny beast, this thrice-yearly fashion-forward publication -- I wrote two short short stories and a feature on Arnold Arre for the first issue (which, btw, won the Gold for Best in Magazine Cover Design at the Asia Media Awards 2008 -- congratulations to EIC Joyce Fernandez, and Yonina Chan and the rest of the staff!). For the second issue, Imagine: The Future, I interviewed May Jurilla about the Philippine Book.

You (yes, you) are all invited to Capone's Bistro later tonight, June 26, Thursday, at 10 PM, as Imagine celebrates its second issue with "music, drinks, freebies and fun aplenty"! Artists and fashion designers will be exhibiting their visions of the future. Poptronic hiptastic retrofuturistic band Bagetsafonik will be playing. See you there!

'Chilla in Manila

Now that it's raining more than ever/ Know that we'll still have each other/ I can has a baby chinchilla?/ I can has a baby chinchilla!/ Illa illa, ay ay ay/ I can has a chinchilla/ Illa illa, ay ay ay

Cute little sucker, huh? No, I'm not getting one. I don't even know if you can get them here, except perhaps in coat form. Besides, they don't seem as low-maintenance as hamsters. And while they're very cute as babies, most of them grow up really fugly. You know, just like humans. Their big advantage as pets seems to be that they can live for twenty years or more with proper care (which is ten times the projected lifespan of my hamster Burroughs).

I only got curious about 'chillas when I saw this one on I Can Has Cheezburger. ;) The photo above, btw, is from the Chinchilla-Lexikon.

Chinchilla is also, apparently, the name of a power metal band. That band must kick so much ass to have the confidence to name themselves after a tiny fluffy animal.

Okay, just checked out the songs on Chinchilla's MySpace. Wow. Major nostalgia trip. Check out "Fight" and "Take No Prisoners," especially the solo. It was like I was in the 80s again, listening to Whitesnake and Lion and... Hey. They're all named after animals! That's it. I'm forming a metal band called Death Hamster.

Living With Music

My favorite regular feature on the New York Times Paper Cuts blog ("A blog about books") is Living With Music -- "A weekly playlist of songs from a writer or some other kind of book-world personage."

Recently they featured William Gibson. His selections were surprisingly... organic. (What, no tracks from the Johnny Mnemonic OST? Har!)

Thrown Down a Well

"This goes out to all you folks who seem to think that admitting you’re an asshole somehow makes you less of one. (Hint: it makes you more of one.)"

Read the all-too-short Thrown Down a Well Comics. (Link from Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin.)

Rock Yer Frock

This is fun: PAPERMAG's 25 Most Stylish Songbirds. Yay especially for Jenny Lewis, Karen O, Zooey Deschanel and Chan Marshall a.k.a. Cat Power (pictured above)!

"From Stevie Nicks' billowy dresses, to Grace Jones's power-suits, to Madonna's Gaultier bra, to Björk's swan get-up, female musicians have a long history of making fashion statements. These days, the current crop of songstresses, both up-and-coming and fairly established, are carrying on the tradition..."

If I were still EIC of Pulse or an editor on BURN, I would have loved to do something like this, for the local scene. :) We'd have to have different categories though...

Landscape, Raw

Those of you who like art and stuff should go see Raw Landscape, the new show by Pep Manalang, opening this Friday, June 20, 6 PM at the Finale gallery on the corner of Makati Ave. and Pasay Road. Yes, she is my Tita, and yes, she is a genius.

Check out the works she showed at the Drawing Room last year here, and more sheer brilliance here!

Meet Alphabeat

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Alphabeat. I've probably used the word "poptastic" before, but I don't believe I've ever listened to a band that deserved that made-up adjective as much as this one does. They're like Katrina and the Waves, if every song Katrina and the Waves ever released was as fun as "Walking on Sunshine."

Popjustice.com asserts that “Alphabeat are quite certainly one of the greatest bands on planet earth.” I'm not sure if these guys have their own children's show, but I almost feel like they should. Or maybe even their own TV channel, spewing forth bright-colored smiliness 24 hours a day. "Fascination" is the song that should be playing full blast if you ever find yourself dancing down the street with a crowd of cheerful neighbors, jugglers, cartoon mascots, majorettes, and stilt-walkers behind you, and "What Is Happening?" might be even better. Play loud!

Not Happening

So, apparently, M. Night Shyamalan still sucks. On the plus side, that's one less movie ticket to blow money on, and the very existence of the movie means we get to read a hilarious-as-usual blog post from Jun Lana:

"Inabangan ko talaga ang pelikulang ito. Feeling ko dito babawi si Shyamalan pagkatapos siyang laitin ng buong universe sa Lady in the Water. 11 am pa lang nasa Shangri La na ako para manood. Eh 12:45 pa pala ang 1st screening. OA. Huling beses na inabangan kong magbukas ang sinehan, may career pa si Nora Aunor. Nahila ako ng mommy kong manood ng Ang Totoong Buhay ni Pacita M. Siyempre panay Noranians ang kasabay namin. Tuwing may dramatic moment si Ate Guy, nagpapalakpakan ang fans. At may mga taong pumupwesto sa harap ng screen pag may close up si Ate Guy at nagpapapiktyur. How bakya, sabi ko sa sarili ko. Siyempre feeling ko sosyal ako. Naloka ako nung biglang maglabas ng camera ang mommy ko at gustong magpapiktyur din.
. . .

"Kaya eto depressed ako. Dahil mahirap tanggapin pag pumapalpak ang idol mo. Katulad ito ng depression ng mommy ko nang manood kami ng ’Merika ni Ate Guy. Tatatlo lang kami sa loob ng sinehan. At yung pangatlo eh usher pa. Pero kahit papano may angking ganda naman ang ‘Merika. Eh etong The Happening? Hay. Di ko alam kung saan magsisimula."

Click here for the whole post.

Kidlat's Exhibit

Tomorrow (or today, or last week, depending on when you're reading this), Saturday, June 7, 2008, is the opening of Sleeping White Elephants, Kidlat de Guia's first solo exhibit here in Manila (he had a solo exhibit in Baguio, and a group exhibit with his brothers Kawayan and Kabunyan at Silverlens before). So you gotta go!

It's happening at 3 PM, at GALLERY DUEMILLA, 210 Loring Street, Pasay City. (It's "near the corner of Taft and Edsa. If on Edsa coming from Makati heading towards Roxas Blvd, after crossing Taft Ave, turn right on the second street, PARK AVENUE (after LPG filling station). Then turn right on the first street, Loring Street -- you can't miss it on your right, number 210.")

"Sleeping White Elephants is Kidlat De Guia's photography exhibit showcasing Manila's unfinished high-rise buildings. The images of these concrete monoliths have been reproduced on duratrans and transformed into lightboxes. The cement frames encase concrete images in more concrete, creating a living sarcophagus for the prematurely dead. Video projections on the walls in between the images create an ongoing conversation between the "sleeping" giants and the environment they inhabit."

Seeya there! :D