The Adventures of Jobless Bunny

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Beestung

I guess it's love.

Throughout my life, there have been all kinds of falling: the kind that starts faintly and deepens in shades, until you can’t tell when it stopped being one thing and started being love; then there’s the kind that happens like cataclysm, sudden and irrevocable, so that the moment becomes history: a December 26 tsunami, a 9/11 explosion, a June 20 walk from a bar, the birthday I turned 20, the birthday I turned 18. You remember where you are, what you’re doing, when the world changes.

I’ll pause for a while, to say that I’m talking about Tori Amos here, about her new album The Beekeeper. It’s taking some courage to do that, as one would about past loves they can’t quite get over, and don’t really want to talk about. (“Shame shame,” as Tori and Damien Rice admonish, on “The Power of Orange Knickers.” “For letting me think that I would be the one.”)

Let me tell you something about me and Tori. I remember taking a ride in Bob’s car, heading out of the Ateneo gates, and being told, “Here’s something I think you’ll like.” The first song (it was a cassette) wasn’t a minute in when I demanded to be driven to the nearest record shop (we ended up at Robinson’s Galleria) to get my own copy of Little Earthquakes. It was beautiful, and I would listen to little else for months afterwards, up until the summer of 1993 when, listening to the album for the million billionth time in my room, I had an epiphany of sorts. I can’t quite explain exactly what it was that I learned, but it was like, well, losing my virginity.

Something about the music made me aware of my body, and no, Mr. Filthybrains, it wasn’t like that. Something about the edge in her voice, something about the pain and the longing all coiled up inside everyone, something about how hot it was that summer: I stopped living in my head that year, and became so comfortable with the power of this skin and these bones that I surprised even my fencing teammates. (That was the year I stopped being everyone’s little whipping girl; a year later, I was team captain, and the coach would only let me practice with the boys’ team because it was the only way I could get a good workout.) So you see how her music--and here I cringe because I know exactly how floopy that sounds--has become such a part of my life in a way that even the music from my favorite bands haven't.

I’ve loved Tori more (From the Choirgirl Hotel) and less (Boys for Pele), but just last week I surprised myself when someone suggested that I looked like a Tori fan. “What, do I look like someone who draws unicorns in my friggin’ notebook?!” I huffed. And anyone who’s ever read the articles or seen the documentary DVDs about Tori fans know what a frighteningly geeky bunch of freaks they are. This is, after all, a woman who talks in verbal pretzels when she’s being eloquent; a woman in a mutually referential relationship with Neil Gaiman; a woman who, for God’s sake, named her daughter after Tolkien’s Lothlorien. So…what? Me? No, no, I never liked Tori that much.

But here I am, listening to The Beekeeper, and for all its faults-—it’s boring in parts, underproduced, missing the insanely rich layers of music or the painfully spare melodies that made her best work so deeply crazy and so deeply affecting—-my heart is again in my throat, my hands shaky, my stomach in knots. I can’t explain it.

It was easier to figure out what I felt about Tori Amos’ music when she was making the relatively sparse but emotionally gutting Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink, or the deep and intricate From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back. The lines were drawn then: because Tori’s music demands such a huge and deeply visceral investment, you either buy into it, or you don’t. I bought into it, big-time.

Now this may have marked me for life, because, like any lover (or cult member) I may see why I shouldn’t invest so much emotionally into The Beekeeper, but I can’t stop myself. I'm trying to tell myself that I can't be this personal with an album, not after spending six years pounding out hundreds (!) of reviews, and certainly not after growing up to be, well, me (and not, for example, Peach). But maybe it's too late for that now. Tori requires a personal response because, producing greatly personal music, that's the way she's asked to be let in, and that's how I've let her in. I realize that this is gushing. It is not what I could sanely claim to be a "conventional critical response." But so what? Tori Amos isn't what I would call a conventional musician either, and she'll never produce conventional music, and we'll never have a conventional relationship.

A FEW THINGS TO LOOK AT:

"Silent All These Years"
"Cornflake Girl"
"Pretty Good Year"
"Spark"
"1,000 Oceans"
"Raspberry Swirl"
Cover of "(Smells Like) Teen Spirit"

Three for Today

1. Hair-Metal Forever

For those of you who may find yourselves lolling around in front of a television today at around 10 AM -- or around 7 PM, for the rerun -- you may get a kick out of today's episode of MTV Diyes, where we celebrate the glory of 80s hair-metal. That's right, I'm talking about Poison, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Bon Jovi... relive your sordid pop-metal past! Air-guitar like crazy in your sala! And wonder at the extent of the damage done to the ozone layer by all that hairspray. Oh, and tomorrow -- Thursday, March 31 -- is quite possibly even more fun: we're featuring Pinoy Indie-Rockers. And yes, I know some people consider "indie" as a musical genre with a specific sound -- but we just took it to mean anyone without a major label deal, basically. Look out for videos by Twisted Halo, Ciudad, and Drip, among others.

2. New Favorite Band

If you're not listening to The Whiles, you really should be, unless you've got something against gorgeous melodies, sweet vocal harmonies, and lyrics about bittersweet longing. Their incredibly catchy acoustic prettiness puts me in mind of Kings of Convenience, kind of -- at least until an electric riff kicks in and the whole song suddenly takes a sharp turn skywards, as is the case on "Lonesome Reply." Songs to soothe and astonish, perfect for this sunstruck season. Go to their site and download some tunes awreddy. I recommend "Emily" and "Will You" for starters.

3. Lane on Writing

"The truth is, that if you're working on a piece at three in the morning, you're not Keats; you're just late." The truth hurts. In this instance, it also makes me smile in recognition. Found this old interview with Anthony Lane, film critic for The New Yorker:

"People think that you have these things called ideas and that writing is a matter of imposing them on the subject material, whereas it's only in the writing that I discover what it is that I think. And I can only write to deadline. I can't do the blank sheet. You know, 'Chapter One: he adored New York...'

"I have the feeling that writing can be all the better for being squeezed in around life. The other day I wrote a piece sitting on the floor of the train to Cambridge, which was straight out of Buster Keaton, with squatting room only. And there was one point last summer when there was someone on every floor of the house, so I wrote on the staircase with my computer on my lap. My thighs got sunburnt, which constitutes an accident at work. I am suing myself.

"Perhaps I understand artistic sensibility but not sensitivity. I don't do feuds, tears at midnight or guttering candles. I do sometimes do racking of the brow, but only with things like car insurance."

Can I Love You?

Luis has lent me his copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (incidentally, a book I would not carry prominently on the top of a laundry pile in an elevator with strangers, if I were you), a book of essays from SPIN senior writer Chuck Klosterman. He's a very smart guy who has decided to use his brain for criticism of "low" (i.e., pop) culture, instead of, say, thinking of ways to end poverty, and I for one appreciate that. The book has chapters with titles like "This is Emo," "Every Dog Must Have his Day, Every Drunk Must Have His Drink," "Sulking with Lisa Loeb on the Planet Hoth," and, Paul's personal favorite, "Porn."

Filed under "The Lady and the Tiger" is what Chuck says are "the twenty-three questions I ask everybody I meet in porder to decide if I can really love them." Really useful stuff, actually, and while we will not infringe on Mr. Klosterman's copyright by posting all 23 questions, I would like to post one from time to time, to help our blogmates figure out the important things in life.

Today's question:

#5: You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make evey song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if it's being performed by Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you). Would you swallow this pill?

Document

I.

K2 and I went to the British Council's 25th anniversary program, which they chose to celebrate by throwing a party and inviting a bagpiper to wail at people for two straight hours. ("Parang awa niyo na, pumasok na kayo," I overheard him mutter, as the last stragglers hovered around the buffet table, refusing to go into the Shangri-La Plaza's vaunted Cinema 1.

What we were there to see was the documentary Bunso, by Ditsi Carolino, about three children sent to prison for petty crimes. All I can say is: Ow. There was, as this review of an earlier screening noted, a stunned silence after the film ended. The director was seated just a few places away from us, and I wanted to go up to her and mumble my thanks, but she was surrounded by a steadily growing number of well-wishers that she actually knew, so I stayed out of it.

This was just so well, well done. Have I been so out of it that I'm surprised that Philippine documentaries have reached this level of excellence? The last Filipino movie that I saw--Panaghoy sa Suba, that World War II/river drama with Cesar Montano (like Bunso, it was filmed in Cebuano and subtitled in English)--was still a disappointment. I'm tired of making excuses: It was good...for a Pinoy film. Bunso was, however, very good, full stop. It never stooped to easy sentimentality when hard reality was there; and the effect was devastating.

Documentaries. It's a weird art. It's at once significant, for sheer veracity, and futile, for the limitations of distribution and audience. I don't need to point out, Luis, that much of our magazine writing career is also about documentation: witnessing a moment in time, and then writing it up so people can share the experience, so they can know and remember, even after our glossy, too-thin bookpaper pages fall off and turn to dust.

II.

C---,

Forgot to say something about the CD that I was putting together for you. Part of the reason yours works so well is because you had a message in every track--they all said something. The problem with the CD I made, besides being laden with alternative-rock tracks that don't hold a candle to the dreamy chillout standbys and surprising rock tracks that you picked out for yours, is that they weren't all there to say something. Some were just there to document the experience, no matter how pointless or painful the exercise. So the whole thing comes off as a little rude, actually.

Maybe it has to do with me being a writer, and how I'm interested in chronicling events, for whatever good it does. In your line of work, you have a mission and a message, and that's what you work for. Or maybe it has to do with the way I've always used music like heroin, to wallow in my misery.

Too bad, because the songs were nice. And I liked how I was able to bookend the tracks with songs of almost the same title, but how the sentiments behind them are still somewhat surprising. So rare that you can find things to fall together like that.

Still, I'd bet your CD wins hands-down in the Midnight Drive Soundtrack Department. Hands down. Mine will probably fall under the Forehead on Steering Wheel category, and it won't be very highly rated, either. Yours: four oranges. Mine: three, maybe three and a half on a good day.

I won't inflict it on you any time soon. But it'll be there and ready for when you want to wallow in it (which I'm doing), or when you and me both can laugh about it. Or maybe I can give it to M--, with the title, One Good Burn Deserves Another. ;)

Enough.


Kristine

The Smatter With You Is...

Fortunately, Luis, my outdated Mac at work has hundreds upon hundreds of archived reviews, dating back to 2002. A quick search for the ones you mentioned turned up these wonderfully caustic bits:

from a review of
DIRTY KITCHEN
(Demo)
"Ride" is a surrealist art house sort of song, borrowing Beck's (and Kurt Cobain's) weirdo lyricist dunce cap, patching together words and phrases that sound nice and rhyme together, but don't actually mean or say anything of consequence, like talking to an idiot savant, although in this case more idiot than savant. It's unobtrusive make-out music more than anything else. --Jun Krus na Ligas (date unknown)

from a review of
JOYCE JIMENEZ
Private Joyce: The Videoke Collection
How the hell do you review a bunch of videoke CDs? my mind reeled as I lurched home. Should I criticize the song selection? What about the quality of the background music itself? Should I judge the visuals by how well they fit the songs? (How?) Furthermore, since this series was obviously banking on Joyce Jimenez's sex appeal, should I dish out higher marks for hotness of concept? For sheer bare-assedness? And did you know, by the way, that if you run a Google search for the phrase "videoke review,” Google will inform you that "Your search did not match any documents"? Nothing. Nada. Zip. This is the World Wide Web we're talking about here, people -- a vast repository of useless information where the phrase "CD review" turns up well over 200,000 matches, and even such unlikely word combinations as, say, "fat supermodel" or "duck fucking" (yes, duck fucking) will yield in the vicinity of 200 results each.--Luis Katigbak, July 2003 issue

from a review of
RIVERMAYA
Between the Stars and Waves

Frankly, I don’t know what to do with Between the Stars and Waves, because the truth is that it really is a very good album, and I immensely enjoyed a lot of it -- but also spent the same time wanting very much to hurl the CD out of the window and go out to punch the living daylights out of the band ... It’s ridiculous. On the album’s first single, “A Love to Share,” Rico Blanco out-Coldplays even Chris Martin, singing in an indefinable accent -- imagine a Pinoy singing like he thinks an Englishman might sing if he were trying to sound not-too-British. That annoying affectation pervades the entire album, unfortunately, and it’s what makes the album less a tribute than a pastiche.--Kristine Fonacier, December 2003 issue

* * * * * * * * *

Now, onto better things.

Lest people think that we're one of those people who disguise their lack of real talent with snarkiness (and there are many; like Luis said, "Why are so many smart people idiots?"), I'd like to post this excerpt from Luis' cover story on the Dawn, out this month. Very nice. I'm proud to have had our bylines share space in a magazine, my friend:

I can hear the song from the street, from two stories down and a set of doors away: Live and be, love will set us free... I seethe with impatience as the doorman checks me for weapons, hastily fork over the club's entrance fee, and then I'm inside, going upstairs two at a time, and the music fills my head and I ascend into a space of black-painted walls and colored lights and see the band onstage. The full force of a song almost twenty years old hits me -- and all of a sudden, I am half there, somewhere else.

I was twelve when I first watched The Dawn live in concert, at the tail end of the 80s. They weren't the headliners of the Ultra Storm, hard as that may be to believe now: that distinction belonged to currently obscure band The Rage, as a glance at an old ticket stub proves. But in my memory, The Dawn was the only reason we were there, my cousins and I--the reason why we pushed our way through the close-packed crowd to get as near the stage as possible, to shout and sing along at the top of our lungs. In my memory, songs like "Enveloped Ideas" and "Dreams" were all part of a story I was living out with people my age, friends and strangers alike: seemingly trivial yet unforgettable, a story of discovery and self-definition and mind-challenging music.

You find your music like you find anything you love for a lifetime: through head-spinningly intense first impressions, deepened by increments, by glances and tastes, flashes of bliss, the slow rush, the terrifying exhilaration of knowing and being known, and finally: hands and heart clasped in commitment, days and years sealed against decay. The beauty of a cascading guitar line, of a voice in flight singing words that mean something to you--these are permanent and ephemeral, as are everything that matters, and when you first fall for your music you almost never appreciate the paradox.

from "The Dawn: Everything that Matters",
by Luis Katigbak,
PULP, March 2005

I Like the Word "Smattering"

Hey, Paolo. Thanks for reading and commenting! I miss Dirt. I only ever had one copy of the damned thing, but that was enough to make me miss it. Anyway, interesting issue you raise -- I have a stack of PULP magazines next to my computer, so let's page through a random smattering of negative reviews, shall we?

from a review of
SIMPLE PLAN
Still Not Getting Any

God, grow up. These are bottom-of-the-barrel emo lyrics ... Celine Dion is likewise a French-Canadian, and even that diva can write better shit ... An immature sophomore album just isn't fun for anyone. Poo on you, Simple Plan. ~ Bernie Sim / December 2004

from a review of
THE STANDS
All Years Leaving

One reviewer likened The Stands to "The Beatles doing Radiohead," which is completely misleading inasmuch as it implies some inspiration or innovation ... Howie Payne is aptly named, as his vocals cause me actual physical pain, especially over the course of twelve songs ... The Stands is a band that shoots for earnestness and authenticity only to land in a limbo of unoriginality. ~ Luis Katigbak / November 2004

from a review of
PUDDLE OF MUDD
Life On Display

Everything's so bluuuurrryy... mainly because I am sleepy. ~ Joey Dizon / March 2004

from a review of
LILLIX
Falling Uphill

It figures that the first sentence of the Lillix bio in their press kit has 17-year-old Louise Burns denying that they're "manufactured". Press kit rule of thumb: whatever issue they confront in the first sentence, whatever it is they're taking pains to deny from the get-go, is true. Not manufactured, my ass. ~ Kristine Fonacier, October 2004
. . .

There are better examples, but they're not in the stack next to my computer. The Rivermaya review Kristine mentioned, a Dirty Kitchen review that got us hate mail, my Joyce Jimenez review (okay, that was fish in a barrel, but still, it was fun) -- the fact is, PULP, if anything, gets flak for being too mean and snarky -- I mean, obviously it's not, but that reaction is understandable when you read the ass-kissing reviews that crop up elsewhere. ;p

And speaking of PULP, I hear my last issue is on the stands now. Haven't seen it yet, but The Dawn is on the cover, supposedly in a pose recreated from an issue of 80s magazine The Score. I wrote the main feature, as well as a short piece on Kiko Machine. And that's it for me and PULP, pretty much. Excelsior!

Random MTV Thoughts*

Luis, on Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter":
"Jesus. Lighten up, Damien Rice."

Kristine, on Jennifer Lopez's "Get Right":
"What is that? It sounds like a bagpipe in distress. And, oh, J.Lo? Paula Abdul called--she wants her dance moves back."

*in lieu of a real blog entry

Music for Blue Rooms and Blue Skies

Last Thursday, me and K2 watched the press preview of New Voice Company's production of The Blue Room by David Hare, starring Jenny Jamora and Jamie Wilson and his...wilson. Blue Room was, if anyone follows these things, the same play that Nicole Kidman starred in, "famously baring her celebrity tush in sold-out runs in London and New York," as New Voice director Rabbi Ganaban notes.

You'd think that a play featuring ten different sexual pairings, full-frontal nudity, and a script by David Hare would be more interesting (especially since I sat down to it after a couple of glasses of wine, which tends to make me kinder and somewhat more receptive to anything to do with sex--which has gotten me into trouble more times than we'll talk about. Hi, mom!) But the six-week rehearsal period for this production really wasn't enough to spark the essential sexual tension between the two leads, and the whole thing turned out to be as fun and sexy as an itchy wet blanket on a cold night. A longer rehearsal period would really have helped, if only to get Jamie Wilson in shape for the role. As it was, he was this black hole of unsexiness, draining all the sexiness out of the room and preventing any from escaping. Anybody who sees the play may never get laid again! It was that unsexy. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating. There were a couple of reporters I knew who sat in the front row and who looked like they were going to get laid--by each other--pretty soon.)

I will, however, direct the music fan's attention to the soundtrack used in this production. I perked up when, during the short transition between one act and the next, I realized that, Hey! They're using OPM! Not the usual Ogie Alcasid/ Nina/ Regine Velasquez/ Sex Bomb Dancers stuff (although that last one might've worked), but tracks by Boldstar ("Acoustic Prone," "Betamax"), Twisted Halo ("Irene," "Miron,") Squid9 ("Insincerely," "Sad Place"), Ciudad ("The Herb"), and Boy Elroy ("Conversations"). It was good to hear these songs in a surprising setting, and some of the songs actually worked very well in the interstices, although some more time and thought might've greatly improved the interplay between the soundtrack and the play's text.

This reminds me of a three-act play that I wrote in college; I don't remember what potentially shameful lines I wrote in that piece of juvenilia, so thankfully the script's now lost to the ages. I'd written it as a The Big Chill or Peter's Friends type of thing, where a couple of old friends meet at a bar to discuss what to do with their dead barkada's ashes. I'd written in a video jukebox in the corner of the scene to play current songs that were supposed to add some dimension to the dialogue--although, for the life of me, I do not remember any of the tracks I'd picked out.

Picked well, the music can be as memorable as anything any of the characters can say. This is something that advertising commercial directors know very well: look at this brilliant VW ad that uses ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky." There was also, somewhere in the mid-90s, another VW ad that made me want to buy both a VW Polo convertible AND a Moonpools & Caterpillars CD to play while cruising down some unnamed seaside highway. It wasn't until months later, after I'd come back from my Stateside vacation and tuned in to NU107 to hear Moonpools' single "Here" that I learned what that song was, but it had stuck so well that, even riding in the passenger seat in my dad's Lancer, I felt the wind in my hair.

Volkswagen certainly doesn't have the monopoly on good commercial soundtracks, although they've had more than their fair share of good picks (one more memorable ad features Nick Drake's "Pink Moon"). Being evocative in a way that's suitable for commercials is something that's also worked to Moby's advantage--Play, if you recall, is the first album to have the distinction of having all of its tracks licensed for use in ads. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? When "Porcelain" comes on, my world suddenly turns green-tinted and well-edited, and suddenly my hair's perfect and the lighting's perfect, and I'm no one but a perfect driver driving a perfect car in a perfect world for the length of that track. Here we can decry how much our very lives have been overcommercialized and recast in the cold cathode glow of TV--in fact, I think that might've been the point of my teenage play--but let's forget that for a while and think about how much pleasure we get, if a little guiltily, from these movie moments. There's little else that has the power of music to evoke a tangle of thoughts, emotions, and desires. So it's used to sell us stuff. Most of the times we know how to dose ourselves with auditory medication, letting the songs play in our heads that will transport us to a world with better lighting, where everything works out very well during the space of a song.

"A Million Miracles"

From Margie + Gracie:

This is your chance to help.

A MILLION MIRACLES CONCERT

for the benefit of the Southeast Asia tsunami victims and the rehabilitation efforts in Gabaldon, Quezon

featuring: Kitchie Nadal, Sponge Cola, Sandwich, 6 Cycle Mind, Ramp Queen, Twisted Halo, Mayonnaise, and many many more!!!

February 25, 2005, 6pm onwards @ the Ateneo College Covered Courts.

Rock for a cause! Tickets at Php150 only! Bring your friends along and tell everyone about it, too! :D

*for ticket reservations and inquiries, text Mike at 0920-9614537

Please pass on to family and friends, and let a million more miracles happen!

See y'all there tonight! :)

Constantine Rocks

Keanu or no, the fact that Constantine is showing gives me a good excuse to wallow in old comics, and to post this image, from Hellblazer #153, page 2, of John Constantine in his punk rock days.

Punk rock days? Here's an explanatory quote from the brief biographical essay on Constantine, in Vertigo Secret Files: "Rebelling against his dysfunctional family life, Constantine ran away to London twice -- once in 1967, then again at the age of 17, when he eventually settled there. Instantly drawn to the emergent punk scene of the late seventies -- identifying via his working class Socialist background with its anti-establishment call-to-arms -- John even formed a New Wave band called Mucous Membrane, with an old school friend from Liverpool, Gary Lester."

It's not something one expects a mysterious magician-figure to do, to be quite honest, but that's why Constantine is unique among the other members of 'the trenchcoat brigade'. "I have an idea that most of the mystics in comics are generally older people, very austere, very proper, very middle class in a lot of ways," said Alan Moore, co-creator of Constantine (and From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc). "They are not at all functional on the street. It struck me that it might be interesting for once to do an almost blue-collar warlock. Somebody who was streetwise, working class and from a different background than the standard run of comic book mystics. Constantine started to grow out of that."

Dogstar cameo in Constantine 2, anyone? I thought not. ;p

Let's Bagets!

Somewhere in Cubao's Araneta Center, behind Ali Mall (or, more accurately, behind Rustan's -- I think), there's a little loop of shops known as the Shoe Expo. I think it's actually called the Marikina Shoe Expo, but that can be a little confusing for some people who assume that the name means that it must therefore be, you know, in Marikina. Not only is this not the case, it ain't all shoes they're selling there either. Anyway, Yvette and I were there tonight and the book-finding gods smiled on me because I got a secondhand hardback copy of The Best of Robert Benchley for P50 at Datelines, a bookstore near famed Italian resto Bellini's. Benchley was a member of the infamous Algonquin Round Table, and, as the Amazon review says, he "was kinder than Dorothy Parker, less manic than S.J. Perelman, not quite so curmudgeonly as James Thurber -- and arguably the funniest of them all." I wouldn't go quite so far as that, as Thurber remains my favorite humorist, but Benchley is damn good.

Anyway, finding the Benchley book was just the first good thing about an evening spent at the Expo. Louie Cordero opened a gallery or something -- I'm not sure, I just remember some artsy installations, a huge bowl of guacomole dip, a buffet of various vegetably bits, and a serve-yourself vat of lemon grass iced tea. An art critic I'm not. The thing we were really there for was the bands, specifically Isha and Bagetsafonik (though Death by Tampon performed as well, and Romeo Lee and the Brown Briefs, and two other bands whose names I didn't catch). Isha was as impressive as ever, of course. This time she performed with a vintage organ that, as she pointed out, made a sound like an accordion. Her between-song banter was funny and relaxed, which would have been expected even if she weren't an experienced performer -- after all, it was a crowd made up mostly of friends and artsy acquaintances. Everyone who wasn't an outright friend or acquaintance at least looked vaguely familiar. It was great hanging out with old friends like Kidlat, Tanya, Lala and the rest; pressing buttons on a semi-functional jukebox in Vintage Pop, looking at old sepia photos in the window display of an antique shop.

The more I catch Bagetsafonik performances the more I like them, and not just because most of the members -- not to mention manager Bernie -- are our friends. Over time, Ace's control of his voice is getting better, they're getting tighter overall as a band, and the songs themselves are being honed, the nice smile-bringing musical moments are coming faster and thicker. It was a treat to hear Doi attack a full drum kit instead of the usual k-hon too. Bagetsafonik has an 80s vibe that appeals to me, but Marcus' electronic flourishes keep them from sounding too 80s. Songs like "Halogen" and the Murakami-monikered "Sputnik Sweetheart" are catchy without being predictable, and numbers like "Back in the Day" (which they didn't perform, tsk tsk -- one of my favorites) just sound so fresh. Marcus tells me a 7-song EP is in the works for April. :) Yay!

After I dropped my sweetie off at home, met up again with Kidlat and Tanya for a 2am dinner at Mr. Kebab. Beef kebab and buttered rice never tasted so good before, nor disappeared so fast.

My Life According to Liz Phair

ARGH! I've been gone a week, and Luis has monopolized the blog! ;) I've been meaning to answer this pseudo-questionnaire, too, since it seems that a lot of our music-geeky friends have posted their own versions. My competitive nature was on vacation, but it seems that it's awakened with a start--no doubt because of the sugar cookie I ate, washed down with liberal amounts of week-old Pepsi X.

So:

Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band: Liz Phair
Are you male or female: Animal Girl
Describe yourself: Whip-Smart on some days; Wasted on others. ;)
How do some people feel about you: Strange Loop
How do you feel about yourself: Do You Love Me?
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Big Tall Man
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: Support System
Describe where you want to be: Crater Lake
Describe what you want to be: 6'1"
Describe how you live: Turning Japanese
Describe how you love: Supernova
Share a few words of wisdom: Fire Up the Batmobile


Notice how I got through that without succumbing to the other, more tempting titles. :)

My Life in XTC

"Describe yourself using song titles from just one band". Thanks to starshuffler for this questionnaire. Naturally, I chose XTC. :)

Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band: XTC
Are you male or female: Merely a Man
Describe yourself: The Mayor of Simpleton
How do some people feel about you: Wake Up
How do you feel about yourself: Train Running Low on Soul Coal
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Living Through Another Cuba
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: You're the Wish You Are I Had
Describe where you want to be: Wonderland
Describe what you want to be: Burning With Optimism's Flames
Describe how you live: Love on a Farmboy's Wages
Describe how you love: My Love Explodes
Share a few words of wisdom: We're All Light

Stop It, Hollywood

Okay, there's nothing music-related about this post, but I just felt the need to comment on the fact that Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are going to star in a remake of the lovely Korean film Il Mare. Leave Il Mare alone, Hollywood! Or at least don't cast two people who are best seen together in a bus wired with explosives hurtling towards certain doom while Dennis Hopper cackles maniacally somewhere. I love Il Mare, with its postcard-pretty scenes, swoony cinematography, and restrained yet almost-giddy romance; yeah, I'm a sap. It was one of the first Korean films I ever saw, and it's still quite possibly my favorite. Or is My Sassy Girl my favorite? Whatever. Something with Jun Ji-hyun, anyway. Oh wait, I just thought of something music-related to add to this entry. Il Mare, as good a film as it is, would have been a lot better without that stupid, piano-based, retch-inducingly-sung ballad polluting its soundtrack. There.

Music Others Cannot Hear: On Geeks

Am reading Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss, an entertaining and erudite book which "does for video games what High Fidelity did for pop music", according to one reviewer. Last year, I spoke to an auditorium of St. Scholastica college students about writing. I had a great time, and regaled them with anecdotes and advice about the so-called writing scene and the importance or lack thereof of awards and mentors. One of them had a concern about image, about being regarded as "a geek". I told her: that's a compliment. To be a geek means you have mastered something, that you have dedicated your time and your efforts to knowing something inside out, whether it's something as useful as Linux programming or as useless as Silver Age comics trivia. Getting back to Lucky Wander Boy, in one chapter Weiss has a great definition of the word geek: "A geek is a person, male or female, with an abiding, obsessive, self-effacing, even self-destroying love for something besides status."

I'll quote the entire closing paragraph of that particular chapter on geekhood, because... well, because I want to.

They may be oppressed by the figures of beauty, and they may be ugly -- but they have the music. While the hedonistic treadmill carries the others through cycles of momentary appeasement and slow, scraping dissatisfaction, the geeks will penetrate deeper and deeper into the music the others cannot hear, its notes independent of the demands of the world that pull people through jobs and parties and bars toward their end. They will hear its forgotten strains and study its evolution in all its branching intricacy, and in the unlikely event of an afterlife they will have their music to carry them, they will never grow tired of it, they will still be going and going and going long after the others have overdosed on the maximum conceivable pleasure and chosen self-extinguishing over the ultimate boredom hangover that follows. Their passion is like a red dwarf star -- it may not burn as hot, but it burns longer. It burns near forever.

Thanks to Robyn for the T-shirt link! :)

Today is the first Monday of the rest of my life

Spent a stupid Sunday indoors, vaguely depressed and apprehensive about the prospect of slowly sinking once again into a familiar freelance rut. As anyone who's ever been employed for over a year knows, it's really easy to get used to a regular salary, even if the job is shitty and the pay isn't great to begin with. It's also easy to get used to the pleasant camaraderie one has with officemates one likes, especially if one is fortunate enough to like almost all of one's officemates.

I know that as long as I don't slack off, being free from PULP will be even better for me in the long run -- it was a dead-end job, with little room for advancement and lots of opportunites for being annoyed on a daily basis -- but for most of yesterday, it was really hard to convince myself of that. One of the problems I had before was that I was always writing an article here and a review there for various publications, and not only was a huge chunk of my pitiful freelance earnings used up just commuting from one office to another to collect checks, I never felt that it was all adding up to anything. Whether consciously or not, I had gotten tired of scattering my efforts, not really focusing on one thing.

Of course, looking back at two years of working for PULP, I wonder what the hell that adds up to anyway. I had the strange notion that over time, I could help make it into the kind of magazine that I would have bought on a regular basis even if I didn't write for it. By that standard, I failed. When the editor-in-chief himself doesn't seem to care whether or not the writing in his magazine is any good, it's pretty hard to come up with a publication to be proud of. Of course, the Reviews section is always solid (hi, Kristine), and I'm pretty happy with most of the stuff I wrote over those two years, but overall, PULP is still... well, PULP.

So anyway, last night, I started digging through old Word files for inspiration. Found an e-mail I sent to a friend in August 2001. Was amused, mostly because of the job opportunity mentioned. I cut-and-paste it here in its entirety:

Dear Mei,

There are days when I sit in front of this PC for so long that I think the UV rays must be transfoming me into something, either a superhero for the 21st century or a giant rampaging lizard that will lay waste to the cityscape. I'm hoping it's the latter. I don't think I have the resolve or the moral compass to be a superhero.

Sorry I wasn't able to contact you earlier. Things got rather hectic during the second half of last week -- or at least as hectic as they get in my life, which, by your standards, would probably be equivalent to a vacation. On a beach. With little umbrella drinks.

Anyway! I have just been informed of a job opening in Makati, at the Filipinas Heritage Library. It's a full-time gig, with Mondays off (but Saturdays on), and the work has something to do with books, so I guess it'll be more palatable to me than advertising. On the other hand, the thought of regular, full-time work raises the hackles on my neck, and I don't even know what hackles are. Seriously, I've grown to love the freedom that comes with freelancing (not to mention hate the regular commuting that comes with a steady job).

The way I see it, either I apply for the job and maybe get it, in which case my free time gets drastically reduced but then my bank account starts to look less anorexic, or I don't apply, and try to find even more freelance writing jobs than I'm handling now. Or I could start work on that novel I've been thinking about, or any number of writing projects that have been bouncing around in my skull.

I know, I know. I have no real problems. Employment and a salary on the one hand, and freedom and some money on the other. Poor me. Still, since I just turned 27, I have (reluctantly) started thinking about the long-term stuff -- someday acquiring property, providing for a family maybe, that kind of thing. Learning how to drive and owning a car, for God's sake. Sometimes I really envy people like you and Nats -- people with definite careers, who have earned respect, responsibilities, promotions. Of course, it is nice to be able to wake up at noon on a weekday, but if I'm still doing that when I'm forty...

Well, enough of that. In other news, I was nominated for a National Book Award. Just found out last night. :) Things like that make me think I should just concentrate on the writing, but hell, it doesn't pay enough. Or at all, in some cases.

Anyway, hope you're okay. Do write back when you can --

Luis

So here it is four years later, and I've got that freelance freedom back. I can do anything I want, and after I fulfill my March writing obligations to PULP, I never have to write for it again, nor am I inclined to. Except that I just realized last Saturday, after watching the gig at 70s and interviewing Kiko Machine, that I'd still like to write about music somehow, and not just in this blog. I'll figure something out.

As Margie texted me yesterday, "You're going to put your energies into new, strange places and your brain will grow in weird and wonderful ways." Here's hoping.

PS. Oh, and by the way...

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey. Thanks to Lala G. for the link :)

Punk Sinatra's Not Dead

Got home a little after 4am from an interview with Kiko Machine. We conducted it in the starkly flourescent-lit, garbage-strewn front lobby of Vinzons Hall, in UP Diliman. (We were supposed to hold it in the Sunken Garden, but a security guard shooed us away). Like myself, all the band members are UP graduates, so it was an eerie sort of after-hours nostalgia trip for us all.

The interview was quite entertaining, as one might expect from a band that dresses in red jumpsuits (except for their bassist Dan, who dresses like a certain arachnid-bitten superhero -- they call him Spider-Dan), and sings songs about Val Sotto, Panchito, pro wrestling, and superheroes. But under the goofball exterior, these guys have heart, and ambition, and they know what they're doing. They consciously mix musical genres and write songs about pop-cultural icons as a Warhol-influenced attempt to make art out of the everyday. A barkada since freshman college days (they originally called themselves "Punk Sinatra"), the group's friendship is what makes their performances tight, and their wit and songwriting chops are what makes audiences grin. Give them a year or two and they'll be as big as Parokya, mark my words.

Aaand... that was probably the last interview I'll ever conduct for PULP magazine, so it's kind of fitting that it was with a band that made a song about wanting to be featured in PULP magazine. As of last Monday, I've known that, for better or worse, the March issue of PULP will be my last. It's back to the freelance life for me, with all its difficulties and rewards. I'll miss my old gig, and most of my officemates, but I guess it's time to move on. The leavetaking is not without its share of regrets -- two years is two years -- but what the hell, what the hell.

And speaking of breakups -- which we sort of were -- I don't think I can make a soundtrack of my love story, Kristine, as it's still ongoing. ;p I could probably make mixes charting the highs and lows of my last two relationships, but they might turn out a little too flippant or dismissive. I remember, though, that one of the first things I gave Yvette when I was courting her was a mix CD. It had "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths on it, as well as "Nightingales" by Prefab Sprout.

Tell me do, something true, true of you and me
That we're too busy living through, too busy to see.
What is it that we do makes us what we are?
If we sing are we nightingales, shine are we stars?

Who are we? What we got? Are we a firework show?
Growing pale like a star that burnt out years ago
Stranger things have been, stranger things have gone,
I find it hard right now to name you one

Tell me do, something true, and drop the fairytales.
If singin' birds must sing, with no question of choice
Then livin' is our song, indeed our voice
Best agree, you and me, we're probably nightingales

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Losers

Something's in the air--is it the impending Chinese New Year, or Valentine's Day? Conch reminded me that it's been a year since Big Bad February 2004 came and kicked each and every one of us in the gut. It was a terrible, terrible time--which resulted in some pretty good mix CDs that I will never play again. And I bet the makers of those CDs (you know who you are) won't mind if I say that, thanks, you guys, but it'll be a good long while before I can listen to those CDs without following it up with a slug of whiskey.

Anyway, Conch is working on a more pleasant mix this year--it's going to be mostly chillout, she says--and TGB's already turned in the ominously titled but decidedly less ominous-to-listen-to My Horoscope Said it Would be a Bad Year, which Judgment Bunny's horoscope says is a great mix. Both Starshuffler and TGB have recently posted track lists, too. That should get me off my lazy ass and make my own New February mix, but I also came upon this article in the Village Voice: it's a collection of love letters, and one of them is a love letter in the form of a track list.

I'm sure we're all familiar with how that works. *wry grin*

Now I'm curious about other people's song selections for the soundtrack of their love stories. Would anyone be brave enough to post a track list here? (Luis, why don't you start?)

==============
June 15, 2004

Dear Michael,


Ten years ago this summer, we rode together standing in the back of a jeep from Lee Wah's Chinese restaurant to Lake Winnipesaukee, and as Liz Phair's "Supernova" played, you casually lip-synched the payoff line right to my face: "And you fuck like a volcano." I've always regretted that I never got to prove it. I'm still a music fanatic, still think of you when I hear that song. And a few other songs as well, even though I could never be to you all that you were to me. Here's the mix tape (or mix EP) I haven't the courage to make for you:

1. Dave Matthews Band, "Dancing Nancies": What I heard when I got to know you, midnight skinny-dipping at the lake with you and about 30 of your closest friends, and knew you could not be ignored. "Sing and dance/I'll play for you tonight./The thrill of it all."

2. Alex Dolan, "Smoking Gun": You were a pop culture vulture of equal stature. "The spectacular Scott Bakula!"

3. The Supremes, "I Hear a Symphony": "A thousand violins fill the air." Particularly when you dry off and change clothes in front of me, with cocksure confidence.

4. Norman Connors, "You Are My Starship": "I just can't say it's here that you want to be." Indeed, I knew it wasn't. But when has that ever tapered desire?

5. The Samples, "Nothing Lasts For Long": The song that made you bleary-eyed, and made me wish I could be the one you said nothing to all night. "Take my hand and walk with me,/And tell me who you love."

6. Wilco, "How to Fight Loneliness": They opened with this at the Orpheum—a perfect night, except that you weren't in the seat next to mine. "Just smile all the time."

7. Sweet Sensation, "Sad Sweet Dreamer": Lying on the dock of that same lake, this time solo, imagining your leg brushing against mine. "It's just one of those things/You put down to experience."

8. Stevie Wonder, "Another Star": I tipsily sang this, the day after your cousin's wedding. Everyone else was still bunked up with dates and spouses, and I had a water-glistened dock for a partner and a robust morning sun for an audience. "For you, love might bring a toast of wine;/But with each sparkle know the best for you I pray./For you, love might be for you to find,/But I will celebrate a love of yesterday."

9. Robbie Williams, "Angels": That was what I sang after you left, the last time I sang with you, at a karaoke party two years ago. I've never held anyone so tightly as when you said goodbye, never put on so brave a face as when I rejoined the party. "
I'm loving angels instead."

Love, Joe

---
Read the full article: "Love Letters, Part 1"

Gigs and Gifts

So tonight there are at least three gigs worth going to: at 6underground on C. Palanca in Makati, Kjwan, Sundown Muse, The Late Isabel, The Mongols and a buncha other people are playing. And over at Saguijo Cafe, there's Drip, Sound, Caliph8, and the Milagros Dancehall Collective. Finally, lest we forget, Last Full Show at Big Sky Mind, with Pedicab, Boldstar, Itchyworms, etc. The hell. Personally, I'm very curious about the Milagros Dancehall Collective; for months I've been meaning to see them play. I hear many good things about them (and not just from my cousin Carlos, formerly of Brownman Revival and now a member of the Collective). But I always enjoy Sundown Muse too. And it's been a while since I watched the Itchyworms. And, hey... PEDICAB!! Not to mention Drip, and Boldstar. And Kjwan. Dammit. You guys seem to be leaning towards the 6underground gig tho, so I guess that might be the deciding factor.

Yesterday, I was at the Quezon City Central Post Office, to pick up a mysterious package. The little pink claim card they sent me didn't mention who it was from, nor what it was, so I went there just hoping it wasn't anthrax or a severed head or anything (though now that I think of it, a severed head would have given me material for Se7en spoofs for days to come. "What's in the booooox?!").

I was as happy as a bunny on ecstasy to find out what it really was: a package from my wonderful overseas friend Robyn, that contained a letter, the new Nick Cave album (a lovely 2cd set in a clothbound slipcase), a mix CD of her favorite songs from 2004, a copy of Filter magazine, and -- woo hoo! -- Adventures in Poofyville! All the Poofy strips (up to a point), complete with author commentary and other 'DVD-like extras'! As one reader said, "This comic has not only reinvigorated the twitch in my left ear, it has jet-propelled my everyday life into one 273% more predisposed to squishy bunny-rabbit joy." Robyn, I am overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity and talent and good taste (I love the songs on the mix CD!) and coolness and amazingness and warped sense of humor and etcetera. You are the best. :) Thank you so very much.

Poofy is bunnyesque fun for everyone! Or, as another reader wrote, "Demons... demons inside me."

PS. I wrote a review of sorts, of Mango Jam. One thing I wanted to clear up, for everyone who read it: it's not Cyan's fault that her segment turned out incomprehensible. The script had been 'mangled beyond recognition,' as one staffer put it. They cut out character intros, captions, and basically anything that might have made it any good. Hope the error will be corrected next issue. :)