Now more than ever, the phenomenon of the one-hit wonder (which should include artists who release only one massive album and instantly disappear into the ether) is more common than the number of buskers on our streets. Blame it on Darwinian natural selection or just the harsh politics of the music industry but the size of the bargain bins in music stores is starting to extend outside its allotted boundaries in the establishment’s floor plans. It should be disconcerting if it were not wholly justified in most cases.
(Another interesting digression: Take for a moment to consider the peacock. It is endowed with an enormous tail that serves no practical purpose and runs counter to Darwin’s theories, which favor a utilitarian view of the makeup of species. Of course, they do get laid a lot. Now, take a moment to consider 50 Cent, who has well-sculpted abdominal muscles and shows enough gold and cash in his videos to leave most third world citizens in tears which do nothing to uplift the poverty of his rapping prowess. Of course, he does get laid a lot.)
To be great and not just good, one must be better than everybody else including oneself. To qualify even as a footnote in the musical annals of pop culture, an artist must repeatedly write their names into its pages with enough pressure to leave an imprint fifty pages after. To be more than a one-night stand, one must leave more than semen on the sheets.
Remember, even God is planning a sequel and this time it will literally end the world…
Bootie-Booth Records.
One of the most memorable finales in recent Filipino cinema: a police-detective declares his love for a girl who turns out to be the culprit of a recent spate of murders on his beat while the swat team are rushing up the stairs to arrest her. They kick the door in and burst in the room but their voices are quickly faded from the soundtrack as the mismatched couple – oblivious to the shouts and cocked guns – kiss. A voice-over gives us no assurance – no handy post-script to make us smile. But we start to hear drums and the first few lines of "Life is such a bore/ I don’t care anymore…" and we can’t help but bounce as we walk out the theater, feeling a little less sad than when we first came in. The film, of course, is Keka, the under-appreciated opus of Quark Henares (one would be tempted to call him a prodigy if he weren’t growing so damn fast) and the song is Dessie Belle, a cut from the band Ciudad’s latest album.
As ebullient and delightful as their debut, "Is That Ciudad? Yes, Son, It’s Me" begins with aplomb with technicolor pop explosions such as Hey Jo! Way to Go! and Mystic Brew which one could easily mistake as cuts from their first if not for the more assured musicianship. However, with cuts like Call It a Flick and The Herb one gets the feeling that – yikes! – our favorite juvenile misfits are indeed growing up. Despite the band’s own efforts to undermine it, there is a noticeable maturity in their craft. No worry though to long-time admirers, there is still the noticeable trail of open letters to Dave Grohl and decapitated Barbie doll-heads to amuse. Still quirky like early Hal Hartley but now with the poignancy of an Adrian Tomine comic.
Know-It-All Records.
One is always taught, by parental or academic wisdom, that one must never judge a book by its cover. Sound advice for the music lover who must contain himself at the sight of all the cleavage on display at the local record store. On this count, local band The Pin-Up Girls (and co-conspirator Leinil Francis Yu) are indeed guilty for promising such ecstatic delights on their album covers. (One look at the beautiful creatures gracing the sleeve and you begin to sympathize with the millions of pubescent boys who get off on anime heroines and Mina Murray’s pantaloons in Book One of Alan Moore’s excellent The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) Fortunately, the band is acquitted for that promise is kept. And the pleasure is aural, not oral.
Like its sister "Hello Pain," the new E.P is as hard to pin down, playing guessing games with her moods. As expected, each song is a harsh mistress, enticing one with its gorgeous melodies but with also the threat of a kept dagger beneath the pillow. One need only listen to the first track Caress and hear the aching lament that so many femme fatales use to great effect on would-be Philip Marlowes. The track is an illicit kiss but one that will leave you reeling from its memory just as the delicate string arrangement sweetens the blow. As if to balance the scales, the second track Loves X Ten is as sweet as a high-school girls’ smile (and is sung with the jumpiness you would expect from such a creature). The rest of the E.P leaves the listener wet with anticipation, each song eagerly awaited like the sight of a hot teacher opening and closing her legs underneath her desk.
Duplicitous and daring, coy and mysterious, Taste Test is all of these and much more. And as with most affairs, it ends all too soon.
Independent.
Every piece of music suggests its own space; whether cathedral or rat-hole, it all depends on the musician’s ability to navigate inside the contours imposed by his skull. For Ian Curtis, it was undoubtedly a subterranean cell dank with urine and formaldehyde; while for space cadets like Sun Ra it was the entire universe. In the case of Radioactive Sago Project, the spaces invoked cannot be so easily discerned, the smoke making chimneys out of their leader Lourd de Veyra’s ears.
The band’s new E.P Before Monkey Jump Give Him Banana is shrouded by a nicotine-fog where the most unusual characters emerge, dancing to rhythms that only make sense — but no less sinister — in a Terry Gilliam film. Absent gods and shabu addicts all find their place here, exchanging Dadaist manifestoes and existentialist clap-trap; it all seems so very strange until you realize you’re not in just some hole-in-the-wall gin joint but in the familiar territory: the modern-day, urban-choked world that Juan dela Cruz calls home. However, to the listener’s delight, the band take their roles as social commentators seriously by not taking it at all seriously, employing wit and nonsense to offer up a true portrait of our times. In fact, we have yet to hear a more eloquent summation of the state of the Filipino nation than these two words: gin pomelo.
This isn’t jazz from hell; this is jazz from QC and Marikina, Binondo and Malate. (And, no, it’s not the same place even if they do have the same urban planner.)
Join their mailing list:ciudadtheband@yahoogroups.com.
The Pin-Up Girls’ Taste Test is available at all Tower and Music One outlets.
Radioactive Sago Project’s Before Monkey Jump Give Him Banana is available by writing to: pudong@eudora.com and at the band’s gigs. Proceeds from the E.P will help the band finish their forthcoming album "Urban Gulaman."
I don’t know about you but I think that FPJ announcing his presidential bid is good news. It’ll finally show whether we Filipinos have learned our lesson. What’s most disturbing if FPJ does make it next year is not my fear that he’s a traditional politician — which I’ve been told he’s not — but the presence of several such species hovering in his midst.
What also grates is the endorsement of people like Eddie Romero whose election to the status of National Artist has cheapened the distinction. Sure, he can write but he sure hell can’t direct. One must be wary of endorsements from people who get awards for purely political reasons and not artistic merit.
On the subject of a future National Artist, maverick filmmaker Lav Diaz has just undergone surgery to remove a potentially cancerous growth from his lungs and needs much support to cover the medical costs. There will be a fund-raising concert on Dec. 6, 6 p.m. at Joel Torre’s Manukan Grille at Valencia corner Granada St. in New Manila, San Juan. Let’s all help a truly remarkable artist whose works will still be viewed long after Romero’s film negatives deservedly succumb to vinegar syndrome.
Stay posted to this space for further information on how you can help Lav Diaz.