There are some bands I’d like to namecheck… and one of them is R.E.M.

In-sleeve picture from the Out of Time album

I thought I just had to write something for R.E.M. since they disbanded and would like to put on print how I enjoyed this band through my adolescent years up to the present.

The first R.E.M. song I heard was Stand way back in high school.  I saw them as a quirky guitar based jangle-pop band lumped with the new wave bands that we were listening to.  Here were 4 young men dressed like they got their garments from the Salvation Army.  They weren’t sleek looking like Duran Duran, goth darlings Echo and the Bunnymen was dapper in their trenchcoats, and The Clash was wearing the working class punk look.  I’d say this was the first band I admired even if they didn’t have any image they sought for.  When your young, being shallow is almost requisite as well.   We all wanted to look cool and acted like we knew everything, and with picking bands to listen to, image was also a factor.  But upon hearing Stand, I just got hooked.  The lyrics and the melody stuck to my head and kept getting played over and over.  The song asking you to stand and choose how to live your life without being preachy and being unsure which direction to take and taking chances is alright.  At least for me, that’s how I interpreted the song.

I can’t also help but wonder how R.E.M. reached us.  You see, way back then, alternative rock was really alternative.  It never got any airplay in the radio except for the very few brave rock stations in Manila.  Never mind in Davao, where the most rock you can get is Eric Clapton or Styx.  Not that I’m complaining, because I also listen to them. But during those times, we saw them as something for the older weed smoking, cough syrup drinking generation. As kids, we also want something we can call our own,  something we can say we discovered.  A lot of times, we just read reviews from Jingle magazine and purchased the cassette tapes that somehow reached us because of the review.  And what a gem we discovered with R.E.M.

Upon hearing the Green album, I discovered that I could also appreciate country inspired jangle, new wave pop music.  I got past how they looked and appreciated the vague but heart tugging lyrics.  The 2nd album I heard was Out Of Time.  Boy, wasn’t I prepared for how it has blown my mind away.  I even thought that Losing My Religion was the weakest song of the album, even if  it was their carrier single.  Things changed for R.E.M. and for us fans as well after that album.  R.E.M. isn’t our just ours anymore, they were now pushed into the mainstream and lousy cover bands were playing Losing My Religion in bars.  Nevertheless, the whole album was  a favorite of mine, specially when I want to crash from a night’s drinking binge.  I even play it endlessly whenever I get sick.  It just soothes me.  Then I went ahead and bought their Best of R.E.M. and Automatic for the People, the album next to Out of Time.  I went back in time with R.E.M. and was again blown away with their past recordings between 81-89 if I’m not mistaken.  It felt I was discovering lost treasures while listening to their old songs and listening to their dark and brooding new album was just overwhelming as well.  The song Drive just epitomized the 90′s Generation X.

After college, real life sinked in and naturally, one doesn’t have the luxury of time to listen to new albums and be kept abreast of the music scene. But R.E.M. has always been there with their new singles that get released from time to time which never failed to impress me.  And until now, I still listen to the old albums to keep me sane in this wild, wild world.

Let’s chase Suede’s dragon

My 2nd concert date during my Hong Kong trip was to watch Suede.  The anticipation before the concert was electric.   Music from PIL, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshess, Animal Collective and more were being played.  Their classic backdrop of violet curtains were set already.

Suede on stage

From memory, the band played Stay Together, To The Birds,  Heroine, New Generation, Metal Mickey, Drowners, The Wild Ones, She’s in Fashion, So Young, Killing of a Flashboy, Picnic By The Motorway, Animal Nitrate and of course, The Beautiful Ones.  As an encore, they played Saturday Night which sounded so poignant.  Hearing The Wild Ones played live was extra special for me as it is my favorite Suede song.

I never expected them to rip thru their songs with razor sharp punk energy. Brett sounded so cinematic and knew how to engage the crowd, song after song after song. Matt Osman and Simon Gilbert kept the rhythm tight, Richard Oakes kept his guitar playing sharp and edgy as he scaled the notes perfectly while Neil Codling enveloped the band’s sound with his keyboards and occasionally switching to rhythm or acoustic guitar.

Brett at one point also went to the crowd and sat on the metal dividers while singing which had the front crowd ecstatic.  Fans grabbed at him and he had to be helped by the bouncers to get pulled back to the stage.  It was one hell of a night too.  I was even mistaken as a member of the press by 2 ladies I walked with going to the concert hall when I reached Asia World Expo and I was also mistaken as Suede’s staff by a lady from Mainland during the end of the show as she asked me if Suede would do a second encore, when I said I don’t think so, she asked me what I did for Suede and told her I was just a fan like her too!  Hahaha.  I just  wish I was a Sound Tech roadie.  Man….

Red Hot Chili Peppers says I’m With You

I still can’t believe that I’ve seen the Chili Peppers live in Hong Kong. It’s the first gig for this year’s World Tour. I’d say that this makes the show extra special for fans and for the band because it would the 1st time they would be showcasing Josh Klinghoffer as their guitarist.

RHCP playing Californication

I could still see them in my mind’s eye playing. The band started with By The Way which brought the crowd to madness.  I wish I had the set list but I remember them play Can’t Stop, Otherside, Californication, Throw Away Your Television, Sir Psycho Sexy, Scar Tissue, Under The Bridge, Red Hot, Give It Away.  Damn, Anthony’s vocals was spot on.  Josh filled Frusciante’s shoes perfectly. Flea was at his usual best, attacking the bass guitar like no other and Chad kept the songs in rhythm.  As expected, Anthony Keidis introduced Josh to the audience. It was great seeing them hunch near Chad’s drum kit and funk the hell out of their songs from time to time.   On the third song, Kiedis name checked Pinoys! Who would ever expect that? Pinoys were ecstatic and howled madly. Then Kiedis dedicated Can’t Stop to the Filipinos. That makes it my favorite Chili Pepper song for the moment.

Even my friend who came to watch the concert with me for the heck of it was happy and kept on telling me any familiar song for her that the band played. Turns out she knew more than half of what the band played. We took pics of each other and laughed when she recognized old songs (Blood Sugar Sex Magik era) from college that reminded us that we are not that young anymore.  We also shamlessly asked other people to take pictures of us.  It was certainly a night forever etched in my mind and heart.  I hope to catch the Chili Peppers again… sometime… someday…

with my grade school friend based in HK ; )

 

you’re so reeeddd hootttt….

I’m ticking off something from my imaginary and mercurial bucket list. Goin’ to see Red Hot Chili Peppers and Suede in Hong Kong next week  in just one trip! Now, all I’m dying to see is The Cure before they get too old…

I’m gonna kick tomorrow..

Every time I hear Jane Says,  I feel like tides of ocean water are washing over me.   Refreshing,  and I can’t help imagining that I’m sitting on the sand at a beach watching the sunset after a day of surfing.

Now, I know I don’t really know how to surf.  Standing on the board for 10 seconds doesn’t really count.  I still have hope for myself with skim boarding though, because I still knew how to skate the last time I rode  a long board.

Well back to the song.  I first heard this Jane’s Addiction song at the now defunct NU 107 Davao.  I thought that it had a very cool riff throughout the song and could only make out that it was about a girl named Jane.  Watched out for it the next time it played and recorded it.  I tried hard to make the chords out and strummed my guitar along with my taped song.    The more I played it, the more it made sense.  That was how I fell in love with the song.  You see, the song’s about a girl with heroin addiction, unloved, used and is constantly thinking of making things right.  Thus, the line “I’m gonna kick tomorrow..”  It’s just like when your down and out, you’d want to kick whatever that was bothering you out of your system.

I can’t also  help singing the “going away to Spain” line.  I guess in some way it helped when I wanted to just run away from things when I was younger.  Like it said that there will be a better tomorrow.  And when I was in love, I didn’t want to be like Jane whose never been in love and didn’t know what it is.  And when I fell out of love, I just felt like I really didn’t know what love was in the first place.  Bizarre but true eh?  A piece of me in a twisted alternative rock song.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

1997.  Los Angeles.  Where do I begin?  I recall buying my ticket and the cashier telling me that there were only 3 seats left.  I can’t believe that I got my ticket minutes or seconds before The Smashing Pumpkins filled up The Forum!!!   For only $27.00, I get to watch Garbage and The Smashing Pumpkins.   Yeah!!!  Man, that was over 10 years ago and could only recall some songs that highlighted my evening.  These are all snippets of images and sounds from my mind’s eye.  1979, Tonight tonight, Today, Muzzle, Zero,  Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Disarm and Porcelina of the Vast Oceans from the Smashing Pumpkins.  Then Queer, Stupid Girl, Only Happy When It Rains, Fix Me Now and Vow from Garbage.

Garbage started the set with Shirley Manson wearing what looked like a black top and black leotards barefoot with her shining auburn hair.  They were a tight band.   I marvelled at Butch Vig playing with synchronized drum beats and samples and Shirley Manson’s voice was almost the same with what you can hear from the record.  I was also astonished with her devil may care stage presence as she was giving the finger at people in the mosh pit heckling her while delivering an intense performance .  I was thinking ,what the hell were these guys doing heckling a sizzling hot rockin’ babe singing dark new wave dirges that you could dance to?  Crazy, really.

The Smashing Pumpkins then came swiftly after Garbage’s set ended.  Billy was in his silver leather pants and black Zero shirt.  James was in his shiny white long sleeved polo, black skinny tie, slacks and shiny leather shoes.  D’Arcy with a cute baby dress.  Matt Walker, who replaced Jimmy during the tour looking all debonaire with his all black turtle neck outfit.  And lastly, the dude from The Frogs who played as their keyboardist wore something with fairy wings the whole set.

Matt was a monster the whole time playing precision drumming.  The guitars and bass attack of Zero and Bullet with Butterfly Wings were spot on.  The playfulness of 1979 was on the money.  The anthemic Disarm, Muzzle and Tonight, Tonight were spine tingling.  And the staples of Today and Porcelina of the Vast Oceans were well played with flavorful psychedelia.  Billy sang from the heart, bantered some with the audience and playfully accosted James that they aren’t a jazz band during one of their psychedelic instrumental interlude.   I think they also played Thirty-Three and Drown.  But I’m not sure if what I’m remembering are songs from old bootleg tapes I got from my cousin and my imagination that I’m watching them play live.  You know how the saying is that when you think of something hard enough, it becomes real.  And reality and imagination might just have meshed..

This was my very fist big concert by an international act.  I was overwhelmed before and after watching the show.  I never expected that The Smashing Pumpkins had a very diverse fan base.  There were Armani and Gucci wearing fashionistas,  beautiful women,  punks, surfer dudes, goths, grungy types and regular looking people in diverse age groups.  I wanted to badly buy a shirt from that tour but found it too expensive.  Damn.   In hindsight,  I should’ve just skipped a day’s meal to buy that shirt.  It would’ve been a part of my music collection of tapes, cd’s, band shirts and music paraphernalia through the years.  But we can’t have it all can we?  At least I still have the memories.