the zeppelin of burning dreams

guess where it is?

nako, maraming pwedeng krumitiko sa mga isusulat ko ngayon.

but i'll go ahead and write it anyway.

here it is: the so-called alternative music scene of recent years has seen such a steep decline in listenability.

hehehe. it's audacious, to actually state that a present time-period is sadder than a previous generation's, but i keep on finding that neither sugarfree, mojofly, even the sorry-assed cambio and monggols, can keep up with the pure quality of the songs proliferated by the four kids that started it all.

those kids? they were once known as the eraserheads.

cue in the stones tossed my way. :D

ahh, most of what people can remember of the eraserheads would be the 90s kid anthems that rode the waves to mass fame, songs such as pare ko, ang huling el bimbo, magasin; songs which the youth of the early 199-something fawned over, scoured dozens and dozens of songhits for the proper chord patterns (does anybody remember gie edilo?), invoked the unholy rumor of gossip even in the most reserved circles, and (this is especially evident in my case) actually friggin learned how to play the goddamn geetar for.

i still remember the first song i learned to play on my first Lumanog mini. it was the eraserheads' Huwag mo na. the guitar was a christmas gift, with a couple of songhits with majority of the first three albums (ultraelektromagneticpop, circus, cutterpillow) tabbed to near-perfection. i can actually remember my first complete chord.

the most recent developments in the 'heads would have to be their break-up. rumors abound, but the strongest would have to be ely buendia's "airhead moment." years afterwards, the curse of being branded the most arrogant member of the fab four would linger with him like a gangrene.

of course, there's also the possibility that sandwich / cambio's raymund marasigan had something to do with it. maybe, perhaps, the two shared the exact same gigantic ego. god knows. it's not like other bands are any different. rico blanco's been begging for some deranged music fan to off him; compared to the ely buendia angle, rico's a bigger arse (perf de castro, nathan azarcon, and bamboo all left him in the lurch, and he still has the gall to keep rivermaya going like a disenfranchised franchiser, never mind the fact that he churns out crap like there's no tomorrow). we all have our urban legends.

the way i remember it, it was the e-heads against rivermaya. those were the days, when the talent hadn't yet run out from either camp, a friendly competition of what each one could dish out. then the 'heads came out with the fruitcake album-storybook, which was a superb idea, and bamboo left rivermaya. in retrospect,that was probably where the decline began. at least, that's what i think.

i never bought any of the 'heads' albums after stickerhappy. the way i saw it, they had already reached the apex of their career in cutterpillow. fruitcake was a christmas album, nothing more; you'd seldom catch anybody listening to it at any other time during the year. of course, stickerhappy had its share of good songs, and being the most beatles-inspired album both technically and musically really did boost the LP's reputation in certain groups. but cutterpillow was it for me; stickerhappy's milk and money, and spoliarium could never outdo the likes of waiting 4 the bus and poorman's grave. the age of fandom was over. the more the band honed their skills on studio and recording expertise, the less and less interesting their songs became.

i moved on to greener (or harder) pastures, where the likes of wolfgang and razorback roamed the streets (the canine and the porcine fields of twangy geetars, machine-gun drum action, and zany onstage quirks that i still think do not get the attention it so rightly deserves, at least here in the Philippines). meanwhile, the alternative music scene was hungry for the next big act, something that could outdo the e-heads. unfortunately, nothing could come close to the fab four, in the same way that the original fab four (made up of john, paul, george, and ringgo) could never be outdone, and the kings of rock n' roll guitar (doug allmann, bb king, chet atkins, even the shadows and the ventures) never could be knocked off their pedestals (a lot of people i know would, and could, argue with me over this, but the truth remains, so sorry guys).

just the other night, at the despedida party for my cousin who was about to make his way back to spain (with his adorable family, but that's a different story), i decided to bring my guitar.

somehow, the talk made its way from razorback, the black crowes, and ac/dc to the eraserheads. it turned out that pepe (my cousin) and his wife, lara ilarde-naval, had fond memories of the 'heads (of course, lara was a bigger fan of razorback and the black crowes, much to my amusement). my tito cesar, an erstwhile guitarist and present bandmate of music industry bigwig mike pedero, mentioned how the 'heads were such a waste. "Ang sabi sakin ng mga tao sa TRACKS," he said, "nung nagsimula daw yung eraserheads, kahit magtono ng gitara eh di sila marurunong. pero tignan mo nga naman, sunud-sunod ang mga hits nila nung unang tatlong album. nawala lang yung puso nila nung natuto sila kumalikot ng mga gamit sa recording studio."

"Kuya martin," says his son, Jon, "naaalala mo pa ba yung mga tinutugtog nyo ni kuya mike dati?"

and lo. i tried my hand on the first few notes of waiting 4 the bus. a bit rusty, but after a couple of tries, i found that i could remember everything, ad lib included, from way back god knows when. that pretty much stunned me.

there was this big question in my mind; how in god's green earth could a band with such memorable guitar lines and songs with mass appeal be outdone by today's half-baked alternative going to pop bands?

i remember this little road trip i had, with artist and philosopher friend obbie agustin. i plugged in two eraserhead cassettes into the battle hopper's (obbie's never-say-die vannette) tape deck, circus and stickerhappy. he said, "dude, alang pag-asa yang mga bagong banda na pa-eheads eheads jan. ano'ng ilalaban ng mariposa sa magasin?" i had to laugh.

maybe i'm just sentimental, or at the most, a foppish fool who's beggining to grow old beyond his years. but i loved the eraserheads, and i think that the kids who never can experience the good clean fun of a superstar band without all the bloody marketing that one could easily see today are missing out on a lot.

like that emperor from mulan said; "a girl like that don't come every dynasty."

here's to talent. here's to the memories and whoever shared it with me and my generation and the generations who could appreciate it.

fan of dan brown, and his "The Da Vinci Code?" think his work is a masterpiece of history and fast-paced suspense fiction?

this link is for you.

magazines have been giving me writing assignments that limit the number of words i've been using to such a negligible, scant ammount that i've often found myself complaining now and again about exactly why i should bother myself with so and so article (120 words again? dammit, the challenge is coming up with a coherent informative article, not coming up with the story and angle itself).

but with my recent stint at the Enervon-AXN Xtreme film site this week . . . . .

i'm licking my chops. 1200 words. lemme at em.

So with regards to that, this site's goin down. Booya.

will you guys be willing to buy short stories in ebook format for ten pesos a page, excluding the cover?

i still suck. badly. my last attempt to fix this god-sorry site into one where i could peddle my works (for a fee) turned into a disaster. a sign from god, maybe?

but i shall not give up. i still don't know, however, what exactly it was that screwed up my site in the previous attempt. go figure.

expect more crap like that to happen. :D