Video: The Dorques -- Murasaki Blue
... and Where's My Music Gone To?You want to know what's Awesome? I'll tell you what Awesome is.
Awesome is finding out one of your favorite artists likes a pretty kick-ass music video. Awesome is also when the same said video is that of a band of one of your workmates, and that the trainer-Poppa who taught you how to cook up a storm stars here as the best dad ever.
All this. right under my nose at work. I'm a great, big fool. Yes, I fail at the obvious.
It's been quite a while since I explored the local music scene. with so much tired and contrived radio junk out there, it's so difficult to look for real musical gems. The self-ordained musical authorities who tell you what's hot and what's oh-my-god-what-the-hell-is-that-on-your-ipod do not help at all. (and quite frankly, are really irritating. Last time I checked, I do have the right to explore and develop my own musical tastes, thank you.)
Anime music makes for great listening, that I do say and stand by. However, I do really miss and wonder what the soundscape of the Manila I grew up in is like now. Kamusta na nga ba? Being a child of the internet age makes me feel much like a rover, almost like an immigrant who's been away from her homeland for too long, and has only her very flimsy ideas of pinoy music to hold on to.
I never really got to grow up listening to the local scene greats of my time. Just a smattering of Eraserheads and Yano on the radio whenever they'd come up. I guess I was too "musically sheltered" to even want to try and explore by myself. I mean, well... Disney Musicals? Silly Symphony Songs from the 1920s? Add to that my dad's improvisational jazz and sitar music, as well as some very unconventional music, (get this: Buddhist devotional pop music. Yes.) and you have something that tastes like sugar-coated frooty loops on lhassi. Head music.
Then came High School in the late '90s with Parokya ni Edgar, The Spice Girls, and Madonna's Ray of Light, a mix of "trance" and rave music (Ah, the follies of youth. Better get the embarrassment stage over and done with now than later in life.) Those gave way to what I'd say would be the two most definitive albums of my teen years. I can't recall what they're called for the life of me(the horror!), but they introduced me to what real world music was all about. These two albums threw everything I knew about music out the window -- packaged, polished, and exhausted -- and I was smitten. (once I dig 'em back up, I'll get back to you guys on the title, stat.) The Secret Garden's Nocturne was a pleasant conclusion to that age.
College, 2001 -- Incubus. Utada Hikaru. Cynthia Alexander. The Beatles. On occasion, my dad's jazz by tagging along with him on his lat-night gigs, playing hooky the day after for sleepiness and the overall high from staying out with my dad in the dead of night. This was also when I learned to listen to anime music, and I still do carry that until today.
Now I am grown-up, employed,and I privately fear, as bland as a sandwich paper bag. With mayo on it.
Sigh.
The tough part with this whole re-discovery thing is knowing where to start.
I'm thankful for bands like Ang Bandang Shirley and The Dorques. They both bring me back to those days when music was the soundtrack of your day and that made it all the more colorful and alive. Yes, I'll say it: the music framed the screenplay of my life. It determined the flow and pacing of the comic book I saw my life as, in full-blown color, inking, splash pages and more, and that, my friend, made my world so much more interesting.
Life should really taste better than a boring sandwich paper bag.
Should good music be a luxury, or a privilege? I think not.
I miss carrying around a player.
0 Comments:
Care to leave a comment? I'd love to hear what's on your mind. :)