7. The Doors – Touch Me

It was our ever-reliable, finger-picking guitarist, Tom Halim, who finally figured out the chords to this song. For our last gig, we wanted to play this song partly  because I’ve never seen any Pinoy band cover this song, at least in the music scene I was part of in the late 90s. Of course, we loved The Doors but we didn’t want to cover  Break on Through or Light My Fire.

Last Band. After deciding to quit playing after I disbanded Flowers for Zoe in 96, I found myself aching to play again four years later. When we had rehearsed a few songs to last us at least a set, we decided to perform again. Good thing, my friend Khavn (who was stil Khan then) had a bar called Oracafe along Kamias Road. It was there where my band, re-christened Milk Bar (after a Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange) performed covers of Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian, Tommy James and the Shondels, Velvet Underground and a few of our original songs from Flowers for Zoe.

Eventually, our song Wasakin ang Pader would end up in the Khavn’s DIY production of Indie Yo!, a compilation of new alternative music mashed up with some found sounds. The song is different from my previous ones in the sense that I used my baritone here and not the high-pitched punk voice.

Tell Me When. When I first heard Touch Me, I thought it was the best song the Doors ever wrote. It was different from their hits and more something like Engelbert Humperdinck would  perform. I thought it was more along the leagues of Cuando, Cuando than Roadhouse Blues. And because of this ‘abomination,’ I found it quite brave, avant-garde if you will, for them to sing this. Hello, I Love You is another different one as well as most songs in The Soft Parade album, but Touch Me makes macho rockers a bit uncomfortable.

I like how the brass section breathes in a fresh and ecstatic feel about the band which I usually associate with goth -  dark as [ their song] The End-dark. With Touch Me, it was a different Jim Morrison with sideburns, pompadour and a flowery shirt barely buttoned.

Til Stars Fall From the Sky. So Tom taught us the chords and the random number of times the last bar would be repeated. Instead of the brass section, we had guitars. We surely did have the energy and the balls to perform it live but we never did. We weren’t able to perform in our supposed last gig for some reason or other. Our second to the last gig, a forgettable one at that, became the final performance of Milk Bar.

Before you click on the video, check out this interesting wikipedia entry about it:

One of the most famous television appearances of the Doors is of the group performing Touch Me on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour along with the single’s B-side, Wild Child. During the performance, Jim Morrison missed his cue for the lines “C’mon, c’mon” and Robby Krieger could be seen with a black eye—the result of a bar fight the night before. (click here for the complete article)

6. Pink Floyd – Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in A Cave and Grooving With A Pict

If you grew up in the Philippines in the 80s, the first thing that will come to mind when you hear this song is the weekly TV show Pinoy Thriller. Automatically, you will start recalling the verse that comes after “Ano, ang nasa dako pa roon, bunga ng malikot na pag-iisip“.

SSOSFAGTIACAGWAP is one of the avant-garde songs (if you could call this one) in Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma, a double album consisting of a disc of live recordings and another of each member doing a suite of solo tracks. I discovered the song when I bought Pink Floyd’s The Works years after it was released. (I remember the plastic cover of the LP was already crumply and full of soot when I ripped it.)

This track stands out because it’s the only one with no music in it. Instead, it’s a cacophony of mimicked animal sounds and an archaic poem being read by a Pict (a member of an ancient people inhabiting northern Scotland in Roman times, fr. Oxford American Dictionary). Chief Pink Floyd songwriter, Roger Waters, penned this song and made all the sounds that you can hear. He also was the driving force behind the rock opera The Wall.

Here’s the rest of the poem and the spec video:

Aye an’ a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, ‘ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig Marion,
get out wi’ ye Claymore out mi pocket a’ ran doon, doon the middin stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.

Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall
but as dead, dead as ‘a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

…and the wind cried Mary.

[In English] Thank you.

5. Missing Persons – Words

For the longest time, I thought this song was by Til Tuesday. I don’t recall anymore why I associated this song with Aimee Mann’s former band whose song Voices Carry lingers in my head intermittently after a recent re-listen.

Words was included in a mixed tape I got from my House of Beth band mates in the 80s. This track came before our band’s home recording of “Assault and Battery,” a song that despite the title was as chong as chong could get (new wave, that is).  Needless to say, I played the tape to death until it was way beyond worn.

Since I didn’t know who performed it, I couldn’t search for the lyrics in Jingle Magazine. I didn’t even know the title and I thought the singer sang “When the world’s whore…”

There’s an acquired taste quality in the voice of singer, like Cyndi Lauper’s. Dale Bozio’s one of the more recognizable voices of that era together with Lauper, Mann, and Martha Davis of The Motels. Although I really hated the use of synthesizers, I really think it was well-employed here. It could also be because of the AI (artificial intelligent, ahem) timber of Dale’s singing and robotic swaying. A perfect complement to the pneumatic beat of the Dale’s then-husband Terry’s drum track.

It was only recently that I rediscovered Missing Persons when I searched for this song on YouTube. The first thing I noticed was the singer’s outfit – the above-average exposure of skin apart from, what the hell is she wearing for a skirt? Only then did it dawn on me that I must have seen Dale Bozio in one of those issues of Jingle Magazine and the accompanying article talking about her adult magazine moonlighting.

But more on that later. Don’t make the mistake of lumping the Missing Persons with other one-hit-wonders of the era. They were (still are) talented musicians with the legendary Frank Zappa employing some members as session players pre-Missing Persons. Terry Bozio even played drums for, tada – Korn.

Now that I know the real lyrics I was able to appreciate the song better. The refrain, alas, actually goes like this:  “What are words for when no one listens anymore?”

Before you go googling <Dale Bozio Images>, here’s the complete lyrics and video:

Do you hear me? Do you care?

My lips are moving and the sound’s coming out
The words are audible but I have my doubts
That you realise what has been said

You look at me as if you’re in a daze
It’s like the feeling at the end of the page when you realise
You don’t know what you just read.

What are words for
When no one listens anymore
What are words for
When no one listens
There’s no use talking at all.

I might as well go up and talk to a wall
Coz all the words are having no effect at all
It’s a funny thing.. am I all alone?

Something has to happen to change the direction
What little filters though is giving you the wrong impression
“it’s a sorry state” I say to myself

What are words for
When no one listens anymore
What are words for
When no one listens
There’s no use talking at all.

Do you hear me? Do you care?

Let me get by over your dead body
Hope to see you soon
When will I know?
Doors three feet wide with no locks open
Walking always backwards in faces of strangers
Time could be my friend
But it’s less then nowhere now….

Pursue it any further and another thing you’ll find
Not only are they deaf and dumb they could be going blind
noone notices
I think I’ll dye my hair blue.

Media overload bombarding you with action
It’s getting near impossible to cause distraction
someone answer me.. before I pull the plug.

What are words for
When no one listens anymore
What are words for
When no one listens
There’s no use talking at all.

4. Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan

People, at least here in the US, will remember this song as that awesome soundtrack to this Alice in Wonderland-inspired TVC for Zune.

Sunshine and I have been noticing this TVC a while back before we saw the song performed solo by Zach Rogue as one of the featured artists in Songs of the City. The concert was top indie acts’ ode to the City of Angels held at the Walt Disney Concert Hall last January. There were a dozen performers which included Zooey Deschanel (of She and Him and, yeah, that chick from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening), Sondre Lerche (one of the better performers from Norway), Annie Stella (whose CD we bought at the lobby and still enjoy listening to), Bob Mould (who did not meet our expectations, but what the hell, it was the Bob Mould, right?), Biirdie (a folk group based in Glendale whose song, Life in a Box, about living in an apartment we can relate to), and one of the guys from Belle and Sebastian called Stevie Jackson.

Anyway, we only confirmed that it was indeed that song after the concert. This led me to learn more about the band (which you can find here) and search for their music online.

Lake Michigan is a song culled from Rogue Wave’s  latest album, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate, which as many critics have noted somehow betrayed Rogue’s Lo-Fi past. I can see how they see this a departure from their debut (Out of the Shadow) which was more like the minimalist performance we saw at Disney Concert Hall. However, I disagree that their latest is worse by merely becoming more accessible.

Some fans also have debated about the meaning of the song. Some are saying it’s a cry for help for the environment. Some rebut that their just reading too much.

For me, I like the song because of the anthemic melody and the familiar (in a Philippine folk dance way) rhythm. A few days ago, Sunshine and I were talking about deconstructing this song by having Filipino folk dancers, say the Obusan Folkloric Group, setting up bamboo poles as the males genuflect and clap while the women, in their colorful ternos, wave abanikos in a different performance of Tinikling.

Here’s the lyrics and music video:

Heaven is a switchboard that you want to fight
she would even miss you if you taught her sight
power politician leaning to the right
baby’s got a trust fund
that she’ll want to go off like that
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack

Now we wear same-colored yellow uniforms
sky is burning
but at least we’re warm
go and run yourself a million miles
hoping that the colors run out
and you go off like that
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack

You can never see yourself
ringing all around it

No one is on lake Michigan
you labored on, lake Michigan

Not another payoff
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack
you know it won’t do
get off of my stack

3. Billy Bragg – Greetings to the New Brunette

Almost twenty years ago, I bought this Philippines-only compilation called The Cutting Edge. [not the album pictured, obviously] The record, strangely, became warped in a few days. Luckily it was still playable until I sold it together with my entire record collection a few years before moving here.

Some of the songs in the compilation have since become New Wave cult classics: The Room’s New Dreams for Old, XTC’s Dear God, even actor Rupert Everett’s A Generation of Loneliness. I bought the LP because I’ve been listening to Billy Bragg’s Greetings to the New Brunette on NU 107 and was dying to transcribe the song’s lyrics if not the guitar chords.

In the days without google much less a reliable music information source, all I knew about it  was that it was a sweet song, probably about love, sang by this Mr. Bragg who didn’t give a damn if his Cockney crooning is getting in the way of comprehension, if not appreciation of his song.

It was much later on that I found out that the song was produced/co-performed by The Smiths’ guitar player, the other half of the band’s musical genius, Johnny Marr. I was particularly struck by GTTNB’s musical arrangement. The elaborate guitar work was a dead giveaway. It sounded very much like the army of guitars that Johnny Marr often employed in many of The Smiths’ songs. Upon closer listen, I realized also that because of this multi-layering, there was no more need for a drum or percussion track

The song was my introduction to Billy Bragg’s music that’s been often labeled political. I got hooked on Billy Bragg because I sympathize with his politics. In one of the earlier press releases about him, he was quoted to have said that he quit his punk rock band Riff Raff because he felt that the noise was drowning out the message. With that, he launched a Folk music career that’s more reminiscent of Woody Guthrie than Bob Dylan.

Unlike the two Folk music greats, Bragg was armed with an electric guitar. In his early albums, his songs are comprised just his voice and his electric guitar. It served him well in terms of his touring (or singing at workers’ solidarity concerts) because it was easy to set up and there was no pressure at all to try to sound exactly the way the songs were recorded.

In later years, I would collect most of Bragg’s album. On top of my list would be Talking With the Taxman About Poetry with Don’t Try This at Home and William Bloke tied for a close second. I would later cover The Price I Pay and Tank Park Salute with my band in the 90s. Among my other favorite tracks are The Space Race is Over, Waiting for the Great Leaps Forward, Levi Stubb’s Tears, and Moving the Goalposts.

Of course, there’s the oft-covered song, his breakout single, A New England that takes off from Simon and Garfunkel’s Leaves That are Green. The charm of the song is right in its refrain. (I don’t want to change the world/I’m not looking for a new England/Just looking for another girl) It’s practically an assertion that for whatever political agenda he has, he is still human capable of human emotions like, say, love. Bragg has been performing this song with British sensation Kate Nash wherein Nash sings verses from her hit Foundations alternately with with Bragg’s A New England.

Like A New England, GTTNB employs that quirky romanticism to inject some socialist messages. Who else, but Billy Bragg can come up with this line: “We are joined in the ideological cuddle.”

Here’s the rest of the lyrics and the accompanying 1986 promotional video:

Shirley,
it’s quite exciting to be sleeping here in this new room
Shirley,
you’re my reason to get out of bed before noon
Shirley,
you know when we sat out on the fire escape talking
Shirley,
what did you say about running before we were walking

Sometimes when we’re as close as this
It’s like we’re in a dream
How can you lie there and think of England
When you don’t even know who’s in the team

Shirley,
your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle
Shirley,
we are joined in the ideological cuddle

I’m celebrating my love for you
With a pint of beer and a new tattoo
And if you haven’t noticed yet
I’m more impressionable when my cement is wet

Politics and pregnancy
Are debated as we empty our glasses
And how I love those evening classes

Shirley,
you really know how to make a young man angry
Shirley,
can we get through the night without mentioning family

The people from your church agree
It’s not much of a career
Trying the handles of parked cars
Whoops, there goes another year
Whoops, there goes another pint of beer

Here we are in our summer years
Living on icecream and chocolate kisses
Would the leaves fall from the trees
If I was your old man and you were my missus

Shirley,
Give my greetings to the new brunette

2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood

The song begins with guitar strumming reminiscent of Trini Lopez’s If I Had a Hammer. The tempo even matches the live version some of us from Manila must have heard from one of those made in Indonesia cassette tapes when CDs were still a luxury in the late 80s.

It only becomes clear that this song is not a cover when the delay/rotating leslie guitar effect is heard in the background. In a few more bars, a David Byrne-sounding Alec Ounsworth begins singing:

Now that everybody’s here
Could we please have your attention?
There is nothing left to fear
No now that bigfoot is captured
But are the children really right
Alright alright

Hailing from Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are one of alternative music’s phenoms. Their meteoric rise stems from their effective use of the new media using DIY philosophy. They produced and promoted and sold their first album online and was hailed then as the best unsigned band. They continue to promote themselves virally via the web.

Critics have been divided about CYHSY precisely because their sound is a liberal lift from the better qualities of the music of The Talking Heads, Joy Division, The Fall, New Order, even the Velvet Underground. If these critics brand CYHSY plagiarists, some see the attempt at paying tribute.

I tend to side with the latter. A flattering imitation, more like. Who can claim originality anyway these days? CSHSY merely capitalize on their music’s familiarity.

Some of their songs (and more facts about the band) are available for download here.

This song (Upon a Tidal..) from their eponymous debut album seems to focus on teenage lifestyles with a hint of an affected concern towards the plight of Lindsays and Britneys as ‘child stars’ continue to make a joke of their young lives. This ode to youth goes perfectly with the upbeat tempo that’s infectiously danceable (in a rock and roll way, that is).

Here’s the rest of the lyrics and a spec video (for lack of a real music video) of the song:

There is danger in the night
There are things we can’t control but
Will we give ourselves a fright
When we become less than human?
There are people who say why oh why oh why?
Now there are other ways to die
Oh why oh why?

But upon this tidal wave
Oh god oh god
But upon this tidal wave
Oh god oh god
Young Blood (8x)

We are men who stay alive
Who send your children away now
We are calling from a tower
Expressing what must be
Everyone’s opinion
“They are going out to bars
and they are getting into cars
I have seen them with my own eyes.”
“AMERICA PLEASE HELP THEM!”

They are child stars . . .

With their sex
and their drugs
and their rock
a-rock-a-rock-a-rock n roll

1. The Mountain Goats – This Year

The first time I heard The Mountain Goats, I was shuffling through Joms’ iPod on our way to the San Diego Zoo last year. I think we were talking about the absurdity of the emergence of a Lo-Fi category in alternative music, where TMG falls under. I forget which track or album were we listening to then but I remember clearly how TMG’s music, albeit crudely recorded (a main characteristic of Lo-Fi), served as the perfect soundtrack to the vast and never-ending San Diego Freeway.

I’ve since heard most of TMG’s discography and I’ve included the group (it’s actually the moniker of singer-songwriter John Darnielle)  as one of my all-time favorites.

I like the intimate feel of TMG’s albums that always revolve around a central narrative – a series of lo-fi opera/concept albums.  I’m currently listening to The Sunset Tree (2005). So far, this one ranks among their best albums to me (the other one is 2006’s Get Lonely).

Despite the brutal reality of The Sunset Tree (it’s about a teenager growing up with an abusive stepfather), I still appreciate the glowing optimism in some of the tracks.  I am particularly moved by This Year with its resounding resolution/assertion “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”

I’m posting here the rest of the lyrics and the video for better appreciation.

This Year

I broke free on a saturday morning.
I put the pedal to the floor.
headed north on mills avenue,
and listened to the engine roar.

my broken house behind me and good things ahead,
a girl named cathy wants a little of my time.
six cylinders underneath the hood crashing and kicking,
ahhh listen to the engine whine.

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young.
hurt my knuckles punching the machines
the taste of scotch rich on my tongue.

and then cathy showed up and we hung out.
trading swigs from the bottle all bitter and clean
locking eyes, holding hands,
twin high maintenance machines.

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

I drove home in the california dusk.
I could feel the alcohol inside of me hum.
picture the look on my stepfather’s face,
ready for the bad things to come.

I downshifted as I pulled into the driveway.
the motor screaming out stuck in second gear.
the scene ends badly as you might imagine,
in a cavalcade of anger and fear.

there will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year.

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.