Radio for your head: Why Radiohead elitists make me puke

Radiohead's 'Creep' was one of the few alternative-era songs I didn't respond to favorably at first when it hit the local airwaves. 


I was in high school listening to existential and angry music of that era like Metallica, Pearl Jam Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Megadeth, Alice In Chains, and the rest of the brooding, throat-shearing, guitar shredding, and flannel-clad, Doc Martens-wearing posse that dominated the pop music climate back then. 


What struck me with that song was how whiny and un-badass sounding it was next to bare-knuckled alternative rock singles like 'Rape Me' and 'Jeremy'. Me and a good friend even joked about the band's trying-hard attempt to sound grunge-y with that all-too familiar crunch guitar noise that comes out of nowhere just before the chorus hits.


That lead singer Thom Yorke sings in a higher falsetto register that sounded too... girly... compared to the popular testosterone-heavy, baritone growl that Eddie Vedder unwittingly set loose upon the world to be used as an instrument of evil by the likes of Scott Stapp and Nickelback, did not help at all. The band members even looked like scrawny, effeminate Vogue model extras who probably got bullied all the time when they were still in school.

Due to endless rotations on MTV, label promotions and strong word of mouth following, Radiohead was ushered into the alternative scene with their unique brand of music that spawned at least another single ('Stop Whispering') that I found more catchy than their banner hit.


But Pablo Honey (1993) won't make it to my collection for at least another ten years. By this time, I have already concluded The Bends (1995) is the best Radiohead album (and one of the best of all time). The overhyped OK Computer (1997) was good, but it was a little too electronica for the band. I like electro-beats, and mechanical bleeps just as much as the next Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin fan---no doubt the template with what they wanted to emulate that time---but I always liked them better singing introspective songs with traditional instruments with the least assistance from synthesizers and sound processors. Case in point: 'High And Dry', 'Fake Plastic Trees', 'Just' and 'Lurgee'. 


Devastating songs that hit you straight in the chest instead of the intellect that mutated into something annoying via rabid fanboys of the band during their later years.


Call me an ignorant philistine but every single Radiohead review, forum discussion, and even the occasional celeb rant almost always contain words likes 'avant-garde', 'erudite', 'artful', 'profound' 'boldest artistic statement', 'genius' and every other intellectual jerkoff terms people scoured the thesaurus with just to describe the band's music. I have never seen/read so much hubris outside of a few forums and video sites that are frequented by snarky jazz music, and Stanley Kubrick enthusiasts.





They are exceptional musicians. Make no mistake about it. Definitely up there with the greats like The Beatles and Miles Davis. But what I do find annoying is the constant edification of the band's fans like they were incapable of making a bad-sounding record because, well, they are Radiohead. It's one of the universal truths, apparently. Understandable behavior from fans, of course. But I suspect a more phoney motivation in that type of following.


There's this unwritten rule that floats around music snobs and indie circles that you can never go wrong with weird.  Of course, the moment MTV plays you, you cease being weird and it's adios muchachos as far as street-cred and artistic integrity is concerned. Even if you're a musician utilizing chainsaws as major instruments or singing about the most mundane things and giving it a little twist by, say, doing something totally self-deprecating and crazy but art-y, that (usually) bespectacled twits are gonna call deep and artistic.


Radiohead are equal parts pop and indie music, in that they are often featured prominently in some of the most popular music rags like Rolling Stone Magazine and SPIN;  be seen on  MTV and other music channels, and can even elicit a slight ripple of familiarity form today's TOP 40 audience. And indie, because most of the latest material the band had produced aren't exactly designed for Starbucks, high school proms, or your average Katy Perry-listening teenager. They're just popular and relevant while retaining a sense of being alienating to most casual listeners, that a lot of the members of their fan base lap up. Like what I previously said about most indie music fans, they'd gobble anything not particularly appealing to most because they see/hear something most of the braindead MTV audience do not. Ergo, superior taste and intellect than most.


Not to mention the elitism and pomposity that goes with the honor of being a 'fan'. Time and again I have witnessed people insinuate, even in a respectful discussion, that a person is "too far off in the mainstream conditioning" or simply" just do not understand the band" when he expresses an opposing, but respectful opinion. Instead of a regular 'its just your opinion' kiss-off, you'd get a full page, single-space lecture on how bad your taste is for not comprehending the glory that is the band. And their boldness to push the limits of music to another level. Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield received it with both barrels when he spoke about the band's latest opus in less than flattering terms.


Radiohead has become the musical equivalent of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some parts are spectacular, some are not; and you don't particularly get it.


But you just have to like it.

Musings on holy weeks past

Black Saturday, 23 April 2011


As a child living in a rural area during the early 80s, I have witnessed and even partook on some of the old customs practiced by people in a Catholic country like the Philippines when the Holy Week arrived.

Before transferring to the housing compound in an aquaculture research facility where my parents worked, our family stayed in the center of a small town in a small municipality populated by die-hard Catholics and a small congregation of Seventh Day Adventists. It was a town where everyone knew each other, and was predominantly composed of old folks well over the age of 50. In our neighborhood alone there were a total of more than five people my parents addressed as either 'Tay' or 'Lola', titles of respect for elders.

Our elderly landlady was an Adventist who owned an impressive gallery of illustrated children's biblical books I enjoyed browsing and reenacting to everyone's amusement (Especially the David and Goliath duel. I tried fashioning a makeshift slingshot that ended up shooting a large rock straight into the Adventist church's glass window next door). At least in these books, a clear demarcation of good and evil existed and illustrated clearly enough for a 5 or 6 year old to understand, simply by looking.

Sitting on the wall of the Adventist Church, early 80s

Somehow all that Biblical reference balanced whatever fears I had about the reality of supernatural evil that I also found in great abundance in my father's equally vast comic book collection (I was five. Imagination runs rampant at that age.) that featured creatures you won't find in any issues of Kerygma or Bible Weekly anytime soon. Jesus Christ was up there with Knight Rider, Luke Skywalker, and The Incredible Hulk as the defender of truth, justice and the safety of your very soul before being relegated regrettably, many many years after, more as an expression of exasperation.

That knowledge somehow made me one of the most devout Catholics during that time, complete with prayers before meals as well as bedtime. And when Holy Week arrived, I also observed the proper protocols. That meant no boisterous noise from activities like outdoor playing, loud music/TV, and abstinence on eating meat. I even opted for not actually taking a bath on good Friday but my mother, an academician that leaned towards liberal thinking forbade it. All these activities because the elderly told me that Christ is dead at this time: and that the forces of darkness are at full power because of this.

Talk about absent security. I spent the next few years always armed to the teeth with a crucifix, wooden stake, cloves of garlic and salt during Good Friday and Black Saturday. A little dose of paranoia never hurt anyone. 

All of that information I had gathered from either our house maid, my father's stories on what his terror of a grandmother forced upon him and his siblings during the Lenten season, and the people on the streets I asked as to why several people were being paraded on the road torturing themselves by flailing their backs with a nasty barbed object that produced tiny rivulets of blood every time it hit bare flesh. 

It was a surreal experience. Shirtless men with covered faces and bloody backs; I think it was the face covers that actually did it: a hood totally covering the entire face and makeshift crowns made out of assorted leaves and branches that were no doubt inspired by Christ's thorn-version he wore all the way to Golgotha.

Flagellants in the Philippines, uncredited photo

And it was always a big deal. People were actually lining up along the road, waiting for the penitents to pass by, and some of them were actually carrying huge crosses where they'll be crucified, no doubt. God knows what kind of sins these people were so desperate of purging from their system that they believed they needed to resort to extreme acts like this. But who am I to question a Judeo-Christian tradition that existed thousands of years, anyway. To each his own method of appeasing the soul. 


Now that I'm an elderly cranky old man I am highly dubious of these people's motivations in doing what they do. Somehow I suspect it's not too far off from some Christian fundamentalists' suck up stance toward salvation ("Do you love God?! I have accepted Christ! I am saved! I am loved! Hello Julia!"). Yeah, nice try in accepting the savior only to smirk at hell-bound sinners who does not share your sentiments. Nice display of tolerance and compassion.


The brutal penitents, in the meantime, are probably shady characters with too much religious conditioning on the brutal God of the Old Testament that demanded equal suffering to crimes committed against his fellow man. Not that everyone who does that is actually some homicidal maniac or a thieving pederast but one has to wonder about the motivation behind such agonizing self-mutilation. 


One thing about them though, is that they actually put a lot of conviction to the term 'penance'. Not a lot of people with that kind of intense single-minded determination nowadays.

Next episode

In light of the recent brouhaha surrounding everyone's favorite media punching bag, I came to realize how big a chunk Willie Revillame takes up in Philippine culture. Landing the headline of a major newspaper means you’re, well, somewhat of a big deal anyway.

I can empathize with the blind adulation and near canonization of the guy by the hordes of disciples/acolytes ready to act as human shields should anyone threaten the safety of their so-called savior. If one knows anything about Pinoy society, especially those living within the spectrum of the urban poor section of the metropolis, is that most people are willing to sell their allegiance for peanuts and the smallest gestures of goodwill; or for even the tiniest acknowledgements of their existence. Especially when it comes from a media personality extolling the virtues of championing the cause of the 'lowly' poverty stricken denizens of the country. And a millionaire to boot. It's not like these folks have time for actually doubting the motives of the guy; maybe they did at first, but when you live in a desperate existence and somebody showed up with a Robin Hood promise of helping -- just the word 'tulong' (help) is enough: nevermind if it's tulungan kita mag-saing o tulungan kita sa pera.

I believe the whole 'cult of Willie' is composed of people who want to stick a big middle finger to others they view as belonging to a higher social class than they are. I have no empirical evidence to support this--merely observations of the guy's TV programs and his countless YouTube defenders whenever some unsavory comment is thrown toward one of his videos.

No one mentions class war but it has always been there. It was present in the EDSA 3 riot and it's present in the jeers of the crowd last night when Revillame enumerated the scores of celebrities who lambasted him in Twitter. That most of them, like Leah Salonga and Jim Paredes were not exactly 'Masa' material, only exacerbated the situation. It's the classic indirect diss: by dissing the object of everyone's affection, means they are also dissing his supporters. At worst, the message was: The guy's obviously an asshole. Only an idiot would like him. That they were on Twitter bashing him---no doubt in 'inglis'---sealed the deal. 

Tribalism, as my psychiatrist uncle once pointed out, figures a great deal in Pinoy society. And I agree. It’s not that his followers are cretins who do not know how big a creep the guy really is. It's just that they probably don’t care. He's one of them. And he's practically family. The kind who smacks his wife around only to be told by his folks that he's just exercising his authority as the king of the abode because his wife is probably a nagging b*** who needed to be reminded of the order of things. And that 'nagkakasayahan na nga kami dito, bat nyo kami pakekelaman?' Revillame's circle is no fraternity/sorority, but in many respects, the loyalty his people accord him can rival any Greek, Latin or any other secret society in terms of how protective of him they really are. Him to them, and them to him. It may all be phoniness on his part, but if hearing what they want to hear is the way, then Willie is the man.

The guy is not unlike ERAP, in that he always underscores the MASA card and debilitating poverty as fodder for the very people who experience this plight. His antics were never geared toward the academe, middle class nor his peers in showbusiness.You have got to admire the guy for playing the MASA card so brilliantly. Never has appeals to emotion over intellect been in full display on national TV. That he can conjure equal intensities of disgust and admiration from people is a feat in itself; and the networks cashing in on the abomination they have created.

Shutting him down will no doubt create a short term solution for getting rid of the kind of television Revillame promotes. But what it really means for the thousands---millions---of Revillame admirers is another blow coming from the pompous rich academic know-it-alls who has nothing better to do but bully the 'little people' so loved and protected by Revillame. Another persecution from the hoity-toity upper classes, this time in a bigger scale.

It's only a matter of time when another TV network hungry for ratings comes along and a guy willing to cash in on the desperation of the poor decides to don the sheep costume and dance and preen to Dr Dre's 'Next Episode'.

Interested in studying psychology? Check out forensic
psychology degree programs
.

'Bout a boy his name was Sue

Loud. The damned thing was too loud.


Of all the series of concerts from foreign artists I have watched in Araneta Coliseum, the Stone Temple Pilots gig will probably come across as the most sonically punishing of the lot. Not even the fabled abrasive industrial noise of Nine Inch Nails produced such ear-splitting intensity when they performed back in August 2009.


It was so great of an auditory assault I felt that familiar New Year's eve sensation when you detonated a horrendously huge firecracker at very close proximity; it is characterized by that constant ringing drone and the feel of an ear stuffed with cotton. That was the case after each song. It was 'loud' in a volume knob turned all the way to the right kind of loud; Disney's Happy Monster Band could be playing and your ears would still hurt. Nothing to do at all with the genre of music or musical intensity of the artist, but an abnormally cranked up volume control. Even singer Scott Weiland's voice, that great melodic set of pipes got drowned amidst the guitar and drum attack of Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz (both playing with supreme skill and mastery) more than half the time.


I don't know if the band intentionally did that but I'll be damned if my hearing has not deteriorated after that concert. 

They started late, presumably because they had to rouse Weiland from a drug-induced coma. I'm not so sure how sober the guy is nowadays but he looked relatively healthy last night compared to the gaunt and skinny publicity photos he had at the height of his drug addiction. The singer danced and preened through several radio-friendly hits, much to the delight of the audience, which was composed predominantly of people within the late 20s and early 30s mark. We were in high school when STP hit it big. Do the math.


'Crackerman' was the opener, and that set everyone on their feet. It was mostly a catalogue of old hits from their top 3 albums: Core (1993), Purple (1994), and Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (1996). ALL the singles were played except for 'Creep'. Now that mystified me not because I needed to hear them play it (I'm partial to 'Wicked Garden' and 'Tripping On A Hole In A Paper Heart'---and they thankfully played those), but compared to 'Plush', that song has a lot more going to it, in my opinion. A smattering of new and decent-sounding singles from their new record were played, causing most of the audience to sit down and keep quiet, which can be embarrassing to both performer and some viewers.


All through the entire proceedings bass player Robert DeLeo kept the groove, horsing around most of the time with the audience members nearest him. But his highlight came when 'Interstate Love Song' was played. If there's one thing that stands out about that single, it is the great bassline done by this Deleo brother. And Weiland's great singing. That you cannot dispute.





It was a performance punctuated by Weiland's occasional joking---even parodying professional ring announcer Michael Buffer as he introduced his guitar player as Joe Frazier and bass player as Muhammad Ali. No doubt, referring to the Ali-Frazier Thrilla In Manila fight in 1975, also held in Araneta Coliseum.


It was a great concert, no doubt. If only my ears would stop ringing.

These wonderful media outfits

Of course everyone is  talking about the recent suicide of ex-AFP chief Angelo Reyes. 


Thank God for overruled office policies concocted by idiots with penis-envy for people listening to portable music devices. 


Everyone who were tuned in to radio stations (Im more of an MP3 listener---my playlist blows all radio format to bits) jerked their head back in unison as if stung by some nasty insect when the news flash from whatever top 40 FM station they were listening to hit them.


By 9:30 AM people at the office were scuttling like ants with their antennae pulled out bumping at each other on the way to the huge TV in the lobby.


As expected, the network covering the event was all business at giving the people their daily dose of intrigue, suspense, and the sick glorified form of voyeurism. 

The coverage didn't disappoint: The hyperkinetic style of talking, interviews of people 'shocked that the man went through with such a dastardly act because he seemed in control and cool all the time', and police reports peppered with delightful terms like 'probably', 'probable', and 'we can assume'. In hindsight, all police media statements in the Philippines have been that way since I was born.


And the collective 'tsk' 'tsk' coming from the audience that either meant they were sorry for the dead man or they were sorry that not another one of the accused joined him. Either way, it's amusing to watch the audience react to the images and sounds splattered all over the boob tube.


Nothing like a little high-profile death as a worthwhile distraction from the mind-numbing routine of updating the database for shipping clients.


It's not until the first primetime news coverage that I actually complained. 


When someone dies, specially high-profile military officials accused of corruption, I tend to go overboard with my imagination that it may have been an elaborate murder setup meant to look like a suicide; as well as a host of other questions I wanted to ask like why the hell did he deviate from the usual method of the fastest, simply blowing-your-brains-out and opted for the chest where the likelihood of suffering before you die is a lot higher.

Simple, common questions like those were never asked even once during the entire week of primetime news broadcasts. What you get in exchange, is the most cringe-inducing 'tribute' about the deceased courtesy of interviews (testimonials actually) with his closest friends, family, a neverending rotation of his scholastic achievements and professional success. It practically accomplished what soap operas can only dream about these days in manipulating the emotions of the viewers.


Makes you wonder when someone will appear onstage all teary eyed saying some cliched testimony about how great a fellow the guy really is. Oh wait, they already did that. Just how exactly do broadcasting media practitioners in this country operate? At least the big, prominent ones. Because the whole time they were focusing on the suicide story the only relevant information that came out of it was how much Filipino viewers were undiscerning in the news content of their news programs. 


Even if it's already insulting to the intelligence.