I often treat my relationships with different musical genres as if they were actual people. Pop is like the annoying kid sibling that I can't stand, but I frequently end up defending anyway when mean folks pick on it (usually because it does something stupid, in the first place). Indie Rock is that quirky, artsy fling whom I often have ill-advised sex with, but is ultimately too restless to commit to anything serious. (And besides, I'm probably waaay too uptight for it to last.) Punk Rock is the volatile on-off lover; it feels like a soul-mate one day, a nagging spouse the next. (In all likelihood, we'd be a perfect match, if we didn't remind each other so much of the qualities we lack.) But Emo and me... that's, um, complicated.

And shouldn't it be? Like so many other genres that began on the fringes of mass culture, it was difficult to make that first contact necessary to spark up any kind of flirtation with it, given the vagaries of consuming "hard-to-find" music in the so-called Third World. For emo and I, our "Close Up moment" arrived in the form of a Hong Kong-based record distro service. But I'm getting ahead of myself here...

Fact is, as a term, "emo" meant nothing to me, before the summer of 1999. I was probably in a very emo mood at the time -- I just hadn't realized it yet. Back then, I was a second-time freshman in college, after being "honorably dismissed" from a prominent Jesuit university. I felt listless and yet oddly hopeful about making a new start of it.

By chance, I found myself corresponding with Riz Farooqi, my brother's (then) band-mate in the Hong Kong-based hardcore troupe King Ly Chee. He was in the midst of putting together a zine and music distro called Start From Scratch, which featured a kind of Who's Who of ‘second wave' emo groups that came to prominence in the mid-90s, with their heady combination of over-stated passion and tuneful indie rock sensibilities: The Promise Ring, Mineral, Braid, Cap'n Jazz, Rainer Maria, et al. Eager to check out this unfamiliar genre -- and intrigued by what I had read in the zines and online journals of US-based acquaintances -- I splurged on a bulk order from Riz. Within days, I received a sampling of the emo ‘canon', built around key releases from the Jade Tree, Deep Elm, and Polyvinyl labels.


The Promise Ring smile, in defiance of tired "Cheer up, Emo Boy!" cliches

Now, I didn't listen to these records expecting to hear the sound of punk rock's future. As I understood it, I was belatedly venturing into a pre-established style of music, with its own history and social context. I saw myself as a Juan Come Lately, perhaps arriving just in time to bear witness to the genre's last breaths. Nevertheless, I immediately took a liking to this new sound. It was my latest audio crush, perfectly echoing my desires at the time. It boasted the DIY ethics and raw honesty of punk rock, but it also catered to my withdrawn, introspective side. For a mawkish would-be intellectual who preferred the geeky Weezer or the obtuse Pixies to the meaty riffs of hardcore pioneers like Minor Threat and Black Flag, emo offered a comfy middle ground.


graffiti spotted near Market! Market! shopping complex, Taguig City, Metro Manila circa late 2007




NEXT on The "E Word" Chronicles: Transpacificism (or Why an Over-Educated Rich Kid from a 'Developing' Country Warmed Up to the Sound of the American Mid-West)





The "E Word" Chronicles by Paolo Jose O. Cruz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Labels: music personal emo

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