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

Chris Walla - Field Manual
Plans' true successor. Melodic, polished indie rock.

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Broader influences. Narrow interest level. What happened?

Pedicab - Shinji, Ilabas Mo Na Ang Helicopter
Hipsters aging gracefully. Disco punk for grown-ups.

Santogold - self-titled
M.I.A. meets Tegan and Sarah, only black.

Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head
Star plays Waits, via 4AD. Surprisingly good.

She & Him - Volume One
Faux vintage pop Americana. Zooey's best role.

The Submarines - Honeysuckle Weeks
Orchestral pop duo addresses everyday tragedies. Recommended!

Labels: 7-Word Reviews, music, review

Prank Sinatra
Footlong Players
D-Chord Records/I Did It My Way Music/Monopond

I remember buying my first Prank Sinatra CD (THE f DEfECT) at one of those big music chain stores. They had stocked copies on the shelves that same day. The girl at the cashier had a good laugh about the odd pricing, then asked if I was friends with Iman (the indie mastermind behind Prank's themed album/s). I told her I didn't really know him (and up til this day, I still don't). Before making off with my purchase, she deemed it worth mentioning that I was the first person to snap up a copy.

I was already familiar with some of Monopond's previous releases and their underrated appeal (for those with some degree of appreciation for lo-fi). Prank, however, stood out as being the slickest of them all - from color packaging to the excellent home studio recording that managed to emulate lo-fi sensibilities, mainly bilingual antifolk ditties at their most whimsical. I read this competently written but uncredited review in the online version of Manila Bulletin, which mentioned that the recording fee was discounted by Iman's A&R exec friend. But that ended up being waived altogether, when his buddy opted to be paid in the COMPLETE Guided By Voices discography instead (mostly downloads). Makes me wonder what sweet deal was made in the recording of Footlong Players that topped Iman's painstaking P2P effort in the acquisition of those priceless GBV mp3s.

My copy of Footlong... also came from that same chain store, since I haven't come across anyone from Monopond in the past year or so, to perform the more decent act of buying an indie straight from the source. I actually enjoyed this release more than The f... (which has now been relegated to "mood music"). The tempo is more upbeat, even as the song structures from the previous record are pretty much similar. And the re-listen value is so much higher. It helped that Prank's second offering kicked off with "Glorify D-I-Y", an instantly unforgettable battle cry peppered with hints of sarcasm (which Paolo described in hindsight as the "cheesy handyman Tim Allen kind of D-I-Y") and hilarious examples to boot (for instance, a mock-sexy reference to jerking off -- "Take matters into your own hands -- do it yourself!"). While a strong opening track, it manages to stretch its sonic equilibrium all the way to the latter half of the album.

The retro-kitsch aesthetics of the cover, coupled with the fancy wording of the song titles are both lessons in semiotics and semantics, respectively. The Wangaratta Rovers football team "metamorphoses" into a hotdog sandwich once you open the sleeve (though not quite the footlong I spotted on a billboard along C5, while listening to this album in my car. Talk about irony of ironies). And I remember how "What's the point!" blared through my headphones as I studied the track listing, and upon realizing how the track was worded ("What's the .?!"), I just had to crack up. God, am I reading too much into this? By far one of the more clever local releases I've heard in a while.



Recommended if you like: GBV, Flaming Lips, Beck, Radiohead, anything on the Elephant6 roster
Closest Asian approximate: Wilson Tsang (from Hong Kong)

Labels: music, review, Sound Trip