Not Jolly Ol’ London

If The Clash were a one-hit wonder and the double-album London Calling was their only record, The Clash would probably be the greatest rock band of all fragging time!

Thank the punk gods, for that reason, they aren’t.

With already two classic albums behind them, The Clash and Give ‘Em Enough Rope, London’s best working-class band were, upholding their image, down on their luck. Joe Strummer was writing songs in his grandma’s pad using a manual typewriter and his group owed their record label money.

After putting together enough songs for three studio albums, they chose the best 19 of the lot and the rest is rock ‘n’ roll history.

The Summer of ’79

The name is perfectly appropriate for their music and they came right on time when the time wasn’t right. The Knopfler brothers and a fitting rhythm complement of basic base and minimalist drumming to their Hungarian-Scottish blues psychedelia floated on the New Wave and landed on the shore with more grace and staying power than what turned out to be something of a passing fancy. Thanks to Mark Knopfler’s “swan’s neck for a guitar,” Pick Withers’ aural version of Chinese painting, the able backup of Knopfler’s brother David on rhythm guitar, and base-guitar player John Illsley.

Admittedly, my choice for the best studio album that Dire Straits recorded, this one, is biased as hell. On a five-star rating system, this LP could rate only four stars, or 4 1/2 at best, but this was their debut album, and first is first. And it’s not bad either; it actually is superb (or near superb). The carrier single, Sultans Of Swing, introduced the band to the world, which ever since has had pockets of diehard fans who refuse to let go of the past. (I am talking about myself.) There could be others.

Sentimental value notwithstanding, Dire Straits was one of the best albums (this was the time when vinyl still ruled and the cassette tape was still winding its way to replace the big black shiny happy circle with a hole in the middle, long before CD repeated history) released that year, 1978. Record companies in my country had, still have, a delayed reaction to many hit singles (remember 45 RPMs) and LPs (remember 33 1/3 RPMs), releasing their own presses only when music rags (no Internet yet) made so much noise it was impossible to ignore. So, I got hold of this in 1979. Sultans of Swing was a soft-spoken bomb that exploded on radio. Mark Knopfler’s finger-picking style and just as laidback talk-singing (I thought Michael Franks was the best poet in the music business, until I heard Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits) was erroneously lumped together with the retro tendencies of new wave and punk. Dire Straits stood above the rest. Except for the Ramones, no one from that era survived the ’80s and beyond better than Knopfler’s gang. OK, so Dire Straits split eventually, too, and the Ramones died off one after another, with the exception of hardy Marky Ramone.

Down to the Waterline is one of those quite-rare songs that perfectly opens a record: “Sweet surrender/On the quay side/You remember/We used to run and hide.” Jaunty guitars set the mood for the fun of the ride, which doesn’t end until Lions – my second all-time favorite Dire Straits ditty, eight songs away. Sultans of Swing strategically positioned as cut number 6 on Side 2, lies in wait for pleasures that for me (this is personal and way nostalgic) still make my skin tingle 30 odd years after the initial act. “You get a shiver in the dark/It’s raining in the park/But meantime/South of the river you hold everything.” I can still recite in singsong many lyrics of what Knopfler wrote. I intentionally refuse to read lyric sheets, or search the web for the exact words, because I want to re-experience everything. Hopefully, my memory serves me right, and that my heart is still in the right place.

This is supposed to be a record review. But how can you review a feeling you had 30 years ago? It is never the same. One can only hope you haven’t become so jaded not to remember. I will try. Song for song. Here, I have to pull out my dusty LP from a neat rack threatened by termites for the proper sequence.

Down to the Waterline: Refer above.
Water of Love: Continues the water reference from the first cut. Mike Scott could have taken Dire Straits for his inspiration.
Setting Me Up: Uptempo paranoid.
Six Blade Knife: “Your six-blade knife/Do anything for you/Anything you want it to/One blade for breaking my heart/One blade for tearing me apart...” I still don’t see how that is physically possible and practical to have a six-sided blade or six-edged knife or, all right, six-bladed knife. The tough guys in our neighborhood used to conceal tres and cuatro-cantos knives in their person for those sudden violent street confrontations, but sais cantos? I will take Mark’s word.
Southbound Again: My on-the-road song. I used to hum and play this song in my head while on a bus going (geographically south, actually) back to college from my hometown. The sight of coconut trees, mountains, the sea, from the window of the bus, was the music video for this song.
Sultans of Swing: A “shiver in the dark,” “rain” “in the park”...Mark Knopfler as a child must have gotten wet so many times aside from under the bathroom shower he has to experience again the sensation in his music. It’s all right, Mark. We listen to you and we feel warm.
In the Gallery: I have always wanted to see the inside of an art museum, art gallery in England. I am stuck in an archipelago in Asia damned by incorrigibly corrupt politicians. My former assistant editor, though, now lives and works in London. I grill him on life in the UK whenever he comes home to visit. Lucky bastard! Sorry, Jack, your parents never did marry. No offense, mate.
Wild West End: I grew up on the old TV western Wild Wild West. I understand that the West End is a section in London, or...OK! It is in England, right? It is incongruous to visualize Englishmen in suits and derby hats drawing revolvers and shooting each other down in the middle of Main Street, even in the 1800s. It is not? How about skinheads battling the coppers? Something wild in the West End. My imagination is running wild.
Lions: The perfect closer to the perfect opener – Down to the Waterline. Sans record sleeve lyrics sheet and decades before the Internet, I played songs on the turntable, picking up the needle arm (!!!) and putting it back on the starting groove to transcribe the lyrics. I memorized more songs this way than accompanying myself on the guitar or piano singing songs on a songbook. “Red sun going down/Wait over/Dirty town/The stars are sweeping around now/Crazy show/Listen and a girl is there/Right over around the square.” My listening skills are not perfect and Knopfler’s grumble can be off-putting to those keen on getting his lyrics right. This is the best that I can do, all things considered.

The Dire Straits sound got heavier, more solid, and more commercial, when Brothers in Arms and Money for Nothing came along seven and 10 years later, respectively. They had more fans and much more money in the bank by then. For that reason, I keep holding on to the slender past. The reason their debut record will remain my favorite Dire Straits LP. Play it long...in my mind for now.

This is the best I can do from the top of my head, raiding raw memory. My brother (in needle mark arms) sold our two Sansui amplifiers when he was still trying to listen to voices and music in his head with the aid of chemicals for a shot of whatever he fancied at the time. My turntable is kaput. The speakers stand in a corner silent. I have kept all my LP records while hoping I find a cheap stereo set.

There are voices and music in my head, too, but I don’t need to sink a needle in my arm or inhale substances that God did not intend for his creatures to breathe in. Life has too many natural highs and abysmal lows. One of those highs is Dire Straits’ music. A definite low is being unable to listen to them on vinyl again. Wait! I still have my well-wound cassette tape of Alchemy and Live at the BBC. "Analogue is warmer."

All is not lost.

Resurrection

Alive In America

Steely Dan

MY HEROES AIN’T DEAD AFTER ALL: They're alive. Alive in America. Yes, they’re old. The kind that’s good. The kind that’s reunited. Reunited oldies but goodies. Instead of youthful kinetic exuberance, good judgment borne of experience takes its place. Discipline. Polish. Things some might associate in a knee-jerk reaction with boring. Actually, boredom does seem to creep in certain songs (Bodhisattva, Sign In Stranger, for instance) but sheer talent and the sophistication of the music keeps ennui from settling.

Some people might question the necessity of a live Steely Dan record at this point in time, this late, more than a decade after their breakup. If the Beatles, minus a “live” John Lennon, were able to reunite and record new songs for a double-album release, at that, there’s no reason why an intact (as far as creative core is concerned) Steely Dan can’t put out a concert album of all vintage (except for Book of Liars) material.

The biggest disappointment I have with this record is that there are too many brilliant songs in the Steely Dan discography that are not here: Do It Again, Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me), My Old School, With A Gun, Any Major Dude Will Tell You, Dr. Wu, Any World That I’m Welcome To, Bad Sneakers, Throw Back The Little Ones, The Caves Of Altamira, Don’t Take Me Alive, The Royal Scam, Haitian Divorce, Black Cow, Deacon Blues, to name some.

It irritates to realize that the choice of their concert repertoire seems to hinge on the instrumentalists’ opportunity to show off virtuosity. Then you wish again that the original members and crack session men who played in the studio records were in the touring lineup. Case in point: the solo guitar lead in Reelin’ In The Years. When you have listened to it countless times, the song ingrained in your consciousness, you hear a live version that’s obviously different; the classic lead by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (some sources say it’s by Elliot Randall) whom Jimmy Page admits to being his all-time favorite guitar solo, being rendered unrecognizable. One can’t help but be dismayed, longing for the original. That is, the original song and lineup; Donald Fagen and Walter Becker being the only ones left of the studio Can’t Buy A Thrill era band.

The nature of Steely Dan as a jazz-influenced pop/rock unit probably inhibits them from the stale gesture of performing cepra live renditions – jazz music as spontaneous, as unencumbered by the orthodox rules of the music establishment as it is. Only purists would throw the “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken,” dictum at you.

Not that all the material in this album stray far from the original. Josie, except for the brief ’70s arena-rock-like drum solo, is surprisingly faithful to the studio cut. Not that there aren’t any shining moments. In Third World Man, Fagen’s voice is a panther stalking prey, graceful, sinuous, powerful, wound tight, ready to pounce. The lead guitar dives and grapples. The languid rhythm section ideal for the lead guitar intrusion. All elements producing a solid whole.

Perhaps it’s intentional. Fagen calls their seven studio records “failed experiments” and maybe he and Becker simply want to wash their hands and distance themselves from their past product – an arrogant brush-off or honest admission. Even if that’s the case, those seven “failed experiments” are worth 70 Duran Duran, Petshop Boys and Depeche Mode platinum records put together. Those bands can base their whole careers on Steely Dan’s two worst LPs.

Part of the fun listening to Steely Dan songs is deciphering the lyrics. Fagen and Becker being the purveyors of esoterica and arcana, the strangled intensity of Fagen’s singing makes code-cracking far from easy.

Analyzing the reason for the release a live-concert record is easier: They have gotten over their boredom with each other and are now eager to start working on their eighth Steely Dan studio album. You wish! PJT/February 1996, Horizons

Note: Steely Dan did release an eighth studio record: the Grammy winning Two Against Nature – a middling effort which managed to beat Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP for Record of the Year in 2001 besides winning three other Grammies. Plenty of guilty middle-aged National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences members out there with a predilection to overcompensate.

Women Rule: Kaong In Halo-halo Syndrome

Numeric Sampler 502
Various Artists





GIVEN HALF A CHANCE, FEMINIST extremists would probably have the male of the species, which they see as the cause of most if not all of the world’s problems, should be castrated. In this record, at least, they almost get their wish.

In a compilation of 16 songs by seven male bands (Sugar Hiccup has a female vocalist-guitarist) and an all-female ensemble (Keltscross), it is these two groups who stand out. The producers may have seen this and allotted them threes songs each while giving the rest two at most. Keltscross is everyone’s favorite little sister who discovers the joys of rebellion. She
drinks beer, smokes weed and sings songs like German Cut (Opera) and Johnny Look Twice. The latter, a song about rape and homicide, with its ’77ish punk delivery, is a sharp contrast – a love ballad that wrings out irony from melody.

Keltscross is everyone’s favorite little sister who discovers the joys of rebellion. She drinks beer, smokes weed and sings songs like German Cut (Opera) and Johnny Look Twice love ballad that
wrings out irony from mel. The latter, a song about rape and homicide, with its ’77ish punk delivery, is a sharp contrast – a love ballad that wrings out irony from melody.

In a compilation of 16 songs by seven male bands (Sugar Hiccup has a female vocalist-guitarist) and an all-female ensemble (Keltscross), it is these two groups who stand out. The producers may have seen this and allotted them threes songs each while giving the rest two at most. Keltscross is everyone’s favorite little sister who discovers the joys of rebellion. She drinks beer, smokes weed and sings songs like German Cut (Opera) and Johnny Look Twice. The latter, a song about rape and homicide, with its ’77ish punk delivery, is a sharp contrast – a love ballad that wrings out irony from melody.

Up front you’ll get the impression from Trust of a resigned attitude on the age-old phenomenon of girls loving boys, girls giving boys all they ask for, then boys the pigs that they are betray and leave. Keltscross takes on a tougher stance: “You didn’t have to kill her/You son-of-a-whore.” Of all the bands in this album, with the possible exception of Siakol, Keltscross is the most deserving of a solo record.

Despite the women’s talent, ladies first is not observed here. Siakol starts off the record with the radio and concert-favorite Lakas Tama. Lagim, by the same group, follows. These two songs’ thematic pose practically sets up the whole album: love and politics, heartache and social conscience, indifference. It’s as if everybody who has joined a Pinoy rock a band is a closet radio advice-program host or pulpit firebrand. From Juan de la Cruz to The Youth, everyone freely boasts of their romantic adventures cum sleazy escapades and dispenses with unsolicited counsel. It’s uncanny that in a compilation record, the bands here, all seven of them (Cathode Ray’s Diagram is an instrumental) do just that.

Speaking of compilations, the rust and glut of Pinoy Rock compli releases trivialize the format. They are almost like OPM alternative music Stars On 45. From an economic point of view, it’s practical buying complis. You get more for your money. That’s quantity-wise. But this very format ensures scattershot musical menu. You get grunge, you get punk, you get thrash, you get pop. And the caliber of songs usually varies from execrable to divine. Those who prefer a more focused and consistent approach to music appreciation are advised to steer away form this sort of buy.

Incidentally, it’s not only the average enthusiast that’s shortchanged by the halo-halo syndrome now rampant in the recording industry. The music reviewer, deprived of a center to draw a bead on, finds it twice difficult analyzing. But if enough good material of a single style (cyberpunk, for instance) is deliberately made available, the focal point will be a big help for layman and reviewer.

One thing about complis is that, granted the selections are uniformly interesting, you don’t get bored. If the good ones come few and far between, it’s like trying to sift through a lot of scraped coconut in a fruit salad for kaong.

It’s a quaint coincidence that all the bands featured in Numeric Sampler 502, except for those with one-word names, have alliterative handles: Keltscross, Tame The Tikbalang, Poppy Field, Feet Like Fins and Children of Cathode Ray. It’s certainly no coincidence that the styles are copies of mostly western rock. You hear traces of the Sex Pistols, Metallica, Talk Talk, Faith No More, The Go-Gos, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Public Enemy and even Enya. Anyway, rock ‘n’ roll is a western/American invention; and as the allegation goes, we are “little brown Americans” pumped full of colonial mentality. So, on with the show.

Record companies can’t really be blamed for producing compilations. It is a practical means of testing market reaction on what bands sell without resorting to the Russian-roulette Marvel mutant X-titles method: Oh, Wolverine is hot with the fanboys. Let’s give him his own series. Yeah, and Cable too! And while you’re at it, give Gambit his mini series. The bands that prove most popular get their solo deals.

The best thing that can be said of this record is that it is proof of the theory that shelling out that inflation-ridden peso for every release which prominently displays the warning “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics” on its inlay card is not a guarantee for satisfaction. It’s not like the Ten Commandments with its irresistible “thou shalt not…” a foreshadowing of sweet dark thrills. Summed up, Marilyn Chambers does not lie in wait behind every Green Door. PJT/October 1995 Horizons

Femmes to the Rescue

Revenge of the Fishlips
Keltscross

IF KELTSCROSS were a martial artist, they’d be Cynthia Rothrock, very good but not very strong but good enough to kick ass.

And if an all-girl punk band can write well-crafted songs and play this aggressive, there’s no reason why all-male groups who posture as if they have a monopoly on testosterone can only come up with lame compilations of pang-chicks ballads.

Perhaps it pays to have studied in either UP or De La Salle and brought up on a post-adolescent diet of Ramones and Sex Pistols. It also doesn’t hurt to be good looking and sexy. Gifted with the requirements of an almost surefire smash, Keltscross released a record almost two years after fellow female rockers Tribal Fish’s debut record and in effect shame corporate dummies back to their concepts.

Only stupidity and sheer cowardice would lead otherwise talented musicians to blindly obey record producers and play nothing but commercial fluff…er…stuff.

Keltscross obey their Muse and come out with, pardon my French, the butt-kicking and nerve-wracking Revenge of the Fishlips – a 16-song tour-de-force, a solid head-banging product intelligent enough to please both body slammers and bookworms. A mix of declarations of strength/defiance and vulnerability/humility, it is pleasing to see not another of those cute Bananarama rip-offs who make pa-cute, voices dripping with syrupy giggles.

Right off the bat, I Wanna Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Legend, a sonic assault allusion on Kurt Cobain’s suicide: a condemnation of Nirvana’s frontman, if there ever was one. From here to the end, it’s an angst-ridden ride not letting up until the second-to-the-last (Bye-Bye Baby) and last song (Asleep), deceptive in title but faithful to the tone.

In a record with more than a dozen songs with nary a weak cut, space limitation dictates a necessity – capsule reviews.

Pollux Driving: Most primitive of messages. "There’s nothing you can do but slam." German Cut (Opera): Calls to mind all the girls I’ve know who wanted to be "one of the boys. "Hindi matimpla pare ko/(Beer/jutes) na lang tayo sa kalasingn/kapraningan)." Daddy’s Lil’ Grrl: It only gets worse, with the female persona taking a man, raping him and telling her father all about it and asking him not to tell her mother, afraid "she’ll cut my allowance clear." I Know: Great contrast to the first four songs. Where the former are defiant, almost indifferent, here is a display of vulnerability. "Since that day you walked out on me/I know I’ll just lose my mind." Cool: A collage of "cool" objects/symbols – "shoes, shades, sex, more rings, chest hair…" are turned against pa-porma individuals. Keltscross’ advice: "Kung gusto mong magpa-cool/Isaksak mo ang sarili mo sa ref." The well-placed lead guitar in the end part adds to the mocking tone. Johnny Look Twice: Pleas for mercy. "Ayoko! Tama na! Ano ’to? Parang awa mo na!" backgrounded with gothic instrumentation, manages to be both repulsive and touching, segues into "You raped and abused her, Johnny/And hit her on the head." Slut Chant: A Siouxie Sioux-like chanting version of I Am Woman, Helen Reddy’s ’70s women’s lib theme song. "This slut can purr/This slut can soar/But, baby, if you want me/This slut will roar." Pains And Fears: Defiance again. "I’m sick of kindness and pity/And all of you make me sick to the guts…I’m not afraid to show who I am." Wedding Song: A Metallica-sounding rave-on. The heaviest cut. The intro is a foreshadowing of dark pleasure. A most unweddinglike wedding song melody-wise. The lyrics are another matter entirely. "Make my heart beat once more/Make my world worth living for/Show me love." Crabs: Just be assured this is not a song about crustaceans. Ron Ruiz does the vocals here instead of Keltscross’ Zeejay. (Female voices join in the chorus.) The band probably thought the subject matter would be more appropriate with a man singing, although the affliction, there you are, is definitely not limited to men. ’Wag Ka Nang Mambitch: The title says it all. Hot Steam: The lyrics almost get to be surreal. Sorry Na Naman?: The rapping/scolding part where the girls’ voices chorus, the joy in the catharsis is almost palpable. Bye Bye Baby and Asleep: Respite from all the angst and aggression. The former is somber and melodious, the latter lighthearted and whimsical.

A woman's place is in the kitchen? Don't ask Keltscross that. Man, if you do, wear a helmet and groin protector. PET/Sun.Star Daily June 17, 1996

Record Reviews A La Mode

In the mid-’90s, I was gifted with the opportunity to review music records for a glossy travel magazine spin-off of a leading English daily which inevitably went defunct considering its confused raison d’etre. The following articles are reprints with edits of two columns on Steely Dan Donald-Fagen Walter-Becker albums that I did for Horizons.

This whole music-critic thing was bound to happen, the wetting of my feet in the music-review biz, that is. While in college, I was similarly honored in Weekly Sillimanian with a review column – Rewind – name-use years ahead of cable’s Channel V nostalgia program.

My debut review, of The Cure’s Three Imaginary Boys (per Philippine recording industry methodology, this 1979 LP saw the light of day in these shores more than 10 years after it’s initial international release as the RP buying public started noticing the band), was longwinded but made aesthetically visually attractive with a column logo of a Gilbert-Arbon rendering of a cassette tape with a pencil stuck through the reel. Also, it was probably that school publication’s first attempt at pop music criticism.

This blog is the culmination of a dream-emulation honed reading local music rags Jingle, Moptop, and the “imported” Rolling Stone, Creem, Crawdaddy, and countless others brain cells can’t recall. Those who can, become rock stars. Those who can’t, become critics. As it turned out, it was only the beginning. The Internet was in its infancy. Ten years and some hence, it’s a teenager. Just about the same stage that this age group discovers sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Ego aside, I believe my music-dissecting skills have similarly grown. Watch this teen rebel.

Let’s Get It On! I mean – Rock On!

The Dan Is Old

Kamakiriad
Donald Fagen

11 Tracks
Of Whack
Walter Becker


MY HEROES ARE DEAD AND I'VE GOT TO GET this off my chest. How many times have you read a record review extolling the musical virtues of a veteran musician, how a certain artist unfailingly and gracefully grows with age, exploring tried and tested musical byways and virgin territories with equal elan?

Donald Fagen, who along with Walter Becker formed the nucleus of Steely Dan and recorded seven of the most distinctively elegant albums of the rock ‘n’ roll era, releases only his second solo record after Steely Dan temporarily broke up in 1981 just as the vinyl presses of Gaucho got cold and putting two singles in the pop charts. Those who were charmed by Fagen’s solo debut, The Nightly, will likely be less than enamored this time.

Nightfly, which sounds a lot like the whole Steely Dan catalogue in a single package, may not be a radical intergalactic jump from the stylistic adventurism of the sinister duo, but at least it isn’t boring. The same cannot be said of Kamakiriad.

From the inlay card notes: “Kamakiriad is an album of eight related songs. The literal action takes place a few years in the future, near the millennium.

“In the first song, Trans-Island Skyway, the narrator tells us he is about to embark on a journey in his new dream-car, a custom-tooled Kamakiri. It’s built for the new century: steam-driven, with a self-contained vegetable garden and a radio link with the Tripstar routing satellite.

“The next six songs describe his adventures along the way. The last song, Teahouse On The Track, the narrator lands in a dismal Flytown where he must decide whether to bail out of to rally and continue moving into the unknown.”

Fagen’s (and for that matter, Becker’s) best material was done when he was with Steely Dan. There is no indication that they can top their collaborative oeuvre. There is a creative energy that is only unleashed when one is with the right people or group. That energy inevitably siphons off when the alliance ends. The syndrome is demonstrated in the Bread-less David Gates, who resorted to writing sappier ballads with less bite, and in Jimmy Page, who could produce nothing but mediocre blues-based songs apart from Led Zeppelin. It is no coincidence that one of the brighter spots on Kamakiriad is Snowbound, co-written by Fagen and Becker. There is also the languidly graceful Florida Room, composed by Fagen and Libby Titus.

There is something self-destructive in the way Fagen writes a melody. The first bar works out fine; suddenly the appeal level drops off. Snowbound stands out because the melody builds alongside fluid storytelling. This is how Fagen and Becker operate in Steely Dan. Fagen can’t do better than Steely Dan. He should follow his own advice in Trans-Island Skyway: “Let’s talk about the good times.”

The song titles in 11 Tracks of Whack strung together can tell a story on a chapter of the life of Becker who had a girlfriend die of a drug overdose in his house. He was sued for damages by the OD victim’s mother but was acquitted and cleared of all liabilities.

With a little grammatical license and inserted phrases, the story goes this way – Becker found himself Down In The Bottom after Steely Dan broke up and he had his Junkie Girl OD. Becker had to Surf And/Or Die in the courtroom. Lucky for him, he had his Book Of Liars. Lucky Henry, that’s Becker, a Hard-Up Case and a Cringemaker. Although he admits his Girlfriend to be almost My Waterloo that has made him This Moody Bastard. What Hat Too Flat means and who or what Little Kawai is, is anybody’s guess. PJT/November 1995, Horizons