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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Remember Classic Pinoy Rock circa 90's?


Thank God for a kind soul who hadn't forgotten Wolfgang on Wikipedia!

That great band of long haired, boom-voiced Pinoy-in-English alternative rock when oceans away Kurt Cobain was rocking out his zen-infused line "all-in-all, is all we are."

Tried looking for their first album (yes, in the time before we had music players) on CD at a local record shop for a friend. Should have realized it was way way way on the long lists of "against-all-odds" errands.

The ladies at the stores felt I was looking for the equivalent of the Holy Grail, and were miffed that I insisted they check other branches, warehouses, and other ungodly music storage places. To no avail.

Rummaged through CD boxes at home and found it. Having had a particularly tough day, just had to listen to "Darkness Fell," a pretty cool Goth anti-fairytale masquerading as a lullabye.

Does this qualify this album as "classic rock" then? My friend thought so---after laughing hard at my recent crusade to find a copy of the album.

Is it just scarcity and the rarity of my copy that makes it "classic?" When people forget about the band (frontman and his stunts with the ladies)? Or when their music won't even deserve a slot in your LSS (Last Song Syndrome) playlist in your mind (with bubble-gum radio tunes vying for random top 10 slots in that LSS list)?

Or when you do get LSS, sing a few opening bars under a riff--and friends say, "now THAT was a great song!"

Does the fact that they refer to that song in the past tense mean it's gone from present day consciousness, only to be preserved in nostalgia? Is that what it takes to make it "classic" like cars with large fenders and black rotary phones?

Or is it because the music conjures up moments past--and still finds a way to sing to your heart as aged as it has?

When it comes to books, the idea is that the stories that last are those that bear some form of memory and reinvention each time it's read--so that it matters to children at 5, 15 and 50 and their children. Maybe someday the great Pinoy rock I head-bang-ed along to will be the same way. Taking in meaning outside of the time in which the music was made. Rocking on...and on..and on...

Leaving a nibble of this song's opening line---remembering the riff that carries the words and the single exhale it takes so let it loose.

"And so she woke up from a dream/that was beautiful and starry and, oh, so wild/it was all still clear in her eyes//"-Darkness Fell, by Wolfgang

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