The ghost of Rocker Janis

Leave all pretensions at the gate when listening to the first CD of visual artist and filmmaker Roxlee, whose Ghost of Rocker Janis was independently produced by Documento Records, the third release in the fledgling outfit’s catalogue.

Specializing in guerrilla recordings, Documento has previously come out with Uno Documento Compilo (reviewed in this same space about a year ago), and the follow-up, Documentalis, which featured some of the bands in the maiden CD.

Ghost of Rocker Janis is Roxlee’s own testament to the world of the troubadour, or how it is never too late to be a folk singer.

The CD is as raw as raw can get, with Roxlee preferring the sparsest of setups: his solo voice backed up by a lone acoustic guitar or ukulele, with the occasional harmonica if the artist sees fit. Roxlee’s strumming alone could be a tribute to the wandering gypsies and carolers who sing for some loose change, the better to buy some pan de sal to help stave off hunger, or the obligatory bottle of gin bulag to keep one warm during those cold nights stretched out on the sidewalk.

Roxlee, having started out as a cartoonist, the strength in his lyrics lies in the innate absurdity and visual twists; indeed the title cut sounds like a draft for a short film, of which Roxlee has made more than an even dozen. There is already a music video version of Ghost of Rocker Janis, though the copy we previewed was a bit blurred and quirky, its dizzying visuals almost passed for special effects.

For the most part the major mainstream record companies can go hang once you listen to Roxlee’s songs, for they really are songs no matter how weird they can sometimes get, such as in KyutiKyuti where the protagonist turns to vegetarianism when her worms are enough to make spaghetti: "Mga bulate ni Kyutikyuti/ Puwede sigurong gawing spaghetti...."

The title cut is the artist’s own ars poetica, or why he has chosen to turn to art in the first place.

The ghost of Janis the Rocker happens to come along while the persona is about to paint, and goes "straight to the kitchen to eat a spoiled fried chicken."

The ghost suffers from an upset stomach and begins to vomit green stuff into a bottle, which she in turn forces the narrator to drink. Painter then vomits the sticky green onto the canvas until he passes out, "and when (he) woke up, it was morning."

Soon a buyer comes along and espies the work of green, and exclaims that it’s art and wants to buy it. After the transaction, painter sees Rocker Janis again in a corner, "smiling and laughing."

Here we get a hint of how Roxlee perceives the creation of art –that it is as much accident as it is deliberate. The muse (Rocker Janis) chooses whom to bless, and never can she be forced. Rather it is the muse who forces the artist to the path of his chosen medium (by drinking the sticky green liquid) under pain of death. The result, though admittedly a happy ending with monetary rewards, comes at a price, and this Roxlee is only too glad to pay, having remained a bohemian all these years that he is threatening to succeed the late Pepito Bosch as the elder statesman of hipness.

There, too, is the artist’s "tender side," if it can be called that, as heard in the songs Unang Kita and Ba’t Ngayon Lang Dumating?, the voice pitch a bit higher than usual a la Pete Townshend, a guarantee that it’s never too late to bare your soul.

Trust the absurd to come to the fore in a kind of musical Cesar Asar in the song Ilong, in which the protagonist loses his nose –a metaphor for losing his sense of smell because of the smoke in the city? –and worries that it might go promenading at the Luneta and fall asleep in a piece of bread being made into a sandwich.

It ends by sending up the old Banyuhay ditty: "Tayo’y mga Pinoy, Tayo’y hindi Kano/Wag kang mahihiya, kung ang ilong mo ay nawawala...."

The man is in his element again in the twin songs, Kambal na Bundok and Twin Mountain, one not necessarily a faithful translation of the other, but they nevertheless get their message across in double-barreled manner: "Over me is a twin rainbow/ Beneath me is my twin shadow...."

Everything comes in pairs in the two songs, that the listener half-expects the persona to reveal that he is really a cross-eyed Mary. No such thing occurs, however, except for Roxlee chanting his mantra about sense in this world: "nothing makes sense but to hear, smell, feel the sound of your own fart, my friend."

Similar snippets of wisdom are thrown like pearls to swine, such as in Man and Pig, or in the insert where a grasshopper tells the narrator "not to worry about falling hair, worry more about the mountains that are no longer green."

The CD ends with a pair of remixes, Unang Kita and Ghost of Rocker Janis, with counterculture impresario Khavn dela Cruz in the control room. There is sufficient reverb and echo, and a semblance of a second voice hovers in the background.

It is hard to imagine these songs in an electric setting, but as Roxlee has proven time and again, he can always come up with surprises. (Auditions are now ongoing for Roxlee’s electric band).