Ironically, my companion bought enough CDs and vinyl to rehabilitate the famously meager racks of the pa-hip record store in Manila. Yes, the one with dodgy, dread-locked salesmen, who if you ask for a particular album from a blues artist (say, Stevie Ray Vaughan) would tell you the unexpurgated history of the blues; the complete discography of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Lightning Hopkins, etc.; the relative merits of Johnny Winter and Gary Moore; and other pieces of aural esoteria. But not about the goddamn album you’re looking for.
(Oftentimes, the unsolicited music history lesson is a diversionary tactic, much like smoke and ninja stars, to awe customers while the salesman disappears like Batman. Customers leave the stores without their intended purchase but are much wiser in the end, having been fondled by genius.)
Yes, we got lost in Japan because: 1) my companion had poor eyesight; and 2) the idiot who was with her had the navigational/voyaging skills of a useless bloodhound that had just sniffed the funky, spicy, mind-deadening underarm scent of guys who ride steamy LRT coaches in sleeveless Masculado shirts.
We were supposed to go to a hotel in downtown Tokyo but ended up on Void Street on the corner of Limbo Road, along Where-the-hell-is-this? Avenue. Not that maps in the train stations weren’t at all helpful. The directions were easy to comprehend, in fact. But you know how orderly and simplistic routes are when written down and drawn; in real life they take on a reality all their own. Going from one point to another on the map seems easy as pie, a walk down the yellow brick road with Dorothy. But actually hauling my ass from point A to point B felt like chasing after the White Rabbit with Alice after taking directions from Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and a mulcting traffic enforcer, since there were points "Å," "ß," "¶," and "·" – points of know returns all.
The Tokyo railways made up one sinuous serpent, and my companion and I felt like doomed, clueless rats.
Another time, we rode a taxicab and I told the driver we wanted to get to Hatchobori station. The old man replied in his native tongue – something, something. I muttered, "Uh, yes." Even if I had no idea what the man was talking about. He could have been saying, "Someone left your cake out in the rain," or "Say you, say me, say it together, naturally." But we put our fate in a man we couldn’t communicate with, and he took us to a place we had become all-too familiar with: neverwhere, the land of the lost, where the streets have no name. But no matter how stressed we were at being lost, I couldn’t help but observe how beautiful X-street was (Japan is such a lovely country).
The only thing that would mess up the Tokyo scenery was Godzilla hurtling its green ass across the architecture; Ultraman or Astroboy tussling with a giant, radioactive crab monster; or a road sign telling us exactly where we were.
The Jon Spencer Blues opened for Blur. This band (a garagey, shuffley, bluesy and bouncy rock trio) was really entertaining to watch. Singer Jon Spencer nearly swallowed the microphone a couple of times (which reminded me of a ReyCards routine), aside from dishing out spiels with an Elvis accent and spewing saliva everywhere. There was no bassist, so the music had a trebly, mid-rangey tone to it. The twin guitars (courtesy of Spencer and Judah Bauer) were dirty, distorted, unpolished and anarchic; imagine George Thoroughgood jamming with The Datsuns. Drummer Russel Simins bashed away at the kit as if the tom-toms were Hitler’s buttocks. The band’s punkish frenzy was infectious.
The blokes from The Strokes were the other fun guys to watch even if their music is obviously derivative. (Listen to "Is This It" and tell me what Velvet Underground record is their favorite). But what these guys did (along with the White Stripes and The Hives) is to steal rock n’ roll back from the poseurs who do nothing but retread Rage Against the Machine songs. Nü-metal has become corporate, calculating and cock-eyed (there is, I think, a dress code for these bands, a braid requirement, as well as a 10-tattoo minimum). The low-tech, low-fi Strokes seems rougher and more spontaneous. But you know how it is the music industry: One band with something different (not necessarily new) to offer quickly becomes a paradigm and not a point-of-departure. Success easily attracts sycophants. (One example is how a hugely successful Christina Aguilera has made Jewel ditch her acoustic guitar, her folksy tunes and most of her clothing.) Now, how many bands are out there sporting Afros, wearing Salvation Army clothes and rehashing Ramones, Stooges and VU riffs? Hey, I lost count at 12,000.
But I could really get into The Strokes. Singer Julian Casablancas, wearing a retro Ghostbusters shirt, warbled from The Modern Age to Barely Legal to Someday to the hit Last Nite to the extremely danceable Strokes track Take It Or Leave It. No rapping or irritating Puff Daddy posturing in their set, no turntables being used as a musical instrument, just a couple of Fenders and other vintage gear churning out maximum rock n’ roll.
The Stereophonic featuring a hoarse-voiced Kelly Jones in a floppy hat was another crowd-drawer. Aside from purveying stripped-down, new tracks from the new album titled "You Gotta Go There To Come Back," the band performed past hits like Have A Nice Day and Local Boy in the Photograph.
When Blur’s turn came, everyone in the stadium got excited. People were curious as to how the departure of guitarist Graham Coxon affected the band. Hardly, the answer was. Since Blur opted to fill the void left by Coxon with backup singers, a saxophonist/keyboardist and The Verve’s Simon Tong on guitar. Much like how the Rolling Stones toured in the ‘80s – full bleeding force, the only ones missing would be cellists, aunts and mothers.
Blur began with Ambulance off "Think Tank." Yes, singer Damon Albarn and the rest of the boorish boys (Alex James on bass and Dave Rowntree on drums) have "nothing to be scared of," since Coxon was only the heart of this Britpop organization, the head (Albarn, of course) is still intact and still thinking of ways to make interesting, challenging music.
The Beatlesque Beetlebum (from the ’97 self-titled platter) followed – one of the very few old Blur tunes the band played that evening. Then it was Gene by Gene, For Tomorrow (from "Modern Life is Rubbish") and Good Song.
Blur dabbled into world music with Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club before launching into the sing-along classic Tender, from "13." Albarn looked like a cross between Paul Weller and David Bowie in his oversized David Byrne suit as he invited the audience for a round of impromptu karaoke. The mic cord however wasn’t long enough when Damon tugged at it, prompting him to mutter, "What kind of a festival is this? The microphone is not long enough." That incident showed what a toughie Albarn is, even while in the middle of a sentimental song like Tender. He simmered down afterwards to introduce the next track called Caravan, which he said was recorded in a desert.
"If you only knew the discussions we have here," Albarn said, giggling out of character. "Hey, did anyone say, ‘Taxi!’" He then commanded the crowd to raise their hands and chant before launching into the languid Out of Time.
The band also played Crazy Beat, Song II, The Universal, This is a Low, and Battery in Your Leg, my favorite track on "Think Tank." This is a ballad for the good times/So put a battery in your leg/Put a rock beat over anything/Get it stuck there in your head.
Damon Albarn has the uncanny gift of melody: He can put a rock beat over anything and it would get stuck in our craniums forever. Hey, that Blur gig made seeing Tokyo only in a blur from train, cab and hotel windows worthwhile. Woo-hoo!
Excellent question. Unfortunately, there are no excellent answers, just excellent guesses. Yeah, what did the guy actually say in the video to make the others lie down on the pavement along with him? I can’t tell. Maybe it was "I am lying on the pavement because God is dead, and everything is meaningless." Or "I’m lying on the pavement because the truth is, there is no Truth." Or "I am lying on the pavement because I like to."
We will never know. And that precisely is why the video is so seductive, so mystifying, so unsettling. Our minds are tasked with providing the missing image or the missing text. We become part of the experience. It’s a create-your-own-monster type of thing, just like The Blair Witch Project. And our demons are infinitely more sinister than the ones conjured by a Hollywood studio. Prosthetics and computer-generated ghouls don’t scare us anymore.
I feel videos are a bogus form of art. They are nothing more than promotional tools. They were crafted with our recreational money in mind (just watch Pink’s, the Spice Girls’ or Robbie Williams’ videos and tell me this isn’t true). Except for some really excellent ones that have transcended their very nature and have become artworks all their own: videos like Nine Inch Nails’ Closer, REM’s Losing My Religion, Tool’s Schism, Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, Faith No More’s Epic, U2’s Until the End of the World, old Beatles and Pink Floyd film clips, Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U, and, of course, Radiohead’s Just.
Hey, songs should not be regarded as poor excuses to make videos (Britney Spears, ahem!). I don’t want to listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit or Coffee and TV and automatically think of tattooed cheerleaders and angelic milk cartons. Phooey! I would like to supply my own visuals, thank you. Which should be the case for all of us, unless you’re a lazy, mindless zombie. But I have to admit there are videos out there that for a moment give flesh to the music, and in some extraordinary cases transcend it – especially the ones where viewer participation is advised, just like Just.
So, until another great video comes along, I’ll be lying here on the pavement.