Sometimes all it takes is one song

KARL & BODGIE. We lost two good men this week, one after the other — or, as Armi Millare of Up Dharma Down put it, “Slept with the news of Karl Roy’s passing and woke up to the news of Bodgie Dasig’s death.” I knew neither of them personally, though I met Bodgie’s wife Odette Quesada once and “We have all, at some point, partied with Karl Roy,” as my friend Audrey pointed out. But one can’t be an observer of the music scene for very long without becoming aware of each man’s importance and influence. There is an ongoing outpouring of tributes from friends and fans online, but two stick with me: one, a true story from Adam David, about the night that Karl Roy (pre-P.O.T., pre-Kapatid) took him aside and talked to him, troubled teenager that he was, about his thoughts of suicide — as Adam said, Karl didn’t save his life, but he certainly changed it; and the other, an account by the aforementioned Armi, about how one of her band’s best (in my opinion) songs — Sana — was inspired by Bodgie and Odette. “What can I say?” she wrote. “I wanted to meet the man behind the song. Because sometimes all it takes is one song to change the world. It’s not simple and most of you might think this is even foolish, but how can I explain?” As Adam wrote of Karl: “There should be more of that sort of person in the world. And now there’s one less.” Make that two.

OMD

The night before we heard about Karl, we were in Cubao with a horde of other attuned-to-the-’80s people, to catch another in a string of foreign bands this month. OMD’s roster of hits is quite impressive, though funnily enough, semi-forgotten — people came to the concert thinking they only knew one or two songs, only to realize that they were familiar with, say, at least half a dozen. At least that was my experience. If You Leave was the common touchstone of course, if only for John Hughes, but we had forgotten that we knew Souvenir and Forever Live and Die. (I hadn’t forgotten Dreaming, but when I tried to sing it beforehand for my girlfriend, she did not recognize it at all, which is more a demonstration of my abysmal singing than anything else.) Having said that, we found that even the unfamiliar numbers were really impressive songs, and wondered out loud why a band that’s still this good — still making records, and not just coasting on their past — can’t have what one might call a hit any more. But then such music industry speculation was swept away by another synth-blissed chorus.

Let’s Bagets

Finally, Bagetsafonik is launching their self-titled second album this Saturday, March 17, 9:30 p.m. at Route 196 on Katipunan Avenue, in Quezon City. Formed in 2003, the band has always been an interesting prospect — their sound a mash-up of diverse inclinations that ranged from hip-hop to shoegaze to Pinoy ’80s pop, and their members having been brought together by the fact that they all used to drink in the same bar. Their new album is a little less eclectic than the first — the ’90s indie-rock influence seems to have asserted dominance, with hints of The Rentals and Smashing Pumpkins (among other ingredients) here and there — but the songs are stronger. Mad Love Misery, Reklamo and Your Imaginary Friends will also be playing.