songs of myself : part two

train in vain (stand by me) : the clash

click here to listen. 3m 12s.

this is the sound of me, happy. i'm someone who's easy to please, and because i'm also easily delighted, it's not hard for me to have a spring in my step. i feel like a self-help-book-reading old woman saying this, but i do take pleasure in the little things around me, which is probably one of the things that keep me sane. here are three that have proven to be reliable sources of occasional joy for me. and when one of these things happen, i feel like doing a fred astaire...with this song by the clash as background music, of course.

• discovering a good vegetarian meal. i'm putting this on top because i just had one tonight. it's called mjuddrah -- basically a wild-mushroom risotto topped with caramelized shredded onions -- from a greek/middle eastern restaurant called olive. it was the best risotto i've had in ages, and this is saying a lot because despite being a vegetarian for almost two years now, i still hate mushrooms with a passion. 

• having a nice chat with a stranger. it's funny how this happens more often when you're travelling than in your normal, immediate environment. it's easy to strike a conversation with fellow travelers because you already know that you have something in common. but why does it take a lot of effort to initiate a casual dialogue with someone at the same table in the cafe near your office? or with a fellow elevator passenger? heck, even with someone you know is working on the same floor for the same company! what's wrong with people? haven't we learned from uncle walt? he said: stranger, if you, passing, meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? and why should i not speak to you?

• hearing good music for the first time. speaking of middle eastern stuff, you won't believe the physical reaction i exhibited when i first heard rachid taha's yah raya in a record store. thank god it happened in a small shop, with only the shopkeeper as witness, or i would have died in embarrassment. it was the same as when i heard panjabi mc's mundian to bach ke, but at that time i was at a multicultural festival, so dancing was encouraged. (that song, by the way, would later be used and abused by jay-z to become the appalling beware of the boys.) 

what songs do you listen to when you're happy?

songs of myself : part one

thinking about you : radiohead

click here to listen. 2m 41s.

(apologies to uncle walt. got this idea after re-reading his brilliant song of myself.)

'scuse me for being rude. i've been blogging for about six months now without having even introduced myself. this is my 55th post, all the while remaining pretty much anonymous if not for the couple of recent comments that gave away my name and mother tongue. but how exactly does a blogger introduce himself? in our daily lives, we've come to do it based on predefined identities, quite often based on our profession, our place of origin, our age -- pieces of information that are subordinate to who or what we are. our choice of work says a lot about ourselves, until we realize that deep down we'd really rather be doing something else. the city, state or country we grew up in only confines us to certain stereotypes, and surely each of us is different from the million or billion others with whom we share the same culture? and we all know what age is nuthin' but. stripping away what you do and where you come from, how do you respond to a stranger asking, "tell me something about yourself."

but such is modern society, i guess. after all, it's far easier and more acceptable to say, "hi i'm x, i'm an xx-year-old journalist living in hong kong," than "hi, i'm x. the first song i ever learned was michael jackson's 'one day in your life.' i think i was about three years old. but my musical taste has improved since, i think, though i can't seem to memorize songs that easily anymore." we are our own eccentricities, our million preferences, our vast experiences. we are not the information on our passports or employment forms. so in the interest of unabashed vanity, i'm introducing myself the best way i know: by associating aspects of myself with the songs that have grown with me, and i'm going to start by answering my own question: if you could lay a soundtrack to your ordinary day, what song would it be?

i'd been asking myself this question for a while, and it was only during a long bus ride, listening to my ipod, that i found the one song i'm truly happy with: thinking about you by radiohead. it's not the story of the song (there's nothing about it i can relate with) but its pace, its rhythm, its acoustic simplicity. it's neither fast nor slow, and although it has its high points, it doesn't reach a crescendo. it's short, bittersweet, and it ends on a quiet note. it's my ordinary day. i wake up and drink orange juice, get ready for a 16-hour day, take a scenic ferry ride to work, and go about the rigors of a business journalist. there is nothing too stressful about my work; i even like the intellectual challenge of the stories i write about. lunch is the highlight of my day. i prefer to go alone because i can never make up my mind about what i'd like to eat, but i sometimes take it with my significant other who works nearby. with a view from the 60th floor, all afternoons are beautiful as the sunset turns the horizon to bluish gray, and layers the outside world with silence, or an impression of it. evenings are spent quietly with a magazine, a book, or a television show, and ends with a prayer, a wish, an abstract thought.

lather. rinse. repeat.

what's the soundtrack to your ordinary day?

back from mexico

august day song : bebel gilberto

click here to listen

listening time: 4m 07s

been back for a couple of days but it's only now that i've (barely) regained the strength to get back to the normal course of things. i am still jetlagged -- the two-stopover flight home took 24 hours -- because i woke up at 1 a.m. and here i am at 5:13 in the morning. at least i have the weekend to catch up on sleep.

here's a bilingual song by the brazilian artist bebel gilberto that i find appropriate to post, given the circumstances. august has just begun, summer is halfway over, and rain will probably be happening more often now, which means sentimental days for the rain-loving me. i have just come from a wonderful holiday, and as holidays often do, it made me wish it would go on and on. i am still dreaming of distant places, which is what the song is about. the chorus and latter verses are in english, the rest is in portuguese. below are excerpts from the english translation, which you will find in its entirety on her website.

August Day Song
(Literal translation by Béco Dranoff)

Just like this rainstorm
This August day song
I dream of places far beyond

Hearing the rain fall
A drop here in my foot
I stay alone, so distracted

I am not gonna cry
When remembering
Your eternal glance

I like to sing
And do these things
With you just for a change

ya me voy

eo (el sonidero) : cafe tacuba

click on the title to listen. 2m 16s

esa noche : cafe tacuba

same same. 3m 24s

after agonizing here whether i should be holidaying in russia, iran or morocco, i have finally made up my mind. i'm going to mexico, and i'm going to give my best shot at climbing the third and sixth highest mountains in north america: pico de orizaba and iztaccihuatl.

i easily ruled out morocco's atlas mountains due to lack of available flights. iran's damavand intrigued me but the visa application process takes a while. i was tempted by russia's mt elbrus but i just couldn't mentally picture myself doing it. now is not the climbing season in mexico, but i thought what the heck, i'm going there not just for the trekking. sure, the time i'll be spending in guanajuato, oaxaca and palenque will be very limited, but i'm scratching a longstanding itch here. i've been enamored with mexico since i was young, thanks in large part to my father who exposed us to latin music early on. but i've managed to bypass it in my travel decisions. this is my first time to go there, and i'm giddy with excitement.

but i'm also scared as hell. i signed up for the seven-day, two-summit climb without having trained, and i've just recuperated from a weeklong bout with the flu. i am so not in peak form, but we'll see. i hope i'm not overestimating myself. wish me well.

anyway. here's my favorite band from mexico. cafe tacuba are so talented they blast genres like no other, a one-band proof that the label latin music means nothing other than the language or geographic origins of the artists. these two songs above perfectly demonstrate the band's versatility. eo and esa noche can't be more different. i saw these guys live at the fillmore in san francisco in september 2003. their energy is just explosive, and mexican audiences are pretty damn wild. the floor was soaked with beer, and everyone was dancing with abandon, ramming everyone else like they never existed. i haven't had that much fun at a concert since.

one song : three artists

time after time : cassandra wilson

click on the title to listen. 4m 07s

time after time : eva cassidy

3m 57s

time after time : tuck & patti

4m 46s

i was browsing my itunes library the other day, looking to delete some duplicate songs (same artist, same version). until then i never realized how many different versions of this song i have, which is 10. cyndi lauper must have made more fortune just from licensing this song than all her other songs combined (who wants to dare cover girls just wanna have fun, anyway?). the covers project tracks 16 -- a far-from-comprehensive list. but whatever the actual number may be, it's still nothing to the 1,600 versions of the beatles' yesterday, according to guinness records -- and that's just up to the year 1985. wikipedia doubles the count to at least 3,000.

so here are three very different versions of time after time: cassandra wilson's oozes with soul; eva cassidy's with unreserved yearning; and tuck & patti's with vocal and technical confidence -- they make it sound so easy. is the original still the best? probably not, but i still like it very much, not least for sentimental reasons.

what memory does this song bring back to you?

the last one : a cautionary tale

return to me : october project

click here to listen

listening time: 4m 17s

and now for something really gnu...i got a "flash fiction" published in a literary zine. read the story, called the last one, at cautionarytale. and after you do (or even if you don't), listen to the song i'm posting, return to me, by the defunct new york band october project. i'm not sure why...i guess i'm just using this occasion as a convenient excuse to get this stirring song on my blog. i was quite disturbed by the voice and mood of the song when i first heard it -- it is otherworldy, almost like a plea to bring a departed loved one back to life.

anyway, the last one started when one member of a forum i frequent challenged others to write a short story that uses the word "bubbles," the line "i thought that was the last one," and takes place at night. i took the challenge and wrote one on my boat ride home. it turns out that she's a writer and web artist who had been given that assignment by the editor of one of the zines to which she regularly contributes. dorothy lang, who also edits the travel-themed subsidezine, sent the editor my story and voila! my first online literary gig -- all of 248 words of it.

more than anything else, i'm tickled by the fact that other writers appreciated it and thought it was good enough for others to read. i've always felt insecure about my short stories and poems, which is why i'd never submitted any of them to any publication. this gives me a bit of an encouragement, at least to keep on pursuing the kind of writing i've always wanted to do, but never nourished.

no myth : acoustic : michael penn

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 44s

drowning in work. here's something from aimee's husband.

oh, wait. here's something i thought of the other day: how to piss off colleague x in a meeting. and make sure you show off your biceps while stressing your point:

man, you're glib. you don't even know what {topic} is. if you start talking about {topic}, you have to evaluate and read the research papers, x, okay? that's what i've done. you should be a bit more responsible in knowing what it is because you communicate to people.

yeah, i'm just trying to fill up this space. ttfn!

the kindness of strangers

fast car : live acoustic : tracy chapman

click on the title to listen. note: there's a bit of a glitch in this file. if the song doesn't start right away, click pause then play. also, don't pay attention to the timer, which is out of whack. the total listening time is only 6m 31s.

this is an alternative version of the phenomenal song, from a rare benefit album called rainn songs, produced by atlanta's 99x radio station for the rape, abuse & incest national network. i discovered it during the heydays of napster, but the encoding was very bad, and the song skipped a couple of times. i searched high and low for a copy of the album, and neither the station nor e-bay had it. i couldn't even find it in any of the p2p clients i use. so i finally decided to post in ipodlounger that i was looking for a good rip of this song, and in just a few hours i received a reply -- and the song file -- from forum member ihaveanipod. he or she correctly identified it as the best version of this song.

in fact, this version is too good to be kept hidden in an obscure compilation, so i'm sharing it. enjoy.

good thing : patty larkin

click here to listen
listening time: 4m 36s

a song that's almost too beautiful for words. i remembered to post it because of the weather. we've had nothing but rain over the last few days, and i'm loving it. i've always found the rain soothing. i first heard this song one quiet sunday morning in bed. i had just woken up, listening to this album. rain was looming, but i kept my window ajar. this song came on just as the rain started to fall, and i relished the feeling of drizzles softly, graciously, almost respectfully touching my face. everything seemed to be in slow motion during those four minutes.

Good Thing
by Patty Larkin

Well I've heard enough
And I've seen enough
And I know enough to know
I know a Good Thing when I see it
And it's a bad thing to let go

Well I've been around
I've been up and down
Until I bent out of control
With your world all in motion
Got to put a ball and a chain on your soul

All those angels running
Picking up the pieces
Putting back together hearts broke long ago
I know a Good Thing when I see it
And it's a bad thing to let go

There will always
Be lovers
With borders of their own
And you may charge across
In a golden chariot
But you will never be home

I had dreams like distant thunder
I had hope like a prayer unheard
Now this is nothing
Less than perfect
In a less than perfect world

i can't help you anymore : aimee mann

click here to listen

listening time: 4m 52s

i've been trying to like the forgotten arm, aimee mann's latest album, but i can't get past my initial feeling of 'what the hell?' it could be the whole concept of the album. i just can't connect with it. the forgotten arm -- which mann dedicates to "the alcoholic and addict who still suffers" -- follows the relationship of a carnival performer and a down-on-his-luck boxer that begins just before the latter is sent off to war in vietnam. he comes back addicted, and the circus performer has been trying to find a way out of the relationship since. each song is a chapter that unravels disillusionment, despair and ultimately, doom. these themes already make for a strong material that would appeal to those who agree that the most interesting relationships are inherently complex and all too often tragic. but in writing each song, mann forces too much creativity and achieves the opposite. we're distracted by too much meter and rhyme for their own sake, that they end up being a constraint to, instead of a form of, story-telling.

once somebody stationed in kuala lumpur
said he thought you went out but he couldn't be sure.
- dear john

you pulled up and parked your el dorado
we said "hi" and kissed with some bravado
- beautiful

nice. now in your next effort, can we please have less of these silly rhymes and more of the grown-up perspective you demonstrated in the following songs, which are the best moments of the album?

was i the bullet or the gun
or just a target drawn upon
a wall that you decided wasn't worth defending?
- i can't help you anymore

life just kind of empties out
less a deluge than a drought
less a giant mushroom cloud than an unexploded shell
- little bombs

the forgotten arm, a boxing reference to an unexpected punch from what was perceived as the opponent's weaker arm, comes after mann's four consistently excellent studio outputs. although as a concept album it explores and successfully demonstrates mann's dark and twisted view of relationships, no track stands out the way save me did in the soundtrack she created for the film magnolia, or lost in space from her album of the same name. ah, but maybe it'll grow on me after a few more listens.

sunshower : chris cornell

click here to listen
listening time: just under 6m

i'm typing this while waiting for my flight for a business trip. the flight leaves in 40 minutes.

i leave you with this beautiful song by former soundgarden, now audioslave vocalist chris cornell, from the soundtrack to the underrated 1998 film great expectations. cornell has got to be one of the best male voices in rock. too bad he isn't so prolific as a solo artist.

boarding now. see you all next monday. behave children, and remember: eat! your! vegetables!

love steals us from loneliness : idlewild

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 12s

this is first single and my second favorite song from idlewild's latest album warnings / promises, which is a solid piece of work and a welcome affirmation of the band's departure from their headier, earlier days. the 13 songs in this album, the very title of which suggests duality, alternate almost predictably between electric and acoustic. die-hard fans from their native scotland are probably crying sellout (it doesn't help that the band is opening for u2 and r.e.m. this summer) but standing on the soft side of alternative rock, i like them better this way. kinder, gentler, ten pints more sober.

my only glitch with warnings / promises is the heavy r.e.m. influence which to my ears is more obvious here than in their previous albums. when roody woomble sings the line happy birthday, are you lonely now in this song, you can almost hear michael stipe cry a similar line in shiny happy people. in fact, the acoustic half of the album could have come from r.e.m.'s out of time, and the electric half from monster. this doesn't necessarily mean that idlewild are losing their original sound; i guess they're on their way to finding a new one, and woomble's sharp, wistful songwriting and vocals make sure they don't falter along the way. get this from the all-acoustic not just sometimes but always, my favorite track:

i wake up hearing unfamiliar voices
convinced they're trying to explain
that if my words were clearer
then maybe i would know what i'm trying to say
just as those long forgotten voices
disappear back into rain

granted, the sedate, even soothing, medoly betrays the more somber reality of the song, but you can take that as a struggle against bleakness. it's hopeful, and hopeful is mature. welcome home, goodnight and the bonus track are also clear winners in this album, featuring vocal harmonies that are more pleasant than what r.e.m. can achieve. (not that anyone can actually harmonize with stipe.) both songs open with acoustic guitars and stay in that mode for the rest of the song. love steals us... as you can hear opens with pounding drums and angry riffs before mellowing out, a brilliant choice as first single because it best shows the band in transition. but it is still edgy, and if they keep it that way idlewild will stay on the good side of alternative pop, perhaps in the company of train, another great, under-appreciated r.e.m.-influenced band.

nine stars out of ten.

a playlist : ballads from the new school

oneway : drew o'doherty

click here to listen

listening time: 4m 07s

don't i hold you : wheat

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 50s

this is a playlist i made to give a name to this new set of male artists who make personal, intimate pop ballads sans fromage. the music is uncluttered and the words are expressive, not effusive. they're boys who grew up to be boys, fell in love, broke their hearts, and mope with their guitars. there is a trifle sense of immaturity in their stories, and they're not afraid to expose their vulnerability, but the sincerity shines through. you get the feeling they've been through exactly what they're narrating. others:

collide : howie day

back to you : john mayer

chemical : rockwell church

sleeping to dream : jason mraz

loud : matt nathanson

caught up in your love : ari hest

hold on tight : christopher jak

the wanderer : marc broussard

you can download o'doherty's song from his page in myspace, which is an excellent resource for independent music.

update. i e-mailed drew to let him know i blogged about his song, and he replied saying he's currently at work on a full-length album that's coming out soon, which should be something to look forward to. he is currently on tour in cambridge, where he will perform with tom thumb at zuzu on thursday. follow drew's progress in his website.

cannonball : damien rice

click here to listen to the album version

listening time: 5m 10s

click here to listen to the radio edit

listening time: 3m 26s

a song that's destined to be a classic, despite being overshadowed by the blower's daughter (famously used in the soundtrack to the film closer) and volcano. with cannonball, irish singer-songwriter damien rice creates a masterpiece out of simple words and chords: they've all been said and done before, but the emotion comes alive with his voice and the undulating guitar arrangement that perfectly captures the writer's hesitation and longing.

here are two versions of the song. i actually like the radio edit better; the pause or suspension between the first and second verses works for me. it's only literally a fraction of the song, but it's a charming effect. i enjoy tiny moments like this in a song. this version comes from the bonus disc and is the most accessible song from his album o, which is the work of a weathered storyteller, something you wouldn't have expected since o is a debut album.

hurdy gurdy man : donovan

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 17s

here's something that randomly played in my ipod while i was getting a grilled veggie sandwich for lunch. it's a 1968 classic from the british folk legend donovan. the song would make for a good soundtrack for a pre-apocalyptic dream. most recently though it was used in the excellent but highly disturbing film l.i.e., which is about child molestation. brian cox turns in an outstanding performance, and the kid should be making more movies, but he doesn't seem to be. a history of the song, from wikipedia:

Released in May 1968, his next single was the swirling psychedelic nugget 'The Hurdy Gurdy Man', a song he originally intended for his old friend and guitar mentor Mac MacLeod who had a heavy rock band called Hurdy Gurdy. Donovan had also considered giving it to Jimi Hendrix, but when Mickie Most heard it, he convinced Donovan that the song was a sure-fire single and that he should record it himself. Donovan tried to get Hendrix to play on the recording, but he was on tour and unavailable for the session. In his place they brought in a brilliant young British guitarist, Allan Holdsworth. Jimmy Page also played on the session, and it is believed that John Paul Jones may have played bass with (possibly) John Bonham on drums. If so, this would make it the first recorded performance featuring the three future members of Led Zeppelin. Both Jones and Page have stated that the idea of Led Zeppelin was formed during the 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' sessions.
The heavier sound of 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' was a deliberate attempt by Most and Donovan to try and reach a wider audience in the United States, where the new hard rock sounds of groups like Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience were having a major impact. Most's commercial instincts were spot-on, and the song became one of Donovan's biggest hits, going Top 5 in both the UK and the USA and Top 10 in Australia.

and about the hurdy gurdy: it's a musical instrument.

jump : aztec camera

click here to listen

listening time: 2m 50s

this is roddy frame's mellowed-out cover of the van halen original. it's a feel-good song that i turn to when i actually need it. the original is great, a classic, i love it. but it's also quite overwhelming. the deafening keyboards, the searing vocals, the air-guitar inducing albeit brief solo in the middle, and not to forget david's outlandish showmanship and eddie's flipped-out perma-smile on the video -- jesus, you've got to be all high, happy, and oversexed to be able to match the energy of that song. which is ironic because it's supposed to be about a man flirting with suicide.

which makes frame's version quite appropriate. set against a background of light-handed drum beats and innocuous bass, this acoustic take on jump is reluctantly positive. frame's lackadaisical vocals accompanied by gentle guitar picks deliver a sentiment that, if it catches you in a sullen state, is both bittersweet and alleviating. i get up, and nothing gets me down. what can be more hopeful than that? on a technical note this song is also a perfect proof of the timelessness of acoustic arrangements. frame made this cover about a year after the original was released -- that's 21 years ago -- but he could have done it yesterday and it would still come out just as listenable.

a song and a poem for a friend

on a high : duncan sheik
about happiness in your own terms

moving on : rainer maria rilke
about big awarenesses

happy birthday, bro.

the boss of me

i finally finished ripping all of the cd's i care about into my mac, and transferred most of the songs i care about to my ipod. out of 60 gigs, i have just a little over 2 gigs of space left, and i'm leaving that for some pictures. here's a shot of my ipod's screen. well actually, this is a recreation of my ipod screen, shamelessly knocking off a publicity shot from apple's website. i did try to take pictures of it using a digital camera, but they all came out looking like this.

i also tried scanning the thing, but it came out worse.

now all i need to do is get rid of duplicate songs from compilations and best-of collections. i wonder how much space that'll free up.

satellite (show me the worth of the world) : tabla beat science

click here to rock your world

listening time: the best 8m 48s that you will ever spend on blogger

have a groovy weekend, all. here's something from tabla beat science, the musical collective that includes talvin singh. i have no idea what the vocalist is saying apart from the chorus, or if she (it could be a he, i don't know, i'm too lazy to look at the cd liner notes) is saying anything at all. nor can i guess why this is called satellite. but heck, this record is so much fun. get the album if you too are a fan of the tabla, which i think is very versatile and in the right hands can easily get out of the traditional and asian underground scenes. this album was recorded live in 2001 at the stern grove in san francisco.

update: just looked at the liner notes. it is indeed a female vocalist, and she is ethiopian artist ejigayehu 'gigi' shibabaw. the male backing vocal belongs to istad sultan khan. interestingly, tabla beat science has this to say about the album: "peace and respect to george harrison for opening our ears."

then i'll be smiling : matt nathanson

click here to listen
listening time: 2m 56s

this song by san francisco-based artist matt nathanson is so beneath the surface i had to google what the word 'awarenesses' means. i've never used that word in the plural form in my life, and apparently it's some sort of a philosophical concept. read the lyrics here. i still don't get completely what the song means, but if my reading is right then matt makes a very poignant statement about shallow friendships. my guess is it's about a guy who has made a series of mistakes in his life and feels that his friends, with their "half concerns," have outgrown him. or it could be the other way around: he gained from his failures a deeper sense of self-awareness that he has outgrown his friends, the liars and fools he's probably referring to, who in contrast have become too self-involved. i may be reading too much into this, but it's only because the words are so captivating, delivered with understated woe, and all blending very well with the beautiful melody of the song.

anyway. matt's a brilliant artist, and i hear he's funny live. i love every song on the first cd of his that i bought, still waiting for spring, which includes this song, and his new one, beneath these fireworks, is even better. matt is what happens when a guy who listened to kiss before 12th grade discovers suzanne vega, indigo girls, and tracy chapman. that's more or less his own description. i'd fly to san francisco to see him. well only if mark kozelek is playing around the same time. then i'll be smiling.

been littered with small awarenesses lately?

never stop : the brand new heavies

click here to listen.

listening time: 4m 42s

this is the not-quite-funk version of the acid jazz hit, from bnh's album original flava. not sure who did the vocals, probably guitarist simon bartholomew. obviously nothing beats the n'dea davenport version, which is one of the few songs -- of any genre -- that can totally blow you away. but i like this because it's downtempo, which is more often my mood. i'd love to do this on acoustic guitar, substituting the keyboard with heavy strums. if only i knew how to play the darn thing.

never do that again : ivy

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 32s

ever had one of those moments of uncomfortable silence with your significant other? moments of estrangement that seem to have come out of nowhere? on an ordinary night, one of you will be sitting in the armchair reading a book, and the other will be lying on the couch watching television. this is how you wind down your day, and it's a habit that's as familiar as the pattern of conversation that ensues. one of you will say something trivial or insightful -- perhaps something that you saw or read, or something that happened to you during the day -- and the other will reply with a sentence, a phrase, a soft hmm. it doesn't matter how the conversation develops, or if one does at all; what matters is that both of you are silently taking comfort in each other's presence, aware of the same invisible connection that manifests itself most powerfully when you're making love. tonight, however, words are simply not in order, and every minute that passes without the familiar non-conversation amplifies the possibility that something might not be right. you try to brush the feeling off, yet it remains. suddenly, you start to notice that a neighbor is stuggling with his door key, or that one of the light bulbs in the hallway that leads to your kitchen is dimmer than the others. a light but eerie sense of touble prevents you from collecting your own thoughts. you feel as if something between you and your significant other has been violated, and you have a nagging feeling that it could be your fault. is everything okay? you ask, and the other replies with a yes that you think wouldn't sound as cold if it were true. and so you ask again, are we okay? and you receive the same unconvincing reply. and so you let it go, but not really, and you're left wondering how this moment is going to end.

this is the soundtrack to that moment.

torn : ednaswap

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 43s

i was going to post something that randomly struck me on my way home today after a three-day weekend break, but i thought i'd better gather supporting evidence first. it goes something like this: when it comes to pop music, vocal standards are lower for men than for women. i'll say no more.

in the meantime, enjoy the original version of torn, popularized in 1996 by natalie imbruglia. i remembered this song because i saw her new cd being promoted on tv earlier this evening, and i wondered, why bother? what possible tv-viewing demographic is her label trying to reach? in fact, who continues to like natalie imbruglia? i will admit, though, that i was a big fan of her version of torn. her voice has the perfect touch of emotional injury that the lyrics require, something the original doesn't achieve. ednaswap's arrangement would work if a male vocalist were singing; it doesn't work with someone trying to sound like chrissie hynde. i don't know. maybe i'm just too tired to think.

good night.

pressure drop : david kitt

click here to listen.
listening time: it'll be over before too long

i tried to restrain myself from posting this song but i couldn't help it. it grew on me, and i even had it on repeat in my ipod on my commute to work this morning. to appreciate the song, which is originally by the reggae band toots and the maytals, you have to first know how the more popular versions sound like. there's one by the clash, and another by the specials. (click on the bands' names if you'd like to stream 30-second samples on amazon.)

david kitt's version is what it sounds like when you deliberately overdose your best friend, shock him with extra-strength defibrillators (those electric plates they used in the movie flatliners) and hold him at gunpoint to sing a reggae song as soon as he comes to. an acoustic singer-songwriter from dublin, kitt never claimed that his vocals was his strongest suit. where kitt excels, as he demonstrated in his first two albums, is in his ability to exploit it to infuse every song with just the right amount of emotional disquiet – to make his listeners empathetic, as opposed to sympathetic. when i first heard the song song from hope st. (brooklyn, new york), in which kitt observes the sudden slow-motion of our pace in the winter, i wanted to come over to his apartment and help rearrange his furniture.

kitt's version of pressure drop comes from his fourth album the black and red notebook, made up almost entirely of covers, from r.e.m.'s (don't go back to) rockville to jj cale's magnolia. what kitt has done is sap each song of its passion and render it dry. which is normally a bad thing, but kitt, i'd like to believe, did it deliberately. for what purpose? i have no idea. the album isn't mediocre, just puzzling and oddly jaw-dropping.

million miles from home : keziah jones

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 58s

two months before summer and my mind's already somewhere else. in limbo, to be exact. i had completely forgotten that i have 43,000 air miles expiring at the end of july, so i've been trying desperately to book a flight with very limited success. i'm looking to travel before end of june to either morocco or russia, which means i have to transit somewhere in europe, but in both options i can't get a return seat out of london or zurich. so as a backup i booked a flight to tehran via gulf air, the status of which i'll find out only today. as another backup, i booked johannesburg via cathay pacific, and this one's confirmed. but damn, i want either of my two first choices. i'm wanting to trek the atlas mountains or mount elbrus. must find other ways to get there on miles. damavand in iran should be okay, but what if our good friend from washington strikes again? the drakensberg in south africa i heard is breathtaking, but for some reason i have very little interest in it. give me some altitude i can cover in a week!

oh well. here's a great song by the amazing nigerian-born guitarist keziah jones. he will eat lenny kravitz alive. turn it up, this one rocks.

a tribute to street musicians

baby can i hold you : orzo

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 20s

his name is orzo, and he's a street musician who played every night at ponte vecchio during our trip to florence last easter. on the evening we sat down on the sidewalk of the bridge, orzo received a visit from a policeman in a blue-and-white car. as if by routine, even before the cop could get out of the car, orzo pulled out pieces of paper from behind the chord sheets laid out on his music stand, walked over his guitar case which had just a handful of coins, and handed the papers over. the policeman leafed through them, gave them back, and left with a friendly salute. this is orzo's spot, the papers must have said, and what a perfect spot it was, getting more foot traffic at this late hour than any other corner of the historic quarter.

street musicians are everywhere, from plaza murillo in la paz to montmartre in paris to insadong in seoul. their presence in such diverse places is an affirmation of popular music as a universal language, touching universal feelings by provoking uniquely personal memories. (we all have stories about chiquitita, don't we?) street musicians don't always play with competence, but they always sing with passion. unfortunately that passion is lost on the majority of people who pass them by without a glance, or is only fleetingly shared by the passerby who drops a dollar, or hums along in his mind on his way to lunch. as a tourist i find them as a source of comfort. comfort that the city i'm alien to is friendly enough to have them. comfort through the familiarity of their songs in a land whose language i don't speak.

i've always been intrigued by street musicians, especially those who do it alone in a country not their own, like these guys. the one on the left is from the chatuchak market in bangkok, and to be honest i can't remember what song he was singing, though based on the way he looks it was probably dylan or cat stevens.

there must be elaborate stories behind them, but i've never had the courage to bother them and ask. what brought them to where they are? are they globetrotters saving up for their next destination? are they trying to escape from unpleasant circumstances at home? that's what i thought when i saw this other guy below in insadong in seoul. i thought he was russian, or from one of the caucasus states. i remember this shot very well. his pronunciation was so bad, i could barely make out a word. he was strumming, words were coming out of his mouth, but was he singing? and then, finally, something comprehensible: oh-wo-wow yesterday...

in any case, i tend to romanticize every street musician as the free spirit can only i wish to be.

that night on ponte vecchio, we shared the sidewalk with a group of 15 to 20 teenage tourists, probably eastern european, who insisted that one of them sing. orzo obliged, and the tourist sang shakira's underneath your clothes. she mimicked the colombian artist's voice very well, which means she probably shoved a ball of sock in her throat too. (no, i've never been impressed by shakira. well, okay, i like her mtv unplugged dig on ojos asi.) orzo obviously likes connecting with his audience. he performed other crowd-pleasers like u2's with or without you, which somehow morphed into the calling's wherever you will go, and america's horse with no name, which became fool's garden's lemon tree. the teenagers danced and sang to this tune. an old man (the one smoking in the picture at the top) started peddling orzo's cd, and since my significant other was having a good time, she insisted that i buy one. it cost 10 euros, quite expensive, but hey, we should all be supporting free spirits.

how to be a street musician

cucurrucucu paloma : caetano veloso

click here to listen. it starts off very softly.

listening time: 3m 50s.

very briefly in his college life, my father was in a band that played latin music in hotel lounges, and even though he played upright bass, he was very good with classical guitar, an instrument he played with melancholy everyday since his heart kept him homebound at 36. one of his favorite musicians were the mexican trio los panchos, and he owned one of their lp's that featured this song, composed by tomas mendez and popularized in 1954 by lola beltran. i remember having a laughing fit the first time i heard it as a child; i thought "cucurrucucu" was the funniest-sounding word i'd ever heard. my appreciation only grew the more i heard the song, and this version by the brazilian singer caetano veloso, from the soundtrack to the film hable con ella, is the most haunting and heart-rending rendition of this timeless classic. memories of my father rush in everytime i hear this song. without the requinta, a small, high-pitched guitar that was the trademark of los panchos, my father played this song similar to the way veloso does. it wasn't perfect, but it was his.

by the way, if you liked this song, you'll probably also love this one.

may day ruminations

this is your life : the dust brothers

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 31s

do you remember how you ended up doing what you now do for a living?

how different is it from what you wanted to be when you were young?

what happened? what changed?

would you rather be doing something else, or is it too late?

a playlist : songs to get depressed by

grey : ani difranco

click here to listen

listening time: 5m 22s

it's contrived, i know, and i can afford to say this because i'm looking at this playlist from a safe distance. i'm not depressed, not even sad. but i do tend to revisit this playlist once in a while because of the simple beauty of the songs in it. some of these are love songs, some are not, or at least not overtly so, but they all pine over a certain kind of loss and make for good company when i'm out of endorphins. i come from the let-it-flow school of emotional therapy, and in this school we learn to wallow in our misery by listening to songs that tear our hearts. grey by ani difranco is on the top of my list. what qualifies? the dour acoustic melody comes first, the words of pain are secondary. i have about 40 songs in this playlist. here are some of them, with my favorite lines.

grey : ani difranco
what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want
still i want more
maybe one tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore

wise up : aimee mann
you're sure there's a cure
and you have finally found it
you think one drink
will shrink you to your underground
and living down
but it's not going to stop

i am : train
am i the son i think i am?
am i the friend i think i am?
am i the man i think i want to be?

have you forgotten : red house painters
when we were kids, we hated things our parents did
we listened low to casey kasem's radio show
that's when friends were nice
to think of them just makes you feel nice
the smell of grass in spring
and october leaves cover everything.
have you forgotten how to love yourself?

why don't you find out for yourself : morrissey
don't rake up my mistakes
i know exactly what they are
and what do you do?
well, you just sit there
i've been stabbed in the back
so many, many times

ghost : indigo girls
and i feel it like a sickness
how this love is killing me
i'd walk into the fingers
of your fire willingly
and dance the edge of sanity
i've never been this close

landslide : smashing pumpkins
oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
can the child within my heart rise above?
can i sail thru the changing ocean tides?
can i handle the seasons of my life?

please please please let me get what i want : the smiths
haven't had a dream in a long time
see, the life i've had
can make a good man bad

boo hoo.

carry me : nick cave and the bad seeds

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 37s

i decided to post a nick cave song after stumbling upon this striking portrait of the musician by san francisco-based (but soon to be chicagoan) blogging artist eugene smith. based on this photograph, the sketch softens cave's expression, which eugene may have done out of his own interpretation, or by blending it with this other photograph, or both. in any case i think the look in cave's eyes in this sketch very well captures the mood of his music, which can be morose and contemplative, or ironic and humorous, but often angry and always deadly serious.

click on the image to see it in its original size. cave is the kind of songwriter who tends to intellectualize too much. in a lecture on love songs at the vienna poetry festival in 1998, he said:

The love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all but rather hate songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them...The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil - the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here - so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering.

and you can see how much he believes in this even from one of his seemingly more uplifting songs, into my arms, which also has one of my favorite first lines ever ("i don't believe in an interventionist god"):

And I don't believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms

what's so sad about it? it could just be me, but listening to it, i imagine him singing to a woman on the verge of death. he is sitting next to her lying unconscious in a hospital bed. there is a wooden cross on the wall against the headboard, and wilting lilacs in a glass vase on the bedside table. he holds her hand, brings it to his lips, and cries. death is in fact a recurring theme in cave's songs; he even wrote one in the first person about a murderer set to be executed in an electric chair. i'm posting a different song because lyrically carry me, which comes from his new double album abattoir blues / the lyre of orpheus, disturbs me the most. here is a man in a dilemma over two unrewarding choices, choices that may lead him to do something harmful, to himself and to someone he loves. he refuses to take action and instead waits for a sign. it's deeply spiritual, which you can tell from its churchlike chorus. listen to it, read the lyrics here, and tell me what you think.

thanks to eugene for letting me post the sketch.

two songs : sondre lerche and blur

all luck ran out : sondre lerche

click here to listen

listening time: 3m 51s

coffee & tv : blur

click here to listen

listening time: 5m 19s

i've had these songs in my ipod for ages but i never really noticed the similarity until today, when my ipod, which is always in shuffle mode, played one after the other in the order above. i'd always thought there was something familiar about all luck ran out by sondre lerche (who incidentally is from bergen, norway like the kings of convenience below). i just never paused to think hard enough to tell what it is exactly. well now i know, and it's funny it took me so long because i love coffee & tv, especially the video. you remember this, dont you?

well you should, and if you haven't seen it yet, then leave this blog and google it now. it's one of my all-time favorite videos. but i digress.

i think sondre lerche was barely 20 when i bought his debut cd, faces down, and i thought good god, what would this guy be capable of when he's 30? and i mean that in a good way -- just think about all the crap that male poseurs of his age are excereting these days. sondre's voice is so engaging yet he uses it so effortlessly. his songs start off easy on the ear and end on rather disturbing notes. all luck ran out isn't a good example of that because it's pretty linear, but it nonetheless has an addictive rhythm to it.



which he may nor may not have borrowed from blur's coffee & tv. the pace, the rhythm...i think sondre only played it a couple of keys higher. you can almost interchange the guitars on both songs and still come up with nearly the same output. i googled and found two other people who thought the same, though i can't be sure, because one wrote in italian, the other in norwegian. are we tone deaf?

misread : kings of convenience

click here to listen
listening time: 3m 08s

they're launch.com's one to watch, and i'm nonplussed. i've been hooked on kings of convenience since their first single toxic girl started appearing in indie album compilations about four years ago. they're a rare breed in an artform that's populated with fluff, and i wanted them to remain unknown. i wanted them to remain mine, but i guess that's wishing too far. now that the norwegian duo of erlend oye and eirik glambek boe have been noticed, i only wish they don't fall into ringtone hell.



this song is the first single from their second album, riot on an empty street, which builds on the brilliance of their debut, quiet is the new loud. their music is all vocal harmony and guitars, and this minimalism has led to comparisons with folk legends simon & garfunkel. of course, that's just the easy route the music press has taken to break them into the market. there's really no better way to describe them than a breath of fresh air.

this is why you should never buy pirated cd's

you just don't get what you pay for!



only in hong kong, people. in case you're too young to get it, that dude above is country singer kenny rogers, who looks about as dangerous as a geriatric cat. the one below is the real kenny loggins, who seems to age gracefully. the songs in the album are by loggins.



this takes the comedy in buying pirated stuff to a whole new level. prior to this i would often find typo errors and misspellings in artist names and song titles. it's more common in movie dvd's. i've seen ahale berry and russell crowr. and i've also seen pirated dvd movies with subtitles from another movie!

missing : beck

click here to listen

listening time: 4m 43s

this is my favorite track from guero, the new album by beck, the 90s pop rock slacker poster child. guero is a great album, and as far as i'm concerned it's at par with his delicious odelay from 1996. inevitably that's the album guero has been most compared to, since they best showcase how beck can swing from one genre to the next (plus the collaboration with the dust brothers). he does so while maintainting a sound that's uniquely his own, not least owing to his voice. beck drags his voice than sings with it, and it works from the hopping hell yes -- which has a catchy bass line layered with scratches, harmonica, and awkward female ad libs -- to the melancholic broken drum, which sounds like it should be in sea change, beck's last album from 2002.

and then there's missing. listen carefully to his vocals here and you'll find that it's full and assured, a departure from the lazy warbling beck has charmed us with since mellow gold's loser. he showed nearly this much confidence in sea change, a collection of funereal acoustic ballads, notably in the track end of the day. his voice in missing is jarring, almost depressive, and he couldn't have done it better for this song, which itself is mature in its acceptance of loss in spite of continued yearning. it's not contradictory; it's honest and universal.

i prayed heaven today would bring its hammer down on me
and pound you out of my head
i can't think with you in it...

something always takes the place of missing pieces
you can take and put together even though
you know there's something missing...

she rides in a car like a queen on a card
and the guns of her mind aim a line
straight at mine to a heart that was broke

complete lyrics here

if missing is a taste of things to come from beck, then his best work is yet ahead of him.

why do i care about this?

if you've logged off from a session with yahoo in the last few days you've probably seen it. for a split second i thought wow, eminem's looking sharp. but something wasn't quite right and i had to rub my eyes to see if i read the name right. it's rob thomas, vocalist of matchbox twenty, sans the shaggy hair. and look at the sculpted arching brow and the white pearl earring!

i watched the video of the single lonely no more, from his first solo album something to be, and the similarity ends. but what's this -- rob shimmying in skin-tight pants? don't get me wrong, i like rob thomas. i liked him from his band's debut to his collaboration with santana in smooth. but lately he's becoming a bit of a pussy. lonely no more, catchy as it is, is devoid of the introspection of every song in yourself or someone like you and even mad season. oh well. so what if he wants to attract a larger audience (and with his makeover that probably means preteen girls). nothing wrong with that. and if my nieces ask me how old i am, i can just say, i'm younger than rob thomas and eminem!

back from europe

been away for over two weeks and i still feel it was too short. not that i didn't enjoy the trip; i did immensely. but the truth is, significant other and i probably crammed too many places in one trip that except for one, we felt bad having to leave each place just as we were getting warmed up. at least i did. all told, we went to six major european destinations in 17 days, including a couple of day trips. it's the curse of the corporate holiday handout. you can only take so many holidays a year, you feel like you need to make the most of it. so you end up planning to go to many different places in a short span of time, you end up taking in not enough of them. of course we could have chosen to stay longer in one or two cities, but it's the curiosity, you know, made more easily doable by the convenience of train travel. and hell if it wasn't fun! here's what we did:

venice. three full days, which means excluding the days we arrive and leave. i fell in love the night we arrived, even if it meant hauling our luggages through three tall, stepped bridges from the bus station. venice's innate charm springs at you the moment you see and smell its canals. walking its cobbled streets and crossing its arched bridges are just as fun as taking the water buses that run the stretch of the grand canal, which truly lives up to its name, not least due to the characterful facades of the buildings on both sides. since venice is one of significant other's dream destinations, and we were there in time for her birthday, we took the expensive gondola ride. twice. yes, our gondoliers did burst into song, and no, neither sang o sole mio. but even in broad daylight, the ride upholds its reputation for being romantic, especially when you enter the quiet tiny canals. and i don't care if we, like other googly-eyed gondola riders, became the subject of camera-toting tourists taking pictures from bridges, it was worth it. here's what it looked like, but the couple below isn't us. i'd never look quite as good wearing a straw hat with a red ribbon.



day trip to verona. i'm sure verona is a fine city, but can i help it if i felt that its top attraction, casa di giulietta, is a rip-off? it's the verona government's unimaginative interpretation of juliet's house, with the famous balcony that romeo stealthily climbed up to as its highlight. for ordinary folk, the building as a residence may impress, but shakespeare would probably cringe if he saw it. if you ever decide to pay juliet a visit, you'll do better than spend 4 euros to get inside her house. just stay outside and read visitors' love notes in different languages, pasted all over the walls of the courtyard, or take snapshots of male tourists rubbing the right breast of juliet's bronze statue, supposedly for good luck in love, which this overzealous dude probably needs:



florence. three full days is clearly not enough to absorb the art and architecture of this gem of a place. and yet, for some reason, it's easy enough to get bored here. it's small, and every corner or square looks like the one you've just been. oddly, the same can be said of venice, but venice never for a moment loses its charm, perhaps because the changing colors of the old buildings and reflections on the canals under the sun give you a different perspective each time you cast a glance at them. of course, florence more than makes up for this with its artistic treasures. two of the obvious highlights are the uffizi, which houses the ethereal the birth of venus and galleria dell'accademia which houses michelangelo's sensual rendition of david. picture-taking isn't allowed in both museums, so if you want to immortalize david in your photo album, you'll have to settle for a good reproduction of it in front of the palazzo vecchio at the piazza della signora. let's cut to the (uncut) chase, shall we:

day trip to pisa. there weren't as many tourists here as i feared, but even if there were, that surely wouldn't have lessened my appreciation of this place. yes, we went straight to the leaning tower, which is actually a bell tower that accompanies the cathedral and baptistry next to it. (apparently, most cathedrals in europe combine all three in one structure, but the italians like to do things differently. the duomo, the cathedral in florence with the famous dome, is another example.) all are magnificent structures in marble, but pale in comparison to the taj mahal which i've already rhapsodized about somewhere below. a curious structure -- it leans about 4.5 meters from the top because of the soft soil underneath -- the leaning tower brings out the silly in us. while most would pose as if they were pushing the tower up, this guy does it a bit differently:

rome, one full day. we've been in 2002, but we had to fly out of rome to get to amsterdam anyway (long story) so we thought we'd spend a couple of days there. it turned out to be fortuitous, because we arrived on the day the pope passed away, and we were able to hear the mass in his honor at st. peter's square the following day. i'm not a catholic, nor religious, but being there and seeing the outpouring of respect for a great man proved emotional for me too. frankly, it made me rethink of the reasons i converted away from catholicism, and although in the end my convictions against it as enforced by pope john paul didn't change, being able to reflect was an enriching experience.



amsterdam. three full days, and definitely worth coming back to. we arrived very late at night, and the morning we stepped out of the hotel, took the tram, and crossed the park leading to the van gogh museum, and nearly got run over by a bike, i said to myself, i can live here. that's always been one of my measures whether i like a place or not, and i'll do anything to move to amsterdam. it's pleasant, it's pictureseque, the people are straightforward and friendly, there is diversity among the people and in effect the cuisine, and i love the fact that bicycles like the one below rule the road. forget the red light district and the accessibility of marijuana, you can get your high for free walking alongside the canals, or very cheaply (29.95 euros a year) appreciating its museums. i'm happy the start and the end of our trip were also its highlights.

we stayed at bed-and-breakfasts during the whole trip, and i recommend every one of them. in venice, we stayed at albergo marin, which is kept spotlessly clean by its friendly owner, gabriele. they also serve perfect cappuccinos. albergo marin is located in the santa croce district, which is far from the main attraction of st. mark's square, but i like it because being away made us explore the areas that receive less tourist attention, yet we remained very close to the waterbus and train stations. in florence, luigi hosted us in his small and homey althea rooms, located in the quiet santo spirito district. it's tucked away from the noise of the historical district, yet only 10 minutes or less by foot from piazza della signora. there are also a couple of good places to eat in the santo spirito square. osteria santo spirito is delightfully innovative, and cafe ricci is frequented by friendly locals. in rome, 58 via cavour is probably worth less than the amount it charged us, but again the location is tops, somewhere in between the colosseum and the spanish steps, and a two-minute walk from the termini station. in amsterdam, hotel washington made for a convenient stay in the museum quarter. our room was huge, the bathroom was impressive, and it was good to listen to english tv programming again after nearly two weeks of nothing but italian.

next project: summer break. last year i trekked in the ruwenzoris of uganda and 'did kili' (reached the summit of kilimanjaro) in tanzania. i haven't any plans yet this year.

where are you going next?