I tried out black-and-white-ing the photos, but didn’t really like them, but I got too lazy to change them back to the original colors. Some of them are okay, though, I think.

Watching The Radio Dept. is a little bit like sitting in your room, quietly listening to the songs, but after a quick second, you find yourself looking up into the lights, drowning in the massive thump-thumping of the bass and the voices of all those people who know the words to the songs more than you do. I don’t like going to shows of bands that I’m not very familiar with (which is partly why I skipped out on the Whitest Boy Alive), but I can sort of see now how it’s OK to be in a show where you can’t sing along. You just let the music waft through the spaces between you and the other people. And you take it for what it is, and let it move you.

Continue reading The Radio Dept. in Manila….

Or That Time Where Petra & I Attempted To Put Together A Mix To Play For People

Okay, so, back in the day, Petra and I used to keep a music blog called Warmest Corner, cleverly named after a Lucksmiths album. We were both sad (although, I don’t remember why anymore), and inspired by the likes of Said the Gramophone, we put one up on the platform we both felt (and still feel) most comfortable writing on: Livejournal.

On May 14, 2007, Warmest Corner was born and we started putting up mixes we made and sharing music and although it’s not really very updated anymore, we still like collecting songs we like and arranging them to tell stories. The thing is: we never really made any mixes together, so when Gabby called us up and asked if we could DJ on a Thursday night, we really didn’t know what we were going to be in for.

It’s funny, but I suddenly realized that we really don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to music… And it was extra traumatizing to try and make an hour-and-a-half long set that sort of held together, despite the inclusion of blatant country music and French electropop. We settled on the theme of a sad bastard with an inner party girl instead. Here’s a tracklist:

And the lovely Petraface uploaded them (in parts!) over here:

PART ONE from Interpol to The Radio Dept.

PART TWO from Robyn to Beirut.

PART THREE from Tegan & Sara to Kelis.

She said:

We thought we were the only weirdos who actually danced to this kind of music, so thank you, everybody who came to Future last night. You made us feel a little less alone.

I don’t have photos of half the people that went, but I always find it so crazy when I think about how people meet people these days. I’ve been meeting a lot of new great people, both online and offline, and it’s just always so astounding to me how the world seems so small and so big at the same time.

And it always amazes me even more how, if you look hard enough, you can find the people who you really want to keep.

(All photos were taken by my brother, Luis. Under the cut, there are videos, of course. Of course.) Continue reading Sad Bastard Dance Party…

On missing The National:

For those of you who didn’t know, I was supposed to fly out to Singapore with my brother to watch The National play in Esplanade for the Mosaic Festival. The show was supposed to be on tonight, but due to circumstances concerning the recent tsunami in Japan, the Asian leg of the tour had to be canceled. My brother and I have been dragging around heavy hearts since Saturday afternoon, and we decided not to fly out anymore. (We were just there last month. It seemed redundant and unnecessary.)

The fact that this is the thing that I am most upset about says a lot about how blessed I am. But that I am here blogging about how sad I am instead of singing my throat raw really, really breaks my heart. It’s not a secret that I have been having a rough year, and while it’s been rewarding in a few aspects, it’s mostly shit. Every time some new nightmare presents itself to me, I console myself and say, It’s OK—you’re going to see The National in March, and I honestly feel tons better about my situation.

My brother and I have been watching the livestreams of their shows in the last year, and while those are rousing, experiences, it doesn’t change the fact that we are still separated by screens and pixels. Very few things compare to that feeling of being there, with your lungs on fire, along with hundreds, maybe thousands, of other screaming people whose hearts have been touched and whose lives have been changed by the same things that touched and changed you.

One of my friends from LiveJournal once Tweeted: “Matt Berninger’s voice is a hug around my heavy heart,” and that is precisely why I love it so much. It’s all-at-once elegiac and optimistic, and it cuts through your bones—not violently, but earnestly. It’s funny how a lot of people are turned off by them because of it, but that it exactly one of the reasons why I keep coming back to their music. It’s a brilliant example of only being able to appreciate something when you find yourself looking at it up close.

I didn’t like The National when I first heard them, and now I can’t stop listening.

I am really grieving on the inside. Today, I woke up and went about my day as usual. I walked to the drugstore with my brother—“This should have been a walk to Esplanade!”—ate a little bit of cake, felt guilty for not buying flowers from a starving child even though I probably could have spared some change. I read and understood a bit of the Book of Job.

I tried to think about other things, because I refuse to concede to that nagging little thought in my head that this might have been the only chance that I could have seen them. I choose to be optimistic. I choose to believe that there are going to be a lot more different opportunities, not just for this one letdown, but for other things in the future. I choose to be happy despite this enormous disappointment, because I honestly feel like it’s the better option.

The running trend for my 2011, so far, is being faced with that option to be happy. I think that’s partly why I started Maybe Very Happy. There are so many things to grieve for, but I feel like there is also a lot of space for happiness. I choose to be happy, even though it’s so much easier to be sad. Wallowing in sadness and feeling like the world hates me are things that are easy to do, because there are so many things that can make me believe in that. But I have been realizing that the possibility of happiness is always there. I just need to learn how to see it amidst the rest of the muck.

P.S. This is what we did instead. Hahaha sobrang lugi:

Truthfully, the title and the cover art have nothing to do with this mix. I made it quite a while ago, with the intention of maybe making a new mix, but I just made one now that I didn’t have a title for. So, here we are. I hope you enjoy. Some of them are quite sad, but lovely all the same. Didn’t really plan for this many covers, either.

Tracklist:

1. C’Mere by Interpol
2. Heart in Your Heartbreak by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
3. Sentimental Tune by Tegan and Sara
4. Crossed Out Name by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
5. Your Heart Is An Empty Room by Death Cab For Cutie
6. Ghost by Voxtrot
7. You and I by Wilco
8. By Your Side (Sade cover) by Beachwood Sparks
9. All I Have To Do Is Dream (The Everly Brothers cover) by Bob Dylan
10. Without Permission (Caroline Martin cover) by The National
11. Suburban War by Arcade Fire
12. Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover) by Rogue Wave
13. Sea of Love (Phil Phillips cover) by Cat Power
14. Don’t Have to Be So Sad by Yo La Tengo
15. Pale Blue Eyes by The Velvet Underground

download .zip here

I’ll leave you all to read between the lines, I guess.

In the wake of The White Stripes’ sudden break-up, I snooped around my brother’s room and carefully pored over his Under the Great White Northern Lights special edition box set, particularly gravitating towards the book of photographs that Autumn de Wilde carefully composed, documenting their life on tour in 2007. It’s on sale on Amazon right now, for a super marked down price, so go get it if you can! It’s absolutely beautiful.

(I have yet to purchase her book of photographs of Elliott Smith, called… Elliott Smith, but it’s been on my list.)

It reminded me of this other book of tour photos taken by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner called I Hope You Are All Happy Now, which was what eventually would push me to actively photograph and document most of my early college life. I’ve also always been a fan of tour photos on the explosions in the sky website. I think those best capture what I wanted to go for with my photographs.

I’ve always had issues with being called a photographer… I think that’s largely why I stopped obsessively taking pictures. I just really wanted to kind of take photos of my day, and being called a photographer really made me anxious about this great room for failure that came with that label. Because I know nothing about the technicalities of photography. I really could not give a frak about aperture and settings. I rely a lot on “feeling out” the alchemy of light and space, so whenever someone talks to me about photography, I panic.

But that’s another story. Leafing through these pages again, I’m reminded of why I fell in love with photography in the first place. So, in remembrance and as a sort of tangential tribute to these people, I made a short book thing of a made-up band. I hope you enjoy. :)

You can view and download it here.

I was going to add text, but then I got lazy. Please, please, please enjoy it. (I COMMAND YOU. TO ENJOY IT.) And while you’re at it, please listen to this song.

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I hope it looks somewhat like a tour? And I hope someday I can tag along someone who is on tour. Cough, Marvin, cough.

Sure, it’s not the last day of the year yet, but I have slowly been making rounds around my blog archives and other means of internet documentation (music plays, books read, etc) and I am feeling as though so much has happened for me this year. 2010 is such a nice, round number, and it really made me think that Great Things were about to happen. It’s funny how a succession of numbers that don’t really mean anything—at least nothing that I am privy to, since I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to numerology—can give off that feeling of Mattering and of Significance. I don’t know about you, but 2010 really had a nice ring to it. And so, I expected and I hoped and I was met with a lot of failing.

If anything, this was the year of Trying Times, and I mean this phrase to mean more things than one. High highs coupled with low lows, and everything else being coated by a generally hopeless disposition. Post-graduation ,everyone went about throwing around the term “quarter-life crisis,” and making ourselves feel better by using the word “funemployed” to describe our own respective states of loss. But underneath this self-deprecating veneer, most of us were all, quite unfunnily, at a loss as to what the next steps were.

I’ve taken so many detours and side steps, and I’ve wrestled with so much uncertainty. I guess it comes with wanting to get the best for myself, but I’m constantly questioning whether this decision was the best, or if I was settling. I do think that most of the pains I went through were necessary sadnesses, things I needed to experience if only to arrive at the things I know now. I’ve tried new things, and I’m glad that I did.

2010 has been a tough time for me, but the truth is, I’ve had a lot of help along the way. Even though I had never experienced this much disappointments and failures before in my life, I can’t help but feel really grateful for everything. Like I told a few of my friends earlier this month, I quite liked 2010 more than I hated it, and I say this in all earnestness. If the good things do come with the bad, then I’d have to say that I would still want it all, anyway.

Because there are still a few more days left before 2010 ends, I’m going to save the year-in-review for later. I’m just really grateful for opportunities, second chances, and the occasional surges of boldness that have allowed me to try new things that were scary, but also, ultimately fulfilling.

I have a lot of things to say to a lot of people, but I suppose I have six days to muster up the courage to tell them, instead of copping out and typing them in a blog entry.

And, in closing, a tiny Christmas mix for you, comprised of eight meager tracks. I always mean to post Christmas mixes, but they always come together way too late. This is what I have so far, and I hope you like them regardless of their being Christmas-y:

1. The Only Gift That I Need — Dashboard Confessional
2. Linus and Lucy — Vince Guaraldi Trio
3. The Christmas Song — The Raveonettes
4. Xmas Time Is Here — My Morning Jacket
5. Baby, It’s Cold Outside (cover) — Darren Criss & Chris Colfer (Glee)
6. Christmas TV — Slow Club
7. Baby, Please Come Home (Darlene Love cover) — Death Cab For Cutie
8. Christmas Time Is Here (Vince Guaraldi Trio cover) — Mayer Hawthorne

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope it was good for you. :)