I’m not very good at social situations in general. I’m the kind of person who likes staying in to read and have movie marathons. I prefer dinner dates and stories shared over coffee to nights of dancing. I don’t know why, but these things never really felt comfortable to me. Which is probably why I really like going to gigs. You can show up, stand around, and listen to music without having to worry about small talk or withering looks of judgment (mostly because they usually happen in poorly-lit bars, har har).

Sometimes, though, I like having people to talk to and say “hello” to. I like being there for a reason, which in this case, was to support the musical efforts of a friend. Sometimes, it’s nice to have your silences punctuated with laughter, and music, and synchronized singing.

Sometimes, there are fireworks, too.

In response to this mix.

There’s a Wicket in my Pocket:

1. Sunlight in a Jar by The Lucksmiths
2. Low Shoulder by Toro y Moi (Daytrotter session)
3. Shook Down by Yuck (Daytrotter session)
4. Not Even Jail by Interpol
5. Honestly by Zwan
6. The Quiz by Hello Saferide
7. I Love How You Love Me (Live) by Neutral Milk Hotel
8. Thirteen by Elliott Smith (Big Star cover)
9. Girl From the North Country by Dear Nora (Bob Dylan cover)
10. Sleep Tonight by Stars
11. Put Your Hands On Me My Love by Owen
12. Christmas TV by Slow Club
13. This Heart’s On Fire by Wolf Parade

Please enjoy! Download link is here.

It’s been a while, so I’m posting a pretty mix someone made for me. I’ll be posting an accompanying mix I made in return in a few days. Here’s the download link.

1. Oboes Bleat and Triangles Tink by Say Hi
2. With Every Light by Smashing Pumpkins
3. Bored Games by Wild Nothing
4. I’ll Build You A Fire by Seabear
5. This is the Dream of Win & Regine by Final Fantasy
6. Face It by Beach Fossils
7. This Orient by Foals
8. Superconnected by Broken Social Scene
9. The Greater Times by Electrelane
10. Are You On My Side? by Rogue Wave
11. Cigarettes in the Theatre (Daytrotter session) by Two Door Cinema Club
12. On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz
13. In An Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel cover) by Matt Pond PA
14. Honestly by Zwan

Hope you enjoy! Feel free to let me in the comments know what you think of this mix. I personally love a couple of tracks, and a bulk of them are new to me. I like being introduced to new music, especially if it’s music that I’d like to hear more of.

Sharing music you like is one of the main functions of a mix. Another reason for the existence of the art of making a mixtape is letting people know how you feel about them. I bet you’ve done this, more than once, for feelings other than the romantic sort. Sometimes, nothing drives the point home better than a selection of carefully chosen songs, arranged in a fitting sequence.

Anyway, this mix. I love it. I hope you love it, too.

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: