Give life back to music

Every week is a good week for music. This one, though, might be an even better one than usual.

MUSIC DESERVES RESPECT. Last Tuesday night I was at the launch of Sony’s “Music Deserves Respect” campaign, which was fun for a number of reasons: number one, it was hosted by Sarah Meier-Albano, who is always a good choice for music events, as her knowledge is deep, her touch light, and her look always appropriately stunning. (Also, she never devolves into ignorant giggling or desperate joking, unlike half the events hosts I’ve witnessed.) Number two, back-to-back performances on the same stage by the men who are arguably Pinoy rock’s two biggest active rock icons: Bamboo Mañalac and Ely Buendia.

Bamboo delivered an electrifying performance — I still have residual electricity on my sleeve from when he leaped into the audience and started grabbing people and singing into their faces. If a normal person did that it would be considered borderline assault, but when Bamboo does it, you just feel lucky. He segued from Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah to his own band’s Hallelujah (from the “Light Peace Love” album), and near the end of his three-song set, actually made the words from I’m a Little Teapot sound like credible rock lyrics. Such is the transformative power of rock stardom. Ely’s performance was more subdued — no leaping into the audience, that’s not his style — but the songs were classics: Alapaap, Pare Ko, Maling Akala, all early Eraserheads numbers.

And the third reason the night was a fun one for me (despite rainy traffic to and from the venue): I won a pair of MDR-XB920 “Extra Bass” headphones. They sound effing fantastic. In fact (he said by way of graceful segue), they will be ideal for listening to…

FRAGMENTS OF TIME. For the past few weeks, my Facebook feed has been dotted with exclamations of wonder ad joy, spurred by repeat listenings of the new album by a French dance music duo who dress like robots for all their press pictures. This is, of course, “Random Access Memories” by Daft Punk.

That they are still around at all should be a reason for wonder in itself: It’s easy to forget that they emerged in the mid-‘90s, and are therefore almost two decades old as a band. That the audience is still hungry for them is nothing less than amazing. Part of that is due to the rise of EDM, of course, but it’s not as if Daft Punk is that easily defined by that label, especially when you consider the new album, which uses old-school equipment, recording techniques, and guests. Supposedly uncool and outdated forms such as disco and yacht rock exert an enormous influence here, so some strange alchemy is at work for this album to sound so vital (and it can’t just be the vocoders). From the blazing opener Give Life Back to Music, to the addictive single Get Lucky, to the nostalgic sweetness of Fragments of Time (“Turning our days into melodies”) to the blissful repetition of Doin’ It Right, the answer might simply be: good tunes, good songs. But good songs disappear from memory every day. So maybe it’s the robot heads.

FETE ALL YOU CAN. The Fête de la Musique, also known as World Music Day, is a music festival that happens in June every year, in locations all over the world. Tomorrow, June 15, the Philippine leg of the festival is happening in the Makati area, and features “one Main Stage, 10 pocket venues, over 100 bands, and 10 hours of live music!” An incredibly diverse roster of Pinoy musical talent across different genres will be playing (as well as French electro-pop band Naïve New Beaters). Lineups and locations can be found at the Fête Facebook page.

I’ve been to a bunch of Fêtes before — in Malate, El Pueblo in Ortigas, Eastwood, et cetera — and it’s always memorable, for one reason or another. Whether it’s Pepe Smith howling at the rain in a blistering closing set on the Main Stage, or first discovering electronic act Drip on one of the satellite stages, or a rain-filled tarp falling on the Radioactive Sago Project (they were unharmed), or Kitchie Nadal letting a friend’s little daughter come up on stage and sing with her, or — you get the idea. Go, bring friends, wear comfortable clothes, watch out for unwanted flying objects (some idiots threw bottles at our car at the El Pueblo fete; massive free concerts almost always involve troublemakers). Turn your days into melodies, and vice versa.