07.21.2009
FINE LINE: ON LINER NOTES IN GENERAL AND PUPIL'S 'WILDLIFE: SPECIAL EDITION' IN PARTICULAR
It was with a bored drawl that I told my girlfriend one slow April afternoon, “You know what I would really like?” “What?” she asked, biting her lip, looking like she was bracing herself for a major financial catastrophe. “To see liner notes in local albums again,” I said. “Of course, it would be way cooler if I’d get invited to write one myself,” I added. She sighed her relief. After all, my dumb reverie was fairly reasonable: it wasn’t like I daydreamed for Gary Valenciano to all of a sudden start doing renditions of Alice in Chains songs; it wasn’t like I prayed for Manny Pacquiao to actually put his Gibson Les Paul Standard to good use. A couple of days later, after pigging out on liempo—pigging out on pig, really—I got a text message from Ely Buendia that went, “Sony is releasing a special edition of Wildlife. Would you be willing to write the liner notes?” Some days, when you’ve been considerably good (maybe you didn’t elbow your way through a train ride; maybe you decided to finally small-talk the office weirdo by the copying machine), I guess you get rewarded.
I flat-out refused.
Nah, of course not.
The dearth of local liner notes post-1980s posed a real challenge, however. I do remember reading the liner notes for Dekada—the Ethnic Faces’ major label debut—written by The Youth bassist and Rock N’ Rhythm pundit Robert Javier. He was simultaneously nostalgic and informative, and those liners furnished me with a historical milieu that aided in my appreciation of Jack Sikat and company (which wasn’t really a chore to begin with). There was also academician Bomen Guillermo’s memorable mini-essay at the beginning of Pan’s Parnaso ng Payaso, which was a dissection of the Abay narrative, if you may. The sleeve notes for Rivermaya’s Isang Ugat, Isang Dugo, meanwhile, were perhaps the most recent, and they were written by the band and some of the artists they were interpreting. If Javier’s notes were a walk down memory lane, and if Bomen’s situated Dong’s poesy in more ways than one, Rico Blanco and company’s notes were an apologia, or a defense of a project that would otherwise get maligned by hard-line purists. To fans, however, ‘Maya’s long essay was a love letter explaining why—against all odds—they felt the need to do this (an album of hyper-faithful revivals, rather than yet another collection of Blanco’s odes to “catchy”).
Liner notes are not exclusive to rock, however, and in the country, some ‘70s pop records were prefaced by essays that functioned in different capacities: educational, promotional, and, well, the great gulf in between. Decorated poet and Radioactive Sago Project frontman Lourd de Veyra, in a series of SMS exchanges with this author, shared how, for instance, the name of the late talkshow host and PR man Oskee Salazar always popped up in liner notes to albums by OPM balladeers: “Wala nang gumagawa dito [ng liner notes], ‘dre. May mga lumang plaka akong OPM—from Pilita Corrales to Victor Wood—eighty percent, si Oskee Salazar [ang sumulat].” These were interesting minutiae: all of a sudden, the categorically non-musical Salazar (I don’t know if he sang in the shower, but I somehow know that he did not write any theory-heavy problematiques on the jukebox giants) passed as a go-to man to endorse certain musical products. Not that that (a penchant for bathroom concertos, or a handle on musical theory) was ever necessary. But it seriously makes you wonder.
I brought dreams at hand. Or, more appropriately, I brought samples at hand; sample liner notes I dreamt of at least approximating (in my pathetic fantasies, at least; hey, dreams are free). “Ano ‘yan?” Ely asked, as I whipped out my loot for that Sunday afternoon: The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds reissue, and the de-Spector-ized (i.e., “rid of Phil Spector’s production stamp”) Let It Be…Naked, by this band called The Beatles. “Ganito gusto mong gawin?” the composer prodded, to which I gave a hesitant shrug. The notes to Pet Sounds were particularly intimidating, as there were: 1) a preface by Brian Wilson, 2) another preface by biographer Brad Elliott, and, most interestingly, 3) extensive studio logs (provided, I presume, by Elliott as well, with nitpickily awesome research by Ron Furmanek and Dennis Diken). Elliott’s position was enviable, as he was perhaps the only press figure—with the possible exception of Beach Boys biographer David Leaf, who eventually directed the new DVD documentary for Smile—whom the infamously mum Brian Wilson trusted. Trust wasn’t in my tech rider for the liner notes job, but some of it, I thought, would be nice. I mean, I didn’t expect to know at the end of the project whether the Pupil guys were cereals or pancakes (or tapsilog) sort of people. I wasn’t gonna ask to snoop around Ely’s tie collection, or Dok Sergio’s stacks of indie CDs, and so forth and so on. On the other hand, Kevin Howlett’s liners for Let It Be...Naked were, truth be told, eclipsed by the transcripts from the studio banter of the British foursome. As you already know, Let It Be also had a “reality” rock-docu incarnation. Here’s a sampling of Paul McCartney being all defensive (this appears in the Naked liners): “We’re into albums as the four of us, but I really think we can be into other things, but every time I talk about it I really sound like I'm the showbiz correspondent trying to hustle us to do a Judy Garland comeback....”
I mean, who could beat that?
It doesn’t take extreme genius to guess what I did next: talk to the guys about the Wildlife material, but in retrospect (it was a reissue of an album that has already done well, not an overbearingly promoted debut by a pack of unknowns). One would find that an artist always feels differently after his or her work is unleashed to the world, and that difference was what I wanted to probe. If artistic intent (or “vision,” if you may) turns to out to be incongruent to audience response (or “reading,” if you may), is that knowledge supposed to be bothersome to the artist? Was something lost in translation? Was it in the language used? Or the musical idiom? For instance, are you really supposed to dance to “Disconnection Notice,” even though its “disco” phrasing only lasts four lines each time, and only during choruses? Did the band intend for you to? As for having a vision, I don’t think all local rock artists have it; some pretend to have it, while some think they have it, but fail miserably in production. Rock has lost its formerly-de facto depth. Gladly, Pupil doesn’t have to try very hard at this, which is why their music is worthy of exposition, and which is why the presence of album literature is well-deserved. I say “well-deserved” not because writers such as myself are kings, but because artists such as Pupil deserve more than synchronized head-bobbing at shows; they need to be, somehow, digested intellectually, at least at a rudimentary level.
Was I going to do that for the Wildlife: Special Edition liner notes? Of course not.
I was merely going to (try to) facilitate it. So help me God.
If you think about it, there’s nothing worth problematizing in trendy records—and I’m not gonna name names; just use your imagination—so producing literature on them is really a lost cause. Okay, here’s another perspective: if you really think about it, you could look at liner notes like formal “toasts.” Not all parties require toasts, do they? There is something pompous and needlessly ceremonial about toasts that, for it to take place in a gathering, the party should not merely be a party; it should be an event. And this, I dare propose, is what the Wildlife reissue is. The first time around, in 2007, it was a mere party, but, in two-year hindsight and retrospect, you can now see it as a red-letter affair. The passing of time was necessary, somehow. Imagine a pair of earthquake survivors emerging out of the rubble. They wouldn’t really immediately say, “I propose a toast,” would they? Well, they won’t say “Yay!” either, but you know what I mean. They’d probably toast to their survival a full year after the actual surviving.
Also, had the liners I wrote been in the original-issue Wildlife, it would be like giving away the answer key. Or, it would be like having DVD subtitles that are somehow a few seconds earlier than the actual mouthing of the words. I mean, the trivia and stuff like that: you’re not supposed to know about them like they were requisite tools in consuming the songs. You did not need to know, for instance, that this-and-that song was meant as a beer jingle but was rejected (I’m not saying which; please go buy the record) for you to enjoy it.
Which brings me, finally, to the immersion: a couple of casual lunches and dinners, naturally; certainly, hours of aimless chats. But, also, some auxiliary involvement: in lay terms, “doing nothing.” While the marginalia had no practical use as material for the liner notes, it provided an interesting backdrop. So, Ely being an avid tea-drinker, or drummer Wendell Garcia being an Energizer bunny who would go to great lengths to elicit laughter (which he always successfully drew out): these were the sketches at my disposal. Somehow, though, I just knew that Wendell’s clowning around with fans made sense in relation to his multifarious drumming. Somehow, Yan Yuzon’s verbal eloquence—or Dok’s slacker exterior, for that matter—could also be related to “Talon” and “Sumasabay,” respectively. Ely’s warring nature of being both dazed and intense—whether it was seen inside the studio (finding new solutions for an unsatisfactory early mix of a song) or in “normal life” (ordering meals at restaurants, sinking his teeth into Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential” list)—he was literature in action.
I sat in during someone else’s recording session (I’m not sure if I can say whose, so I won’t say for now) and recorded some guitar parts, with Ely sitting right inside the booth, bemused while reading a back-issue Guitar Player article on the doctor who operated on the bullet-riddled body of John Lennon. Jerome Velasco, who produced Wildlife as well its current reissue, was also producing this other artist’s record, so he also watched over my session. It was some unnerving shit, and, although I was able to produce a satisfactory (I think) guitar track in under thirty minutes, it was still an extreme sport of sorts for my nervous system. Jerome Velasco and Ely Buendia watching me in the studio: Jesus Christ. Comforting cries of “Bahala ka,” “Kahit ano,” “I-jam mo lang,” “Maganda naman, ah!,” et cetera, et cetera filled the four corners of the cold room. How is this information useful? Well, it’s not, but it gave me a vague idea of how they conduct themselves in the studio, especially Jerome, who was actively captaining the ship, so to speak. Wendell also played drums on this track I played guitar on, and I would witness how, even with a basic ¾ waltz, he could be a monster.
We would all later troop to Wombworks in Marikina City, where they were remastering Wildlife and mixing the demos and the live material that will be included in the bonus CD. It was past normal supper time, but Ely said we should maybe see what the Pupil City listers brought (a feast, basically). As some of the live tracks were being played back with aural aplomb (i.e., seeping from the booth to the lounge like a not-so-subtle mammoth), a sing-along would soon build up, but shyly, from the hushed non-singerly pipes of the band’s adoring followers. Engineer Pat Tirano would set up ambient miking equipment in the living room while people emptied out plates of barbecue and other sinful gastronomic delights. They would later on shriek—in either excitement or sheer terror—when they find out that they will be singing live back-up. They would all join in gleefully (any wonder why they call those things “glee” clubs?), as though they have prepared all their lives for this moment. This told me one thing: Pupil was way past having just arrived. In their comparatively short existence, they have graduated from attracting cults to commanding entire congregations. Luckily, they also grew musically (this is not always the case for everyone, I’m afraid), and this was something worth pondering and writing (home) about.
The special-edition reissue of Wildlife comes with real bonus material—live tracks, videos, demos, wallpapers—and is out in stores now. They’re also opening for Trent Reznor and his merry group of industrial-music pranksters this August fifth at the Araneta.
TAGS: Pupil Ely Buendia Wildlife
