FENTANYL GOT THE WRONG PERSON

Among the artists who have recently departed this dimension, it’s Dolores O’Riordon who has affected me the most. I’m not ashamed to confess that her death personally affected me since I wasn’t able to see them live in 1996 (I was a poor college freshman) and 2012 (I just gave birth to twins) here in Manila. On the day she died, I played non-stop Cranberries songs, whatever I could find on Youtube. Then in my car, I continued my mourning as I played their songs in my Sony Walkman on a loop on my way to a coverage.

Cranberries was part of my high school life. Dolores and Alanis Morisette  were the female artists who had influenced me as a vocalist at that time.

The first time I heard “Zombie” back in 1994, I couldn’t shake it out of my head. I waited for it to be played on air so I could tape record it (yes, yes, the old-school recording to make the soundtrack of my life; it was an art form, mind you). Then I played it on my sister’s Walkman while in a van on the way to Manila from Los Banos with my classmates. We were competing in a science fair to showcase our study-sorta-thesis then. So the entire duration of that science fair, I was listening to Cranberries, Guns n Roses (Spaghetti Incident), Mr. Big (Bump Ahead [I fell in love with “Promise Her the Moon“]), Collective Soul (“Shine”), and a couple of locals like Color It Red, Rivermaya, and E-heads. Guys were borrowing the Walkman and my tapes to beat the boredom while we tended to our booths. (Girls had a different playlist back then, I was the odd one).

I followed Cranberries. I borrowed tapes or swapped with classmates. In my senior year, some guys and I formed an amateur band and we played Cranberries. Twenty-plus years on, a classmate told me that whenever she hears Cranberries, she remembers me. That’s how closely tied I was to the band.

When I read that the Cranberries was reuniting, I thought to myself I will finally have the chance to see them live. But it was never meant to be.

I was sad when Chris Cornell died. When Dolores passed, I was heartbroken.

Goodnight.

A little something to inspire my work week

Yup, my work week starts today. Even though I’m still feeling wobbly from that nasty flu, I think I need to get my butt out there again and start working. I have a conference again to attend.

Anyway, to inspire me, I searched for the Youtube videos of one of my drum heroes, Cobus Potgieter, whom I discovered about seven years ago. When I was pregnant with my girls, I was listening to a lot of Breaking Benjamin and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (I don’t know why), which brought me to the Youtube videos of this amazing drummer from South Africa.

I could not find his videos of his early covers (he did a really good drum cover of Red Jump Apparatus’ Face Down) yesterday. Good thing I had the foresight of downloading his other videos, thinking nothing lasts forever in Youtube. How true I was.

UPDATE: It reappeared on Youtube! See it here:

I fell in love with Cobus when he covered some Breaking Benjamin songs (I don’t know why Flickr doesn’t allow me to upload the entire video).

And solidified his place in my heart after watching his drum cover of 30 Seconds to Mars. If you could see towards the end of the video, he was smiling, like he was really enjoying playing This is War. Plus watch out for the stick flips.

People who are very passionate with what they do inspire me.

UPDATE: Still sick. I just puked my way to the bathroom. No conference for me.

Little gems along the way

Sick again (been really sick for 3 days now) and did nothing but sleep and watch youtube videos all day. And I picked up a few gems along the way.

How awesome is this? Motorhead doing a cover of Metallica’s Enter Sandman…It’s like your heroes covering your songs and owning it.

Then there’s Korn doing a cover of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall and then owning it.

And how can a guitarist and a drummer deliver one of the best Grammy’s performances in recent years? Jack White is amazing but that Meg is a lame drummer.

I never knew The Voice could this be interesting…

…The Voice Russia, that is.

A nu metal artist in the roster. And she is mesmerizing to watch.

The only time I could play music like this is when I am driving alone in my car. To make my soul-sucking commute more bearable. My girls couldn’t bear to listen to my real music.

Daria Stavrovich made me revisit 30 Seconds to Mars. I would like to see a Jared Leto and Daria duet.

 

Silent All These Years

So a good friend shared this on my Facebook wall.

 “So you found a girl
Who thinks really deep thoughts
What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts

Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon
How’s that thought for you…

Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by
If I’m stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds
Raining in head
Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left
One more casualty
You know we’re too easy, easy, easy…”