End of an Era 2007 While searching for journalism books last Monday, I noticed a title in Power Books that

was all too familiar to my youth. It was Tikman ang Langit subtitled An Anthology on the Eraserheads. Tikman was the jingle that Burger Machine used in its TV ad ages ago, with the chorus Halika, tikman ang langit. By that time, the Eraserheads of our youth has offered the albums Ultraelectromagneticpop!, Circus, and Cutterpillow, and the lyrics from the albums songs by then have become inseparable implants to our memory. Being broke, it took time for me to decide whether Id buy the book or not. Tikman ang Langit, I found out, was a collection of essays from fans of the band, compiled by people active in the capitals rock scene in the late 80s. Most of the writers were from UP as the Eraserheads were, some of them having had the chance to meet an Eraserheads member or two, but all of them not privy to the internal goings on within the band itself anyway. It was far from being able to give official stories, especially on that important question on why exactly the band broke up in 2002. But I decided it was still worth the money and bought it anyway. The essays were first person accounts on how the Eraserheadsor their musicrubbed elbows with, influenced, and even changed their lives as young people growing up in the 90s. These were stories of how the Eraserheads became a part of the bitter-sweet passages of their youth, and hence becoming a part of who they are, which I believe all of them will cherish for the rest of their lives. I was in Grade 3 when the Eraserheads released Ultraelectromagneticpop!, the commercial album that started it all. But I think it was not until I was in Grade 6, in 1996, when I got to like the Eraserheads, and much of the rock and roll music whose era they helped usher in and demystify, seriously. By then, Ely Buendia (vocals and rhythm guitar), Marcus Adoro (lead guitar), Raymund Marasigan (drums) and Buddy Zabala (base), have released four albums. So for me, the songs Pare Ko, Ligaya, Sembreak, Minsan, Magasin, Huwag Mo Nang Itanong, Ang Huling El Bimbo and others, though coming from different albums, could all be lumped together in memory. It was also then that I and some classmates got to form a band, as most other kids in town were doing. Like one of the writers in the book, our little band had this experience of assembling makeshift drum sets from tin (Bear Brand) cans. Later, my band mates brother who was himself in to rock and roll would move up in the world and buy cardboards, borrow a welded drum pedal, and manage to make a life-size drum set. But still later, one rich classmate managed to have his parents buy him a real set of Mitello drums. He became our drummer. I also got to have my own electric guitar, using the graduation present line of reasoning at my mother. We started doing a few sessions then. Aside from the Eraserheads, our favorites were Gin Blossoms, Nirvana, Siakol, Wolfgang, and other 90s bands songs. We had two guitars,

and the only problem was the base, which, for some reason, only a few kids had. But we could always borrow from other bands. Of course, there were hard times, but for the most part, the 90s were cool, if not for me then at least generally for the youth then. Although childhood innocence was slowly being torn by maturity, there was always the cassette tape that one can play on ones dilapidated radio, and all went well. Perhaps, its one of the reasons why we get nostalgic every time we listen to music from our childhood. Its because it brings back the happier times, after which life would move on and drown us in the whirlpool of adult conformity. But we were still lucky to have had the Eraserheads apart from other Filipino rock bands in the 90s as role models. Because although only one thing will separate the Eraserheads now from the much later bands, the ones that now proliferate, sadly, that one thing is the most important one, which is the music. The writers who contributed to Tikman ang Langit didnt miss this most important point in saying the Eraserheads will stick to memory not for their looks, their gimmicks, their TV ads, or anything of that sort. They will be remembered for the music and all the combined wit and solemnity that all them four, as a group, poured into it. Maybe because of the Eraserheads talent, other bands that followed were pressured to make good songs, or honest songs that they can be proud of. Yano, The Youth, Wolfgang, Teeth, The Dawn, and so many others made music, and they made music that spoke to each of us. It seems like the heavens, that time, became generous in talent-giving for the countrys musicians. I dont think this is the case now. Call it bias, or lack of objectivity, but now, when you listen to the current breed of Filipino bands, theres something thats not there. Maybe its the angst, or the attitude. But I can bet its simply the talent for songwriting thats missing. Nowadays, I cant listen to a Filipino band without thinking that theyre just jerking their audience around, with their motherhoodstatement lyrics about love and their elementary rhyming. Finally, for me, theres that one last thing that separates the Eraserheads and their brethren from the 90s, and that is the social commentary intertwined in the lyrics of their songs. The 90s bands ranged from the overtly political such as The Jerks, to the simple but socially observant lines of The Wuds, Agaw Agimat, Rizal Underground, and the Eraserheads. It seems to me like bands cared more about society then, and described what they saw in their songs. Or at least they described what living a lower middle class life felt likethe cowboy lifestyle, the life of drinking gin not in sophisticated bars with cushioned seats, but in the company of friends in the corner store, wooden guitar accompanying wailing voices. The Eraserheads ushered the 90s rock and roll, at a time when rock and roll still endeared itself to the lower classes and when it sang of their aspirations. Because its different now. Rock and roll, which historically developed in the spirit of teenage adventure and rebelliousness, from its origins in African-American gospel music, then way later to rough Bon Jovi and broken-hearted Aerosmith, in our time, is just another concept in a box that businessmen in the music industry sell, as one writer in

"Tikman ang Langit" implied. When you look at the array of bands on TV, you wont miss the composition of the formula: its the cute band members, the branded clothes, the cootic English language, and the generic song about the girl. Imagine the cutest bands today coming up with something close to Para sa Masa or Tindahan ni Aling Nena. Bands now, with a few exceptions, are personality-centered, and generally aloof to the cares of the world, and to how painful yet euphoric it is to be alive. The bands have lost their angst, iconoclasm and inquisitive attitude, to be replaced by middle class comfort, pose-striking, and conformity. Perhaps, its exactly because of this that they lost the music. One contributor to Tikman ang Langit said that with the Eraserheads, both the coos and the jologs listened side by side to their music. But then again, back then the term jologs didnt even exist yet. It was only very recently coined by people who must have thought that the very obvious divide between the rich and the poor was not enough, there must be a handy label that one can use. Tikman ang Langit implied that with the break-up of the Eraserheads in 2002, they took with them the first Filipino alternative rock era. Just recently, the news of Rico Blancos leaving Rivermaya, another group I looked up to (despite criticisms of them being a show band') when I was young, was for me another fixture of my childhood whose time was done. I wonder how rock and roll will fare in the coming years for a new generation of young fans. But I hope that above everything else, the music will mean something to them, as it did for me, especially with the Eraserheads.