Tag: Rock

Music as Motivator

Old Time Rock and Roll, Get Ready, I Just Want to Celebrate etc.. will “soothe your soul”.

Take time out to massage the affective part of yourself.

Ancient culture or atomized culture, we all need to gather around the “fire”, to warm up, to celebrate and to belong.

Music as equalizer, as motivator. A call to march forward.

At Inauguration, Presidents hold concerts, to celebrate. Good for the top brass, good for us commoners.

In college, students played in marching band (at Penn State, they travel a lot and play a lot at home games). Even at corporate events , we hear music which can really kick start an evening.

Work hard and play hard culture.

Fun, fast and flavourful.

Something about those beats that awake and arouse ancient genes.

We are meant to live in herd and hunt in packs.

No way around it but marching to the same drum beat.

(Incidentally, I found financial guys have the most fun at parties, even though it’s them who will process those payments a few weeks later).

Of course we need rah-rah sessions.

We need to be recognized, to be motivated. It’s not for the winners. It is to draw out the best from the laggers.

A few days ago, Thomas Friedman had a piece about the cultural differences between Washington and Silicon Valley. His central theme was Collaboration.

And how different the concept was perceived and processed in those two places.

I would add creativity and imagination to the mix.

What could be a better source to inspire and jump-start “out of the box” thinking than to turn on those good old-time Rock and Roll, theme songs and marching tunes of the Valley. I have run into a bunch of old acquaintances. The secret sauce has always been music.

Of course, exercise and diet are top of the list. But musicians tend to maintain that care-free, let’s-see-what-happens attitude. It keeps them young and fit. It keeps them upbeat (notice the positive term). At the very least, it draws out the inner child that refuses to grow up in this pain-filled world.

When in doubt, in stress, in trouble, just know You’ve Got A Friend.

The Filipino Invasion

You will find a bunch of Filipino bands around Saigon, from Hard Rock Cafe to Acoustic.

When the British rock bands gained noteriety in America back in the 60’s, the phenomenon was coined The British Invasion.

Now Vietnam is experiencing similar invasion by their neighbors.  They got the language (English), the look (still brown-skinned), and the connection (E2 in cross-cultural distance).

Acceptance rates have been high.

You will find in Saigon clusters of APEC (Japanese Alley, Korean district , backpackers district and Chinese district).  The Filipino bands just show up, when it’s their turn to play.

Rap and rock.

All with long key chains, tight jeans and wool caps.

Some Western faces were there in the audience. Beer choices are also varied, from Tiger to Heineken, Corona to Coors.

To see Saigon of the future, you need to tap into this crowd.

Kids who first are in step with the beat from strange shores, then to eventually be resettled there (Ivy League even). It happened to me with “California Dreaming”. Now, a bunch of my classmates are living there.

This Christmas will see a wave of Vietnamese from overseas back for a vacation.

Fuel to the fire.

Rock on.

The irony is the Filipinos who taught ESL in the refugee camps back in the early 80’s, kept staying put, while their Vietnamese students (the audience in this case, which often had a feel of a “repeat after me” English class ), moved on to America, where the British Invasion once took place.

For now, while the set last, nobody noticed if you were black or white.

Music unites. Especially when singers stick their mikes to the audience during the refrain “I try so hard, and get so far, in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.

Saigon siesta

We used to lie on the floor (absorbing the coolness from the tiles) and listen to “Y0ur Song” , theme of that time’s radio broadcast. That’s my siesta as I can recall.

Older brother used Hit Parade, with Elvis Presley  on the cover.

My friend, meanwhile, laminated his vinyl album (James Taylor).

We have just met over lunch today. He mentioned his 3-year old boy who listened to While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Rock lives on. So does Saigon siesta.

People find shades.

Some cafes even offer hammocks instead of chairs.

Self-created summer breeze.

People move about between two extremes: fate and future.

Aren’t we all, living in Saigon or South Central.

Still, there is something about growing up, lying on the floor and listening to Soft Rock.

It’s truly a Wonderful World, where “the dog says goodnight” and the rooster crows, always a bit early for city life.

I can’t recall how I  pick up a date, while attending an all-boy school without a cell phone (and SMS).

But I somehow managed.

At work, in Santa Monica, some inshore techs couldn’t open their eyes after a lunch of heavy rice staple.

They probably stayed up late for conference calls anyways , living in our 24/7 connected world.

Siesta: a must at my friend’s work place here in Saigon.

Might as well work that into company policy.

Just that it’s hard to have tile floor at work similar to my “your song” experience.

I hope you don’t mind, I wrote down this song. I hope my friend’s kid grow up liking this song . It’s for him as well.

House of Rising Sun

One of my first guitar solos was House of Rising Sun.

Chu Van An High School music room, with two electric guitars, one bass guitar and a drum set.

Long was on bass, Son counted the beat and Hung, son of a dancing instructor, played rhythm. And one, and two: Am, C …. And so we went on. Practice, practice and practice.

We not only developed our musical ability, we melted into a band, a team.

Do not play too loud. Let me lead.

Long’s smile will always stay with me. He often sat down (perhaps because we did not have enough guitar straps). Long is now dead.

The House of Rising Sun still sees the sun rising every morning. So is Long’s smile. Memories of yesterday are wired permanently in my brain. Nothing gonna change my world.

Yesterday. Imagine. How Can I Tell Her (when is it easy, telling someone that we’re through).

I visited New Orleans a couple of times, tried out Cafe Du Monde, even ate an allegator burger.

I tried to check out the neighborhood, to see which one best represent House of Rising Sun.

Last night, my date said when she first listened to this song, she had cried.

I figured, that’s why you were here with me over dinner. Got to have shared interests and shared emotions. House of Rising Sun, and Don’t let the sun go down on me…(E John).

Music evokes not only a time. It triggers and resonates long hidden emotions.

Where was that and when was it that we first heard that song. “The first time, I ever saw your face”.

And because Rock came to Vietnam during the war, Rock and anti-war sentiment seemed to be cousins.

To hear it those tunes again is to open up unprocessed pain.

Until one finds it “once again, in Green Fields”.

I know. It’s not “the end of the world” just yet, but it sure seems to be ended ‘when you said ‘goodbye'”.

House of Rising Sun. I miss you Long, guitarist, pianist, friend, teacher, husband and father. RIP. We soon will join you in that House of Rising Sun.

To bring the band back.

Rock Rage

Rage, rebellion and Rock seem to fit together. Gone were Happy Days and the Mamas & Pappas.

As soon as we got color television, it were as if innocence had vanished along with the Black- and- White TV sets.

Rage against the machine. Against materialism and modernity.

Against the wind (symbolically speaking).

Rock, or stone, needs to roll. Rolling Stone.

Born to run. Like Einstein’s line, life is like riding a bicycle, so you need to keep moving to keep your balance.

Free yourself. Free against the very notion of freedom as articulated by either side to appease donors.

Rock stays neutral, always on the run like gypsies.

In but not of the system, yet itself turns into a religion. And an expansive at that at Hard Rock Cafe.

Like Charlie Chaplin who finally got inducted into Knighthood, Rock and rollers first need to dress the part i.e. tatoo, nose rings, a lot metallic, and key chain. High maintenance.

Rock cannot go off grid, even though its essence is against it.

Plug in.

One and two. Testing.

Sure mike and Yamaha instruments, Bose speakers and Marlboro.

Big names, big bucks and big sponsors.

Can’t go against the grain.

Can’t do with it, or without it.

Money or love?

Man or woman?

Rage on, cry on. Heartbreak and headache.

Bring down the house and with it, ourselves.

Yet Rock lives on. Always with new “buyers.”

New converts, new sacrificial lambs.

New groups and groupies.

New lyrics and looks, with new rhythm and refrain.

Same 7 notes, but in different style and sensuality.

And the Reason is You.

No more Beach Boys, only Bad Boys.

You gotta have it, and have it yesterday.

There is no time as it used to be.

Hotel California, you can check in but can’t check out.

Turn on the machine, and it needs to be fed, with new meat and new sacrifice.

Rage for rage’s sakes is OK too.

Just hit the right notes. Turn up the volume. And shake those hair.

Adrenaline will take over and take care of the rest.

Rage on. Rock rage.

Stress and songs

The audience sang along, occasionally to the shared mike.

We will we will rock you.

Tonight gonna be a good good night.

Even Top of the World which was a relic from the 70’s.

A night at Acoustic, Saigon.

A night to release the stress.

A night to see Rock rules in a whole new generation.

The warm-up band was from Australia. “Don’t cry, don’t cry”…

Then the Filipino band who without fail stepped on the stool to elevate themselves (Britney, Gaga numbers).

Last but not least was the House band, mainstay.

I will always love you….

Wonderful tonight (in Vietnamese, can you believe, with ” I give her the car key“, not scooter’s).

We had joy, we had fun last night.

Wholesome and healthy. My young sidekick did not even touch a beer.

He ordered milk.

Young people are health-conscious, environmentally aware (can you put out the cigarette?).

No problem.

So we together decompressed, sang along, shouted along. Soared throat.

Soaring spirit.

That’s what it’s all about.

Partying.

Live a little.

Then come back to work harder.

To get more stress and strain.

I am ready.

Try me.

Hit me.

One more time.

One more song.

One more day in Saigon.

Full of stress, but then, if you know where to look, full of strength.

Strength in unexpected places, in a corner there at the end of the alley.

At Acoustic.

First, learn respect!

After transitioning from a French elementary school to a Vietnamese middle-school, on my first day of school,  I saw “First learn respect, then learn literature”.

My brother’s generation at the same school had been from the same mold (his classmates are still staying in touch).

No wonder they showed up at my Mom’s funeral in a cold winter day in Virginia , out of respect.

To see the sight of my brother’s classmates, my upperclassmen (most of whom accomplished MD’s and Pharmacists)  bowing with incense in hand, stirred something up in me .

Inside those “tough” shells were hearts of gold.

It is repeating today with my classmates.

A “party” (memorial) fund for our dear musician friend who had just passed away.

Since he was cremated in a private ceremony, we rally to chip in for his kids, to turn grieving into giving.

Coordination takes place across the Pacific, with the free help of technology (yahoo group).

First, learn respect.

I don’t know how much we will eventually collect, but I know my friend’s kids will grow up knowing that daddy’s friends care.

I know Long’s kids will take on some of his musical legacy.

Someday, if I survive to hear one of them perform, I will once again be reminded that there is no such a thing as “the day the music dies”.

(John Lennon’s kid is now playing, George Harrison‘s kid, the same).

I remember listening to “Your Song” during siesta long ago.

But it’s just a radio.

Now, it’s Spotify.

You can take away the stereo, the juke box and the boombox, but you can’t take away music in man’s heart.

The going might get rough, but then, there is music to soothe the soul (ole time Rock and Roll).

I know my friend would be smiling, displaying his square jaws, when I blog this.

He would have joined in if he could.

Testing, and one, and two.

Every other form of learning is preceded by Respect.

It’s hard to find, as a line by Neil Young “I’ve been to Redwood, I’ve been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold, and I’m getting old”.

Hold on to it when you have it.

Have it when you see it.

I wouldn’t think of this blog had I not seen it in action, at my Mom’s funeral, and heard it today from my yahoo group.

I love them dearly, but first, respect.