A few years later, in college, my roommate was still in that rock phase I started with, but he also worshiped the guitar gods mandated my guitar magazines, from bands like White Lion and Mr. Big.

This was hard to believe for me, even then.

Another dorm-mate was bragging about only buying CDs -when tapes where the standard- of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

I never got that. This was around the time I wanted to hoard all the local 4AD releases by Universal Records, and the sort of guitars I wanted to listen to was made by a band called Pavement.

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Crank – Catherine Wheel

Crank was a song from high school which I played on full volume all the time, that people thought I was holding parties. What? Me? Hold parties?

A few years after in college, I went full-on fan to a lesser known rock genre called shoegazer, where current huge bands like Coldplay owe their lives to. This was the sort of thing that was best translated in six strings for me, not virtuoso concept albums about aliens surfing, which eventually ends up a s the soundtrack to some random afternoon documentary.

Or porn.

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Deftones – Headup

I wasn’t one of those kids that who found himself part of any local music scene. I only went to clubs much, much later in life. Hence, I didn’t understand these kids from the underground, the sort that listens to Vision of Disorder, and Earth Crisis. What was available to me, and what I was much influenced by, rooted from the indie rock mindset.

However, I’m not the type to dismiss the more popular acts. The Deftones appeared only my playlist a little before the kupaw local scene. Of course, Chino was front-and-center in all this, but I don’t believe I’ve ever really ever did air-guitar (and solo-moshed) as much before to any band.

Screw those masturbatory guitar solos.

Someone should make them come here than all the confirmed bands coming next year.

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Explosions in the Sky – The Birth and Death of the Day

Mogwai was just one of those bands I had songs of in my hard drive, but I voraciously consumed their Rock Action record. I’m not even sure if post-rock was already coined then, but thanks to that scene, and the faster internet, I know I’ve found the people I can call guitar anti-god. Explosions In The Sky used to belong on that pedestal, they held reign over my unemployed/jobless days, and took all my rock-related sorrows with them.

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Hum – Green To Me

In my book though, no one ever beats Hum. I’ll pay the devil (Hall & Oates reference yeah) to play guitar like that, and do a whole lot more to write like this:

The morning image from the satellites is all blue and green.
And we’ve all got wounds to clean, here’s a rag, here’s some gasoline.
She wakes up fine and rested well,
released at last from in the sleeping cell,
breathing comes with ease.
It’s a sweet revenge, built on a chemical ride,
my medicine man is the best wires to the temples,
place them on let’s see how we sound.
It’s all green to me.
What a sweet revenge.

It was a crappy guitar, but my dad bragged it was from Cebu. I bought it to class one day, and my religion teacher couldn’t tune the thing.

I remember running to my room, crying, when my brother twisted the knob too tight and breaking its first string. The name was Rosette, named after a girl I liked then, and upon discovering it was the proper name of the decorative strip around the soundhole.

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My system is void of any musical prowess, hence, I never really learned the guitar, which was pitiful since rock music was my thing. I know chords, and I did have a high school band. This was when Nirvana broke out, and I did know my Lithium. We played at a high school event, we were called Prophylactica (don’t ask), and we rehearsed with an old boombox with busted speakers that gave us more than gratifying distortion. By some twist of fate, I switched to bass for that school performance, and I remember not remembering the chords to that Introvoys hit, Line to Heaven.

But playing Lithium for the first time with all the crappy equipment we had, the dusty provincial road in full view, and the kabukiran environs surrounding the house, was glorious.

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My current guitar is labeled Craftsman, which my ex got for me at a mall sale. I didn’t know there was a minor problem with the bridge, but maybe I should be the sort to play the thing: so-so skills deserves so-so instrument. I do take care of it still, and replace the strings every so often.

When at night though, when I can’t sleep, with a soul to quench, I don’t reach for that big thing in a large black case at the foot of my bed: I pick up my ukulele, which is clearly not a guitar anymore, hence I stop here.