The Last El Bimbo

The Eraserheads' 2-disc Anthology album is playing on my PC right now. Me and about 3 of my colleagues are having an Eheads nostalgia trip. At least this is what those who cannot come to Taguig and be in one with the thousands of hopeful fans can do.

Whenever I hear an Eheads song, it transports me to that day in high school where I stupidly sold to my classmate the Circus and Cutterpillow cassette albums, which by now are worthy collectors’ items. Not that cassette albums are extinct in this Ipod age, but golly, for a kid who grew up in an Eheads generation, those are just definitive.

Anyway, now that I’m into it, Ang Huling El Bimbo is my ultimate Eheads song. Not because I used to play it on the piano/organ when I was I guess grade 3 or 4, but even listening to it now, I could almost cry at the sheer genius of it, especially when the guitar starts to bellow and you can feel the miserable end of the girl who looks like Paraluman, the playfulness of fate. It’s almost cinematic. Alapaap, Minsan, Superproxy and Huwag mo nang Itanong would be next in line.

I lost track of the last two albums and the last memorable song for me was Julie Tearjerky, which I really really like and which explains my Facebook status.

You know when you’re really an Eheads kid because you don’t just regard them as one of the most influential Pinoy bands, or that their erstwhile chemistry as a band defined the good ole Filipino camaraderie, or that the songs transcend class and age. The magic is just there; in the pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa of Alapaap, in the do-ro-do-do-do-ro-do-do of Torpedo, in hoo-woo-hoo-woo-hoo-hoo-hoo of Magasin.