Young, gifted and brown: A Filipino American Heritage Month playlist

Bambu (left) and Prometheus Brown (right) are The Bar. (Photo source: Prometheus Brown)

As the National Film Society reminds us below this graf, October is Filipino American Heritage Month, so I've compiled my favorite tracks on Spotify by great Filipino American artists like DJ QBert, Prometheus Brown, a.k.a. Geo, and half-Pinoy soulman Joe Bataan. Also included are some new cuts by L.A. rapper/activist Bambu, whose latest album .​.​.​ one rifle per family. dropped earlier this month.



Bambu's best track, the Jackson 5-sampling "Misused" from 2008's … exact change…, is addressed to his son (who was two years old at the time Bambu was interviewed here), and it boldly decries the Catholic Church--the church of choice for most Filipinos who weren't born here in America--for its Eurocentricism. He teamed up with the Seattle-based Geo to form The Bar in last year's outstanding Prometheus Brown & Bambu Walk Into a Bar. So many conscious rappers tend to be humorless, which can be a chore to listen to, but the pairing of Bambu and Geo proves not all of them are humorless, especially during "Rashida Jones," The Bar's ode to the lovely Parks and Rec star and now Celeste and Jesse Forever screenwriter.

The Pixies' "Vamos" is full of delightfully batshit crazy guitar work by Joey Santiago. On the instrumental side, I wish Spotify contained "The Role Traversal" by the now-defunct post-rock band From Monument to Masses. I'd love to use "The Role Traversal" at the end of a film if I ever direct one someday. In that track's place is From Monument to Masses' Noam Chomsky-sampling "Sharpshooter."

I'm not a fan of Bruno Mars or the power ballad sound that he and other Pinoy performers like current Journey lead singer Arnel Pineda and several female American Idol contestants are known for, but Mars' new single "Locked Out of Heaven" doesn't sound too bad and appears to be a slight shift from the power ballad sound. Also, I'm glad that this week, the half-Pinoy writer of Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" will be the first Pinoy guest host in SNL history (interestingly, this will take place a week after SNL performed yet another cringeworthy sketch that brings to light a problem that's plagued this show long before I started watching it in the late '80s: the lack of diversity in the cast, even though this iPhone 5 sketch, in which mistreated and snarky Chinese Foxconn laborers were played by non-Chinese actors, sided with the Chinese characters instead of making them the butt of the joke). Mars' SNL milestone happens to occur during Filipino American Heritage Month, which is funny because we Filipinos aren't usually known for our impeccable timing.

Complete tracklist after the jump...

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Pixies, "Where Is My Mind?"

Song: "Where Is My Mind?" by Pixies
Released: 1988
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It turns up at the end of Fight Club, while the nameless Edward Norton character and his girlfriend Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) watch the results of the Norton character's plan to free everyone from the stranglehold of credit card companies by obliterating all the companies' office buildings. "The ending of the film provided a bit of a prelude to the global financial crisis that the world is currently embroiled in," says a Popdose blogger about Fight Club's final scene.

A year before Fight Club's 1999 release, the frequently covered Pixies tune made its first soundtrack appearance in the Adrien Grenier/Clark Gregg coming-of-age flick The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, which is about the strained relationship between a misfit teen and his cross-dressing stepdad and is worth checking out if you ever wanted to know what Agent Coulson from the Iron Man movies and the upcoming screen version of Thor looks like in a lady's wig, a dress and heels.

Inspired by the odd behavior of the little fish that followed around Pixies frontman Black Francis while he went scuba diving in the Caribbean ("Animals were hiding behind the rock/Except for little fish"), the tune has turned into a go-to song for conveying inner turmoil or insanity. "Where Is My Mind?" has also been used in Veronica Mars' "Driver Ed" episode, Criminal Minds, The 4400, HBO's stylish and well-produced promos for its broadcast premiere of The Dark Knight, It's Kind of a Funny Story (which features a piano-only instrumental version by French pianist Maxence Cyrin instead of the original Pixies version) and the full-frontal flasher chase scene in Observe and Report (where the flabby flasher's dick flaps back and forth in vomit-inducing, psyche-scarring slow-motion to the tune of a faithful cover version by City Wolf).

But the most effective use of "Where Is My Mind?" remains the conclusion of Fight Club. The oddly uplifting track will forever be identified with the uplifting sight of every credit card company being blown to smithereens.