Exit through white light: Karl Roy

The way to ecstasy is paved with the perils of rock and roll.   In 1998 I saw P.O.T. at the Amoranto Stadium along with a roster of other rock acts in a concert that would, beset by delays and technical difficulties, last 'til the early morning. The vision of singer Karl Roy urging the mosh pit on with a mix of modern blues and funk is one of my earliest memories of how rock can lead men through the primal and into the light of elation. That music said: you don’t need brains to enjoy this, just hips.   This white light is a trick, a conjuration by the shaman as rock star to cajole the listener into forgetting. And as a piece de resistance, POT’s last song that night was “Puting Ilaw.” Later I would learn that it was from Advent Call, Roy’s previous band. All I knew was that the repetitive chant of “Saan ang langit, kaibigan?” assuaged my teenage angst with enough balm to weather the coming dark days. And now they say the rock star, after years of failing health at the age of 43, is no longer among the quick. Karl Roy passed away early morning on Tuesday (March 13) from complications due to pneumonia. Previous to that, he had been diagnosed with an infected heart valve, requiring him to undergo surgery. A series of strokes thereafter would have been enough to give pause to any musician and think about retirement.     Instead, Roy formed Kapatid. And the original line-up, who had tattooed the name of their band in traditional Baybayin script, gave us a self-titled LP in 2003. Complex and multi-layered as that album was, the death of guitarist Chico Molina presaged the band’s collapse. The other members left one by one until Roy was the only founding member left. He gathered up a new line-up and pushed on with "Luha" in 2006 and an EP in 2009.   Roy, I think, is cut from the old school mold of troubadour. Romance and danger are in the blood of a rock musician, whether he’s singing the blues, urging with life-affirming funk or bringing down the roof with his voice, so full of soul power.    Romance and danger are also the crawling king snake, the red house over yonder, the devil at the crossroads. Perils all of rock and roll. As necessary to the creation of such music as the threat of burning to a firefighter. Through a glamorous veneer it is not seen often, but the early deaths of those who took the Dionysian road to ecstasy is proof of its existence and allure.   What makes an icon I think–and Roy was certainly one, not only for kicking open the doors for Pinoy alternative rock in the 1990s but for soldiering through sickness and pumping honesty back into OPM in the noughties–is a willingness to embrace incandescence, burn though it may. To resist being engulfed in conflagration and clasp it as if it was light, bestowing us with a small spark of that great fire as gifts. We must use it to illuminate our own way.      This is not a piece of news but a long delayed fan letter. Thank you for the music, thank you for your light. — ELR/KG, GMA News   The interment of the remains of Karl Roy will begin on Wednesday (March 14) at the Mount Carmel Church in New Manila, Quezon City.