Pre-JRO Shows...

It is June ... the Rock-Out starts this weekend. Saw a couple of shows
in the past weeks...

1. Rock Rules (with Lounge Piranha, Parousia & Synaps):
Piranha got the best sound amongst all bands and played all original
material, not even their famous britney cover. With each show they get
tighter. Their performances are now becoming crowd performances..with
crowds taking on solos too! Very impressive instrumentals with nice
amounts of didgeridoo parts and guitar feedbackers.
Parousia were kinda tame this time...no Dream Theater...no Symphony
X...no LTE...Jason says they are still re-studying "Sea Of Lies" so will
do more metal and hard rock for the next couple of months. Bad sound for
Parousia this time and the damnrain all over their processors on stage.
But, as usual, very tight performances on "Perfect Strangers", "Whats
going on?" and "No Leaf Clover". Navin had a bad time with his sound
too. His patches came out too muddy.
And then came Synaps (or 'Synapse' as they were called earlier). Synaps
are young, demented and have nailed the "band sound" concept really
well. They play "Nu-Metal", bands such as Korn, System Of A Down,
Slipknot are staple Synaps diet. Ive heard these songs in the pubs
around here and man...Synaps did em all verbatim!! People, please
watch-out for Vijay who pounds drums with Synaps. To sum him up in a
word..."ENERGY"!! He was on stage before anyone else and started
interacting with the Zildjians in shamanic fashion. This went on for
acouple minutes and then they went face first into "Blind" (Korn). After
that, each song was heavier and tighter than the last...man...I went for
Parousia and found another monster!!! And just when everything seemed
perfectly deployed, Satchith (guitar) brings out this beat-up Java (I
think) and smashes it to bits. While many in the crowd dug this
immensely, others started the rant..."Play one solo if you can and smash
that guitar you piece of shit", "Lets see you smashing your B.C.Rich you
bastard", etc, etc.
Then came the Australian band Taxi Ride, the headliner, which I will skip.

2. Life Rocks (with Parikrama):
Some 500 people only for Parikrama this time. Probably because this was
a weekday. Parikrama with a very typical set, with the exception of
"Trooper"(Maiden?!??!!??!?) and "Mama Im Coming Home" (Ozzy). Most of
the performance was homegrown Parikrama. "R&B", "Whiskey Blues" (with
extendedededededededededed solos from the mountain king, Imran the new
found violin genius and tabla extraordinaire Shambhu Nath), a very
heart-felt "But It Rained", "Vaporize", "Superhero" and "Open Skies" (no
vocals, only solos). No "Load Up" (or whatever else you would like to
call it). Some good AC/DC (HTH), Purple (Space Trucking, SOTW), Floyd
("Run Like Hell" was all Mr. Chaudhary! Killer!) and then a surprise...a
Coldplay medley...and a brief version of "Stairway ..." done by Nitin
alone with acoustic...while Mr. Kalra restrung his bass...then an
insanely long drum solo by Rajat very much like the Paice solo in the
California Jam of 79. Post-show in the wing with
Subir/Sonam/Saurabh/Chintan talking about the CD...home.

Hobos@Opus

Past weekend, and again it was time for the Castle Lager, the bacon-wrapped prawns and the live act at the Opus. This time, it was "The Hobos", who were mentioned as "progressive", but in recent time,this term has taken varied meanings, so I was prepared. The Hobos, who are a five-piece band, are from Calcutta. They are a relatively young band, who play between Pink Floyd and Dream Theater. Also, they have a way of mixing words (read Morrison's words) and any other song, which sometimes is very pleasant, and sometimes nauseating. Musically, they are very sloppy as a whole...but individually (and without metronomes!!), they are ok. The bright part is the piano man. Fortunately for him and myself, Opus maintains an upright in the performance area. So this man politely asks Carlton of Opus if he could try some piano. And then he started!! I heard (and identified!) at least 20 different snippets out of "Scenes from a memory" played to perfection! And so Im sitting there, expecting at least two songs from Scenes in the show. Then guitar man shows up...Ibanez in glossy black with the lock-nut/Floyd Rose. Starts playing some of those pieces that one always starts playing as soon as he wears the piece...pretty ok...then went on to play some piece, which by the end of it sounded like a half brother of the "SOTW" solo!! I dont diss people just for shits...but some songs like "SOTW" require a certain extent of originality (I dont like Steve Morse's version of SOTW too)....maybe not entirely, but at least in parts...these are the identifying characteristics of these solos...
Then after about an hour of tinkering around by drummer/guitar-player/pianoman/vox, the bands walked off stage...The soundcheck was supposedly over (amidst all this, Mr. Bassy was nowhere to be seen)...then I spoke with Guitarman and Pianoman...about the GT-6, and how it is a bitch to control on stage, etc...Pianoman announced that
that was his maiden piano experience....man!!!!!! It certainly didnt appear so!!! Pianoman didnt speak more than 3 sentences in English...he is strictly Bongla...or Hindi, for people like me. What he said about bands playing progressive music was, I felt very true. He said, for enjoying a prog song when you are playing live, you need at least some prog listeners in the audience...not that you/your band doesnt enjoy it (they've played those songs so many times, that there may not be an actual visual acknowledgement). There have to be elements in the crowd, who have their, "uhhh!", "yeah!", "awright!", moments, so the band knows they arent goofing up or that they are really making sense. I signed up instantly. He also said that he felt there was a misconception that prog was unbound in any musical way...on the contrary, and in unison we agreed that its got more rules
than other form. Anyways, fast forward another hour and they kicked off with "Highway Star"...neat organ solo...totally modified guitar solo...but ok...then a host of classic rock songs..."Riders on the storm"...kickass performance by all...verbatim piano/guitar. "SOTW"....bad....very bad. "Time"...very nice special effects out of the Triton, very nice guita fills/solos. "Comfortably Numb"...another one of those "never-ending end solo" type performances ....totally neat!! "Black Knight" ... bad. "Wall (Parts 1 and 2)" ok till Mr. Bassy goofed in note and time badly because of the (hands-free) cigarette smoke up his nostril.Two songs by Satriani ... very very very good performances...guitarman's redemption. "Purple Haze" ... gman forgot to lock the nut ... IBZ comes down with what sounded like a beginner's divebomb...but switched to his Java just in time for the solo...but the
damage had already been done! ...and on it went...until someone finally belched "DEETEEE...DEETEE YAA(R)". No suspense here ... sordid mistake!!Erotomania!!??!!?? I had fingers crossed ... "God please let pianoman's cables/levels (wasnt bothered about chops) stay intact" ... Everything went off great!! Not a flub ... not a level problem ... just perfect...only for pianoman!! Arko (guitar) was verbatim till around two minutes fifteenish ... then went off sync with drummer ... who was doing well by himself and Bassy ... who decided to go with pianoman ... who was insulated and used foot for metronome ... thank god this is an
instrumental!! Really didnt need the vox on this!!! Bassy was finally in sync with Arko this time, after spending 3 to 4 seconds deciding whom to follow...D,G or K...it finally ended...and myself and some elements in crowd was supportive as ever ... rightly so ... it takes balls to do this song live.
All through the performance, vox was putting in some Morrison poetry, which was nice sometimes. Then some others and it was over. After speaing with arko and pianoman
briefly, came back home, listened to "Erotomania" and hit the sack. I think the Hobos deserve a 7.5/10.0. Most of these points attributed to keyboards and the fact that "Erotomania" was evenattempted...I have been promised that we will see better "Erotomania" in the future...fingers crossed...this time for entire band!
That was from The Opus ... one thing I did realize after watching so many bands ... Its "easy" for people like me, playing with tribute bands, because there's only a set of techniques you need to do an ok job of the song ... in my case, squeaks, opens and time by Lifeson. But for those who do a variety of bands, like the Hobos, I cant even begin to imagine how difficult it would be!! Not that they use every technique as the originals do (Christy gman, Moksha, is the only exception!!!), but
still...

Jethro Tull

4:45 AM the 3rd of February and I am just about finishing up with the last movie of the night...waiting for time to pass. Had to pick up Aniket, now a total blues-man, from the airport and meet with Amar and then in the evening head out to Unmaad for Jethro. Jethro was not a band that influenced my music, but all that was about to change in parts. I immensely dug "Aqualung", TAAB and "Heavy Horses" ... but apart from these, I never delved. So weeks before this, I thought Id just let the show pass. Thank god I didnt. So after having a brief Antibiotic reunion ... we left for Unmaad, and hit gates at around 6:15 PM and met Mallya after getting tanked some. We walked right up to that barricade that's always put in place, just incase the mob gets excited an all ... And then as always, waited and waited for the show to begin. To add to this, those fhead photographers/reporters from the papers were there firing at will at all of our semi-sozzled faces. And after throwing some cuss around for these pressmen as well as Mr. Demonstealer (what the fuck was he doing there??!!), finally found Thermal on stage and ready to open. Since Ive already written about the Thermal set/gear etc, Im skipping that segment. And then came Jethro Tull!

Ian Andersen looked "Plastic" but this visage was deceptive. He has really aged, but the chops stay intact of course. And the energy!!!! He still maintains all of those antics (facial or otherwise) we saw on film and byte! He is the only Tullman from the original Tull mark. Nobody else was there. No Barre, Giddings or Noyce. But in those places were equally "hapshi" (¥) individuals. I, as always took immediate and huge notice of that kid of a guitar player they call Florian Opahle. The only difference between Mr. Barre and Mr. Opahle (apart from that aura that Mr. Barre creates and carries around) is about 35+ years!! Florian is nineteen. When I was nineteen, playing a squeak was the quest of life! Florian played a Les Paul Studio and the tone people ... Aniket...youll never get that tone anyway else ... please buy Gibson. Small bit I noticed was that when Florian plucks those simple bass-to-treble chords, he uses upstrokes rather than downstrokes, which I found funny. Not that it matters or might matter to him....not sure. Also, he controlled volumes with his pedal rather than knob ... with the passage of time ... I am seeing more and more people doing this...guess they dont make linear pots anymore (?). And then after some of the songs I had never heard before, they came down to Thick as a brick and Aqualung, brilliant guitar solo for Aqualung and (well), great flute for TAAB. Bummer was, no "Hymn 43"!!!! But awesome rendition of "My God" ... especally the intro and the way Florian stepped in ... I cant believe the kind of tone Ian Andersen's electronics achieve!! He plays this guitar (dont know brand/model/spec) that looks more ukulele than guitar ... but man oh man ... that piece sings! About renditions ... all of their songs were renditions in one way or the other ... some in signature some studded with extra/altered solos ... overall less "electric" than the studio counterparts...and ah yes...loaded with antics, mostly coming from Andersen ... I generally like bands that use a bare minimum "rock band" choice of instrument set ... acoustics/electrics, keyboard/piano/organ, drums/perc and bass ... always hated the sax on floyd (what a waste of tape!), but Jethro must be an exception. I dig the flute parts from Tull very much (flute solos are fireflies in Tull songs). After the concert, couple more beers at home, with discussion. Then dinner (friendly neighborhood Imperial) and then the sack at 4:30 in the morning.

¥ : adj, used to describe individuals posessing great talent, synonymous with terms such as "bond", "guru", "king", etc

The Reddy-Fowler Effect

Saturday, January the 21st, 2006…

After a considerably long break from the gigging and moshing (I was told I missed a couple), myself and Jagdish found ourselves at the Opus once again. There was some confusion in my head about the time the show was to open….”Classic Rock band from Hyderabad (no name??)”…were to start at 1 PM…or so I thought…and after that little battle all of us Bangaloreans have on our ways to work and back, after cursing the traffic atleast 650 times, we finally reached an hour late, only to find that the “Classic Rock band from …” were scheduled for the Sunday…one whole day early we were!! So there we were…considering ways and means of killing time till the evening…till the main event…KONARAK REDDY AND DYLAN FOWLER seated and not always acoustic!!! So we headed out..for a biryani…and were back around 5…and then the loooooooooooong wait till 9:30 night!!!! The good part was…we got to witness the prelude to the “Reddy-Fowler effect” … checked out the gear, which is not much … Line 6 amplification and effect processors, Peavey (I think) console…Konarak played both acoustic as well as electric guitars (for the life of me I couldn’t recognize his acoustic and his electric was a Parker in pearl black!!)

Also, there was another confusion …for some reason, up until yesterday, I was under the impression that Konarak was in some way associated with the song “Neele neele ambar par…” (remember the song from “Kalakaar” with the killer acoustic solo??!!) … turns out Konarak didn’t play this, as confirmed by Jagdish.

The crowds lingered in between 7:30 and 9:00 … and finally after that terrible wait, it began at 9:30 PM…As usual, acquiring guitar picks was on the agenda…but not this time….both Konarak and Dylan play finger style (although I did notice the ring style thumb pick Mr. Reddy was using)!! I cannot put this any other way…This duo is acoustic brilliance!! How easily we make “finger style”/“classical” and “orthodox” synonyms!! These guys are far from orthodox…they play classical, flamenco, jazz, which is wrapped by blues and Indian classical…just mesmerizing…my shredder friends…lets go finger style for a bit!!

Any concert I attend, I always make an effort to learn something… at least one lick or chord…yesterday…after about a song and a half…I just moved from learning licks to learning progressions…it was a little simpler!! The licks….what lick….the guy appeared to be playing a chord!!! I had this feeling when I saw Ranjit playing finger style years ago, when I had never seen this style being done live. And then there were lots of antics…Dylan Fowler using his guitar for percussion…either ala slap bass or ala tabla!! Absolutely brilliant!! All that while, crowd went “whooo hooo”, “Oh…that’s it!!”, “Holy Shit!!”, “WTF!!!!”, “huh??!!” … people all over had their beers going flat, cigarettes going untapped, food going cold …

Met Mr.Reddy and Mr.Fowler at the end….speechless…got Konarak’s CD (they are working on their joint effort currently), came back home, wondering what I’m going to blog!!!

There’s nothing more to be discussed .. people next time these folks are in town…please don’t miss…it may not be educational, but I assure you, it will be a truly mesmerizing experience…

PDV at the Palace

That evening, the day Thermal lit up the Opus, the Palace was hosting the final round of Strawberry Fields 2005 and also, Pin Drop Violence as the headliner.

Don’t really want to talk about the final round, except for there were some extremely talented bands from Bangalore and Chennai there…and Demonic Resurrection from Bombay. Sahil Makhija, The Demonstealer (what the fuck is that!!), was amazing at vox but I gotta tell you, they should hire a guitar player….basic flubs don’t go unpunished in the beer city. Good thing is, each band was restricted to 35 minutes, which helped DR save some face. All angst. Sahil finally got borderline pissed off and started saying “I thought Bangalore was a metal place….”…crowd gave a flying piss.

"Junkyard Groove”, killer guitar player, very jovial vox/rhythm guitar player, overall what I considered the best in the lot, eventually won the competition, but they came hair close to throwing it all away….the frontman was really upsetting the judges with his unnecessary rant/commentary/stripteases and the most decorative language in recent history.

Funny thing is “Demonic Resurrection” ended up winning second place!! Probably for being different…rest of the bands were predominantly blues-rock or New Age Metal (this phrase I have been hearing way too many times). Best guitar player, vocals was Junkyard Groove, best keyboards was Mephisto (DR), since he was the only keyboard player for the evening...

Another nice thing was the judges….Praveen David, the Guitar God from “Yello”, Naveen from Parousia…yep…it was a pretty cool panel…

This time I discovered Nizam’s, and their egg beef rolls rock!!!

Pin Drop Violence are very tight, but their choice of genre isn’t consistent with mine…I like Trash, Heavy, even Death…but this Grind core shit is pretty fucked up (once again…people who have a problem with this expression, should GFT or repent on their knees)….I really was looking forward to see this grind core business…but whattabummer…I hate that piss.

Vocalist has an attitude problem…don’t want to sound clichéd…but yes…that is the case. Hadshimaga needs a re-upbringing…but “Domination” (Pantera cover) was ok…some screwups in solo…but since this was not judged….

All and all…nice experience…I did buy “A Darkness Descends”, which is Demonic Resurrection’s first…and it really kicks serious ass…although I really think its NOT Sahil on guitar…someone else….but Mephisto rocked on it…wonderful string arrangement…

Two shows I was supposed to do today, were cancelled, one of our own too…Junkieraman went to Chennai…m**ta k**di ni vaa ingo!!

Thats all folks…for this time…more ups next weekend.

Thermal Opus

Sunday, the 18th of December, and I was up at seven…ready to go at ten…ready to go to Opus, very close to the Palace, where I was to go that evening to watch Pin Drop Violence. I couldn’t really fix one event as “main”…’cause it was Thermal at the Opus!

The Opus is a nice place, great ambience, and unlike Legends Of Rock, very amicable toward live performances. One whole side section of the restaurant was dedicated to the “stage”. Thermal were doing a slow song, Rzhude on voxx, and playing his “digital guitar”…and I really hoped this was the soundcheck!

Minutes later, Bruce Lee et al sat themselves on the biggest table in the house for some eats and a couple of beers.. A signboard behind the table read “the eight days of Christmas”, with TAAQ described as “Alt Rock”, which I found debatable. A crowd of about fifty chillar were spread all over the well decored Opus…Met Rhzude and asked for CDs…seconds later, a lady with a stack of “Jupiter Café” showed up. Now this was Sunday, and getting around without my usual biryani/kebabs really got to me…so got me some chow…12 bar blues playing as Chandy did a lazy strech…

I took the opportunity to check out the gear…same as usual, only this time, Bruce was with his Parker (remember the one he used when TAAQ opened for Purple, April 1, 2000…Ranjit…you were there) and an off-white beauty of a Gibson!!! The round sound on it is etched on my brain! Half high/med, full low drive, and it is the ultimate blues weapon. Marshalls and Peavey spoke for Thermal this time.

Shorty after, TAAQ step out for some smokes and receiving their families!! Bruce has a kid! Didn’t know this.

And then what followed was a study!! I take this opportunity and name Rajeev Rajagopal (percussion) as the best drummer in recent memory that I have seen! From bare snare to extremely timely chimes, Rajeev’s got it all…and a zillion techniques I have never seen before…to name a few “one stroke, two clicks on snare, cymbal (any), frame, and any piece of drum found on his extremely elaborate kit…

Bruce….well what can I say, flamboyant!! This time…lots of classical style finger plucking…and lots of slide guitar too…amazing!! Rhzude and Chandy…apt, and surprisingly in a very experimental mood!!

The highlight of the performance was one Mr. David Pascal, an amazingly talented vocalist, who sang through most of Jupiter Café.

Setlist:
- Close To Heaven
- Falling Down (with crazy slide guitar and RR nuances)
- Cat Stevens’ “Moon Shadow”
- Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”
- Sunset Man (with a crazy alternate time signature)
- Sorry for Me
- Drumk
- Look at Me
- The Police’s “Roxanne”


- Familiar opening?? BRIGADE STREET!!! Crazy!!


- Wishing For Magic
- “Thermalized” Beatles’ “Day Tripper”…with what Bruce referred to as “Mallu rhythm”, seven count madness!!!
- Fly
- Holy Joe’s
- Oasis “Wonderwall”…TAAQ did those hermos a favor
(people who have a problem with this should understand, given that these are the same ffaces who called the Beatles their tits)




- Nifty fifth-fret capo was an instrumental
- Lemonade
- Band The World!!!
- Chianese Item!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- The Steal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Jupiter Café

I think I got it right J .
Congratulated TAAQ, out at 5:00. Off to the Palace!!

Meet The MOB

The Ministry Of Blues, Bangalore's blues-rock band, did a gig at the Legends Of Rock...this picture was taken there....

Left to right:

Sarat Sidhan:
He started playing when he was twenty, and holds a distinction from the Royal College of Music, London. He took his classes at the Bangalore School of Music. His biggest influence is Geddy. He bangs the Bass for the Ministry.


Deepak "DK" Kesavan:
DK started at age seventeen, and was influenced by Terry Bozzio, Neil Peart and Billy Cobham...tried playing like them...ended up developing a distinctive style of his own. From tabletops and buckets to now, DK, according to me, is a study in percussion.

Rauf:
Started playing when he was ten, Rauf improvises on anyting he hears (i saw him improvising on a table as he watched videos at LOR!!). His biggest influence is Jon Lord, and he is diabolical with piano and organ patches on his Korg N 364 workstation.

Philipe Haydon:
Guitar extraordinaire, Philipe started playing twenty five chillar years earlier, whe his dad purchased a German classical guitar for him off a hippie at INR 10 (where's that hippie!!!!!!!!)...Studied under his brother Mark and later on played with bands "Hammersnith" and "Aftermath", where he met DK, and together they started the MOB.

People...Bangalore is rapidly falling a prey to MOB activities...eat your greens, take your pills and prepare yourselves for the next MOB concert!!!!