Approach was simple. Select scale – select time signature -> program drums, ->bass -> rhythm guitar. That’s what I primarily did. Out of 3, everyone unanimously chose the third sample. Lyrics was ready by the next day. We tried singing with the sample and by the next day we recorded using the same device, the iRig and a dynamic mic connected to it. The date of trip was so close so it was unthinkable, the idea of going to a studio even though we wanted to record at least the vocals in studio and mix it with the rest. After recording vocals of both Rashmi and shiny mixing was the most tedious job as we didn’t do the recording properly at first place and the only effects to be added is what is available on a guitar amp in garage band so played with reverb and equalizer. By that time I had also added a solo with relatively simple solo and rhythm portions.

We played it during our trip to munnar and the response was in fact good. Check out!

After some time got a call from Arjun which gave me a perfect opportunity and yes, its 8.30 AM we started from Kazhakkuttom to Trivandrum. As it was the end of the month, the obvious scenario. Asked my roommate Rakesh to transfer some bucks to my account at the expense of a parcel for him, Extra premium petrol for Rs. 200 to ensure smooth journey. It wasn’t fun riding through the wet streets dodging every car that lavishly overtakes through the wrong side and not to mention the risky overtakes with the middle fingers up for the dumb-ass drivers who think they own the road! When we got there the sight left me spell bound. WTF? Is this a frigging movie hall? KFC is literally “house-full”! People pouring in at a higher rate than the ones getting out even at 10 PM in a city where there’s no such thing called night life!

“No options! Lets dig in!” Arjun somehow managed to get in and so did I. About five counters active where each one having 30-40 people in queue.  ”You stand in the queue! I’ll find some place to sit and eat!” I had to admit because he’s having better communication skill and such a thing is more useful blocking a table than simply standing patiently! About half an hour in queue and I’m nearly 10 desperate souls away from giving my order?!  Suddenly this one fat guy with that classic innocent expression on his face pushed me lightly with his meaty shoulders and there you are! He’s now in-front of me. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him as I was totally clueless on what’s happening. Innocence vs clueless-ness who’s gonna win? Yep! You guessed it right. His next sentence shocked me! “Sorry! Its an emergency!” A wink after that sentence and I could see the innocent expression is no longer there on his face. When I was about to say “Get the heck out!” I saw a small kid along with him, there was no time to think as the long he stays there the more it becomes his privilege. Finally I let him stay there thinking of that little guy! “Uncle can U order Ice creams too?” WTF? He’s not the fatty’s son! Well, nice and pissed off!  This guy never ended it there. He made lot of problems there at the counter cancelling what he ordered after its given, spilling it all over there and asking for replacement.

Ok, Its over! Now its only 4 people away! Guess what? It happened again! Another one this time a skinny not-so old but slightly grey one with the same innocent-face trying to push in slightly!  ”Not this time!” I stopped him! “Sir, the queue ends there” I showed him the end of queue and to my surprise, he politely agreed, said thanks and went back! Damn! I could’ve done that earlier!? F**king emergency!

So in some unfortunate circumstance if you have agreed to play a show, What are the things that are awaiting you? This blog is intended to give you an insight to that rather than a useless advice to those poor souls.

The crowd

5-6% metal heads, 15% general music lovers, 40% dunno-whats-going-on-im-leavin kind of people and rest would account to faint hearted-troublesome-attention seekers (pretty weird combination isn’t it?) This is what the crowd is. You can see very little people at the front head-banging perhaps. They will sing along. The second category will sit and listen to you but they are less likely of enjoying it. They will listen to you anyway. The third group will show the signs of discomfort from the moment you start to play something hard and will eventually be out of the venue if you perform more than 5-6 songs. They can enjoy only filmi/pop. They listen to only vocals and it should be clean. Distortion on guitars and heavy drumbeats will piss them off. Very sensitive group of people probably the result of brain dead bollywood or stupid TV serials. The last category can be a menance. They may be drunk and will hurl abuses at you loudly, show antics that even Sreesanth wouldn’t dare to do.

It is not entirely on the crowd’s fault though. The thing is, you got the wrong crowd. Techopark do have a lot of rock fans. But why the heck they aren’t at the venue? How come these filmi dumasses (sorry, but in the view of most metalheads, you are!) are present at a rock concert?

The organizers

Be it any show our organizers are very known for their ironic know-it-all attitude. Following ways, the organizers can make you go nuts!

1. Sound check without sound.

This is something that is happened with chaos when they came to Technopark. The organizer had askedthem to do  sound check until the sound guys arrive! You can read an excellent article by Praveen Stoneage: “When Chaos reigned at Technopark!”. Also, ensure that everything stays there as it is after the sound check. You can read read my account on Avial at Natana. There is an incident mentioned about how Avial’s sound check got affected!

2. Lack of equipment.

I request the concerned people who are likely to do this at technopark to read this eHow article on how to set up the stage for a rock concert There is no rocket science involved. The only thing you do at-least is to show some common sense. ASK the band what they need. Provide what they need. Simple! By the way in Technopark, if you get 2-3 monitor speakers, consider yourselves lucky. Forget the drummer! Here, sound system will be setup keeping a pop singer who sings on karaoke in mind. So ensure everything is setup your way before playing.

3. Getting Sandwiched

Now, this is one thing you must never let happen. If you want to play rock it will be better if there are only rock fans listening to you. In Technopark a rock concert will mostly be followed by a “ganamela” or a “filmi” concert by some pop star(?). Chaos was a victim where a ganamela was followed by their concert. The lead vocalist of Bennett and the band who sounded like Bon Scott of AC/DC did suffer an abrupt end  as the crowd was expecting Bollywood singer Vijay Prakash’s concert which followed! You know what? Size doesn’t matter!

4. Is that what you call music?

Even-though you got raped for performing what you love, the organizers are not gonna show you any mercy. They will judge you like in reality shows and points out lot of mistakes(???) They can even give advice on the playing techniques of your lead guitarist. Beware!

6. Ohh! please stop! we cannot handle the crowd anymore!

This will be a humiliating experience. The organizers asking you to stop the show. If someone didn’t like your performance, they can walk away. If the organizers can’t control some of that 4th category people I told earlier, Why are they conducting such a show at first place?

This blog is not intended to humiliate anybody. I don’t know any of the organizers, performers personally. So, if this post hurt your sentiments, frankly my dears, I don’t give a rat’s ass!

It’s these cards and the movies and the pop songs, they’re to blame for all lies and the heartache, everything. – 500 Days of Summer

And the latest information that can be obtained is all about this website: http://baijudharmajan.in. You can hear a mind blowing montage of his upcoming album: “The Crossover” when you take that website. Baiju sir is working with Cochym a management / record label based in London, UK and it seems like that website is hosted by them. Well, beautiful background image you see in the website is now the lock screen image of my office Workstation!

Go to this expressbuzz article and read the full story on the album. There will be tracks called “Cyber Reptile”, “Philia”; There is this one bit in the montage perhaps in the same raga as “maha ganapathim” keerthana which was really captivating and the same will have a great expectation from my side.

All the very best Baiju Sir! Respect!

I recently saw a picture sponsored by India against corruption on Facebook that is getting a lot of likes and shares and is spreading across in a viral manner. Its nothing but what I had come across wiki and some forums long ago. It was unfortunately a hoax that is being spread about the Rule 49-O in The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961. The poster shows some people standing with their voter ID cards saying “We were disappointed, but we didn’t stay home!”. The poster apparently suggests doing 49-O in-order to give a strong message to political parties that one vote for nobody. Now, look at the quotes below.

The apparent purpose of this section is to prevent the election fraud or the misuse of votes.

A hoax has been circulating which claims that if the ’49-O’ votes more than those of the winning candidate, then that poll will be canceled and will have to be re-polled. Furthermore, it claims that the contestants will be banned and they cannot contest the re-polling for their lifetime. This is false and has no basis whatsoever.

Yes, it is from Wikipedia. So, what strong message are you planning to give to the political parties? Using 49-O is little better than sitting in your home not voting. It conveys only one message. You are not interested in democracy! If you don’t vote, you are not participating in democracy and hence you allow inappropriate leaders to serve you. Then comes the self-righteous good-for-nothing statement called “They are all corrupt, there is no point in voting!”. Seriously? I don’t want to say that there are perfect leaders to vote for. But there is something that people need to do for democracy to work. They need to select the best leader that they think would be appropriate even though that is from a bad lot irrespective of flag color. If you think about it you can understand that more than any gimmicks this is the strongest statement one could give and in the long run we will have better leaders.

Now, the story doesn’t end here. For all those people who say the leaders are corrupt, have you ever managed to ask that to yourself? If your answer is no, you must go through this interesting blog by vadakkus to know how are we corrupt and what went wrong in the anti-corruption movement. So, a plea to those pure souls: in this sorry state of affairs, why don’t you show an example to all those corrupt ones by contesting in election, winning and having a corruption-free political career? Not interested?

The very purpose of an election is that the representatives should be chosen by the people. Encouraging people not to express their preferred candidate goes against the intended purpose.

Also read: India’s Middle Class Revolutionaries

Jhanu on guitar, Fadal on vocals, Kaushik on bass and Vineet on drums. So they are a 4 piece band. No idea on how they manage to play songs like country liquor live without a rhythm guitarist.There are less of such face-melting solos in those two songs. Also in ‘way back home’, we can hear that there’s only bass backing while playing lead. So probably Jhanu shifts between rhythm and lead. ‘zaara’ has little Indian folk in it but awesome stuff on acoustic guitar and bass.

You can download all their songs from their reverbnation profile.

Arjun and me met at Technopark when he saw me carrying a guitar with me. We got acquainted, jammed and became good friends. Needless to say he is an awesome guitarist, he mostly plays metal and some awesome acoustic stuff too. As I was studying classical guitar. I couldn’t resist but learn how to play this song from him.

Last week his cousin Sanchay had come to his place. He is a good vocalist trained in carnatic music. So we recorded this cover with me and Arjun on guitars, Sanchay on Vocals.  Here is the video, its our first such attempt. Hope everyone likes it.

The band says:

Nothing is true like Music and nothing is mightier than Words, they mate inside heart with much of passion and there comes the wonder of ROXIDE. It may change something in his grace, that couldn’t be changed by a thousand Rally! Listen, with all you have inside and feel the great love for you. Hold hands together to make a difference. The Band is here to Serve you with all we have inside. Let the Love flow from hearts to hearts….

Members

Vocals & Rythm: Aldrine
Lead Guitar: Mithun
Bass Guitar: Joachim
Drums: Deepak
Keys: Shine

Must Listen Track

That’s “Kaalam” and here is the video:

About the video, the kids rocked! But guys, do you think that you’re better actors than them? Kept it simple and humble. Thumbs up for that!

Links

http://roxidekochi.yolasite.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/roxide
https://www.facebook.com/ROXIDEINDIA

I live in the western part of Thrissur district, Kerala. My blog has been carrying a badge you can see on the left called “Re-Build Mullaperiyar Dam” for nearly two years. When I thought about putting this up in a blog, I never knew even the place I and my family resides is also under threat. The reason why I put it up was like… hmm well, I don’t know, but it definitely wasn’t for testing the WordPress text widget.

Now a days, I can feel that things have changed. The recent tremors and the predictions for the coming ones are making us more aware and worried. A protest that has been going on in Mullaperiyar area demanding a new dam has passed 2000 days. People in social networks also trying their part to get the attention of national media. A few celebrities like director Ashique Abu, actress Rima Kallingal, rock band Avial also came forward for this cause. It should be noted that none of these protests are against Tamilnadu or Tamilians, but for one of the fundamental rights given by the Indian constitution: “the right to live”.

Here from what I could understand, the main problem is the worry over the updates in cost of lease if a new dam is to be constructed. If it is to be constructed my Tamilnadu, you can get rid of that, but will have to spend money for dam construction and hence not interested in that. Fine, no offense! Now, When Kerala build a new dam, even a committee from Tamilnadu cannot fix a lease agreement as absurd as the previous one and everyone is aware of that. So its not basically about Tamilnadu being denied of water, but a fear of having to pay more than current value when a new dam is constructed.

What if Kerala is to agree on a similar lease agreement for the new dam? Will you allow us to build it? How much time does it take to build a new one? I don’t think a new dam can be built by keeping the water level like that in the old one. So during the period of constuction, Tamilnadu may lose a portion of water which it might get. But TN government must understand the fear of 3 million people living downstream. The supreme court’s verdict can take time. It might be difficult to get a clear technical statement on how secure the dam is. But nature has its own ways. It won’t do any paper work or consult any of these technical or legal experts before its action. Even if the chance of a crisis is 1%, that is a strong reason to worry. I hope you can understand our situation by reading this together with the risk of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant you face and I want to let you know that same is our sentiments regarding Mullaperiyar.

Tamilnadu can argue in the court that its taking measures for strengthening the dam by doing some cosmetics, demand stays and stretch the whole thing a lot further. But remember that if you are milking a cow when it is sick, you are killing it. Take all our water, but find some alternatives until we finish the new dam. After that, its all yours. Do us a favor and help save lives of both of us.

Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS) – The printout in standard specified Performa containing reservation particulars, and instructions for use which can be used by the passenger along with the relevant authorized Identification, as travel authority for performing the journey.

Virtual Reservation Message (VRM) – A screen-shot of the e-ticket displayed through laptops/palmtops/ Mobile phone is referred as Virtual Reservation Message (VRM).

ERS/VRM along with any one of the eight prescribed ID proofs in original and the indication of the passenger(s)’ name(s) in the Reservation Chart will authorize the passenger to travel.

VRM combined with valid photo-id in original will be treated as an instrument on par with the ERS.

ERS/VRM along with one of the eight prescribed proofs of identity in original will also authorize the passenger to enter the platform on the day of journey and he/she will not be required to purchase platform ticket. ERS/VRM along with original id proof will be required to be produced on demand of Ticket Checking Staff on the platform.

Reference : Railway Board Letter No.2008/TG-I/10/P/SMS dated 20.07.2011

So, they are calling the new thing VRM: Virtual Reservation Message as opposed to ERS: Electronic(irony?) Reservation Slip. It says,”Carry your ticket in electronic mode using mobile, laptop, ipad”. As they used 3 words, lets split the scenario to 3 scenarios.

Mobile

Most cellphones in India may not be having “proper” internet facilities ( minimum of 3G is required for irctc.co.in to load.). But most might be having a facility to display an image and a data cable. so they take a screenshot from somewhere and copy it to their cell. Here the best case is an iPhone or equivalent where we can use the touch screen to zoom it. But majority of phones need to do terrible stuff to get it zoomed if the TTE (travelling ticket examiner) requires you to. The following might happen most likely in this case.

Passenger taking a cellphone from his pocket and says: “Here is the ticket”
TTE: “Where? I cant see a thing.”

Laptop

There is an image that comes to my mind when I think about flipping opening my laptop while trying to get up from the upper birth of a sleeper when the TTE wakes me up.

It would be nice if traffic penalties are as simple as this (?)

For facts about the photo, see: The Case of a Dumb Email Forward

Hope that says it all.

iPad

This might work, as it can display a ticket fully and somewhat easy to carry. But how many people have it? Personally, as I have a laptop and an iPod Touch, I don’t have a use for something intermediate and I’m not going to buy it for sake of carrying VRMs.

A Humble Suggestion

Trees can be saved better. Think about why are we taking an ERS. What information is getting verified there? Probably the PNR number. One cannot argue that the irctc account in which the ticket is booked is verified against the ID Proof. According to IRCTC policy, Any one of the passenger can show ID proof. So its about the PNR number. If feasible it would be nice if a passenger is allowed to carry the PNR number ( any form say as an SMS draft, note etc) and the ID proof, which simplifies verification like never before.

Verdict

This is a good “attempt” from IRCTC and should be appreciated. But as a final verdict, I should say, “Try this at your own risk!” You can satisfy the TTE in train. But an RPF personnel or a cop at a train station may not be aware of this and he might demand ticket in hard copy and if you don’t have it, there is a great chance of unnecessary trouble.