Saturday, June 03, 2006

Wannabes!!



I went for a show yesterday. Some stupid show that featured a band from another country that I'd never heard of before or some crap like that. What a bummer of a show. First, I didn't want to go but was made to go after some EB [read: emotional blackmail for the uninitiated]. Second, there was only one cool band that was going to get to play for 20 minutes and that was the ONLY saving grace, except maybe for the samosas.

I reached there just when the first band was getting off stage. Not much talent in them. Thought they were ok ok types. Good drummer. Nice skills he's got there. Made the music from the band sound much better, like my drummer friend pointed out to me. Next was the band that I had gone there to watch and they rocked as usual. Started off with Perfect Strangers. Almost covered it to the nail. Thought the guitar was a bit of a let down, but all in all, you cant blame them for a near perfect show. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Then came on this band which I didn't quite understand. Now right from the spelling of their name to their playing skills, I thought this band was pseudo from the word go, pleasing all those boys and girls who had turned up in a multitude of very colorful t-shirts and savrovski laden jeans. 90% of whom were northy I am sure. We Bangalore folk like to go to a rock show dressed appropriately. Not turn it into a disco and break into song and dance at the given opportunity. Which mind you, the band did as well.

Now, I have nothing against the band personally, but the way they acted on stage was just so totally screwed up. I mean the lead vocalist is a good guy. Brilliant vocals too. Think he does a mighty impressive job with another local band here in Bangalore. But with what he did on stage yesterday, my image of the dude has completely changed. I am guessing its the same case of "The band bogged him down". I couldn't care less. Hopping around like your from one of them KorN bands just don't bake my cookie for me. I am sure that wasn't the intent either, so lets leave him out of the equation.

They tried to cover some songs. They failed. I hated their rendition of almost all the covers they did and one of their own compositions had just 6 chord changes in all and sounded like an ad jingle you'd hear on Radio City. Now I am no technical kind of guy when it comes to music. I'll listen to anything that sounds good. But this band didn't. Sure they got a whole bunch of them to throw their hands up in the air and yell "Oh Oh Oh" and shit, but lets have them rave about these guys on their blogs.

What totally made me loose it though is when I saw that drummer boy fellow stand up and pretend to be Portnoy. He even had a scarf around his head which I am sure he'll tell you is a BANDANA. Anyways, its not. Its a scarf. So everytime he's done playing one of his 4 x 4's, he'll stand up, stick his tongue out like Portnoy used to and roll his sticks for a while. Sure man, do all that shit if you have the skills to match. Why only run half the race no? Why not go all the way and play like him too? Seriously, this guy lacked any skill at all. Big guy, tall dude too. Belted the crap out of them poor animal skins and just made a lot of noise. No music. They finished their set and all and just then, the MOST AMAZING THING IN THE WORLD HAPPENED. The dumb ass rhythm guitarist unplugged his guitar, came to the center of ramp and destroyed that instrument man.

Lets take another close look at that now, shall we? Assuming that he broke the guitar he was using on stage, it was a nice piece. Made for a good sound too. Assuming that it'd cost anywhere between him selling his teeth to his kidney, its fair to say that someone from his family purchased it for him. And he goes and does that to his instrument? I mean really man, you aint in no trance or some shit. Your not like tripping and smoking good. And even if you were, it wouldn't justify what you did to your instrument. That just goes to show how immature you really are. If any one of us were to ask him why he did what he did, I am sure he'd have no explanation. Fair enough to say that he doesn't owe us one, but then again, its a guitar. Its not meant to be broken. Sure, when you join Nirvana, make a couple of a million yourself playing your fingers off to some grunge music, then feel free to break your old ones (which btw I still think is very very lame and even hate The Who for doing it) But your not no?

The truth of the matter is that your here in Bangalore. Not making music that sells. Not making enough money off music to put food in your mouth and not running your life around music. So don't do shit like that to your instrument man. Take it home. Keep it in that box. Give it to your kid. He'll probably make something of it that you never did.

Like my friend rightly pointed out just a minute back, no musician would want to destroy his instrument. But then again, we never said the guy who did just that yesterday was one in the first place.

VH1 on the other hand did some kickass video sequences that looped on the mammoth 4+1 projectors that they'd setup. Good sound. Good company. Crappy music. Pfft, I need to get out of the country and watch myself a Dave Matthew's concert.

8 comments:

Revati Upadhya said...

aah 'taxiride' was it??? i got stopped 3 times on brigade rd, with these vh1 people begging me to take passes that were evidently free, or so they wouldnt stop telling me. so the concert featured local bands also?? didnt it rain?!

Dr. Pissed said...

yeah it did.
But that didnt piss me off. I didnt even stay for that aussy band.
Those last guys did. Yuck!

Jax said...

I missed the vh1 show. Who the fuck are Taxiride anyway?

You should've seen yesterday's Sunday jam man. All trash metal bands sounding really really pissed off!

Anonymous said...

@'haracry'(i dunno how u could make fun of "Dr.Pissed" with a name like that, really!): im sure you are the drummer from that loser band. or his gay partner who stood right in front jumping along with the other northie F@#$%^&. I suggest that u use your time to practice with those sticks instead. Then may be someday you'll stop getting such 'bad' reviews for your show.

Anonymous said...

Thuu onlyy. sad ba. how can they burn a guitar. i had to work my ass off three months and bought one. cling onto it like my air support. bastards only. chee. hope his parents find out and burn him alive by lighting his pubes off. probly his so immature that he probly wont have pubes. trusting that am the bald one, let them burn his hair. i will give petrol if they want. got it cheap from pondi. so will burn them off.

@haracry: shut ur pie hole northie. u dont give ur rubbish music gyan here. i can probly pitch the fact that myself, pissy boi and a few others would have been to rock shows during the time u probly wet ur pants in public. i guess u still do. u still stick to a genre that we grew up from eons ago. so stfu about music. i could talk about enuff music to make u eat ur shoe. lamer.

Anonymous said...

Ok first of all, I read this whole diatribe like three times. For the life of me, I can't figure what point this Haracry character is trying to make, other than a fairly obvious character assault. And he hasn't disputed anything Dr. Pissed said, except to state that he doesn't know much about music. How on earth did he become an authority on that for crying out loud? Does he know Doctor Pissed personally? If so, why the alias?

And who is to say who knows more about music and which sources are more valid than some others? I mean, wtf, practically EVERYONE in India gets their music dope from listening to bands and reading off the Net. Like we all get to go for live concerts! (unless Haracry is some rich upper class twit) Unless Haracry knows all these people personally AND can also prove that his own personal knowledge of music is far superior, how on earth can he question Doctor Pissed's musical knowledge, when he was merely expressing a PERSONAL opinion that too...

But frankly, it sounds like Haracry is some form of bitter 'Chief Groupie' or as Sutz said, a member of the band. I may not even listen to Dream Theater or read crap off the Net or associate with 'musician loser friends' but I know for sure that the drummer of the aforesaid band was freaking drumming off time. Sorta over excited and went faster than the lead and rhythm guitarist who couldn't keep up. And as for the lead vocalist prancing around on stage, hey, that's highly subjective. To each his own. And frankly, I've seen the same band perform wayyy better even in their more amateur days. What the fuck happened to them! The lead guitarist was absolutely dead with no stage presence. What happened to all them (NON-DESTRUCTIVE) stunts like playing with the tongue and all that he used to do. All that used to be suepr cool.

And I mean, the breaking the guitar thing wasn't cool for a concert of this level by an amateur or semi-pro band or whatever the fuck. Donate the guitar to an orphanage or something considering this is a third world country where instruments don't come cheap and easy like they perhaps did for The Who and Jimi Hendrix...bahh!

dee iyer said...

kanna! so much anger!

i love dave mathews too!
im back to blogspot.
and my voice is back too

Gunds said...

Dude.. Nice post, but just to let you know, Nirvana's most songs have just 2 or 3 chord changes and yet take you outta this world. Remember "Something in the way" by Nirvana. That song has just two Chords - "C" and "Em"(like a lot more of thier songs) !!!!

So it doesnt matter how many chord changes a song has, but I have to agree that many of today's Blore bands are pretty Fucked up(read as most bands at Freedom jam).