Livewire

I missed Bruteforce, the first band to play in the livewire competition. I saw them live atleast a couple of times earlier and loved some of their covers but never enjoyed their original compositions all that much. Hypnosis was amazing. It was really nice to see good, solid rock and roll (meaning Hendrix) in the livewire finals. The band's originals were very good too. If my memory serves me right, one of them was called Walk Away and it rocked. This was the number one band of the night for me which my made my visit to the open air theater worth it. Next up were Skincold, a nu-metal act, who were playing in livewire finals for the second time. I think they were called off stage before their time was up, as is generally the case with most rock shows around here. The band played two originals and was tight but not brilliant. The vocalist could have been better.

The pro bands were to play next. Demonic Resurrection played three of their most popular songs in the order Darkness Descends, Frozen Portrait and Apocalyptic Dawn. The drummer was all over the place. JP no longer plays drums for the band if you did not know. Sahil blabbered something about this guy, Vikram, who flew all the way from some place to play with them that night. Sahil's vocals were extremely bad in my opinion. Although I really love the band, I thought this was one of their no-so-good gigs I attended until now. Themclones came next and played a few pointless originals and some bad covers including the sacred RATM tracks Freedom and Killing in the name of. The singer can't sing for nuts and on top of that he tried acting really "pro" by throwing water on the crowd and using profanities on stage. The unoriginal swashbuckling heroes of Indian rock, Parikrama were up next. They were accompanied by a violinist and a percussionist this time. They belted out some regurgitated bullshit to please the crowd which was so eager to listen to their messed up Led Zeppelin, Floyd, Coldplay and AC DC covers. I wish they stopped playing music for the sake of music. I left the auditorium after their second song, but fell prey to their aural crap while I was trying to eat something at a nearby canteen. Overall, a very average Livewire yet again from the Mood Indigo team.

Don Caballero

is one of my new favourites. Their second album "Don Caballero 2" is essential for anyone who calls themselves a math rock/metal fan. They are an extremely unique instrumental band with a brilliant drummer in the form of Damon Che. I wouldn't suggest their first album "For Respect" to a newbie, simply because the songs are much less ass kicking compared to "2".

I will remember Shakti

I was fortunate to see Remember Shakti live in Bombay a couple of days back. Needless to say, the show was exceptional. The line up consisted of John Mclaughlin (guitars), Zakir Hussain (Tabla,Drums), Mandolin Shrinivas, V. Selvaganesh (kanjira, ghatam, mridangam) and Shankar Mahadevan (vocals). Its an unforgettable experience.

Children Playing

.. is the name of my new band. We are me on bass, Sajid on guitars, Lionel on Drums/Tabla and Atul on vocals/harmonica. We play freeform unstructured music and have almost finished composing three songs. You can catch us playing in the Livewire competition this month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2S_HAQP390
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3xDzIj2FiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBAmvaNX3U8

Hella

I've been wanting to write about Hella for a while now. I discovered the band a couple of months back and I have run through whatever albums of theirs I could get hold of. They are primarily a two member jam-band with Spencer Seim on the guitars and Zach Hill on the drums, who are both infact multi-instrumentalists. I do not know how to start describing the band. Words like "avant-garde" and "genius" are not sufficient to describe these gentlemen, who have been wreaking havoc in my life! They started experimenting with vocals and samples in their later albums and got even weirder! I wish I had the technical knowledge to exactly describe the guitarist's techniques and sounds. The drummer is a god of kick drum and cymbals. Their most recent double release "Churches Gone Wild/Chirping Wild" has a lot of Nintendo influenced music, so all you gamers will love it. The music is still very melodic in its own way. Melody gets redefined when one talks about bands like these. Ghost Dance, Post-Ivy League Depression, Biblical Violence and Famnail are some of the most disturbing songs I've ever heard. Their creativity scares me!

Inspired by Hella, I started searching for other similar bands and found quite a few actually. These guys are themselves playing in numerous side-projects, with other equally mad musicians. I'm dropping a few names to give you an idea.. Mike Patton, Les Claypool, Chino Moreno etc. The Advantage is a band in which Spencer Seim plays the drums. All their songs are covers of classic 8-bit Nintendo music! (remember Contra, Batman etc..?) They play these songs to deadly perfection. I've listened to their 2006 release Elf-Titled and am trying to get hold of their earlier album in which they covered Mario tunes! An other bands you have to check out is The Ladies, an other two member project in which Zach Hill plays drums. 

The Snake Trap

is a really cool instrumental rock band. The name describes their long convoluting, extremely pumping songs perfectly! I can't help but smile at their whacky and maybe silly song titles like "Redheaded Manual Festival", "Four Sores And Seven Beers Ago" (parts I, II and III) and "Untitled". Though I'd rather not label them as this genre or that, I'd suggest this band to people who are into post-rock/stoner-rock, especially bands like Pelican and Isis and to anyone who likes long pointless jams. You'd do good to check them out. I can't find even one decent review of their 2006 album "At Home in a Hostile World". They don't even seem to have a homepage! How lazy can a band get? So listen to these guys and spread the word. Their songs also have a loaded bass sound which can crush you to pulp, so go get hold of the bloody album.

Jim Morrison's biography by Stephen Davis. Richard Linklater's "Waking Life". A Perfect Circle and Rush.