I’m over it, I tell you!

My LCD monitor crapped on me yesterday. Today, I took it to service. They told me it could take days. In the afternoon, they call me back and say that there was a power issue and they had fixed it. The downside, I am 2K down. Yet, in the middle of all this, I go ahead an buy this beauty – the Tech 21 Sansamp VT Bass Deluxe!

Finally, I have some balls. For the past two years, I have been chickening out on investing on something. Now, I have turned it around. :) I have my monitor back and have the bass processor pedal in the market!

Shor Bazaar, Cirkles, Overhung, Bad Influence, and Ideat Savant – you guys are in for a treat!

Dave Grohl - an inspiration

Tonight, on my way back home from work, I read a very inspiring article on the life of Dave Grohl, who begin his musical career with Nirvana, not chasing fame and money, and who ended getting all that and more with his present band Foo Fighters. All I can say it is a very worthy read. Here is the link.

http://www.slate.com/id/2290837/

This article has given me some inspiration to get my own music recorded at a decent studio.

More Music Than Music

Things are really going well with my music life.

• My solo project Ideat Savant has taken off well with the three performances last month. I’m writing songs regualarly and I’m on the verge of setting myself up a decent recording setup at home.
• Cirkles is playing shows regularly.
• Shor Bazaar has disassociated with the manager that we were working with (because of differences) and are once again independent. We kicked off our independence with the gig at the QAM week celebrations at the Carter Road amphitheater. We are working with a couple of drummers and things look good. There is another gig coming up for us on the 13^th of February at Bandra Fort. We are playing with Ehsaas.
• Bad Influence, despite not having gotten on the gig scene yet, is shaping up well. I’m recording bass for songs in Zomb’s private project (erstwhile Zomb and the Agenda).
• Pralay—well I’m not quite sure what’s happening with them, but still…
• On top of all this, I have been requested to play bass for my friends’ superband Overhung. We had a first rehearsal tonight and I thought things went well. I hope to have more shows with Overhung in the coming months.

This is a lot of music and I’m enjoying every minute of it. Wish me more luck than ever to manage my social and official life with all these six projects!

Queer Gear for the Straight Ear at the Carter Road Amphitheater

Yesterday’s ‘Queer Gear for the Straight Ear’ event as part of the Queer Azaadi week celebrations was a grand success! For the first time ever, I performed with three separate bands on the same stage (Shor Bazaar, Cirkles, and Ideat Savant). The crowd was about 150 strong at best but was supporting all the acts who performed (including MH04, Alisah Batth & Alisha Pais, and Amar (Sax) and ??? (xylophone)).

Shor Bazaar performed ‘Rasili’, ‘School’, ‘Savita Bhabhi’, ‘Nikamma’, and ‘Pagli Ladki. We got a great response for ‘School’ and ‘Savita Bhabhi’. Ideat Savant performed ‘The Rainbow Song’, ‘Living Your Dream’, ‘What I Have Lost’ and ‘The Prayer Inside This Song.’ We didn’t get much crowd response, probably because the crowd had thinned out and we were playing originals. Cirkles played ‘I Want To Break Free’ and ‘I Will Survive’ to a 30-strong cheering group of supporters!

But the highlight of the evening was the fantastic performance by Alisha Batth and Alish Pais! Wow! I can’t describe how beautiful, vibrant, and energetic they sounded! Notable covers they performed were ‘I Alone’ bye Live and ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen.

This event got covered the Hindustan Times. They story, which can be found here and here, quoted the chorus of ‘The Rainbow Song’. This is such a proud moment in my life – when my lyric got published in a national newspaper.

All in all, a super success!

Thursday's gig

In two days, I will be making my debut as a singer/songwriter with a five-song of Ideat Savant (http://myspace.com/ideatsavant) set at the QAM Pride-related event in Carter Road amphitheater. The details of the event can be found at this link. Alongside, both Shor Bazaar (Noise Market) and Cirkles (Shoonyas) will be playing sets. So, it is a very special event for me, where three of my projects perform at the same stage. Apart from us, Alisha Batth & Alisha Pais and the band MH04 will be performing.

The rehearsals have gone pretty well. I hope that the event will be grand success. Wish me luck!

FaceBook event page
http://queeerazaadi.wordpress.com

A Friday To Remember (part 2)

(coninued...)

We got back on stage and played a short acoustic set. After that, we invited our friends and a talented bunch of musicians to perform a few songs. They invited our drummer to play with them for four songs and invited me to play drums for the fifth song. I started the song slow and I gave a shoddy performance behind the kit. But it was all mean in fun and I didn't want to take all the negativity forward to my set of three songs, which included 'Torn' by Natalie Imbruglia, 'The Prayer Inside This Song', and 'What I Have Lost'.

I introduced 'The Prayer Inside This Song' as a song written by my ex-boyfriend (Vinokur) in 1968 when after he had a hangover with cocaine. One guy in the crowd jumped out of his seat and asked me 'Your boyfriend?' I nodded. Later, I was introduced to him and he said that he was gay and was happy to see someone from the same 'clan'! The set went okay, I thought - my voice was a little tired after the first set with the band. For a show without a proper soundcheck, I think the performance was good.

Later the band took over once more and we did a five-song finishing set, at the end of which the crowd started requesting for more. For some odd reason, Dr. R and Jay were in a hurry to leave - they didn't even hang around to say a proper goodbye. I went back to my apartment with my date to have a drink and a lovely conversation which was sprinkled with a couple of private (special) performances of my songs. We slept really late. We woke up late and had coffee at home and breakfast at the Mucchawallah Dosawallah. Then I saw him off in a rick.

That capped a wonderful day of ups and downs where I think I succesfully managed all three major facets of my life. I tag this as a #win.

Singer/songwriter debut

Well, the Queer Azaadi March this year features a week of queer-related activities leading up the pride march on the 29th of January (Saturday). I have already applied for a half-day leave on that day.

More importantly for me, however, are the dates 27th and 28th, when I'll be performing as a singer/songwriter at two separate venues - at the Carter Road Amphitheater, Bandra and at Cooper Candies, Pali Hilll, Bandra, respectively.

On the 27th, I'll be joined by Rob (on guitar/vocals) and S (on djembe, percussion). The fantastic Alsha Batth will be performing alongside. On the 28th, I'd be performing solo for just a song or two at the Open Mic Night event. Both will be memorable days in my life, where I'll be performing songs that I wrote, songs that are so very personal.

This will the first time that Ideat Savant (my pet music project) songs are being performed live. As a prelude to these two gigs, if things go well, I'll be performing a 3-song set with Rob and S at the Cirkles gig at Not Just Jazz by the bay on the 21st of January. That makes it a total of three singer/songwriter gigs in a week's time! Wish me luck fellows!

Here is the QAM schedule:

Confuscious

I did something weird. I submitted in an entry for Ideat Savant at the IIT Kanpur festival 'Anthrakshani '08'' for taking part in a band competition called Synchronicity. It was an online entry which you can find here. I just wanted to see if people would find my music interesting.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail confirming that I was short-listed for the competition. I need to reply within a week to confirm my participation with the details of band members and stuff.

Now, as you all know, I don't have the actual band lined up yet. Jay from Noise Market offered to play for me. But what about the drummer and the second guitarist? If I find them all, what about practice and stuff? Crazy, it is. I feel I should just forfeit this and hope to make it next year. What d'yall say?

I need some opinion

Hey people, I guess I am being a little too narci-song-issistic. But still I would like to know what you guys thought of the recording of 'A World Full of Lies'. I uploaded it to MySpace and Last.fm and they don't offer song widgets like SoundClick. The lyrics are given below. For those who can listen, please do and comment.

• Listen to the song on MySpace.com
  
• Listen to the song on Last.fm

A World Full of Lies

I could look at your face and
Tell how long I have hated you
And leave you feeling dazed
But that would be too easy on you

I could wipe the dust of the pane and
Show you what lies inside
But is there a point in all of this
If you are blind to what you have done

But I can't do anything
To wash out the dirt that's inside
And I can't do anything
I am burning, burning from inside

I could list all of the lies you said
And still be short of breath
But why are we wasting time
On something that was so easy for you

I could have seen through the veil
That you were wearing all through out
But is there a point in all of this
If I can't wipe this scar away

As I can't do anything
To wash out the dirt that's inside
And I can't do anything
I'm still burning, burning from inside

Burning inside, Burning inside

As I can't do anything
To wash out the dirt that's inside
And I can't do anything
I'm still burning, burning from inside

Burning inside, Burning inside

I've been busy in the last two days trying to come up with ideas for the last two songs in this recording. I am nearing completion to both of them and you can expect to hear them very soon.

Ideat Savant

It's time to look ahead. After a lot of depressing posts about how my life sucks in general, this is a welcome change for me too. This recent resurgence of song-writing and positive comments from you guys and Rob have made me rekindle the idea of forming a band featuring such material. I've always had a plan actually. After the relative success of Noise Market and Shoonyas, I feel more confident.

Another striking fact - after spending a lot of time recording my own material in past few days, I have also starting to realize how much easier it's to make music alone. Your can let your own ideas flourish and not be restricted to any other view point. Of course, this can be a bad thing as well. But in my case, at least until now, I think I'm making better stuff out than when I'm with my bands.

The name that I came up with is 'Ideat Savant'. If you are wondering what it means, I would like to clarify that it's not a spelling mistake. It's a spin off the word idiot savant, a condition of people in Asperger's Syndrome. Vinokur is borderline Asperger's and he uses this term quite frequently in the conversation. But that is already taken up by other bands.

idiot savant (noun)
An intellectually disabled person who exhibits extraordinary ability in a highly specialized area, such as mathematics or music.

I wanted something with the same concept. And I searched for words similar to 'idiot' and stumbled upon 'ideat'.

I`de´at (noun)
1.(Metaph.) The actual existence supposed to correspond with an idea; the correlate in real existence to the idea as a thought or existence.

Savant (noun)
1. A learned person; a scholar.
2. An idiot savant.

Obviosuly I want your opinion of what you think of this name.

I've just started my own MySpace and Last.fm pages and have uploaded the latest songs as well. I am planning to find some guys or gals who are interested in joining me in this band. I am hoping that this time I'll be succesful. Even if the competition that I'm sending an entry to turns out to be disappointing, I might check these songs out with a record label and pursue this further.

I hope this was some good news after all!

(A mix of my latest recording 'A World Full of Lies is at either of the pages. I'll probably mix it once more before putting it up here.)