Thank You For The Music Time

One day, after I woke up, doing all the morning rituals head straight towards my main entrance door and fetch the morning news paper. As in the newspaper all these days, the usual news were inflation reaching a sky level and the various Babus in namma Bengaluru cashing on the money meant for other various purposes. Hmmmm, never mind, what caught my eye was one news or I may say a article, titled as "Live Music Under the Fire".


It took me some couple of moments to understand the gravity of the situation. What happened was that the Law Enforcers had decided to put a ban on live music on any public place where alcohol was served. The first thought that came to my mind were those about the Bar Dancer girls and co.
But alas I was wrong. There is this association known as the Live Band Association of Bangalore who opposed to certain pubs and bars which were operating without a valid license (It seems).

Then one fine day of Saturday of August, just before our INDEPENDENCE DAY, the cops raid OPUS. Now for the uninformed, OPUS is a goan restaurant and bar near Windsor Manor bridge. It showcases the talents of the city's budding rock stars and rock bands. Anyways back to the topic. The cops raided that place well before the official closing time of 11:00 PM. The band that was playing was humiliated and of course who wouldn't. Just is the apathy of the Government folks that they fail to understand what's LIVE MUSIC actually is.

For the Cops’ perspective what they consider to be illegal (LIVE MUSIC)
More than 4 guys head banging to some music they like. Mind you that music itself is played by some DJ or player and not "LIVE". Bottom Line: IT’S ILLEGAL

Same scenario but this time music is played by a kickass rock band LIVE.
Bottom Line: ILLEGAL

Any music that’s not being played in the background and high sounding according to the cops is ILLEGAL

Moving a limb or two to the tunes of the latest song. Bottom Line: ILLEGAL
I don't understand what’s rock band and bar dancers have in common? Except for the fact that both create an aura of contempt for the cops. Man, this draconian law has to go at some point or the other. Bangalore being a metro and also a cosmopolitan city, it has many diverse groups of people living under the same sky. Music is a medium of expressing feelings, frustrations and other emotions related to the human beings. It’s the oldest form of art known. Trust me on this.

Anyways, today is the day when the heavily rock influenced Hindi Film ROCK ON is released in theaters all over India. Hope this carries the baton of free live independent music in this rock and entertainment starved country. Death to the bastards.

Green Room Boxes Roxes

In Thursday's edition of Deccan Herald, Green Room Boxes came into the media light when the METRO edition covered my interview in their daily. As I said "Small drops make an ocean", hope this is the beginning of the good things to come. Had to struggle a lot but yeah feels nice to see the dividends pay off even in small ways.

Green Room Boxes

Green Room Boxes is a 5 piece rock band comprising of
Zoe on Vocals and Lead Guitars
Shovit on Lead Guitars
Vineeth on Keyboards
Anant on Bass Guitars
Rahul on Drums

The music GRB plays is more or less like an amalgamation of various elements of rock and its sub genre. Hence you get what we call ourselves as Garbage Rock.


"As said by Rahul Pradhan on Green Room Boxes' Official Blog"

Blame or respect the omnipresent Orkut, but that is how GRB got its foundation stone laid.

Anant started with a thread in an Orkut community way back in 2006 asking for interested people to join up to form a band. A lot of people replied (check out the thread:
http://www.orkut.co.in/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=18429620&tid=2480308164953903973), a lot of plans were made, but little progress was made.

I didn't know Anant personally at the time and got to meet him at one of our booze sessions. One thing led to another and there we were jamming together at my previous residence at BTM layout, Bangalore. The gadgets we owned then were very basic (primitive would be a better word I guess). Anant had a Givson electric guitar that was as old as his engineering days and I had a 5 piece drum kit that even kids wouldn't think of buying. Anyhow, we jammed and were joined by the BTM Boys too (aka Harish, Dammiee, Ashok, Khagen). That was our first jam room - and it remained for a pretty long time too.

We called ourselves "The Resoultes" then and even had a band logo decided, when we found out that there was already a band with that name. Around that time, Zoe too happened to reply to the thread posted by Anant in Orkut and was eager to join the band. Zoe came over to jam in our BTM pad and after the first song that we jammed on, Anant and I knew that Zoe had to be in the band. So now we were a three piece band...without a name. We were name hunting and somehow "Green Room Boxes" popped up. And we agreed.

A couple of more jam sessions at BTM and Sovit was asked to join the band. Sovit happens to be the brother of a friend of ours and also the brother-in-law of another friend! In he came to the band to take the rhythm guitars spot. Sovit impressed us with his clean guitaring techniques and also with immense talent to provide solo riffs in between the songs which lent an entirely new dimension to the songs.

Jamming in BTM, however, was getting a setback because of the constant neighbors complaining. So we aborted jamming there altogether, and didn't jam for a good period in 2008. Again via the omnipresent Orkut, Zoe found Vineeth (aka Vinnie). We were looking for a good keyboard player and Vinnie fit the bill perfectly. Not to mention the other two bonuses he brought along - first, the jam room and secondly his experience with the Kannada music industry. Whoa! We were finally ready to rumble!

Although a relatively new band which is still in its "gelling" phase, that is the story thus far for GRB. Watch this space for more on us!

Music - From the fish's eye

Right now am 23 and seen the rise and fall of some of the greatest rock and metal acts in the country and also in the international circuit. Maybe I ain't such a great guitar player or a vocals wizard but whatever little I have learned over the ages, I can proudly say that the basic mental block in people's mind over the type of songs they listen and the type of songs they want to listen to in a Rock Concert is very different.

The mental block is Metal and more metal.

Any band that comes to the stage want to play some Lamb of God or some Children of Bodom and stuff. I mean, come on, there needs to be variety in the kinda music that's being played live. Where's the good old days of classic rock or even the existing modern rock.
How many guys play what they want ? Contrary to that, they want to play what the metal crowd wants. I mean its good, till a point.

Now again the rebellious competitions are there to spoil the music growth of the bands. More competition is good as long as its in a healthy way. This is my blog and I will say what I want to.
So here it goes, competitions hamper the growth of a musician. Its a threat to his very own existence. Now sue me of YOU want to.

I remember the words of the children from SCHOOL OF ROCK movie , when Jack Black's band failed to win the event, they said, " Hey cheer up. Rock is not about winning or losing. Sex Pistols didn't win anything"

I still maintain to this very day "One good rock show can change the world"

I remember my childhood days when I still danced to the beats of Michael Jackson's Beat It.
Trust me, its one of the most inspirational and life changing songs for me. MJ if he wanted could have become the greatest rock star if he wanted to. Sad he screwed up his chnaces. Eddie Van Halen was one of his instruments. The heart stopping solos he rendered for Beat It, still echoes in my ears right to this moment.

The 80's Glam period came and went by, but the memory still remains. This peroid saw the rise of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) and bands like Van Halen, Europe, Journey, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest, Helloween and others.
The glam rock-meatal acts like Warrant, Strypper, Van Halen,Skid Row,Dokken, Poison and others. This ages' songs are still omnipresent in the songs that I make today. Tried to shove it off but doesnt seem to go. The screeching guitars tones and the blistering powerful vocals and blending keyboards are just some of the attires this period had to offer. If you havent listened to them before make it a point that you listen to them right now.

Right now I am kinda short of energy to scribble anymore. So until the next time, Keep On Rocking in The Free World. \m/