A glimpse of Olympus...

First watch this....

While I tried to desperately find some time away from my day job to write about some music, I came across this video last night and found myself keeping it on loop for almost forty five minutes. As a wannabe blues guitarist who couldn't improvise if his life depended on it, this for me was a religious experience of sorts. You've got some of the greatest blues guitar players on one stage, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Johnny Winter, Jimmie Vaughn, Robert Cray and John Mayer. If I were having a heart attack, that would be heaven for me. Just get B.B.King and Stevie Ray to join in, and I can die a content man.

While more than enough has been said and written about folks, like Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy, the comments here seem to be rather harsh on Mr. ‘Your body is a wonderland’ Mayer. While I’m still getting around to write a piece to talk about how John Mayer went from my ‘this stuff goes with N’sync’ list to ‘you are a Titan’ list, John Mayer is probably one of the few guitar players around whose thorough knowledge of music (and feel free to disagree if you stopped listening to him after ‘Room for Squares’) makes him the one guy whom you know is going to become one of the torch bearers of Blues guitar, if he sticks at it.

What I’m getting to is that this video is perhaps a perfect picture of how the torch of Blues guitar is being passed on. Winters to Buddy Guy, to Clapton and at the bottom of that line is John Mayer. Anyway, enjoy this video. And there’s another one of him messing with the King. And you’ve got to be worth something if B.B King plays with you.

Gig Review : The Shakey Rays @Hard Rock Café B’lore

I happened to stumble upon ‘The Shakey Rays’ at the NH7 Weekender fest in Bangalore in 2012 when I was stage-hopping while waiting for another band to get started. I really enjoyed the sound they had then although I got to listen to only one and a half songs. Based on that, I was quite eager to see the band from Chennai play a full set.

So here they were at the Hard rock Café in Bangalore. Alas I’m going to have to say that I was disappointed by the show. Let me put it this way, there was no show in a manner of speaking. It was a band that walked onto stage, played their music and left. Don’t misunderstand this for them not sounding good. They were quite good in fact, but them being on stage or the DJ playing songs off the console was almost one and the same.

I hope this was only a one-off thing or else The Shakey Rays still have a long way to go in stage presence. Right now, they’re the sort of band that people would probably hear and decide to go grab a smoke, make that phone call, use the rest room. The audience simply did not seem entertained. I've seen more amateur (and worse sounding) bands ensure they get the people up on their feet. People at such venues come to be entertained. No one really cares what you know, but care if they've had a good time. And The Shakey Rays seemed to have missed that lesson. My thoughts were reflected by some folks outside who said, “ They have a nice sound yaaar, par majaa nahin aaaya!”.

That being said I really enjoyed their version of Velvet Underground’s ‘Rock and Roll’ and their Kinks cover of ‘Where have all the good times gone’. I especially enjoyed their smooth jazz version of Frank Sinatra’s ‘Under My Skin’, wish I had bootlegged that. Actually reminded me of a more upbeat jazz trumpet version I have heard somewhere. Even the original compositions were upbeat, but were however undone by a lackluster performance.

To sum it up, The Shakey Rays sounded really good, especially on the covers. But the lack of interaction with the audience between songs and during songs seemed to have made the evening a bit of a bore. Here’s to hoping they find some energy from somewhere because we all can hear good music at home, we want to be entertained. I want to bring up a dialogue from the movie Gladiator. As said by Proximo to Maximus, “I was not the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me.”

Good bands sound good, great bands entertain.

Album Review : Skrat – Bring out the Big Guns

About a week ago, I got my hands on the second outing of Chennai-based rock outfit ‘Skrat’, and the one word that summarizes the album is ‘addictive’. From the first song right to the last, Skrat seems to have hit all the right notes and come out with an up-beat energetic album – something perfect to get someone into the groove in the morning.

Thank god for digital media, because if I had a tape (like the ‘good old days’), I’m pretty sure I would have worn out the tape. I've had the album on loop for days now and there are no signs of it going away any time soon. The last time I remember an album blowing my mind was John Mayer’s ‘Continuum’. Elite company in my collection indeed.

The drumming and bass are absolutely tight throughout the album which makes even the non-rock listeners head bob through all the songs. Their biggest credit would come from my mum who walked into the room and sat down to listen for a bit. The lyrics are easy to remember and linger with you long after you’ve done listening to the album.

Some of the songs that stand out are ‘Samurai Badass’, ‘Tin Can Man’ and ‘Smoke a Cigar’. I have taken an odd liking to ‘The Spare Blues’. It’s a simple song that starts with a fabulous line – ‘Love’s just like snooker, so colourful, but all balls’ and you can’t help not laugh your head off at the line. I also need to compliment Shakthishree Gopalan’s vocals on the track ‘In the Rain’ which were perfect and just took the song to a different level.

‘Bring out the Big Guns’ is definitely the best 100 bucks I spent on buying music online. You can buy their music from here on OkListen and listen to the entire album here on Soundcloud.

 I also caught the band when they played at Counter Culture in Bangalore. And they were a superb stage act. Clearly, here are 3 guys who’re not only musicians but are great friends and are very comfortable with each other on stage.  

There were places where the guitar would go out of sync, but the drums and bass were able to adjust immediately and it was barely noticeable. Barring the guitarist answering his phone on two occasions, which I wasn't sure as to whether it was a stage gimmick or just plain annoying, it was a tight stage act which had the crowd up on their feet from the word 'go'.

The band sounds exactly like how they do on the album. I will be following this band keenly. Right now, I'm in total love with the album to a point,  I might need to go to couples therapy if we are to amicably break-up and I start seeing other albums too. I also bought the latest LP from Ska Vengers,  but have not been able to listen to it because all I seem to be doing is listening to Skrat through all my waking hours.

40 years of the Dark Side

It’s been 40 amazing years since this band from England put out this album called ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ – an album that changed a lot in the way psychedelic rock was perceived and announced the arrival of Pink Floyd.

Cover Art - The Dark Side of the Moon

If you've never heard a Pink Floyd song, and if this album happens to be the first thing you hear, you’ll think I’m absolutely crazy to be calling this album a revolution in music. I never thought much of this album the first time I heard it. In fact, I was quite put off from listening to Pink Floyd. Ticking clocks, alarm bells, the sound of loose cash, heartbeats, incessant wailing can be quite annoying. I thought to myself,” These idiots and the producer must have been on weed to put out such a silly album”.

But then, that’s the thing about Pink Floyd. You either love them or hate them. There is no neutral ground. And a lot of the music they make is very situational meaning one has to be at a certain place in one’s life or going through a certain moment to appreciate the kind of music the band made.( I wish I could write ‘makes’ here instead). And that was what happened with regard to ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’.

 I remember coming home rather tired and annoyed about something that day, and I remember having my computer randomly running tunes (the good old days of winamp) and I was just lying down in bed and staring at the ceiling when all of a sudden ‘Breathe’ came on. The slight heartbeat at the beginning, the buildup of tension in the wailing  and suddenly have drop to a simple E minor groove and the light drumming just seemed to have struck some kind of a chord inside me. (Pun intended) And I put ‘Breathe’ on an infinite loop for the rest of the evening and felt better. And it was that song that made me fall in love with the album.

As time went by, one starts to listen to the lyrics of songs like ‘Time’ and ‘Money’ where you find the band have very cleverly called out on the widening gap between the rich and the poor and how both approach the world. The subtlety in lines such as “ And you run and you run to catch up with the sun because it’s shrinking….racing around, to come behind you again” are a clever jab at the working class who spend all their time on work only to end up being a mere statistic. The affluent nature of the rich is clearly brought out in songs like ‘Money’ with lines referring to people with too much money thinking about buying football teams….something that clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City are all too familiar with.

And then you find the song moving into a beautiful, almost dream like nature with ‘Us and Them’ (My second favourite song from the album). And then Pink Floyd’s jab at the political system referring to the entire set up as lunatics controlling the masses through mass media is sheer brilliance. In a manner of speaking, ‘Brain Damage’ was the precedent to bands like ‘Rage against the Machine’ who've based their songs as anti-establishment…. And isn't that what a lot of Rock music is all about?

While ‘The Dark Side of the Moon' would not be the best thing you hear if you’re not a Pink Floyd fan, it still remains to be one of the finest albums in terms of breaking new ground as to how psychedelic rock can be made and how one can speak about how the system just does not work, without having to offend people with rude words and lyrics. ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ showed people how to be anti-establishment and still sound pleasant.

Here's a link to the 'Classic Albums' documentary series focused on 'The Dark Side of the Moon'