of good beginnings and bad roads

Today, we turn on month old. And that is a lot considering the kind of musicians we know, extremely skilled ones. But, that isn't the problem, more than a good musician you need someone you get along with otherwise as well, someone you can JAM with and thats hard to come across.

But, all that happened a month ago and we played at the Barista in Garuda Mall in Bangalore. It was a show without a drummer, just 3 acoustic guitars and a vocalist. This was a great first gig considering we are heavily influenced by the acoustic guitar. We did our bit and had a good time. We were told that we would be given coffee and some food dor playing the gig and it was quite a sweet deal. We played, we ate, we drank and at the end of it all we were psyched...good psyched.

We heard of the "Rockathon" that's happening in the city and decided to register. We were given 3 slots but ended up playing four. We are supposed to get paid for that and it'll work out soon i guess. We spent the most amount of money on the parking, yes it exceeded our food expenses. The hippie inside us wanted the rockathon to be in some open-air field where we could pitch tents and woodstock would be revived, but then again that's asking too much from the government.

We then at the Bulls-Unplugged gig at Opus, Bangalore. This was a very important mile marker; because we had fun. We had a bunch of friends there in the audience and some unknown people at other tables yet, the place was quite empty but it was still a lot of fun. What came out of the show was a recording from the sound-console, the stuff that's put up on the profile page. It wasn't just a recording it was a mirror that showed us how we sound and what we need to work on. That recording was featured on opus' online radio channel. Allthough it's not the greatest recording, its a first.

Today, we turn a month old. We played at exactly the same barista with one lil' change - 2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 vocalist. Thats four people. But our soul wasn't in it. At the very first note we knew this would be the most dead-beat, boring performance and it was. The place had gotten to us. The orange and fake-wood interiors, the plastic people, the "mall-culture" oozing from every corner and the wannabes. It destroyed the zest for music; ut made us sleepy. It was the kind of soul torture you would feel in purgatory. Don't get me wrong here, we were kicked about this show. It was at really short notice but we were really looking forward to it. We'd put in the hours jamming to make it work but the venue was just the biggest turn-off. What made things worse was the organizers left immideatly afterwards and all they gave us was one coffee. One bloody cuppa.

We know how the ladder looks from below and we're trying to climb it the hard way but that is no way to treat a band. When you say we get some food and coffee to play an hour long set, you better live up to it. I agree we weren't upto standards but we still played the best we could. We kept the crowds entertained.

I guess we're expecting too much from the corporate goons that run the world. But, then again the world never gives you what you want and sometimes you don't like what the world gives you. You go to bed wondering what the city of dreams has in store for tomorrow. It's a constant battle and tomorrow the world will forget you.

Peace.