The Indian Music Disaster.

Seemingly, Goa isn't what it used to be. From being the retro colored, nature infested haven as seen on videos from the "Goa Hippie Tribe", it is now a tourist spot. Another liquor capitol, another large pub. The people of Goa are stuck between the richness of selling all the alcohol and letting go of the happy-go-lucky we're friendlies here to help attitude. The ones in their 20s are shrewd capitalists. They don't want a friend for life, but are more than happy to provide you with one for the night, at a price of course. Whatever your trip, they know someone who knows someone who can get it for you. Sometimes you get busted, sometimes conned. They'l disappear and so will your buzz.

The problem with all this is it attracts the wrong bugs. People presume that Goa is another sin-city. We found many mumbaiyas and bangalorean studs on the beaches wandering around in desperate need of a high, anything but what you get in the shops. Don't be mistaken, these aren't your cat-hunting crack addicts you'd find lurking in alley-ways in your city, these are the people who've never tried any drug and Goa is the perfect setting for it. "Arre, yaar! Hum Goa mein hain aur koi bhi chemical try nahin kiya hai. Ganja bhi nahin mila!", a statement i overheard on the beach. What ensues is a lot of drinking and then the lets-ask-random-people-for-stash. Very rich.

But there are largely undiscovered parts of Goa that calm the nerves of peace-trippers and keeps the local bikini-brigade far away at the commercial beaches(rather giant-pubs).

Yet, the name of Goa resonates a carnival spirit and we were invited to be a part of the Indian Music Conference, organized by Spotlight Events. The people who worked on this event are all very charming and in their own right lovable. Yet, they lacked the know-hows of what exactly a rock band is and what a rock show must have.

To start with, the band had been separated and put in 2 different flights about an hour apart. Adi and Anand missed their flights because of that very reason. Taking the blame for our actions, the rest of us boarded the flight while Adi and Anand decided to take a bus to Goa and join us there. The flight was quite nice and our fellow-passengers happened to be Thermal & a Quarter.

Upon landing, we ran into the members of Skinny Alley and Pink Noise. Transport had been arranged to take us to one Rio Hotel, where we were to register for the festival. Apparently, they presumed that all us had missed our flights(because they didn't know we were on 2 different flights) and had to make other adjustments for us. While they organized, Skinny Alley offered us beer and the hotel took an hour and half to make our sandwiches. Finally we boarded another cab to The O Hotel, 4/5 star accommodation. Somehow all the delays were forgiven at the sight of the bed and the bathtub in the hotel room.

More confusion ensued upon Anand and Adis arrival the next morning. They still hadn't told us what would be happening on our gig-day. A random call, told us there's a cab on its way to take us to sound-check. The cab had been waiting a few hours before someone decided to inform us what cab number and that it had arrived. I had lost patience couped up in a hotel room in Goa and rented out a bike and made my own way to South Anjuna. The rest of the band took the cab which dropped them off about a kilometer away from the venue, because the cabbie was refused permission to go through the market to the venue. They were asked to get out and walk with all the equipment to the Cafe Looda.

Upon arrival, we were quite happy. The Cafe was already full. The flea market had thousands of people walking by and the stage had a clear view of the ocean, the beach and eventually the sunset. The drum-kit hadn't arrived and it was already 2o'clock. We were supposed to start at 4. At 3 a junior kit arrives. At 3.30 we were still waiting for cymbals. Thats when i realized there were no amps on stage. Just as my blood began to boil i realized we could probably compromise because all guitarists have good enough fx-processors. A minute later, i realized there were only 2 monitors on stage - 1 for the drummer and 1 for the rest of us.

This show was fucked. The guy who was supposed to be handling our show, clearly said that i should take up any matters with someone who wasn't at the venue.

Lets trackback a bit, a few weeks before we left, i was working on a little some quite seriously with a friend who was also quite seriously involved in what we were doing. I received a phone call from an organizer from IMC who made me run to the nearest internet connection and within no-time send them a copy of our tech requirements. At the moment i was on-stage, i wondered why was i rushed when they were really going to make their own assumption of what we would require on-stage - 2monitors, a mic and a junior drum-kit.

We were clearly disappointed and i was especially annoyed with the organizer at the venue constantly complaining about how late we are and how this whole sound issue is somehow our fault. Add this to heavy problems with electricity. All of this resulted in quite a miserable set. Noone really knew what was going on and it was quite a funny guessing game. We somehow managed to go on for an hour and half, partially because we were already there and the chances of getting a stage next to the beach and a slot at sunset seemed pretty bleak to us. Yes, we were being self-centered and stopped giving a damn about everything that was wrong on-stage and just jammed on.

Once we were done, we all unloaded our frustration with a few beers and some food. Eventually caught hold of the organizer and gift-wrapped a piece of our minds to him before heading back to the hotel.

Adi and Anand had still not been given accommodation and they just decided to crash at hotel O with us. They left early next morning with the cab that would drop them at the airport, only to return because their flight had been postponed without any warning.

The rest of us spent the day walking around candolim and sinquerim till we got threatened by the organizers to check-out of the hotel. No cab provided to exit.

We hitch-hiked to the train-station and caught the midnight train to a beach town in Karnataka. We didn't bother getting back to Goa for our fancy return flight and just made our own way home after one very disappointing show.

"what use is your flight and your 5-star hotel, if you don't give musicians the sound they deserve."


I hope the next conference will make more sense than this one.

Improbably Stupid.

There are two things we have grown used to accept about gigs, concerts and Rock performances in Bangalore. Improbability and someones mind-boggling stupidity. We've consulted many astrologers, numerologists and even psychic-parrots on the roadside and the verdict is as stupid and improbable as the events that occur in itself.

Inexperienced sound engineers( to be read as "pissed off because I've to sit here all day and help bands who don't know anything about their instruments, amps or effects processors only to be blamed for bad sound afterward") start right at the top. Very often have we landed up on a MASSIVE stage with some pretty good sound equipment around and then comes along a soundie who hikes up the delay when we ask for a little reverb. Send over your own sound guy to the console and these guys loose it. Attacks on ego, inappropriate comments and eventually bad sound are what we end up with. Though on the flip side of things you get this humble chap, who will step out with you for a smoke before the sound-check, try and understand what the band and their music is about, personally help us set up on stage and the finish us off with the right amount of tweaking during the performance. Once we met a soundie who also owned the company that did sound, he did the most running around I've seen a sound vendor do.

Then there's the sound vendor(read as, "i bought all this equipment because lots of people wanted to hire them"). Sound vendors are fascinating people. I think everyone should interact with a few of them once in a lifetime at least. their optimism and confidence should be an example to every human alive. They'll never say, "No, that can't be done". Never. But, you'd almost never meet a vendor at a gig. All his minions will run around trying to figure out which cable goes in where and it is usually completely improvised and experimental. The outcome of this is sometimes disastrous and results in exploding equipment, full-body electrocution and under rare circumstances impotency. I would at this point like to remind you of the soundie we met, who was also the vendor and did all that necessary running around. Fabulous man, will introduce you to him sometime.

I'm not even going to enter the event organizers' domain. They're very hard-working people who've way too many things going on while they're making plans for so many more things. Simply, they need to get more people to help them out. They face more improbably stupid things than i can imagine.

Cops. Need I say more? Expect to be randomly raided, busted or conned into a fine. Hey, they're just doing their job yeah.

And finally there's us.

Of all the billions of people, it is quite highly unlikely that the 6 people in this band met and decided to create an audio-visual experience. It might be considered quite stupid for us to give up the regular sing-a-song routine for our upcoming shows and move to completely improvised sets.

Obviously, we'd like to be jamming with other musicians and we might play a few of our songs, but the sets will be mostly improvised, on-the-spot jams.

Our recording plans are taking shape and we're proud to announce the track-list of our untitled debut album -

• Surya
• Boom Shankar(live)
• Chaos Theory
• Lucid Dreaming
• Sensory Overload
• Untitled track 01

 This, obviously, is in no particular order and is subject to change depending on the fickle mindset of the space-monkey.

Its all a cosmic conspiracy i tell you, but we're in it and are used to it if nothing. Times are changing, they will get better.

Thank you for flying with us.

Peace!