The latter approach seems to work better, because the rhyme, the meter and the number of syllables can then be fit in with the riff. The music and words seem to synchronize better this way. But the emphasis is still on what the song will be about before the chords and riffs are put into place.

One of the themes we were exploring was of people in their 20s trying to get together and see if they feel the same way about their approach to relationships as they did when they were in one the first time around. Something was written to that effect and it will, I hope, soon evolve into song.

Blank slates.

Fraught between uncomfortable nonchalance and the burden of over-analysis, I find myself feeling the butterflies once again.

When we do get around to making complete songs, you’ll hear of it. Word.

In addition, I was asked to shift out of the house I used to live in for the first eight months of my stay in Gurgaon and the need to move out four days before I was to leave the darn place for over three weeks meant that my entire setup was in shambles.

I am a compulsive loner so far as my accommodation situation is concerned and despite having had the time of my life on my trip, I was dreading getting back home and opening the door to see a house not settled into, with dust and cobwebs all over the place.

The scene that I encountered was no different from what I’d imagined. An unclean floor is always a bitch and a dusty one with white tiles that my landlord placed despite all my protests just compounded my misery further.

The weekend was spent in reorganization of my entire setup and this week has been spent in honing my cooking skills once more. The washing machine, microwave oven and fridge have made my life beautiful and have rendered me fully independent for the most part.

The inconvenience of having to open the door to a maid who might have to be micromanaged has instead given way to a twice-in-a-week cleaning that I will have to stick to. The need to cook dinner for myself, instead of the cook in the previous place who used to give me tasty food on average has also increased the burden on my daily life, while also bringing about a stronger semblance of full and complete independence.

Some of my friends remarked that I was scarily domesticated and that I was almost married in terms of the routine that I follow.

I was unable to interpret it for my mind thought of it in two ways – Am I domesticated to a point where marriage or cohabitation with a partner would not bring about too many changes into my life style? Or was it that the life style changes that marriage brings about in people have already set in within me and therefore the very task of having to “settle down” has therefore been rendered null and void?

In any case, the complete independence and therefore complete responsibility that I last enjoyed in Bangalore before I went to B-school has now once again become the story of my life as I go about doing all that I need to do to get by. I am my own cook, cleaner, washer man and man Friday and the time saved by outsourcing these activities is offset by the convenience with which I am able to work on all these activities, thereby making me more disciplined overall. Or so I hope.

I am still to document my review of 2010, wherein the total distance traveled will feature prominently in my log. In addition, I also need to work extensively on my travelogue to document the fruition of my long cherished and long awaited trip to Israel.

I think travel is my writerly muse and my mojo has returned. Please look forward to a barrage of posts in the days ahead. It will not be too boring, on that you have my word.

Relatives do sometimes tend to get on your nerves, especially when you have to be on your best behaviour and answer all potentially embarrassing / uncomfortable questions diplomatically.

‘No Sir, just because I play bass in the college rock band doesn’t mean women flock to me and cling on to the point where I need to peel them off.’

‘Yeah, I DO realize my cousin is getting married as we speak and that she’s a year younger than I. This doesn’t automatically mean that I need to be next in line, maybe because I am happy at 26 and I’d like to do as little as possible to change it.’

‘Yes, an MBA is called a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management, its not like I’d be wanker enough to do a diploma AFTER I completed my engineering, you know.’

The worst ever statements are about setting one up for a future marriage, ‘laying the groundwork’, so to speak when one truthfully owns up to being single. Sometimes, it might be ok to lie to have a little less bio-gas sent your way regarding how I should go about shaping my life.

‘If I do wish to be setup, I’ll ask for it when I am good and ready, until which time, maybe you’d prefer it if I did my searching on my own?’

Love them or hate them, you’ve got some DNA in common. Some of my relatives, though, are among the most insane and awesome people I know. So I guess things balance each other out, at the end of the day, and all is at peace with the world.

In other news, I did watch Avatar and found it incredibly brilliant. If not for being so lazy and tired at the same time, I might’ve decided to put one review, but I will most probably end up linking one that I find online.

I can’t believe I am thinking that far ahead already.

Nevertheless, coming back to my dream job requirement, I guess it has nothing to do with a lot of stuff I have done so far to earn my daily chappati-subzi and bowl of rice and sambar. However, it combines quite a few of the things that I really love doing, and would hence be a brilliant hobby that could work out to be a full time profession.

I first made a reference to something similar in this post, lauding how a certain celebrity fortunate enough to share my birthday got an Oscar for making a mixed tape.

The Dream Job I would like to have is to be a soundtrack man for a movie. Basically, I want to be the guy who reads the script, watches the rough cut of the movie and is given the authority to put in music in the background by coming up with a list of songs that would be appropriate for the moment.

This job would involve doing many of my favourite things – listen to new music intently, watch a lot of movies, exercise a strong degree of creativity to get the perfect background music going, (derived from all possible sources) to kick in at the perfect moment and make for a great movie-viewing experience.

I’ve realized that most white collar jobs that require a certain level of specialization entail creativity in some form or the other. I somehow feel that one of the situations I would perform optimally would be like in the one I just described above.

So if any of you know whether such a job really exists, let me know and I’ll see if I can do something more than just bleg about it.

On the playlist was this song titled 19-2000, by Gorrilaz, the world’s most successful virtual band, and as soon as it started playing, my face lit up and I instantly correlated it with Fifa 2002 that I used to play a long time ago.

I had blogged previously in a really random post about having been pleasantly surprised at having listened to another song that I’d heard before, but not been able to place and ID.

Getting to know songs again after a long gap is somewhat like rediscovering good friends after ages.

The autographing was around the time I interviewed him for a cover story for RSJ, in April this year, which finally didn’t happen for reasons I’m not sure of.

I’ve also written a review for that album and sent it to the guys who’re supposed to launch the new version of gigpad, though I’m going to check with them if I can post album reviews on my site as well after addressing any potential cöpyright issues.

However, on 16th November 08, Sunday, I had been to the Landmarks bookstore in Swagath Garuda Mall, where I got a chance to see a live performance by him. I guess Facebook does wonders, and it was through an invite on it that I was even aware that such an event was taking place.

According to unconfirmed sources (me), apparently, for the first and only time in its existence, Swagath Garuda Mall finally had a sizeable number of footfalls, as people gathered en masse to see Raghu live, and mysteriously disappeared thereafter when the performance was over.

There’s something magical and nice about unplugged performances. They are quite intimate, and aren’t as high-adrenaline as the fully plugged ones. I’d witnessed TAAQ play their first ever ‘unplugged’ show at Alliance Français last year, and the unplugged accoustic jams that our band has, with my bass guitar being the only instrument that requires amplification (I am a cheap guy without an accoustic bass) are also a whole lot of fun.

Raghu Dixit was accompanied by Vijay Joseph on guitars, and while I wasn’t really sure whether Landmarks would be able to have enough space to cast aside for a performance along with a crowd, they did manage to have a good setup, and the sound quailty was impeccable, atleast where I was standing, which was right up front.

Junta turned up in hordes, for it was a free concert, and Raghu Dixit’s playful banter with the crowd, I am sure, won him some new fans.

He started off with a song (I still love you) that I’d last heard being performed on 5th May 2001, when I was standing in the first row at the Bryan Adams concert, and it brought back fond memories of that day when everyone in the front row got spat on by Bryan Adams when he was singing ‘back to (thoo) you’ and all that.

Aside from that, he played ‘Mysore se Aayi’, ‘Gudugudiya Sedi Nodu’, ‘Hey Bhagwan’ and one of my favourite songs by him titled ‘Ambar’. The last song’s rendition was, I felt, quite magical, as I closed my eyes and just immersed myself in the song.

Most unplugged songs tend to sound somewhat different from when the artists perform a fully plugged set, but in this case, Raghu’s powerful voice, combined with some masterful guitar work by Vijay Joseph made me not miss the other instruments, including, surprisingly, the bass guitar as well.

The crowd got quite noisy around the time when Raghu began performing songs from his movie ‘Psycho’, for everyone present there seemed to know the songs, and sang along uninhibitedly.

Most people were too busy taking videos to enjoy what was happening on stage, and this tendency to record or take photographs, in my opinion, kills the moment when one should rather be immersed in the music than be doing something to record it for later. Unless their memory sucks.

I was not able to bear the noise after a while, and decided to make a gracious exit around twenty past seven, when I knew Raghu would be almost finishing up.

Here’s hoping to see more of his performances in the days to come.

Firstly, hats off to Anbumani Ramadoss for his smoking rule. The two pubs I’ve been to since the ban came into effect at the start of this month have provided good experiences, because involuntary passive smokers needn’t do Neo-like manoeuvres to evade the cigarette smoke that most people would be unleashing in our direction.

Now, at Purple Haze in Mysore, on a sunday evening, there was one screen which was showing the Chelsea v/s Liverpool game, and that provided me with ample distraction while most others were watching a band named ‘TransitPoint’ play. Their lead singer, complete with dreadlocks and an American accent to boot was trying in vain to get the crowd up on their feet in order for them to mosh to the music, but despite him having asked them in no less than seven languages and in different accents and dialects, the crowd that was sitting down did not seem to want to get off its arse.

Meanwhile, in the second half of the game, I was totally praying for Ashley Cole to get red-carded, and was rooting for Liverpool since I like them more than I like Chelsea. The match ended with a Liverpool victory, and I am wondering why nobody has yet taken the initiative to have a sports pub in Bangalore. I hope someone reads this post of mine and has enough money to make this happen.

Band after band played, including one named ‘Corrode’ (or was it Korrode? One can’t really say how the Balaji Telefilms induced spelling rules might’ve influenced the general population), and one more named ‘Kashmora’, aside from the dreadlocks singer’s band, ‘TransitPoint’. One thing I liked about Kashmora was that they came up with a song for Vijender Singh, and dedicated it to him.

Considering how Abhinav Bindra is now in love with a massive television instead of falling for one of the million women wooing him, I guess it is only fair to shift focus towards Akhil Kumar and Vijender Singh, who haven’t yet started embarassing themselves by appearing in ads where they proclaim their love for underwear brands, or for Chyawanprash bottles, or God forbid, other products that you can’t possibly be in love with.

Now, all these aforementioned bands were asking the crowd to get up, come to the front, and groove. But their pleas fell on deaf ears. The crowd didn’t know their music, and while there were a few enthusiastic headbangers out there, their enthusiasm, I am certain can be attributed more to their blood alcohol content rather than their interest in the music being played.

Once these bands were through, on came this band named ‘Venator’. One of the things that makes this band stand apart from most other bands in Bangalore is the fact that they have a female vocalist and a female bassist. The female vocalist puts growling vocals. Yes, you read that right.

If you know Angela Gossow, then it isn’t really that hard to imagine someone else following up and performing in the same style, but I guess not many people in Mysore who were present at Purple Haze last evening had heard Arch Enemy.

So, when Venator started playing, and the vocalist began growling, word spread in the crowd like wildfire. ‘Machha, chick vocalist is growling.’ ‘Huh? WTF?’. People began surging forward in droves, crowding around the performance area, and as a result, the only band which didn’t want a crowd gathering up in front when they were performing, ended up having one. Or maybe they did, and didn’t particularly have to ask for it to happen.

However, they wanted the crowd to go back, and one could hear repeated growls from the vocalist, who was asking them to go back to their seats. However, there’s only so much of growling that anyone can make out in the absence of a lyrics sheet to boot, and consequently, the crowd stayed till the next band came on.

Watching a female vocalist growl can be a somewhat emasculating experience, personally. However, the crowd did seem to have a good time. So there.

In any case, if you’ve read everything till the end of this post, here’s wishing you a happy and prosperious Deepavali, with lots of cash spent, lots of sweets eaten and child labour-free fire crackers burst. Also, please clean up after you’re done with whatever celebration you’re planning to indulge in.

For those unaware – yes, Mysore has pubs. Shocking but true. Sadly, it is going the Bangalore way, and while the ban on live music in places serving alcohol continues unabated in Bangalore, Mysore seems to have been unaffected by it all. The branch of Purple Haze in Mysore is hosting a rock / metal fest showcasing eighteen bands over the weekend before Diwali.

I had been there last evening to check out a few of the bands, including Crucifix Guide, Today’s Special and Ston’d (about whom I’ve written in the upcoming issue of RSJ) and during the whole time I was watching them bands perform live, I could only think of how the guy behind the sound console was not mixing the sound properly into the PA (public address), as a result of which the volumes of individual instruments weren’t being balanced correctly.

In some cases, you couldn’t hear the vocalist who was being drowned out by the guitar tones. The bass guitar was not heard in a few instances. If a band had two guitarists, their volumes weren’t balanced properly.

The guy in charge of sound at the pub couldn’t entirely be blamed either. This is because he is not aware of their setup, and isn’t aware of how the instruments and vocals are interspersed in each song, and whether there needs to be any modifications in the sound levels done across different songs. It isn’t his business either. All he needs to do is to keep all instruments at certain preset levels to ensure a minimum sound output that each band can adjust to. Think of it as being akin to the common minimum program for bands.

If each band has a dedicated sound engineer who knows all their songs perfectly, he can either take charge of the sound console, or assist the main sound guy in adjusting levels, to negate the most obvious complaint that most bands have of how the sound sucked.

For sure, a sound engineer is way more important to a band than even a manager is. At least in the initial phases of its existence. Unless of course, the manager can also double up as a sound guy.

Does anyone else’s mind conjure up the following words when itunes accidentally playes songs like ‘lithium’ and ‘drain you’ after eons – ‘WHAT THE FISHSTICKS WERE YOU THINKING?’.