The weekend past was spent conducting a couple of lit events at St John's Medical College and attending a full paisa vasool concert. I did get in for free so theoretically it would have been paisa vasool if anyone but Himmesh was there but this was also a band that I have and would have paid to watch, time and again. The grammar in the previous sentence is of a dubious nature but there are reasons for that too. And the organisers at John's are a kindly bunch and thus the free entry.
Many thoughts have risen in the old cranium the past few days so this just might be a long ranty post so there's the headlines so you can scroll down to the relevant parts or just leave if you find them uninteresting
1. Lack of substantial participation in lit events
2. Rather depressing state of knowledge of the current TV generation
3. A somewhere it is Thermal and a Quarter Concert
4. The deplorable state of affairs regarding music taste or the difference between good music and popular music
5. Adobe Audition as the best audio editing software no matter how amateur you are or How what you hear is never what you get
6. What is this Gazzag anyway
Part I& II
So I was asked to conduct Word Games and 20 Questions at Autumn Muse 2006. It used to be a good fest in the years gone by attracting excellent talent in literary and debating events. Culturals will always be big anywhere. Vellore Engineering college gets some 15 western music bands so we shan't go there. Now there are hardly 5 teams in registering who know what the event is. And they don't know grammar. Or slang. Or difficult words. And in twentyQ somewhere along the way you realise that they aren't reading classics anymore. They aren't reading medicine either so what are they doing? TV? Awesome!!
Part III - Bring your Daughter to Thermal and a Quarter
Taaq turned 10. Have seen them and heard them for 9 of the 10 so I shall speak and not take flak. Like they say in Cheers, I'm rubber and you're glue, anything you say bounces of me and sticks to you. The concert started at seven and within twenty minutes of it's starting the heavens opened like they did an hour before the concert and the previous day. Incredible really. Autumn Muse does that to the weather. Clear skies for a week before and after the fest and torrential, end-of-the-world, let's all pair up and get on to the ark rains bang in the middle of the Rock Show. Squelchy but it's fun if you're at the sound console.
This was the song list
Galacktiqua, Look @ Me, Paper Puli, Sunset Man (Hallelujah!), Brigade Street, Wonderwall (yeah Oasis but I actually like the song now), Holy Jose (new), Sanity, Bend The World, How Can I Get Your Groove(clean, simple, awesome), Shine On You Crazy Diamond (another trip), Chameleon and Hoedown. How do I know? I've spent the last 36 hours trying to clean up the audio recording but more on that later. The one thing new that I saw this time was 23 year old Nate from the Chicago area who's here with his tenor saxophone which he cleans with used currency notes when it gets damp, by the way. Now Nate changes the way the band sounds to a level that I haven't seen in this many years. Be it blistering solos in Shine or Hoedown or fill-ins in Sanity there's something to it. Treading the fine line between staying in tune and straying off it, as he would say, it was trippy da.
Thank you lord that Bruce is back to singing and Pascal isn't. And like I said it was good fun and so was the 10 year anniversary bash after that.
Part IV - The serious bit
As the rains poured down the sound console had the usual influx of the audience who didn't think getting wet was a good idea but didn't mind the risk of electrocution with all the cables around. Now in the midst of the hoi polloi was one heckling gentleman screaming for rock. I do understand the individual preferences of the world at large and that would explain how Himmesh and the Backstreet Boys are oh so up in the ratings or why the only thing we get to hear in rock competitions is heavy metal. Or why Strings, Fuzon and Call are raking in millions by selling albums in India. It doesn't quite gel well. Shah Rukh Khan is a superstar while Nasserudin Shah is best known for his role in Tridev. Why no one's heard of Dave Matthews Band but would swear by 'Nsync. Why music with the shelf life of spoilt meat is so popular while enough good bands haven't gotten very far.
Time will change things they say. But a paradigm shift (how I love that phrase) in people's tastes is unlikely to happen and till then Himmesh is going to rule the roost.
Part V
Adobe Audition is so cool. That's all there is to it. Simple any moron (including yours truly) can work it with ease and actually get something that sounds almost, but not quite like perfect.
Gazzag. What kind of meaningless palindrome is that? The worst kind.
More editing remains me off.
And I made no spelling mistakes apparently.
Many thoughts have risen in the old cranium the past few days so this just might be a long ranty post so there's the headlines so you can scroll down to the relevant parts or just leave if you find them uninteresting
1. Lack of substantial participation in lit events
2. Rather depressing state of knowledge of the current TV generation
3. A somewhere it is Thermal and a Quarter Concert
4. The deplorable state of affairs regarding music taste or the difference between good music and popular music
5. Adobe Audition as the best audio editing software no matter how amateur you are or How what you hear is never what you get
6. What is this Gazzag anyway
Part I& II
So I was asked to conduct Word Games and 20 Questions at Autumn Muse 2006. It used to be a good fest in the years gone by attracting excellent talent in literary and debating events. Culturals will always be big anywhere. Vellore Engineering college gets some 15 western music bands so we shan't go there. Now there are hardly 5 teams in registering who know what the event is. And they don't know grammar. Or slang. Or difficult words. And in twentyQ somewhere along the way you realise that they aren't reading classics anymore. They aren't reading medicine either so what are they doing? TV? Awesome!!
Part III - Bring your Daughter to Thermal and a Quarter
Taaq turned 10. Have seen them and heard them for 9 of the 10 so I shall speak and not take flak. Like they say in Cheers, I'm rubber and you're glue, anything you say bounces of me and sticks to you. The concert started at seven and within twenty minutes of it's starting the heavens opened like they did an hour before the concert and the previous day. Incredible really. Autumn Muse does that to the weather. Clear skies for a week before and after the fest and torrential, end-of-the-world, let's all pair up and get on to the ark rains bang in the middle of the Rock Show. Squelchy but it's fun if you're at the sound console.
This was the song list
Galacktiqua, Look @ Me, Paper Puli, Sunset Man (Hallelujah!), Brigade Street, Wonderwall (yeah Oasis but I actually like the song now), Holy Jose (new), Sanity, Bend The World, How Can I Get Your Groove(clean, simple, awesome), Shine On You Crazy Diamond (another trip), Chameleon and Hoedown. How do I know? I've spent the last 36 hours trying to clean up the audio recording but more on that later. The one thing new that I saw this time was 23 year old Nate from the Chicago area who's here with his tenor saxophone which he cleans with used currency notes when it gets damp, by the way. Now Nate changes the way the band sounds to a level that I haven't seen in this many years. Be it blistering solos in Shine or Hoedown or fill-ins in Sanity there's something to it. Treading the fine line between staying in tune and straying off it, as he would say, it was trippy da.
Thank you lord that Bruce is back to singing and Pascal isn't. And like I said it was good fun and so was the 10 year anniversary bash after that.
Part IV - The serious bit
As the rains poured down the sound console had the usual influx of the audience who didn't think getting wet was a good idea but didn't mind the risk of electrocution with all the cables around. Now in the midst of the hoi polloi was one heckling gentleman screaming for rock. I do understand the individual preferences of the world at large and that would explain how Himmesh and the Backstreet Boys are oh so up in the ratings or why the only thing we get to hear in rock competitions is heavy metal. Or why Strings, Fuzon and Call are raking in millions by selling albums in India. It doesn't quite gel well. Shah Rukh Khan is a superstar while Nasserudin Shah is best known for his role in Tridev. Why no one's heard of Dave Matthews Band but would swear by 'Nsync. Why music with the shelf life of spoilt meat is so popular while enough good bands haven't gotten very far.
Time will change things they say. But a paradigm shift (how I love that phrase) in people's tastes is unlikely to happen and till then Himmesh is going to rule the roost.
Part V
Adobe Audition is so cool. That's all there is to it. Simple any moron (including yours truly) can work it with ease and actually get something that sounds almost, but not quite like perfect.
Gazzag. What kind of meaningless palindrome is that? The worst kind.
More editing remains me off.
And I made no spelling mistakes apparently.
