Longing, Guilt, Escapism and ‘Sinema’

The buzz from the amp seems unintentional now, but it recalls the band’s album, ‘Sinema,’ which opens the same way. This evening at Counterculture might run wayward, with a dramatic burlesque on the one hand and ambient psychedelia on the other, haunting samples dividing attention. It, however, will always somehow creep right back into a sewer-romance fraught with doom and a band of gypsies fighting it out with song. “Thank you for coming. This is Peter Cat Recording Company. Thank you for coming. Thank you.”

They heighten a sense of drama with cued sounds, synths and cavernous guitars overlapping each other, until a waltzing ballad about a two-timing lover takes over. Her duplicity spills into the song such that you can’t be sure whether to sympathize or rejoice. PCRC has been described ‘bittersweet,’ because what they share is not the inaccessible knowledge of ‘cool,’ as custom with many bands, but the stale, common reality that, at second glimpse, is always drenched in irony.

“I could've warned you but I lied. She’s not yours but mine. 

My girl, she won't confess, but she'll be your lover and maybe your guest.”

Indian cinema feeds, just as it feeds on, the virtue of silence- an assortment of self-inflicted complications that Indians live with. We’re continually reinventing the remnants of our legends and myths, reapplying them to each other and ourselves, very often with inapt expectations. Though it essentially assigns roles to men and women, it goes even beyond. “There are so many people here. There are more interesting people in India just by virtue of the numbers and everyone’s holding something back,” says Suryakanth who fronts the band and writes their songs.

“Here she comes on ten white horses made of string and clay, the flowers in his fingers wilt away.” 

Though the crowd is mostly brief and contemplative between tracks, it’s an approachable atmosphere that beckoned six girls and two guys forward to dance in front of stage, ahead of the dinner tables. The turn out is a little more than usual to see this band from Delhi. Outside, on the lawn, people have formed many pockets, moving and seemingly playful. Suryakanth probably feels how the energy is not feeding back and picking up a handheld loudspeaker, makes his round, ushering folks in.

“ 'Cause everyone is someone waiting for you.” 

The notes, looming like a dream in a life stricken by worse fate, can make you feel like that clown who’s crying in the rain, tumbling and dancing. “It’s basically old Hindi film music but for the fact that they never used a drum kit like we do now,” says Rohan, who has never stopped swaying in a trance when he’s playing the bass. When a bunch of these songs have twisted the soul too much, along comes the memory of some fantastical past that rings ripe for escape: “Happiness allows us to behave in ways you'd only hear about in whispers on your radio. …to live our lives meaningless.”

They’re always demanding a second look at life, but for the moment, the moaning slide guitar fulfills every cloud in the delusion. The idea to take back home tonight may be that celebration can mend wounds as music dissolves reality, just like at the cinemas. Some black-and-white Bollywood diva sings a classical strain for the cabaret with every push of the button. It’s ultimately tempting to let yourself fall for pain, even if just to acknowledge it.

The host discretely signals the last song and the singer responds with war cries. We go into a bit you could call disco-gypsy. A psychedelic vibe sets in with the loudening beats and a guitar solo running through wah and reverb. The girls start dancing again in response to the music saying that it may never stop. The tune says to life, bring on all the gloom you can muster, like lonesome travellers reveling in the night’s joy and sadness alike. 

Grey Shack Gets the Ol' Motor Running

It's eight forty-five on a Friday night at B-Flat (Indira Nagar, Bangalore) but the house is still empty. Don't worry, a moment later the crowd does make it and almost fills the place up. The evening will recall the morphing of rock-and-roll into hard rock during the late 70s and early 80s, as captured by Grey Shack.

A mashed-together jam steadies the band on their eight feet. You can tell that Vikram Vivekanandan spends a lot of time getting his guitar to sound just right, as often as he riffs on what might be Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the greatest licks of all time. If the overdriven guitar sounds like a heavily loaded machine, Rohan Sen’s gravely vocals sound like a throttling engine and together they make up the dynamo of the band. The machines are held in place by Vinay Ramakrishnan, who brings the 90s into the equation with some Carter-Beauford-styled smacking of skin. Forming a firm matrix, Conrad Simmons may have had just a couple of months to pick up from where the last bassist left off, but you couldn’t tell unless you were told so.

Sen jokes about the long journey the band have made to be with us tonight, “…all the way from Chennai,” and the crowd welcomes them. However, “The next one… is all about… the heartache… the bleeding. I just ruined your evening didn't I?” They shift into a darker side of their sound and the ghostly reverb on the phased guitar makes the uncanny notes float tensely like from an electric organ. “You know you love me, you know you can't.” Not lingering there, they toss us right back into the upside of their disposition with 'One Night Stand,' waking up the feel with which they first appeared on the college circuit, back in 2007. The refrains are raw and good-natured and the imagery brims with hormonal surges from the appeals of a girl, her lips and her passion. Giving up the sexuality, “It’s cliche time,” Sen explains about the next one. “It's time to stop thinking and be the change." Aiding those who’re eating to swallow, Vinay's perfectly tuned and timed clamor keeps the pace going, even as it slows nearly down to a stop. A heavier sound takes over with repetitive riffs laid out on head banging grooves. Sen yowls over some deep-seated perils and a guy in the front row lashes at the air with his arms- the chairs might be too low and comfortable for this sound. 

The popular album covers decking the walls flare out when the band plunges into a medley of sing-alongs. It’s easy to spot Rolling Stones, Bruce Sprinsteen and Deep Purple tonight. A souped-up ‘Day Tripper’ turns into ‘Purple Haze’ and sure enough, there’s a Jimi Hendrix album right at the center. When ‘Proud Mary’ starts, we’re certainly headed towards the spirit of a beer fest. A moment later, you might have guessed that they lurch straight into the ending chorus of ‘Hey Jude,’ just before a little bit of ‘Hush.’ By the time we hear Grey Shack’s version of The Who’s iconic “Baba O’Riley,” it's time for a drink if you haven't been sipping one so far, because this is the most common denominator of inhibition-shedding good-ol’-numbers you might ever find.

Back to originals, ‘Dirty City’ shells out ACDC’s influence on the band’s sound: “Ain’t no sunshine in the city… She's got no rules today, She can take you all the way.” We’ve reached the last song and it’s the title track of Grey Shack’s recent album, summing up the essential ideas you find here- churning oneself out of urban stagnation, moving on, and “Stepping Outside.” Of course, there’s ‘ONE MORE’ song that finally ends with a never-ending run of climaxes. It’s clear that Vikram could keep soloing all night for the rest of eternity, but it’s nearly eleven in Bangalore. 

Theme Shots To Replace Your Lost Faith In Indian Bands

Counter Culture offers a choice between the outdoors and the indoor such that you get to watch the live-act either way. The temperature’s gone down a few degrees and the natural choice this evening seems to be outside. The Indie March Festival is going on here, tonight featuring two acts from Chennai, each with a fresh sound and a list of dance-friendly, guitar-based songs. Guru, the program manager of CC is ‘digging the tunes,’ while reminding us to try out the specials of the day: ‘The F16s,’ a pineapple-flavored rum and vodka shot, and ‘The Big Belly,’ a whiskey and lime shot named after The Shakey Rays’ album, ‘Tunes From The Big Belly.’

The F16s start off with an unexpected reserve of energy for the relaxed evening that it is. They have an up-to-date indie sound that comes across like Vampire Weekend-ish guitar work going through a heavier setting, more akin to the Arctic Monkeys. The vocals are simple, raw and tuneful like Kings Of Leon, while the keyboard excites like in the Foals’ music. Influences allow musicians to play what they love to hear and this six-month-old band with an average age of 20 seems on the verge of taking flight from the sounds that inspire them. “We’re going to mellow this down a bit,” says Joshua, the vocalist, proceeding to walk with us through a merrily sunny day at a carnival, titled ‘You Can Wonder.’ It’s short and sweet like a TV jingle.  The F16s are currently doing well at college fests and working on their debut album, ‘Kaleidescope.’

The Shakey Rays have been around for longer, acquiring a fine, original flavor to their music, yet conserving roots that go back to some melodious, bygone era. Dhruva leads the band, so to speak, from stage left; they’re often deliberately unconventional in that way. In contrast to the F16s, who seem to have a play/pause button, The Rays pick up their pieces progressively. Pretty soon they’ve gotten pretty loud in a way that’s not noisy, although the venue lets the chords and melodies get submerged in the drums. A road accident has kept the Rays’ volatile drummer, Ninju, at home. He had better recover fast, because Prabhu, who has only had a week to take over, is doing a perfect job of it. ‘The man’s a genius,” says Dhruva, pointing to the talent nurtured by Chennai’s Adam and the Fish-eyed Poets. The Fish-eyed Poets’ prolific guitarist, Abhinav, is also doubling on the Rays’ bass, and it says all about a healthy music culture in the port city.

Shifting smoothly from heavier to softer songs, the jazzy, nostalgia-inducing chords move into punchier choruses, peaking with screams. Vikram’s forte of riffs even accommodates outrageous solos that bend notes like a post-punk B.B. King, high on speed. The band reaches their complete output when Vikram backs Dhruva’s vocals. The duo’s experiments in search of the sweetest harmonies go back to their school days.

What’s noteworthy is that both these groups are working on their music full-time, as niche as it may seem. The Rays’ fan-turned-manager, Jolene, who has also taken the F16s under her wing, feels that this is a great time to be a band in India, “given the rise in the number of festivals and general overall interest in non-mainstream music. But there's a long way to go. We need more performance spaces and for the industry to grow to a level where it'd be possible for younger bands to sustain more easily.”

HRC Hysteria: Chance of a Lifetime for Local Acts

Hard Rock Café and ReverbNation team up once a year to provide local music groups from across the globe with the most widely spread out battle of bands. This year’s finalists from the six HRCs in India will go on to compete with about 90 others from the rest of the world. The winner of Hard Rock Rising 2013 gets a world tour of Hard Rock Cafe locations, a music video and album with Hard Rock Records and $10,000 in new gear. For each venue, the public selected eight bands using a song-download contest, while judges pushed in a ninth band. The first leg of performances at HRC, Bangalore, saw two post-rock bands and a metal core band sparring it out with their sounds.

First on stage was ‘Until We Last,’ an ambient, instrumental act that cites their influences as the Universe and Nature. Cool and composed, there are no messages, jokes or gyaan from this band, because they rarely take a break from their shoegazing. Nonetheless, they’re into it like a business as they patiently build layer upon layer of guitar-heavy, synth-driven soundscapes, producing a ‘spaced out,’ cinematic effect. Primarily a studio project, Until We Last’s bid at ‘recreating nature with sound’ has already found vast audiences with songs featured on stations like Koopradio of Texas. “Our music is very open and has the tendency to touch people’s hearts,” says Ketan, the guitarist who formed the band a year ago.

Next up is a trio of metal heads that goes by the name, ‘The Lies Inside.’ When they are not causing seizures among the frail, one of them is a commercial pilot, another works for Toyota and the third teaches drums at Taaqademy. As soon as they’re past a few initial technical hiccups, they get their waiting crowd involved with a ready frenzy. The band notes that the main challenge in a competition is keeping the time stress at bay while also showcasing one’s strengths. “We definitely stick out because we play metal,” says Arun, the guitarist and vocalist. “People may dismiss metal core as ‘emo’ or ‘poser,’ but we consider it a perfect mix of melody and brutality.” Song writing is a crucial part of The Lies Inside, seeking to create realistic lyrics instead of metaphors derived from detailed images of blood and severed guts. However, a boxy mix of the vocals and the distorted guitar tone doesn’t allow for the content to be deciphered.

The third and last band of the night is a group of four students from Srishti School of Design that call themselves “Space Behind The Yellow Room.” Prior to getting on stage, they convey that they’re perhaps a little bored and confess that it’s not right to compete with others’ music since you can’t compare art to art. “We see this as a larger scale rehearsal so we try not to change our mindset,” says Nihar, one of the guitarists. A quick discussion helps them list their priorities for the night: “Listen, play, eat and go home. We live really far away.” As soon as they start playing, you would be forced to put away any set notions about art students taking their thoughts for granted. Space Behind is exuberant, animated and dreamy- all at once. Their ideas are well constructed and fit together with ease. The band aspires to construct songs that take off from one another, “building up to a whole like the chapters of a novel.” On the part of novelty, it’s stimulating to see Shoumik Biswas deliver equal power into both his roles as drummer and vocalist.

 

“To be the best here you have to do something different,” says Ketan. “Overall performance, what we do on stage and the sound are largely left to us, but the chance we take is what’s left to the judges.” Devashish, Space Behind’s lead guitarist adds, “You need to know yourself and put a bit of yourself into it. If every band put themselves into their music, they’d all sound unique even if they fell under the same style."