The gear has been waiting on stage since sound check a few hours ago. Those in question are at their table, slightly restless, anticipating a friend who’s on his way to the venue with a guitar strap. When it’s finally time, Abhinav walks to his bass guitar and Ninju to the drum-kit and both start to configure to a groove. Vicky tunes up and assails the rhythm with edgy chords that splinter into solos. Dhruva announces “Radio Calling” and rages into the mic with powerful, melody-driven vocals. Vicky joins in with alternate strains between the strumming. Owing to their roots in RnB and Rock’n’Roll, the most noteworthy attribute of The Shakey Rays is how playful they get with their rhythms and harmonies. And yet, there is no second thought about letting raw loudness take over their melody land. With deliberately loose beginnings spent strumming merrily at parties and clubs, the Rays’ sound has grown much more tightly knit and composed over the years. Dhruva asks if its clipping outside and a friend replies, “Yes, it’s clipping.” Dhurva says that’s good. He picks up his guitar and they continue playing, just a little too loud.
“Catch That Train.”
We’re missing the crowd who
attends to hear music, readily absorbing and returning the energy they receive
from the stage. Gradually it starts to seem like you can measure the dominance
of food over music in the silences between songs. So the conversation at the
table turns to how most people are present only for their dinners and drinks.
The blame is thrown squarely on the cost of a night out with live music. The
vocals start to sink beneath the onslaught of the instruments. “I think this
song’s called ‘It’s alright,’” someone guesses. A dreamy guitar interlude takes
hold of the fort. Bright, resounding guitar chords and bubbly drums over a
booming bass line made of sweet notes. The drums keep the haze of chords
charged up. Who has the patience for so many bars of guitar melody? But surely
enough, in a moment you could get lost in a pleasant, dreamy world constructed
purely out of your thought and their sound.
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” the
old jazz standard? This is bound to be interesting. Ninju starts making the
drum kit hiss. The song is so mellow it’s almost standing still. Abruptly a
madness slips in with lead notes bending out of proportion like an image of
endless spirals.
Like a chronic illness the song
suddenly falls back into the quietness it had risen from. Holding the groove,
Abhinav keeps every bit of the space filled. His bass notes form an electric
line on which the rest feel free to perch like birds, each with the freedom to
hop, fly and sit back down again. The bi-polarity crescendos to a surreal
sequence during which the rhythm, bass and drums keep up a nostalgic sounding
backdrop on which Vicky starts bending the soul out of his solo. He later
claims to have been trying to mimic a nadaswaram. This guy knows to pull a
string clear out to space without taking off from the scene, getting at some
abstract turbulence where it meets an old blues elegance.
The two essential members of the
band have been jamming for so long that they can take a dump on what they’re
playing while having fun with the beats and riffs. If art is mostly context,
filling the ears of the customer while the fork fills the mouth is not easy if
you feel like expressing the first real thing. Though their interest has waned
and some of the lyrics have been drowned, hypnotic melodies continue to prance
around dream sequences built for a rock’n’roll themed party where people are
just as free to say ‘fuck you’ as to say something nice.
Vicky sings “Sleeping In The Back
of Her Car,” a song about a story. It’s a catchy song. Some forks are dropped
for applause. The show soon wraps up and the call for ‘one more’ is declined as
the band pack up, ignoring any compliments whatsoever.
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