The Shakey Rays on a Regular Night at Opus

                                Lost World of Rock’n’Roll

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.

An Evening With The Fish-Eyed Poet at the Toto Awards

It was the 9^th annual Toto Funds the Arts award ceremony at Bangalore’s Alliance Francais. The event is dedicated to the memory of 20 year old Angirus 'Toto' Vellani, writer, blogger and budding film critic, who lost his life  in 2004. TFA aims to encourage young independent artists for their work in the categories of photography, filmmaking, music and creative writing. Next to the podium is a picture of Toto, radiant and smiling as though in approval. Looking around the auditorium now, it seems to be filled with excited contestants anxiously anticipating the results.

Kishore Krishna conducts himself as though he’s reluctantly hopeful. If he’s not nervous, he’s completely confident of winning. This is his third nomination for the Toto and though he doesn’t know it yet, the heavy molded metal trophy shaped like a hand as well as the cheque for Rs. 50,000, already have the name of his band engraved on them. ‘Adam and the Fish-Eyed Poets’ is an endeavor that has solidified out of the time Kishore spends, deprived of sunlight, nestling with his vision in a jam room studio at his home in Chennai. Riding out an unpaved venture, the sleepless nights he consumes work out to months of restlessly toying with expectations. Besides Prabhu Muralee, the energetic drummer of the band, other members have tended to swing, either due to artistic differences or to favor more conventional callings. Having pursued music with the same the time and involvement needed to pursue any conventional career, Kishore has three great albums and many live shows around the country feathering his hat.

Sulk-Station, previous Toto nominees, get on stage to set off the affair and the gathering is transformed by its electronica-infused, ambient sound and brooding vocals. Strains of traditional folk and Hindustani find their way through Tanvi Shah’s melodies. A still moment of private contemplation explodes as the building synths break into thunderous new age beats. The audience claps in appreciation as the act winds up.

The short-listed contestants are called upon stage and each deliberate upon their work. Many have travelled great distances in search of a fitting conclusion to their toil as artists. Most seem shy in the limelight, but all appear to be enthusiastic and thankful for the recognition. As the evening proceeds to the award distribution, some are rendered ecstatic while others find reason to take in a sigh before moving on. Kishore makes his way on stage and briefly thanks his parents for their support and Toto for the encouragement. The money obtained will pay for a live drum recording on The Fish-Eyed Poets’ upcoming album- a well-deserved upgrade from the sequenced beats of previous efforts. 

Later, at the dinner table, Kishore and Sulk Station’s Rahul Giri find themselves fervently zeroing in on the point of it all as musicians trying to make a living in India. The conversation frequents marketing towards the new generation of consumers, while touching upon the economy, social divides, language barriers and how the Internet redeems all obstacles while also introducing a fleeting quality to art. Kishore says he intends on seeking out his disenfranchised, English-thinking generation- a large group of fresh minds scattered across the country, all lost in chaotic little corners across the confluence. As the restless chatter of acceptance fades, each is left where art begins- the inner voice and its responses to the day. 

Indietronica Nights With Axo & Zomb

                        Modulating People with Music

Time and again a redefining wave of music washes through culture, articulating the mindset of a new generation. Its onset of it is often characterized by sounds that consumers of previous forms don’t care to sit for. Once relegated from the norm, a fresh culture is gradually spun around its core with all the confusion and unpredictability of a newborn style. As this breathing space to create new vocabularies finds its form and following, it gradually turns into something exclusive, maybe an entire genre. The new sound of this day is undoubtedly electronic in its nature. The possibilities of 0s and 1s turning into audible material seem to have captured the entire world’s imagination. In effect, the software synthesizer and sequencer have given to music what the Internet gave to knowledge; digital audio workstations have done for music what Photoshop did for design and condoms for sex- playing the part of the great leveler, placing the gift of creation into the hands of anyone even remotely interested. There’s no need to read notations, hear perfect pitch or have a childhood spent mastering an instrument. All you need is a computer. And love.

Someone alien might ask, so what is it then about standing in a crowded room ringing with clamoring beats, whirrs and warps, crinkling crumples, clangs, shuffles and dismembering sweeps? Is it about meeting people as crazy as the music? You certainly can’t keep a conversation going unless you have something worth screaming at the top of the lungs directly into the other person’s ear.

People essentially find their way into a club for the same old reason - to enter into a social trance distinct from their home and work. The skilled DJ reads trends in the seeming chaos and subtly guides the pack through a seamless, mental trip in which they want to mingle and dance. “Sometimes you can’t tell when the previous track ended and the next one began. It’s just a lot of sounds building up in synchrony,” says Zomb.  Axo adds that the trick is to grab people’s attention and then constantly introduce fresh ideas to hold them captive.

Zomb and Axo get together on Mondays to mix Indietronica and Deep House at Pebble, Bangalore. The biggest challenge, of course, lies in getting people to come in on a Monday night. “The best way is to promise free alcohol and naked women,” claims Zomb, thwarted, and it sounds about right. Other DJs and musicians tend to turn up to check out new sounds but they seem to save their friends for their own gigs. On the bright side, Mondays provide space for experimentation precisely because it’s outside of the usual pattern.

“Electronic Dance Music is mixed up with a culture that’s all about partying to escape from an office reality,” Axo explains. “People want to consume music at a very fast pace just like junk food, not taking time for a tryout. They get comfortable with tracks they hear on radio or see on the T.V., they download it for their phones and cars and they expect the same tacks at the clubs too.” As a result, a Saturday night at any respectable venue features a repetitive mainstream experience varying only to accommodate a fresh chart of sing-alongs. The DJ is not only a musician, but also a purveyor for other musicians. He creates the heightened moment for a track and feeds it to people so they can’t refuse it. Axo describes it as a ‘journey through the global sound.’ However, the mainstream agenda tends to throw limitations by guiding people with a pre-response to the music they hear. It follows that DJs must cater to that demand.

“Bangalore really is open to new sounds though Rock, Metal and their offshoots go down better than music based on beats. The problem is that there aren’t a lot of places where new music can be consumed,” claims Axo. “Fresh material needs to be out there for long enough for people to absorb and digest it.” Zomb points out that things may in fact be changing with the increase in the number of festivals that provide imminent acts with the same stages as the more established ones. The question that could be individually answered is that if all the best artists are available at home then why attend events for the sake of music?