Drum PatientCategory Archive

What a joke. Bijoy’s hilarious catty puns set the tone nicely, I think, for this JAM CAT thing. As far as concerts go, it was more like what the cat dragged in.

Among the hairballs was V&P sound. When are these guys gonna get their cat together? On stage sound was boomy, undefined and messy, despite tons of spanking new equipment. What the crowd (there was a decent-sized one) heard is anybody’s guess. They cheered us on pretty loudly, especially after Look At Me, Sanity, and Paper Puli, so I guess it wasn’t completely terrible.

There were a few wayward souls throwing paper balls and those little skinny paper rockets on stage for laughs. Annoying. One particular sharp-eyed shmuck almost got said paper ball into the bell of Nate’s Sax! Nate, in his own words: “I was really mad – until I figured that the guy almost made the shot!”

Played a short set – we were asked to finish early. Galeej was supposed to get on next, but The Unknowns somehow got that slot. Messy altercation and some fisticuffs backstage, and the next thing we know, Galeej aren’t playing at all. Bummer.

That about sums it up. If you weren’t there, you didn’t miss much.

Still groggy. But here I am.

Well, we’re ten years old and we played at Autumn Muse last night. The same stage we first played on in 1996. We were young whippersnappers then, competing in the ‘semi-professional’ category. I remember we played a Mr. Big tune called ‘What’s it Gonna Be’, Sevenish, and maybe I’ll Get You and Catharsis, I’m not sure. Rajeev must have a little piece of paper somewhere with that set list written down.

Sound was decent, but we couldn’t have done without the PODs – both Tony and I went direct, the guitar amps that Reynolds forked up being some ridiculous tiny leftover Marshalls with as much character as boiled cabbage. Nate had a wireless! And had a total rockstar moment on the ramp with his solo on Shine. Shine on!

Oh, it rained. Like shit it did. And nobody left! And there were all these wonderfull, sodden people in front singing along with all our songs… thanks for making this gig special.

Long party after gig, complete with ten-year birthday cake and all. Lots of drunken revelry. Fun.

So many people. So many people have made this possible. I can’t name ‘em all, and I can’t even begin to thank them properly. I’m just so glad that I’ve been able to be with this bunch of fantastic folk for this long. Here’s looking forward to a lot more.

Mumbai was hot and sticky. Got in over two hours late – Spice Jet blamed the weather.

The Juhu Hotel is this slightly run-down looking place, and it’s the home of the Razzberry Rhino, one of Mumbai’s Meccas for live music. The funny thing: the Razz, as it’s called, is this typical pub/lounge thing, inside the hotel, and just outside it is the outdoor restaurant/lawns where they have weddings and the occasional party sharty; it isn’t unusual that occasional Zhari-enveloped aunties and suited-booted uncles sort of wander in to have a look at the tamasha. Surrounded by black tees, goa-tees, and other variants of the hard-rocking variety, they squeak out rather quickly, muttering under their breaths about misspent youth, or ‘too much noise’.

Rithvik, our event manager for the day, effusive and friendly, bought some beers and we chilled on the ‘lawns’ while the hotel staff set up for the evening’s wedding do. The aforesaid staff are also clearly distant cousins of a certain slow-moving south American primate, as it took us nearly 40 minutes to get a chicken sandwich. We also ended up eating a fish starter for dessert.

Sound check was a bit of a joke. The ‘sound engineer’, an underage knob-twiddling maroon, had neither knowledge nor experience, and, I suspect, couldn’t hear very well either. He was the stand-in anyway, the real dude being all washed up in traffic (there was some Bihari puja going on and the streets were clogged; even Bangalore seemed momentarily better for an instant, not including *&#% Gowdagiri).

Medusa, a sort of electronica-rock band on the lines of Prodigy, opened for us. Nice act, some very tight playing by the drummer. The vocalist had attitude but didn’t sing very well. They deserved to get a little more from the crowd. Given Tony’s new fixation, there was no way the guitarist could be playing anything other than a Tele… hee hee.

Rudy’s cronies, old TAAQ-friends Tall Ravi (the wonderful guy who brought down my PODxt) and Chotu found their way to the gig, and they brought a sound-engineer pal along. Huzzah. We opened with Look At Me, and within the first couple of songs, he managed to get a lot of things working. Thanks man.

Good crowd, saw a lot of folks singing along. Always great to see! Played almost two hours. Jupiter Cafe was a nice jam, Intermission featured a small train wreck, Chameleon rocked happily along with Galacktiqua and Hoedown finished up before the Motorbyckle encore. They wanted more, but some sound guy had already pulled the plugs.

Good gig, overall. Hope we do more in Mumbai.

Some mad last-minute air-ticket convolutions notwithstanding, TAAQ made it to IIT Delhi on the night of Friday, the 22nd of September, 2006. The piped voice on the Jet flight gargled that the ‘temperature outside was 35 degrees’, but the gargler was wrong – a sudden shower had decided to cool Dilli down for us.

Gluttons for punishment, Tony and I had signed on to judge the rock competition, slated to stretch through the night. Strangely enough, Nate (our new sax player – yes, our new sax player!) enthusiastically decided to join us. We piled into our special Tata Indica (after finding the dude with the sign that said “Mr. Thermal And Quarter from Chennai”), captained by a Mr. Manish. The rest of the band folk would follow in two other gaadis. Now, this particular Indica was clearly one of those ‘less car per car’ versions, the company somehow having forgotten to include minor details like First Gear, seat belts and so on. Some laborious chugging, many irate honks, and a couple of wrong turns later, we tootle into the IIT campus, where we were contacted, taken to our room in the guest house for a quick howza, and promptly whisked off to the auditorium for the big judging. Many hours later, rapidly approaching catatonia, we shambled out after proclaiming our verdict. What happened inside is another story…

While some parts of the TAAQ family buzzed off to Agra to take in the usual tourist bits, Tony, Chandy, and I chose some shut-eye. Everyone came together again for the most amazing dinner ever, at this place called Karim’s. The best sheek I have ever eaten. Ever.

Soundcheck, some of the usual issues. Drum kit not quite happening, but we soldier on. Tony, Rzu and me are wireless! New AKG system, didn’t mess with the sound as much as I remember the old Shure UHF doing. Nifty little gadget – no beltpack, just a little blob with a tiny aerial, attached to the jack.
And after the competition finals, judged by Chandy and Nate (quite the cutlet, isn’t he?) we get on and start with Look At Me. Goes down well, Nate takes a smoking solo, and we’re off… Shine On You.. was good as well. Galacktiqua, Bend, Paper – quite the punchy set list. Words and Pictures was the one moody song, but that got quite a good response too. Our mangled version of Wonderwall had Nate taking another super little solo. Wrapped up with Motorbyckle this time, no Hoedown. Good gig. The sections of the audience that wanted the heavier stuff left, but everyone that stayed seemed to be having a blast.

First gig with our new sound. And I think it’s working. It’s like a sound I’ve always heard in my head..

Naveen Dubey sent us these pics of our Pubrock Gig in Delhi. He was at our GIR gig there as well, back in ’97 or ’98. As a photographer, he says he’s ‘much better now’. Dude, thanks.

There’ll be more soon on www.bangalorerock.com. Do check em out.

The last time we played at a gig with a concept woven around the band and its music must have been The Potatoe Junkie show. Back in 1999. A total TAAQ production it was.

The At Home gig, put together by the fine folks at Prospect Inc., was a revelation. Yes, there actually are ‘event’ people who will go that difficult extra mile to make a gig much more than just a gig. Fine hosts to start with, they’d tweaked the whole performance space to fit with our music, our distinctive urban flavour. They really got into the songs, used the words and music to inspire, hand-painted a stunning backdrop, built props, lugged a bike onstage, made music videos, and let people in for free. There was no sponsor. Takes guts and conviction to pull something like this off. Isheeta and Adhiraj – you guys are doing a tremendous job. All the luck.

Great crowd – we played 2 hours of our stuff, unfamiliar to most there, and they just seemed to love it. The usual smattering of musicians, kids, older folks – it was a typical TAAQ crowd in some ways. Delhi, btw, is very very hot this time of the year. Drink a lot of water. I didn’t and suffered quite a bit on stage.

At Home is one good idea. It’s got to keep happening. It needs a patron, not a sponsor, and I hope they find one.

More Pics coming..

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Back. And loving it. Missed the family.

Decent gig in Delhi, at Le Royale Mirage (which, despite the Frenchie monicker, has egyptian motifs at the entrance, and very plush, slightly massage-in-a-brothel decor on the inside). Cool place, looked packed.

Dunno what it was, but it wasn’t the best gig we played – started real late, around midnight, and I don’t know if it was general tiredness/jet lag/whatever, but energy wasn’t all the way like it usually is. Rajeev was very unhappy, poor chappie, all sorts of things going wrong with the kit. His pedal was off the floor or something, his hi-hats stopped working, the snare was spinning on the stand (!) and so on. Still pulled it all off tho. Really good crowd – a lot of them probably heard us for the first time and were really appreciative of our stuff. Felt good.

The Nice n’Sleazy gig was the definitely the best on the tour. A good bit of the crowd were repeats – they’d seen us at the Govan festival, and brought their friends along! Was really really great to see them tripping, and even singing along with some songs – they’d bought the cd, and I guess they’d been listening! We played really well, I thought, good energy, no dodgy spots, just ON. One of those life-affirming gigs.

But here’s the real icing on the tour cake – we were waiting at Delhi airport when we got a call from Capt. Nagaraj (an airline pilot, musician, all round great guy) – we’d played a real chill gig for his birthday recently. Told him we were flying back to Blore, and he said, hang on, he’ll call us back. Didn’t know what he had in mind. Anyway, got on the plane, settled into our seats, and an announcement comes on over the cabin PA – there’s a call for Rudy. Rudy comes back beaming – we’d just been promoted to business class! You know, those super wide seats, miles of legroom, three-course meal, obsequious attendants.. aaah. One numbers goood sleep also happened, very needed. Thank you O Captain, my Captain!

Back to the grind. Off to Delhi again soon – another gig there on the 30th. Thassit for now.

Well. We made it into the National Dailies. Check this link.

The Herald

Little Tony Das, dreaming of his lass (babe? naaah, his Tele, silly), sits in the hall shredding away on his yet-unsold (sigh) Ibanez. The Guzuru man is busy doing some brisk, expletive-laden kitchen magic. Rajeev is somewhere en route from London to Glasgow, plane, taxi, whatever. Rudy probably in Exeter or Newcastle, should make it in tomorrow. And I sit on Guzuru’s beat up old chair, tapping away blithely on his beat-up old laptop.

The Govan Festival gig, the Sketch, was one of those special ones. Some venues can do that – this one was the auditorium of the Pierce Institute in Govan, a mid-sized, vault-ceilinged, woody affair, with an enormous pipe organ presiding over the main stage. A bit run down with age, but still a beaut. Sound check went completely according to plan – both guitar amps (Marshalls too) breathed their last, Tony and I had to go D.I. with just two monitor mixes, and other such exciting stuff. Anyway. Went on the #3 slot. Sound wasn’t the greatest, but ’twas a really good gig. Booties were shaken, yells were heard, and CDs were lapped up with gusto. Autographs were signed on… well, I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Packed up into our tour bus – what a tour bus. Apparently used by REM, Greenday, System Of A Down, Feeder, Anthrax, and many others on their European tours, it was a little piece of history – and wore all its years on its vaguely cream-ish skin rather well. Belted off down the motorway with Guru at the helm, making it to London in 9+ hours. Pile into Narayan’s place (poor man) for a bit of R&R before soundcheck at the Doctor’s Tonic. {Special mention: throughout this trip, TAAQ has been able to do what it does best thanks to a few large-hearted folks who let us into their worlds with great love. Guru, Prasanna, Sandeep, Vijaya, Hemanth, Ram, Rinku, Shantanu, Sonia, Omie, Sagar, Narayan – we couldn’t have done this without you guys. And I must stop now before something gets in me eye.}

The Doctor’s tonic soundcheck was very pro – Dave was our sound engineer for the day (also happens to be Narayan’s guitar guru in London). Used his looovely Hughes & Kettner amp. Played at #2, after Shotgun Suicide, a local act. Good gig overall, but our fatigue showed a bit, I guess. Just how are we going to get used to this back-to-back touring that grandaddies like the Rolling Stones do as a matter of course? Shucks. Rayner, Merwyn, and a whole bunch of Bangalore buddies, along with various long-lost relatives of band members were in attendance. Felt like, well, home! Super.

Btw, Big Macs are better than BK Cheeseburgers, but not as good as Whoppers.

Spent all of Sunday wandering around Tottenham Court Road, Denmark St., (where all the music stores are, terribly boring aren’t we just). Walked past the Astoria, the Dominion, all those fabled places where our musical heroes have reigned.. Good trip. Guru and some of the boys left Sunday night, I stayed on for another day. Did all the touristy stuff – Hyde Park (or should I say Hyde Beach; it was hot yesterday and apart from the water and the sand, it was a beach all right), Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Big Behn, etc etc. Saw some cool buskers. Smita, our drummer’s better half, was my tour guide for the evening. The tube is cool too. Massive underground maze, that.

Caught the cramped megabus back. Was bloody hot in London. Glasgow back to being cool today. And with that weather report, shall sign off for now. Ciao folks.