The 2012 Jack Daniels/Rolling Stone Rock Awards

turned out to be more than just another wild Bruce chase, with TAAQ’s resident guitarslinger winning the Best Guitarist award for the second time! When asked if he’s in training for a hat trick, Bruce grinned inscrutably and could be heard to mutter ‘I’ll get you in the end’.

This chronicler caught up with the Kung-Fu guitar man for a quick chat:

What do awards like this mean to you?

BLM: Oh, it’s all in a day’s work, ha ha. But seriously, it nice to be recognized by your peers in the ‘industry’ as it were. The whole ‘best guitar

player’ thing is so subjective anyway, so I count myself lucky that this year’s jury liked what I do. And the award itself – oh yes, that looks nice on that shelf in Taaqademy…

What’s more important to you as a guitarist: technique or songcraft? Or can you separate these two things at all?

BLM: Ah, now we’re

talking. Guitar playing technique and songcraft can be viewed as essentially different things – you can find some amazing technicians on the guitar that don’t write great songs, and some amazing songwriters that don’t play very good guitar . For me it’s all part of the same formless ‘musician’ thing. Being self-taught, with guidance from some amazing folks at opportune times, I guess I’ve grown as a musician and songwriter mainly with this one band. I’ve played for all kinds of ensembles, but TAAQ is the only thing that’s consistently kept me evolving – both as a guitar player and songwriter. There are times when I focus only on the technical aspects, improving my facility with the instrument, and there are other times when I’m just writing and composing and putting lyrics down – it’s all very organic I’m afraid. Which means that it smells weird at times, but that’s good too. Very natural.

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Kyra is what Bangalore has always wanted

And suddenly… unexpectedly…  just like that…  Bangalore gets a world-class performance venue.

Despite being the IT/BT capital of the world for over a decade, all that progress hardly made a whisper of a difference when it came to sound and lights available at any of the performance venues in our city. Progress, if any, was reflected in the pricing of the food and drinks.  The only place that has great, world-class sound is apparently the Infy boardroom where Murthy and Nandan jam on their Midas XL8 digital console (known to be the world’s best board). No kidding, they’ve got the works in there, I hear. While we mega rockstar guys have to shut up and play with whatever comes our way. Not to forget the standard pre-gig scenario of haggling with the organizers for that extra sub-woofer or a slightly bigger mixing board or removing a few tables at that pub to make that stage just a tad bigger so that I don’t have a guitar neck going through my ears or have my boom stand up the frontman’s rear.

Finally, here’s a venue where all of that bad stuff is history.

Kyra, with its 30/40 stage + JBL VRX compact line array system with multiple dual 18″ subs powered by QSC amplifiers, processed and managed by a DBX Driverack +  VRX delay speakers designed with ‘EASE’ to ensure even quality of sound across the venue. Not to mention the Soundcraft GB 2-24 24 channel mixer + Truss with 36 lighting points handled by a LSC Maxim M dmx lighting console with 48 faders.

Phew…I’ll stop for now, but there’s plenty more. For all the yada yada yada visit the one and only www.acousticcontrol.com, who have done a fantastic job at Kyra.

And the best part is Kyra promises that this is just the beginning… they are just starting off. Some standard teething troubles, etc. happening but lots more stuff is gonna be put in there.

And if you are wondering why yours truly is being so nice to this place, hear this: Finally, man, finally… finally… finally somebody decided to respect the work of the humble drummer and invest in a high end professional acoustic drum set. My eyes flood up as I thank the person whose decision it was to put in a good high-end kit in there. Contrary to what everybody (including my wife) thinks, we drummers do put in a lot of work into our sound, and for time immemorial we have been disregarded when it comes to spending that lil extra on making sure there’s a good kit at the live gig.

Thank you Kyra. Bangalore desperately needs you.

All the very best, and whatever happens the show must go on.

Gig review by Bruce coming soon.

Thank yous:

Team TAAQ: Vinay Kewalramani (Sound + Gig Mgmt), OB-Wan and Guzuru (Guitar/Bass/Drum Techs)
Kyra: Navneet, Chris, Shimrei, Anand, Ajit and all the staff

More later,
Cheers

Rajeev

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