Gotta Give It To GIVSON!!!!!!

Well, i'd been thinking of buying a bass for a long time and when the day came i was so very confused on which one to buy, when to stop shuffling through them, etc....

Taking Putta made the job easier. We went to the usual "GUITAR PLACE"..... Rhythms (wahahahahahhahahahahaha) to buy the one guitar. Putta and I tried all the makes in that shop but then decided what the shopkeeper said was right... "Their products were inferior!".... Plus we couldn't stand the emotional torture the Business-minded shopkeeper put us through, actually only Putta was the tortured one.... Anyway having had enough, we went to another one of those "Land Of The Rabbits", World Of Music and began the usual picking and "Naah, do you have any other?"

The guitars we saw here were ones we had never heard of before, Ritfeller, WS, etc..... After 6 total hours of "This one sucks......", we decided to get down to the INEVITABLE! Putta asked the shopkeeper if he had any more basses in the godown and Voila! We found 2 awesome guitars! One was a JHATANG Grason (MAN! They never stop making fakes... Givson then Gulson then Gibtone and now Grason!). But apart from the jhatang quality looks, the sound was amazing! We asked him to get another one.... and there came the GIVSON! That's the make we decided would be the last resort! Normally, when you tell a guitarist that you are going to buy a Givson bass, he'd be like "ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!" But this one had amazing sound, tone, sustenance, frets and looks (Metallic Silver).... so...... I BOUGHT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus this was a one in a million case...GIVSON coming up with such a great product for 6,500 grand! WOAH!!!!!

So now it's there at home while I'm in Mumbai...tsk, tsk.......

The best part is Putta actually dreamt of me playing totally radical solos on a Givson! Little did we expect the dream to come true! I actually did end up buying a Givson!!!! Well, now i have to work on making the latter part of the dream to come true "PLAY RADICAL SOLOS!"

So with the INTENSIVE BASS TRAINING coming my way through Putta's expertise, let's see..... Eventually maybe..........

So You Gonna Write A Song?

Music bands are not only about the melody, the lyrics matter too. Consider listening to a song which you get addicted to and then when you browse through the lyrics of the song.....they just don't make sense!

So who are\were the best lyricists in the world of music? Here's my Top Three Favourites........ Don't kill me coz Bob Dylan isn't in the list! I still have to go through that phase.

1. Jim Morrison
The Doors









2. Eddie Vedder
Pearl Jam














3. James Maynard Keenan
Tool\ A Perfect Circle

ALREADY LIBERATED!!!

This is the cover for the upcoming Velvet Revolver album LIBERTAD which is a follow-up to their debut album CONTRABAND (2004). LIBERTAD is scheduled for a June 2007 release. The clock's tickin and I'm already liberated!!


Here's an excerpt from Revolver Magazine, Weiland doing the talking....

SCOTT WEILAND AND FRIENDS PREP "A REAL MEAN ROCK-AND-ROLL RECORD"

To help ensure that their second album lives up to their double platinum debut, 2004's Contraband, Velvet Revolver hired legendary producer Rick Rubin, whose most recent credits include the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Grammy-nominated disc Stadium Arcadium. But after three months of preproduction and little input from Rubin, the bandmates were bickering and banging their heads against the wall- and not in a good way. So they severed ties with Rubin and brought in Brendan O' Brien, who had worked with Weiland in his Stone Temple Pilots days. The switch was just what Velver Revolver needed. "We've gotten more done in the first two weeks with him than we had with Rick in the past two months". says Weiland, who filled us in on the latest.

What Happened with Rick Rubin?
He's got a great resume, but he wasn't jibing with us. After we started working with him, he was never around. We saw him maybe one or two times, and all of a sudden it's two and a half months later and we're stuck in the mud. We're showing up to practice every day and working, but we're going over the same things over and over and running into the same problems because there's a lot of strong personalities in the band and we need someone to come in and kick our asses a little bit.

Why was Brendan O' Brien the man for the job?
He rocks things forward at a crazy pace. There's a whole new vibe, and it's been contagious.

How much material do you have for the record?
We wrote 40 songs, and we've whittled it down to 25, We'll probably cut that down to 13 or 14. I think we'll be here with Brendan for another month, and then we'll have about two weeks of recording. So the record should be out in spring.

How will this album differ from Contraband?
When the band first got together, we were sort of like shipwreck victims reaching for a life raft. We were so excited to be making a record that we laid down a lot of tracks because we didn't want to let go. Now we've known each other a long time and done hundreds of shows, so this one will be more simple and display the band as it sounds right now whitout lots of layers.

Are there any different influences at play?
I don't like much new stuff. I've been listening to a lot of the Who and Pink Floyd, and you might be able to hear some of that. But also you're gonna hear other people's influences. Like, I know Duff's favorite artist is Iggy Pop, and I always hear the Stooges in his writing.

You've said this would be a concept record. Is that still the case?
I had been working on a concept that I had put a lot of time into, but i shot that all to hell because in the last 12 months there have been innumerous alleged concept albums that have been released by innumerous schlock rock bands that i despise. And to put out a concept album in a marketplace that is already littered with trite bullshit would be a disservice to rock fans. So instead we decided to write a real mean rock and roll record.

WOLFMOTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RACING AND BLOODY KICKASS, MATE!!!!!

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS- CORE

This is one album which was never given much credit as it was released at the same time Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains made it big in the Grunge scene. STP as they are also called, as a result of this album, were considered "Alice In Chains Wannabes" at that time. But their debut album, Core, as of today is rightfully considered one of those big Grunge albums. If you ask me, not a bad song on that album!

Core starts off with an amazing Scott Weiland on the megaphone (which he uses a lot throughout the album) on the song "Dead And Bloated" only to move on to two of their greatest ever hits "Sex Type Thing" and "Wicked Garden". "No Memory" is an instrumental song, come to think of it, a filler on the album, but a good whiskey kinda tune. Then the album seems to take a darker touch with the song "Sin", amazing vocals and a great solo gotta say! "Naked Sunday" has that Led Zeppelin kinda vibe and is my favourite. It's a fast moving track with Weiland bellowing on.....What comes next is one of their most famous songs "Creep" which is a slow grunge melody, though monotonous, I think. "Piece Of Pie" is the song which brings out the darker side of Grunge in the album. Then comes the evergreen "Plush" which is an amazing song which one could listen to a million times and yet never get bored of. "Wet My Bed",a poetic entry into the album, which is the other filler, is not too great. "Crackerman" brings back Weiland on the megaphone in what is a racing song with very good solo work. The song which serves as the conclusion to the album is "Where The River Goes", one of STP's longest songs but something on the lines of "Sin" and "Piece Of Pie" with violins and very good melody.

All in all, a great album and one which puts today's musicians to shame...

CHEERS!

Stoned On A Sunday!

May 7th, 2006.... The day we had all been waiting for.. Our first attempt at Sunday Jam! Didn't exactly go the way we expected, but it was an awesome experience for me atleast. Being a new band, we were either offered a slot right at the beginning, the middle or as the last band on stage. And the way my luck goes, we got the latter slot! DAMN! BLACKOUT to play when it's all dark! WOW!

The featured band of the day was Prasanna and the Electric Ganesha Band....long name, huh? They stuck to the stage the longest too! Prasanna was amazing. I remember sitting close to the stage and watching him come up with amazing solos! But after a while it got too much.... we were getting really impatient for our turn to come. So Putta (Rahul- Lead) and Abhijith (Twin Lead) decided to practice till our turn came... this actually caught the eye of the Rave journalists too! We were even asked for an interview before we even played! They were talking to the wrong band, I guess...but it was awesome. The interview never happened though! LOL!

So it turned out that we were to set foot on the stage at 12:00 AM! Not kidding, the schedule went way overboard...and we were given 10 minutes to jam on stage... What followed was utter chaos! Amit's keyboard didn't function, Putta's guitar strap snapped and we had no time to do a soundcheck! Being the last band on stage, the sound guys neglected us too! It was now or never!

Putta sat down like he was playing a sitar, while Amit tried to figure out what was wrong with his keyboard... But we had only ten minutes, so Abhi played the intro of Slither (Velvet Revolver) immediately and we were off! There were just five rows of people left in the crowd by now and I told myself 'Let's see if I can pull this crowd atleast' and went loud on the mic... I still remember seeing the stunned faces of my bro and sis in the crowd! Hell, even Amit was surprised, shocked I must say... here was I, a guy who talks least among everyone in the band and suddenly I was shouting my a** off! I couldn't believe it too!

We played a fast version of Slither with Shreyas (Drums) going hard on the Pearl kit! Putta played the Slash lead when still on his knees! I was over the moon! After the song we were told to finish really fast and so we played an own composition, The Fire Still Burns.... which was not a complete song as of then...still isn't! Putta and Abhi went hard on their guitars, while I was left headbanging with nothing else to do... we didn't even have lyrics for the song...LOL! I remember someone among the crowd shouting "Where's the fire da?" and I replied "Here baby, Yeah!!"... growling out loud! We finished the song with a trademark Putta solo....and the song got over with me shooting myself in the head (not with Gun macha, hand only!)

As we got off stage, each of us were high on the performance! Anybody got booze? I could barely speak after shouting so much! My cousin Nakul came by and asked me "Where did all that energy come from!" Man, did I stun everyone who came there that day! Sorry guys!

Shreyas was totally high! He kept saying "Da macha, Heavy Metal anthe! Is it a Moozic?!" He was obviously in the "WE RULE!" mood!

We then decided to call it a day after going to Mascot! Ah, holy food! Thanx to Ramya (Putta's sis) for the idea and for the free band van (tour van, I must say)! After having tasted the heavenly food, we went back to our Adda, Putta's house for a sleepover. We had some fun leaving Amit locked inside the car too, not for the whole night though!

Woke up in the morning thinking to myself 'It wasn't a dream right?!'

An amazing experience I must say! The order of the day at Sunday Jam was Heavy Metal but we stuck to Hard Rock as we wanted to be different... Just hope we didn't disappoint the crowd...

CHEERS!

Addicted.....

Ok...so everyone has their own set of favourite albums....well, here's mine...

1. Stone Temple Pilots- Core
Genre:- Grunge

This is what I call Grunge!












2. Nirvana- Nevermind
Genre:- Punk \ Grunge

THE PERFECT ALBUM!











3. Metallica- ....And Justice For All
Genre:- Heavy Metal

I love this one more than the Black Album.....Wish Metallica stuck to similar stuff...










4. Pearl Jam- Ten
Genre:- Grunge

Just look at the cover.....The album's way up there!











5. Radiohead- The Bends
Genre:- Alternative Rock

Get High when I listen to this one...











6. Muse- Absolution
Genre:- Alternative Rock

Not a bad song on this one! Great Riffs!











7. Soundgarden- A-Sides
Genre:- Grunge

Yeah....it's like a Greatest Hits album..... Simbly Love it!











8. Audioslave- Audioslave
Genre:- Hard Rock

ROCK'S NOT DEAD ANYMORE!










9. Jet- Get Born
Genre:- Rock N' Roll

The best Rock N' Roll album I've heard....










10. Megadeth- Youthanasia
Genre:- Heavy Metal

Evolution from Metallica in my case!












Yeah, so to all of you who think 'Karan's totally into Heavy Metal and can't think of anything else', this is my list. I do listen to metal but am more of a Rock N' Roll/Grunge fan. Try these albums and I'm sure none of you will be disappointed. If you are not much of a Metalhead, skip the metal section....

CHEERS!