Music

Team FIndNearYou.com had the opportunity to dine with two of The Three Amigos of jazz namely Sharik Hasan and Adrian D’Souza (Namma ooru karl Peters was missing) the other day at Barbeque Nation. Ram’s niece, Preeti who is in school had tagged along.

There were some really funny conversations involving Preeti.

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Preeti (referring to Aravind): So you guys are one team is it?

Me: Yes.

Preeti: So do you guys have an office?

Me (thinking I had heard wrong): Heh? Pardon!

Preeti: I mean, do you people have a real office - with cubicles and computers?

—

During dinner, Ram ordered vodka for himself.

Preeti: I want to have some of that.

Ram: You’ll have to wait.

Preeti’s eyes lit up.

Preeti: How long?!

Ram: Two years.

—

During the drive back.

Me: Phew! They were cool! They are like the top artists in jazz and we were chatting like childhood friends!

Ram: Yeah. They’re pretty cool!

Preeti: Definitely! Also when Aravind asked them… Um… Do I call him Aravind? Or is it Aravind uncle? Or should I call him Aravind mama?

—

For those who didn’t get it.

Mama - slang in Tamil for pimp.

Setup Chellappa - A character of pimp played by Vadivelu in a random tamil movie.

I tried the The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator, which was recommended by Rohit.

Here it goes.

Peter Pan! I just got slapped with a wet salmon - really - I have not updated this since long before Shakespeare wast a boy… You would not believe that I’d been abducted by aliens. Stupid Global Warming!.

I am flat out like a lizard drinking with learning to play lawn bowls, a ticking crocodile, just generally being Snow White to the bodyguards of the blogger I am stalking, my day is filled with fluorescent light from when the nightclubs close to I run out of alcohol. I am avoiding recapture. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.

I swear on the bones of my ancestors I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. If you have kids. The Piccaninnies say I have to!.

Wierd! Anyway, I really have not been finding time to blog.

To know more on what I have been doing, you can check out Aravind’s blog.

In other news, I have been composing a few songs and badly need lyrics. In case, you think we can work together, please drop me a mail. Language no bar. Genre is mostly soft rock, alternative, experimental and nu metal.

Also, if any of you can play any wind instrument, again please mail me. Gapp, are you done with learning to play the tin whistle?

I just returned from Acoustic Acapella at Bella Ciao, ECR.

20 bands. Acoustic guitars. Plenty of Beer.

Saw a girl who had a DSLR. She was shooting in Auto mode with her flash on! EKSI!

More Blue Floyd cases.

Got some good photographs.

Abhishek

Passion

Poison

More on FindNearYou.com

I think it worthy to mention again - the girl got on my nerves - shooting the evening with a DSLR on Auto mode with flash on. Her loss - I decided not to invite her to join us on our Photowalks.

On a serious note, I need to get back to music. For those who dont know, I used to play in a rock band called Zephyr where I played the keyboards and did backing vocals. After the band broke up, I was into another unnamed band where I played the drums and did the vocals. The band lasted for a week. Going by the trend, me returning to music will atleast solve my COACB problem.

Working with FindNearYou.com is being of great source of experience to me - most of it wacky! I’m in the team that handles WheelsAndRevs.com and RockandRaga.in and since it is a small team - a 5 member team to be precise, the same person ends up doing so many things. For instance, I would be doing some content work in the morning, tweaking with the code in the noon, doing SEO stuff by evening and providing support to our users by the night.

I have of late been confronted with a lot of strange support requests. I am publishing a few here. It may be just coincidence, but most of these wacky support mails land up only in rockandraga’s mail box.

Support@rockandraga.in is available for chat at gtalk and there was this guy from Chandigarh who had trouble setting up his blog.

ABC Singh: I have trouble setting up a blog at rockandraga

Support (Me): No worries. Just tell me what exactly is your problem

ABC Singh: I’m not able to figure out even a percent of how to proceed.

Support: Our blogs are based on wordpress. You can always have a look at their faq or try the support forums. I can help you out if you tell me your exact problem.

ABC Singh: Can you give me your mobile number so that we can talk?

I didn’t want to give my mobile number and the phone at our department is always busy, thanks to telemarketers Shiny and Jincy. So I decided to give my mobile number. Aarva kolaru!

Support: Sure. 9884xxxxx

ABC Singh: Cool. I have stored your number. Now you can call me.

*Head to desk*

——-

Then there was this mail from another moron.

Hi,

You guys are doing a great job out there.

I stay at Coimbatore and love music. Can you guys teach me music?

An ardent music lover,

XYZ

Enna Koduma Saar Idhu!

——-

Hey Rock & Raga,

Going by the term rock and raga, i think its all about fusion music. I am very much into fusion music. Can I join your team? We can create some exciting music!

Cheers,

ASDFG

P.S: I really love the site!

A note to Ram: I really need a vacation!

——-

This is the most kickass of all support messages, again on gtalk.

ZYX: I really like the site very much.

Support(Me): Thanks a lot ZYX!

ZYX: There are however a few changes in the design that I feel would be great.

Support: Thats brilliant! We would love feedback.

ZYX: Great! I myself use Wordpress and I am very good in php. Just pass me the admin username and password and I’ll make the changes asap.

Dei… Inda madiri ethana per da kelambirukenga?!

In case, you want to be mentioned in this blog, just shoot a wacky support mail to support@rockandraga.in and I’ll be too glad to publish it here.

I just got back from June Rock Out. It was amazing. It is good to see such a rock loving crowd in Chennai. Things still need to improve as still people are expected to travel to Bangalore to watch international bansd perform. This thing has always surprised me. They got only the crowd - their roads are bad, traffic is sickening, public transport is worse and a lot more minuses. Anyway, coming back to tonight’s show, it was really heart warming to see such a rock loving people in Chennai. Bands played classic and people loved it! Bands played hard-rock and they enjoyed it! Bands played thrash metal and people simply lapped it up! And I was lucky enough to be on stage for the entire show, since Find Near You is the online media partners for Unwind Center, I had the bliss of listening to metal and distortion in the highest decibels of the evening!

One comic aspect of rock shows and rock bands are the girlfriends of the performers. These hawt and not so hawt chicks obviously dont give a damn about Rock. They probably dont even listen to Rock. They just tag along their boyfriends to Rock shows and manage to sneak out for a smoke when their boyfriend’s band goes on stage.

There was this girl having a smoke outside her car (read her boyfriend’s car) and we happened to stop by her to ask for directions. Even as I asked her, I noticed a stack of Pink Floyd cds in the car. Now that she happened to be hawt, I wanted to impress her and casually remarked,

“Pink Floyd? Nice!”

“Huh?”

“I see you have Pink Floyd. Nice!”

“Oh That? No No! I would anyday prefer my Floyd, blue”, she replied as a matter of factly and took another puff.

Arvind walked up to me and said, “Dei.. Aarambame seri illa da. Thirumbi poidellam da.”

Enna Koduma Saar Idhu!

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Later in the night, we interviewed bands like Null Friction (Yes! Null Friction!), Blind Image, Grey Shack which will go as podcasts in Find Near You and Rock & Raga. Visit these sites for the podcasts of the interviews and the show.

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The other highlight of the night was sme brilliant photography by our own Varun Sridhar. Check out this pic and you’ll know what I mean!

Unfortunately, I couldnt carry my trusty Canon along to the A R Rahman’s Changing Notes Concert.

Here’s a video of the other night of ARR himself giving a sexed out performance of Khwaja Mere Khwaja, in authentic Qawwali style.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTGvchfDIQ]

…as I have seen God!

Yes. I saw God at St. George School grounds, Chennai on the 20th of April, 2008 at 6.30 PM.

And God didn’t disappoint me. Nor did he disappoint the 50000 others who had gathered to watch him perform.

I was at the A R Rahman Changing Notes Concert, organised by the Times of India.

He started with a soulful rendering of Jaage Hain from Guru and in the song’s climax where he sung the high pitch notes, the crowd ruptured into a honest applause. The audience loved him right from the beginning. Most of them like me had waited for years to watch Madras’s own son perform live.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some creep dropped in the name of A R Rahman and I was drooling even at the thought of Sangarsh 2008 - and it turned out to be a concert by Ranjith, Naresh Iyer and Devan.

I had to pacify myself as all these were after all ARR’s finds.

The trio were rehearsing Valayapathi Tamizhe from ATM and Dole Dole from Pokkiri as I entered Kamarajar Arangam.

The show started almost an hour late, but Devan made the audience forget it with a bang by rendering Karka Karka from Vettayadu Vilayadu. It was then Ranjith’s turn to mesmerize the audience with Yella Yella from Arindhum Ariyamalum.

And then the audience’s sweetheart came on-stage!

The audience simply loved Naresh Iyer right from the time he came on-stage and jumped up and down like a kid! And when he started Kadhal Konjam from Pachai Kili Muthu Charam, the audience went mad! And when he came down to the audience, went to each row and obliged fans for hand shakes as he sang, the audience went berserk!

The bassie on the left rocked!

The trio then came to the stage and started Endendrum Punnagai and ended with Oh Humdum Suniyo Re.

Ranjith and Rita then had the audience clapping to June July from Kalloori and there was a scream in the audience asking Rita to marry him! This was followed by Suppose from Sukran and some other song I heard for the first time, but the audiecne lapped it up with fervour.

And then Naresh Iyer sang Mayilirage from Ah Aah along with Asha(Whats her second name?)

It was then a medley with Devan on the acoustic guitar, Anand on the bass and the plump guy(I am bad on names) on the keys with Ranjith & Naresh Iyer crooning Vellai Pookal, Munbe Vaa, Ore Nyabagam and ending the medley with Roobaroo (The audience had an orgasm here!)

Ranjith next came on stage with Rita and sang Dole Dole from Pokkiri.

Most of the audience was leaving at this point and I would have stayed, but my girlfriend kept calling me - It was a date by nine and it was already ten.

I left the hall with ecstasy - of having listened to the finest singers in the industry and having had my girlfriend wait - for a change!
And thanks to my junior, Bala for having supplied us with snacks during the show!

How does ARR manage to do all this?

Who would have imagined a Qawwali with an electric guitar and a bass guitar?

I have tried making music similar to what ARR does and miserably failed always - I end up making tunes that sound as if composed by other ‘famous’ music directors!

No wonder he stays ahead of competition  spinning amazing songs for period films and urban films as well.

ARR is GOD!

In other news, after much scouting for an ARR poster in the city in vain, I have  ordered a poster online in myntra.com and its on its way!