In too deep
One of the most difficult things that people can ask of me is to tell them my list of favourite musicians. I mean, i find it really tough, nay
excruciating, to come up with a list of favourite anything. And musicians....man that's the pits!! If somebody really wants me to come up with a list of my favourite artists then they probably will have to lock me up in a room and leave me there with some food and water for a month or so, cuz thats what it will take for me to go through all the artists that i have heard in my lifetime and figure which ones will make the cut. And even that might not be enough cuz seriously they are so many variables involved. And so many questions. How can i compare different genres of music? How do i rate a one-hit wonder whose single masterpiece might have overshadowed all the other below par stuff that he might have produced over a nondescript career ? Or for that matter how much credit is due to an artist whose been on the verge of my tolerance list because of a ton of consistently average music that they might have produced over a long career? And how, and this is the toughest one, how do i get over the biases that might come from the music that is currently in my playlist and hence those artists are number one on my recall list. Hence, if you ever walk up to me and ask me for a favourites list, then either arrange for an all-expenses paid trip to a lonely island for me or expect to hear a random from-the-top-of-my-head kinda answer.
But there is one band that i will put down without any hesitation on to this list.And they would be Pearl Jam.
They have been close to my heart for a long long time. What is it that I like about them? Well, for one, they have a strong sense of melody attached with their music and their initial albums had the 90s sound in them which initially drew me to them. Eddie's lyrics for the early albums, were just too compelling to ignore and they have provided solace time'n' again. I had not been too impressed with their last album, Riot Act, but there's no denying the fact that they are destined for musical immortality more along the lines of bands like CSNY or Rush or The Who rather than say an Ozzy or an Aerosmith. The last of the Seattle bands left standing, while the Grunge movement fell to the wayside, they are probably the only band that truly understood what endeared the Grunge movement to an entire generation and have carried it through their music. It was not the flannel and boots look, nor the dreadlocks or the low tuned guitars, nor was it the improbable mix of the 70's punk's brashness along with the lyrics of say the Classic Rock movement that these guys mixed, that drew the hordes. It wasnt even the fact that most of these guys came from broken American families that the masses could identify with, which made them popular. For me, the 90s music was all about one thing - sincerity. Here was a bunch of guys who came in as a breath of fresh air in an era which had grown sick and tired of the over the top 80s pop and hair metal bands, the rockstars' excessive debaucheries, the filthy materialism and senselessness of the pop acts. These guys were exactly the opposite of that. They sung about everyday issues and they kept it real. Their music was unprententious, raw, edgy and unapologetic. For once, they were even willing to sing about the one thing that nobody really wanted to stare at - politics.
But then somehow somewhere, the plot was lost. Cobain went and shot himself. Chris Cornell got an ego the size of Mt Everest and Scott Weiland discovered cocaine. Layle Staley, well lets just not think about him, its too depressing . And the music executives of the world discovered the market potential of the 12-16 year olds and gave them the mannequins that prentended to sing - Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. The lone rangers of the era past, Pearl Jam went to surf the farthest oceans and decided to stick with what the held closes to their heart - the issues that plagued the society around them. They kept churning out albums that were nothing short of fuckin' brilliant ( Vitalogy, No Code, Yield, Binaural) and were also happy and content that could still walk down the street without being mobbed. Their music matured, they got married and sobered themselves down, Eddie got a new haircut and Mike McCready a new disease, Stone got a look of a software geek that went well with his Seattle neighbourhood, Jeff went back to Montana. Their drummer problem was solved with the arrival of Matt Cameron, the best thing that probably resulted out of the dissolution of SoundGarden. They were happy with what they had. The shouted out to the world to throw out Bush and threw their lot in with Ralph Nader, sung for kids at the Bridge School benefits, jammed to free Tibet and fought( and lost to) corporate leeches like Ticketmaster.
But then their record label, Epic, realised that their multi-million dollar deal for the what they hoped would be their multi-platinum rock act for the new millienium was going sour, so they decided to dump them. Nothing could have been better for PJ who now discovered that without the commercial pressures they could be more forthright with their activism and signed up with the granddaddy of folk rock management Clive Davis' J Records. And have now come out with their latest album, which is self titled. Critics have called it the heaviest PJ album in years, which makes rub my hands in anticipation, but what i am really looking forward from them is their brand of sincere rock. Soft or heavy, old or young, blues, folk or grunge, nothing can take away the sincerity from Pearl Jam. And thank god for that.
I haven't heard the album myself as yet as i am awaiting my own copy which should be with me soon.
Current Music : Papa Roach - Getting Away with Murder
Hear my name, take a good look, this could be the day....
So did you miss me while I was gone, dear reader? Did you ? Did you?
Ok, you dont have to answer that, its kinda rhetorical anyway. A new first on this blog. I got my first abusive comment on this blog, wherein somebody bothered to take the post i put up personally and use harsh words to respond back. But then the respondant was actually Konga, so his abuses dont really count. So my score is still love-all in that regard :)
The last trip to Bangalore turned out strengthen my resolution to never settle down in that city, a thought which i had deeply pondered at one point of time in the past. Why did i do that, don't ask me, because its quite true that i dont know where in the world I will be in the next few years, but its always one of those thoughts that you tend to have when you have nothing better to think of. Maybe I just got up that day and decided, " Hey today seems like a good day to ponder about which city i want to settle down in the future"? Maybe my list consisted of cities like New York, Amsterdam, Madrid, Zurich, Prague and Sydney but for some reason, which seem absolutely valid to me at that point of time, i decided to go in favor of Bangalore. However, the recent trip made me realise that such decisions should never be taken in haste or while under the influence of hallucination causing substances or while suffering from their after effects, 'cuz a city is as fluid as your average river, and your decision about the future can never be based on what you perceive at the moment. What has mde me strike Bangalore of my list, dear reader, you must wonder?
Well, for one, its the god forsaken traffic that the city is being subjected too. It took me 45
whole minutes to go from the New Shanti Sagar in Domlur to TGIF opposite Diamond District. This was while I was stupid enough to sit in the company cab. Next day, i was struck by a brilliant brain wave, and i decided to try and make the same journey on foot. I think i must have clocked somewhere between 1 minute 45 secs to 2 minutes.
Secondly, whatever happened to the city? A trip down MG Road on a late weekday night and i saw the streetwalkers openly peddling their wares and propostioning their customers.
All this while the cops were standing right around the corner. A little too creepy for my comfort.
Thirdly, the north Indian confrontationist attitude is all to clearly visible. Something which i refuse to digest and would love to stay away from all my life.
However, there are somethings that refuse to change. It took some effort, but i did manage to convince some of my colleagues to miss a bit of the conference and go DVD trawling with me through National Market and I managed to pick up around 20 odd DVDs which included:
1. Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the senses"
2. Lots of Wong kar Wai - 2046, In the mood for love and Chung King Express
3. Chris Nolan's pre "Memento" epic - "Following"
4. Robert Altman's version of Raymond Carver's short stories titled "Short Cuts"
5. A Goo Goo Dolls live in concert DVD
and some other stuff that I dont remember now.
Well, i have been listening to a lot of
Meshuggah of late and for me they have come to represent the true heirs to the legacy of the music that was Atheist and Cynic. Their songs have some amazing drumming, mostly sticking to the tempos that are so typical of this genre. Chaosphere, a album they released a while back has been my favourite of theirs for quite a while and i cant get enough of this band for the moment. Another band that seems to have caught my fancy of late has been this melodic death metal band from the US called
KillSwitch Engage . Their last 2 albums namely, "Alive or Just Breathing" and "The End of Heartache" have been just fabulous and the songs from them that i recommend are :
1 . Fixation on the Darkness
2. My Last Serenade
3. Life to Lifeless
4. Rose of Sharyn
5. A Bid Farewell
6. Declaration
Amazing tracks, that any self respecting metal fan must listen to.
On an unrelated note, I read about something called "National Delurking Week" that the blogosphere celebrated sometime back and me being the uninformed- hiding-in-his-own-little-cocoon me, did not hear about it till recently. But the gist of the whole thing being that there are a bunch of people who are regulars on your blog, but never comment nor say anything and would it be really nice for the blogger to hear from them. And then it struck me that my blog has a decent reader base and has clocked almost 5,500 visitors in the last few months but i never hear from anyone besides the usual suspects. ( No, all you usual suspects, i am not trying to undermine your value, i really do care about you all......alot!!!) And i know for a fact that there are a bunch of regulars here, from whom i have never heard on this blog. So to all such people, "Do drop in a line in the comments section sometime...it wont hurt ya!!".
Current Music : Powerman 5000 - Free
