Saturday, December 28, 2013

3 Swans

A friend died, the band was killed and work is killing me. What a splendid week.

I spent all evening smiling vacantly at relatives I hadn't seen in years and won't see for more years.

Its going be a long week. I resent having to do anything on my off days.








Sunday, December 08, 2013

This new Rudra album is great. Easily the best thing they've done. The guitarist they got on the last album is really ripping it and the songs are finally, proper Vedic metal. The band sounds tight and like they mean it. Well done. "RTA" is Rudra's finest hour.




Monday, December 02, 2013

When mind escapes flesh

My bed has turned into an intermittent black hole. It started a month ago when a carefully rolled joint just disappeared. No puff of smoke, no blinding flash of light. Just gone. That was followed by 2 pairs of scissors, a CD of Undying Inc's debut ep, my earphones and a couple of james lee burke books. All vanished without a trace. A ghost with a penchant for origami and slam or a homicidal spirit biding its time in the company of some burke. That Undying Inc CD is enough to drive the living to murder. Don't know what effect it'll have on the dead.

I'm irritated a lot. Annoyed and impatient with people. Unwind Inc. A weekend without work after a long while. Show tomorrow and practice at some point today. Been a while. Should be good. I'm not confident about Hangman. So set list is Weird Tales, I, Zombie, Book of the Fallen and Hangman.  Yippie! I should come up with easier parts to sing. So finally, 30 minutes on stage. I, Zombie and Weird Tales. Haha! I, Zombie came out really well. Best live version yet. Weird Tales was a bit off in the first half but settled down nicely after that. Overall, a patchy set but a few people liked us.

I wish they'd kill Mickey already. The scene with Jon Voight and Elliot Gould was absolutely brilliant. Right down to the hallucination. Generally well written and acted but James Woods is unnecessary and very, very hammy. Overall, Ray Donovan is worth following. Season finale tonight and it was pretty good. James Woods got a bullet in the head, Mickey's still around and Ray got lucky.



The first time I heard "for god your soul" I was 16. Impressionable age. Autopsy had already happened but when Shirinc went "For god your soul... For me your flesh", something just switched on in my head. John Tardy on Infected and Chris Reifert on An act of the unspeakable were the 2 other defining moments of death metal vocals growing up. So thanks to this wondrous thing called YouTube...






Friday, October 25, 2013

the mango is in season

The mango is in season. Blog me this, blog me that. Old lines remembered, repeated. There's something off with this new Necrophobic. Cleaner. Heavier. A mid week off is never eventful. This one was quieter than most. The mango is in season. The king is hungry. The royal taster died. In his sleep. 51 days ago. The king is hungry. The dog sleeps. Stretched out. Big fellow. This Gutslit T shirt is very comfortable. I'm sitting by the side of the road. The mango is in season. Umbrella's are out, the rain comes and goes. The light from the street is blinding me. The noise from the street can't touch me. The mango is in season.


Wednesday, October 02, 2013

A Breath in the Shade of Time

Saw Lunchbox. Would have been the perfect Indian film to send to the Oscars. I liked it a lot. Irfan and Nawazuddin are absolutely brilliant but that woman did a good job too. By the end of it, I was rooting for the lovers to unite.

This new Eibon is pretty great. 2 long songs than can be called sludge but a bit more varied and dynamic than the last 2 albums. File it next to the new Pombagira which is also pretty great, has 2 long songs and can be broadly classified as sludge.

Still watching Lost. Jack has to be one of the most annoying TV characters ever written and its all getting a bit unnecessarily complicated. Season 4 turned out pretty great but then Season 5 fucked things up. The whole time travel conundrum was solved with lame philosophy. Annoyed the crap out of me.

Sat through about 45 minutes of World's End and its pretty dull so far. Hopefully will get better.

Finally got my hands on The Baby. Damn that was a hard find.



Another Sunday and another show. Its not as regular as that sounds but here we are again. The air conditioning is off and the place is a sauna. We're the second band on the lineup with 50 minutes to kill. Should be fun. Couple of bombay bands to look forward to and Threinody who will hopefully play Disembodiment. They'll turn the a/c on soon. I can't remember the lyrics to Weird Tales. Oops. Soundcheck @ 3.

I finally have comfortable seating. Always at a premium. Very poor turnout so far. I hope it gets better. 5 CDs sold which is not bad. Ontologus are some kind of tech death I guess. Sound quite good. We're up next. Empty hall. Maybe 50 people if you count the waiters. Bad scene. Although considering we've played to 5 people and a dog, it's not actually bad at all. Well, the djinn fans seemed to like what we did. Major sound issues aside, old faithful Weird Tales ended things nicely. I, Zombie turned out quite well too. Shepherd are a great band but they need to sort out the vocals. Big fat grooves, good songs. When they're instrumental they give off a K2B vibe. Other times its abrasive noise rock. Very good either way. Threinody up next. Fucking killed it. Disembodiment was the wow moment for the night. Awesome song. The other 3 were pretty good too. Especially Schism and Blade. It was a genuine pleasure to see a proper thrash band. No unnecessary labels.

My pretty pink drink is over and I must make my way home.

Friday, September 20, 2013

I discovered a new coffee shop a while ago. They made a damn good cup of cold coffee. Then they didn't anymore. It's back on the menu today. All is right again.

I no longer know which day of the week it is when I wake up.

The new Fister is ridiculously good. Unbelievably heavy.


I'm about halfway through Chennai Express and I'm enjoying it. Shahrukh Khan hams it up but that's the only brand of comedy he knows. Deepika Padukone looks stunning and manages to be funny with her ridiculous accent. Sathyaraj though is an inspired piece of casting. Would have been easier to go with someone like Prakash Rai but Sathyaraj fits the bill to perfection. Hopefully, the next one hour of the movie won't drag. Silly, ridiculous fun. Way better than any of Shetty's other films so far....

And the second hour didn't drag. Silly, ridiculous fun and a new found sense of respect for SRK.



So Peter Capaldi is the new Doctor. There's some sort of backlash against Moffat for not picking a female, black or Asian as the new doctor but honestly, I think Cripaldi will be a good fit. I don't want to see a female, black or Asian Doctor Who. Does that make me a mysoginistic racist? I suppose so.

All set to watch The Conjuring tomorrow. Its been getting some rave reviews from serious horror fans so hoping for a few chills.... And missed it again. Will probably watch it at home now whenever the dvd pops up.

The new Orator is disappointing. The riffs are all kind of straight forward and that evil atmosphere of the EP is missing. Kind of a decent, modern death-thrash album.

In the time that I started this post and now, I've been watching Battlestar Galactica. Almost done with it now and its pretty fucking great. Katee Sakhoff is so hot but Tricia Helfer is simply awesome. 6 and Baltar start off awkward and annoying but once the chemistry kicks in, their scenes together is one of many highlights on the show. The show itself starts off in sci-fi territory but moves to pseudo spiritual mumbo jumbo in season 3. Edward James Olmos is perfectly cast and the other actors grow into their roles nicely.



I finished Battlestar Galactica and then some. Started watching Lost on a friend's reccomendation and season 1 was pretty good. Season 2 is a bit muddled. Either they're all dead or they're all in some strange reality show. I hope I'm wrong. Another 4 seasons to go before I'll find out.

The album is almost upon us now. Release in the first week of September and a bunch of shows to go with it next month. What I'd really like is a collage video to "7 Year Witch". Lots of clippings from old witchy movies should be fun. More excited about the album than I've been about anything in a long, long time.

Well, release didn't happen. Delays. Album's up on bandcamp and its also up on Bunalti. Considering all the albums I've stolen from there, it's probably karma. Anyway, felt pretty good to see it up there. Our best show so far was in Thane. Who would have thought. People moshed to 7 Year Witch and there were about 50 odd people nodding their heads in a suitably ponderous manner. I couldn't stop smiling. So much for bringing the doom.

I set a timer to harvest my fear.
I overslept.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

I don't believe a word

Strange thing happening over the last few days. A missed call at around 11.30 from an unknown number. Yesterday and today I picked up. It turned out to be a cross connection. I eves dropped. Man and woman. Talking in Hindi. Making plans to meet. Identical conversations on both nights. The  woman is loud and the man is whispering. It's happened before. They're always having the same conversation. At least when I've answered and listened in. Maybe they talk about other stuff when I don't answer.

Don't know why I didn't put this up before. We got on a Motorhead tribute. People seem to like it.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Malazans, arrows and jubilees


An unexpected holiday. Chilled out evening. The same old faces led me to abandon ship and skip across the water. To dry land and safety.

Malazan black metal is now a thing. Caladan Brood. Pretty good Summoning worship. Is there an Anomander Rake yet?

I don't care about the CDs you've bought and don't care about your work. I'm hoping you'll shut up and in the meantime, I'm simply practicing what I preach. Reassure,  empathize, summarize and say goodbye. With a smile.

Yeah, this malazan black metal is pretty good.

In TV news, Arrow is kicking ass. The show scored a big win with its casting of Slade Wilson. The fights have gotten better and last week the whole "Moira Queen. You have failed this city" ending was badass. Community restarted. First episode was a bit lazy but I'm hoping it'll pick up.

One of the better blogs on the internet might have breathed its last. If you have any interest at all in movies of the forgotten, kvlt, B to Z type, then go pay http://ninjadixon.blogspt.com a visit. You might get lost but it'll be a trip worth taking.

The new Nick Cave is terrific. After the angular noise rock of Grinderman, Cave returns with the Bad Seeds to carve out a beautiful set of songs.


Tuesday, January 08, 2013

2013

Ugh! Just ugh! My feet hurt, I can't keep my eyes open and exhaustion overtakes me. Writing this now is a good way of staying awake and active. For a few more hours at least.

Oscar season has started. DVD screeners abound. Django Unchained is ridiculous fun but what's with all the animal killing? Unnecessary but way more shocking than the 100+ instances of the word "nigger". How come no one's complaining about the gratuitous killing of animals but everyone has an opinion on that word? Sam Jackson should win an oscar. He hasn't been this good ever. Don Johnson was pretty great too. Otherwise, typical Tarantino over the top violence, great dialogue and some pretty good set pieces. Not as riveting as the last one but still pretty great.

Zero Dark Thirty though was disappointing. Too bloody long, a main character who's nothing more than a cardboard cut out and loads of fine actors wasted. Also, I guess no one will know but the streets of Karachi are lined with shops with Hindu names. So much for accuracy. Its a decent thriller but nothing more. Definitely no Syriana.

Planning to watch either Hitchcock or Seven Psychopaths tonight. Probably 7 P.

God! Java City's fucking loud. And I have mosquito bites all over my neck.

I want to shout at these people and tell them all to shut up. Easier to put on my earplugs.

2013 so far has been tiring. People everywhere are talking about "all the recent rapes". Were these people not watching or reading the news till December? Suddenly, people say they were late cause they were helping a girl get home. Where was this chivalry and how long will it last? The Times group seems to have found its bone and they're using it to target every establishment figure they can find. The Today group is using the bone to target the ruling coalition. NDTV is trying desperately to divert the focus from the ruling coalition while exploiting victims quite shamelessly. Surprisingly, CNN-IBN seems to be the only channel without an axe to grind but they too have the bone firmly between their teeth and don't seem to be letting go.

I doubt if anything's going to come of all this activism though. Talk of a special session of parliament has died down. The Delhi rape case hasn't been shifted to a fast track court yet and women all over the country are still facing atrocities on a daily basis. Everything depends now on the middle class and how good their memory is.

Why are the laws that most affect us, the hardest to change? A 17 year old juvenile who raped a 6 year old, chopped her up and dumped the parts in a few dumpsters is given the maximum punishment of 3 years and then released on his 18th birthday because that's just how the law works. The accused juvenile in the recent rape is also 17 and will get the max punishment of 3 years but walk out when he hits 18. The mind boggles.

The funniest thing for me was how some Punjabi pop singer was targeted for misogynistic lyrics and the ensuing outrage he suddenly provoked over a song that's a few years old. The funny bit was the moral indignation of people who have no problem dancing to a hip hop song where all the women are bitches and ho's. Oh well. And the next metalhead who claims outrage over Honey Singh's lyrics is going to get a kick in the balls from me. Even hypocrisy must have some limits.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

the mood of the nation

A day of mourning,
A day of shame.
A night of talking,
About how much we care.

Move on, move on
Say our rulers.
No more, no more
Say our leaders.

Our fear is real
Our anger is rising
Our throat is hoarse
From this endless shouting

Move on, move on
Say our rulers.
No more, no more
Say our leaders.

Our rulers are blind
to our anger and fear
Our leaders will lie
While blood flows like beer

Our voice is stifled
Our lament unheard
We are the new monkeys
Nothing spoken, seen or heard

The leader will pledge allegiance
Promise of a new awakening
The crowd will light a candle
Finally, change is coming

Outrage is the entrance fee
To a better tomorrow
But there's nothing new to see
So come, let's drown our sorrow