Another video

Radiohead- You

Radiohead and PhD

In July of 2010 I quit my job, got my friends Sidney and Zubin to fly to Hampton, VA, put all my stuff in some boxes and my car and drove around 1750 miles to Boulder, CO to start my PhD. In the process, we listened to a lot of music and amongst other things discussed Radiohead's virtuoso in considerable detail. Where I am right now and the next two videos are a consequence of that 1 week of activities.

Me playing 'My Iron Lung'


Sidney and I playing 'You and whose army'

Havana Affair

This is a song called 'Havana Affair' by the punk rock band Ramones. Like most punk rock songs, it was originally composed at a very fast pace and if I may say, without much melody. John Frusciante liked the Ramones a lot and as a habit used to slow down their songs (and other punk rock songs) and sing them with more melody. The result of one such interpretation is the Chili's version of Havana Affair which is what I tried to cover here. I did not realize the magnitude of disconnect between how decent I thought my vocals were and how bad I found that they actually are! Bummer!

BattleStar Galactica / Ten Years Gone

I have not had the motivation to post anything offlate thanks to being in the midst of a season1 to season4 (that's all the seasons) marathon viewing of BattleStar Galactica. It is an extremely intriguing and fascinating series and once I am done with all 4 seasons I plan to expound on the amazing mix of science fiction and philosophy that it deals with. This is my favourite kind of art, be it books, TV shows, movies. Anything that mixes science fiction and philosophy immediately attracts my attention and makes me have to adjust my pants!!

But for the time being, please enjoy me covering another Led Zeppelin masterpiece called 'Ten Years Gone'. I could not find a backing track so I took the guitarpro tabs for this song and muted out everything except the vocals, drums and bass. Everytime I find a Led Zepp gem I have to fight the urge to browbeat everyone I know into listening to it. 'Ten Years Gone' is no exception. Your life will be richer once you listen to this song! 

Remember:

Dewy eyes now sparkle, senses grown keen

Taste your love along the way, see your feathers preen

Here's a nice trivia about the song:

"Ten Years Gone" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin from their 1975 album Physical Graffiti. Originally intended to be an instrumental piece, Jimmy Page used some 14 guitar tracks to overdub the harmony section. Robert Plant later added lyrics, which are dedicated to an old girlfriend who, ten years earlier, had made him choose either her or his music. Plant explained in an interview in 1975:

Let me tell you a little story behind the song '"Ten Years Gone" on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, "Right. It's me or your fans." Not that I had fans, but I said, "I can't stop, I've got to keep going." She's quite content these days, I imagine. She's got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports- car. We wouldn't have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn't relate to me. I'd be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I'm afraid. Anyway, there's a gamble for you.

Introducing in this video:

My new Fender Stratocaster

My new BOSS Metal Zone MT-2 distortion pedal (unseen)

1 book, 1 movie, 1 solo and 1 masala dosa

Here are four most awesome, amazing, spectacular and wonderful things. Sorry Jobs, none of them is an iPad.

1) Book: The Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett

I remember reading a story from this book as a kid many years ago and one of the feelings that stuck with me since then was awe at the pure courage of Jim Corbett. He was a hunter in British India who later turned into a photographer and a conservationist. He is renowned for shooting man-eating tigers and leopards that harassed the village-folk in Kumaon (in Uttarakhand) then and this book is a collection of ten such stories. Having recalled the story and the book recently (after watching ‘The Ghost and the Darkness), I decided I had to get my hands on it.

Open Amazon, search and find, order and checkout, wait impatiently for 2 days!

I cannot recommend this book enough. Corbett’s narrative as he describes how he tracked and killed the man-eaters is gripping and wildly entertaining. The little details he provides about observing the surrounding jungle in order to track the beasts are fascinating and one can easily see that he was a master at his trade. Once again I was awe-struck by his courage. Even with a little imagination it is easy to sense the amount of danger he frequently put himself in and quite frankly I would have had some trouble sleeping at night if I wasn’t surrounded by a concrete jungle for miles in every direction. 

Pick this book up and experience the thrills!

2) Movie: The Man from Earth

This movie is the mother of all conversational movies. The entire 90 minutes of the movie is simply a conversation between a man who claims he is a Neanderthal whose body has managed to avoid death altogether, thus surviving until now and his academic colleagues who are skeptical of his claim and question him to determine its veracity. There really isn’t anything else about the movie that can be described succinctly to function as a hook. One has to enjoy the dialogues in their proper context and I for one found them extremely captivating. Do yourself a favor by watching this.

Incidentally, this was written by a writer for the original Star Trek.

3) Solo: Hotel California

Only one of the best solos ever written. Notes drenched in emotion!

4) Masala Dosa

What? You need convincing that masala dosas are awesome? Hasn't Quickgun Muruggan taught you anything?

MetallicA...MetallicA...MetallicA

I realized that I had not put up any cover of the first band that I became a fanatic of...MetallicA.

Think whatever you want of MetallicA now but there is no denying the dizzying heights of music and showmanship they had reached in the first 2 decades of their career. Here is a cover of Bells (as Lars calls it often), a shining example that complicated chords/fast riffs/shredding solos are not a necessity for making an insanely heavy song (pretty much why I chose it ;)! FYI, the triplet part that Kirk plays is stolen from the ending of 'Fairies Wear Boots', a Sabbath song.

Oh MetallicA...how far you have fallen! It is said that MetallicA is a religion and James Hetfield is its God! It pains me immensely to say this but I am no longer a member of the church of Hetfield! Sad but True. But the Memory Remains!

Original Piece: Feart

This is a tiny little piece of music called 'Feart' that I came up with. I tried to expand it into something fleshier but nothing around it sounded good to me. So I left it as it is.

"There comes a time when your own music matters much more than covers" - A paraphrased quote by John Frusciante.

Feart

What are earthquakes to a girl's guitar?

Answer: Just another guitar cover of the solo before Californication at Slane Castle

Jaanu, Mein Tujhe Chod Raha Hoon

"Brother"

Brother - An original (indie) composition by Zubin.

Performed by Zubin, Golu and me. None of us felt compelled enough to edit the video so do skip to 0:55 seconds when the song begins!

This fruit, it has lead poisoning!

The last post has made me very disappointed in myself. All it had was just two lines. This is being dangerously close to twitter territory and that is unacceptable! I want to apologize sincerely for the transgression. I briefly became what I hate, a self absorbed asshole who thinks that his stream of consciousness is so interesting that it has to be shared with the world. In the future I will do everything possible to keep such inane and mind numbing thoughts to myself.

As some sort of redemption I want to share this cover of the simple yet beautiful Led Zepp song called “Tangerine” (or Orange for you desis :P). It is meant to be played on an acoustic but it has been more than a year since I last played on an acoustic and I need to retrain my fingers. I am at the end of a Led Zepp phase and having re-discovered a lot of their amazing songs I did not want to wait to learn and record this.

To say that Jimmy Page is a maestro is an exercise in redundancy.
Also, I will not be offended if you stop listening from the 2:47 mark!
Enjoy!

Some Solitude

Solitude is a slow mellow song by Black Sabbath from their ‘Master of Reality’ album. As I remember mentioning once, the beauty of the song comes from the awesome solos and the flute (which I obviously do not cover).

Ozzy Osbourne is a strange man. On one hand, his on stage “occult” persona is obviously fake (which self-respecting satan worshipper shouts “god bless you all” at the end of a song?) and on the other hand he did bite off a dead bat’s head! It amuses me that someone would think the best way to impress a bunch of record executives is to (once again) bite off a live dove’s head (different from the bat incident) and the same personality could also pen lyrics that go,

You just left when I begged you to stay
I’ve not stopped crying since you went away

I guess satan gets senti too!

BLACK SABBATH COVER: SOLITUDE

The last post that has to do with Under the Bridge

This past thanksgiving weekend I hung out with Golu and played a little music.

We plugged in our guitars and switched on our amps with the intention of coming up with an awesome original composition. After a little playing we lowered our goal to just covering an awesome jam. A few more iterations of goal-lowering happened after that. Running out of time (as I had to leave soon) did not help. Plus there were no drugs involved as our regular dealer was spending the thanksgiving with his family. Ultimately (and unfortunately) we ended up with this.

I am putting this up anyway as a "BEFORE" video. The "AFTER" video will come soon. Stay tuned.



I also learnt the importance of good lighting.

EDIT (Feb 4th 2009): Lazy Golu finally uploaded a couple of videos that we had recorded on the same day as the above one (Nov 28th 2008). Both videos were taken with Golu's camera which kicks my camera's ass. The first video is a recording of a soundcheck that went really bad or really good depending on which one of us you ask ;) and the second is a recording of the first take of 'Under the Bridge' which we decided to not use. In retrospect, this version is slightly better than the one I had put up! Enjoy.

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SOUND CHECK


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ABANDONED TAKE THAT WE THREW AWAY DOWNTOWN

Quantum of Cars, Guns and Babes!

Here’s the thing: I have never seen a James Bond movie that I haven’t liked.

I am left out of all discussions that people around me have when they rate the best Bonds and the best movies. My only opinion is an all encompassing “I thought it was great” for every movie and “I wish I was Bond instead of him” for every actor who plays Bond.

All James Bond movies are primarily made up three things: lots of (guns, gadgets, cars and explosions), extremely hot women, and James Bond looking cool. All James Bond movies pull these three off really well. That is enough for me to suspend my disbelief to an extent that I really don’t care about the plots, plausibility of Bond’s stunts, character developments etc. I see Bond driving a gorgeous Aston Martin with the likes of the ultra gorgeous Eva Green, spying around the bad guys to bring them down and my most basic instincts are tickled funny which always leaves me happy. That is why I am convinced that in spite of the tepid reviews that “Quantum of Solace” is getting, I am pretty sure I will like it.

To celebrate of all things Bond-related, check out the following

1) One of the coolest cars in the world


















2) One of the most gorgeous women in the world























3) One of the most kickass themes in the world

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

... then this video with 128 frames/sec and being 169 seconds long would be...aaaH..SCREW IT!

Just watch ok!
For it is the mighty Sabbath's Paranoid.

Thought Collage: Part 6 (of a 10 part series*)

* The number of parts can be changed without any notice. It most likely will.

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1) By the end of march this year my daily TV viewing had almost gone down to zero. I was turning into one of them, a snob! Except, instead of spending all the time I wasn’t watching TV on reading, exercising, doing carpentry (???) I was wasting it on the internet. My youtube account summary tells me that I joined on April 4th 2006 and have watched 6815 videos so far. If you do the math, that amounts to around 9 videos per day. (Actually, once you do the math it doesn’t seem so bad!!!) Either way, my point is that I wasn’t ‘seeking’ out anything on TV except Southpark (which also is starting to become a hit and miss rather than being a consistently brilliant show). Days would go by before I would hear the canned laughter on the Daily Show and Jon Stewart’s tiresome old antics, before I would get a glimpse of 30 Rock, a show that serves as glaring proof that really smart comedy writers who can’t act to save their lives should not do so just because they are the ones scripting their show, before I could see news corporations report events with so much bias that it convinces you something has to be terribly wrong with either them or you without any middle ground. As you can see, TV was failing me. Then my sister introduced me to HOUSE. Freaking beautiful.
It takes watching just one typical HOUSE episode to get you hooked to it. And it is painfully obvious to see why this is so. The show is about a guy named House who is a doctor with razor sharp wit and the ability to ‘tell it like it is’ without fear of consequences. Who doesn’t want to have that?!! No wonder it has taken off so well. The show does have some obvious weak points. Most of the episodes follow an obvious template, the side characters are a little boring and I find one of them to be very annoying (Cameron) and in real life it is hard to imagine why even the few people who back Dr. House would do so. But who cares? You should listen to his witticisms!!!
TV, I can hope once again!

2) Speaking of doctors, my sis is officially one now. She still has maybe another 100 years of studying left before she can convince me to let go of my common sense and put my life in her hands. I am not being mean. We obviously grew up studying together and I know how easily she gets distracted. It is very likely I will be wincing in pain trying to tell her my symptoms while she is thinking about ‘dreamy Hrithik Roshan in Jodhaa Akbar’ (her words)!!!

I am only kidding!
I could not be prouder of my sis! I am sure she will be a great doctor and I already trust her more than some of the more experienced docs I happened to see!

3) Sweet Taste of India: I spent the entire month of March in India. Needless to say, it was bliss. But let me tell you about something else. At the Washington Dulles Airport, I observed an interesting phenomenon that has to do with a huge bunch of desis trying to form lines. Coupling this observation with my years of traveling experience in India, I have come to the conclusion that Indians have a peculiar mindset that I shall from now on call ‘The Arrowhead Mindset’. The principle that comes into play due to this mindset will be called ‘The Arrowhead Principle’. Allow me to explain. At the base of all this explanation is the axiom that desis don’t like standing in lines and will do anything they can to avoid them. However, this is possible only in India. If we try to pull such stunts in the US (prolly in Europe too) we will be assaulted with disapproving glances. A few of us develop the guts to ignore these ‘you can’t do that here, its frowned upon’ looks from the westerners and/or develop a resistance to them (thereby stripping the common American of all possible arsenal to deal with such situations) These are the people who effect the ‘Arrowhead Principle’. These and the bloody FOBs!
The Principle basically states that all (the daring and the meek) desis upon finding a line that is already quite long subdue their instincts to wriggle their way ahead by saying “boss, zaraa hathiye” and meekly join in at the back. They unintentionally preserve the linear nature of the line. This is illustrated by Figure 2 from the picture below. The blue dots form all the people forming the line and the reds are us. However a different situation arises (Figure 1) when the line is still temptingly short so as to defy being recognized as an official line by onlookers. It is at this time that the rebels amongst us, the ones who still have ‘red blood’ coursing through our veins, those who are true ‘dharti putrs’ and who have grown up on ‘maa ka dood’ shine (these and the bloody FOBs) and immediately join in on either side, instantly transforming the line into an arrowhead.

I watched this happen countless times as a kid in India at bus stops, train stations, chat bandhars…pretty much any place in India where a line could be formed (a good exception to this rule is the bus stops in Mumbai. People actually form and maintain lines there. They used to at least!). I never watched it happen in the US until last month. I was fascinated. It happened twice actually, at the Washington Airport and in Doha (my layover). I made a mental note to develop this into a formal theory before someone else recognizes something so obvious. So yeah, keep it real desis (doesn’t include you, you bloody FOBs). In case you are wondering, I am not a 'dharti-putr'.

4) There are a select group of people who use the pool at my gym who completely baffle my understanding of common sense and courtesy. There is a sign that clearly says “PLEASE SHOWER BEFORE ENTERING THE POOL”. Now I follow this religiously and you might call me a chump for doing so. Normally I try to justify everything I do with reason but in this case I probably am a chump. The pool is drenched in chlorine. People who swim do end up taking in and spitting out water from their mouths. Maybe someone even ends up peeing a bit in the pool (what with all the water around you!). So you would think the germs from an unwashed swimmer should only be a psychological block and nothing else! I fully agree with this line of logic. But I draw the line in making an effort to overcome this block when it comes to the case of sweaty assholes who have just finished a run and come straight to the pool and jump into the water in all their sweaty glory. These retards definitely read the sign but choose to ignore it altogether. What is the logic in this? They are too proud of their sweat, too tired and thus inconsiderate, too rebellious to follow rules?!! Sadly, I am still a chump. I am not anal enough to complain about this and will probably stop letting this bother me very soon. Still dudes, come on!

5) Finally, here is a cover of the song ‘I could have lied’. It is by RHCP from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I had initially learnt the first solo and was content with that. After a long time, I learnt the verse and chorus followed by the final solo. Then decided to cover the whole song with vocals. Singing while playing this proved to be a little tough (as will be very obvious). I haven’t done even 10% justice to the awesomeness that is the first solo. Do check out the song if you haven’t already.

May I borrow your jumper cables?

I have good reason to believe that the people working in the frontiers of technologies that have mediocre importance to mankind read my blog. Delusions of grandeur you say? I say nay! In a previous post that was written more than 2 years ago I made a case for the need to have some way of listening to music while swimming to combat the boredom . I of course completely forgot about it. Then a few months back I happened to flip through the pages of a skymall magazine during a flight when I stumbled upon the SWIMP3. As one can easily guess from its name, it is an MP3 player that can be used underwater while doing laps. Awesome!

I personally think it’s a neat device and the only thing that is stopping me from purchasing it is its cost of 180$. That seems a tad too much and most likely there are similar and cheaper devices. I’ll probably get one for myself anyway sometime soon! But for now, let me say GOOD JOB MANKIND. I’m proud of you. And since I now know that you take a cue from me, how about getting started on that teleportation? It’s been a while since the idea was first conceived and no results yet? Shame shame!

And on an unrelated note, happy new year to everyone. Don’t forget that 2008 is a leap year and this means we have an extra day this year to party!!! Here is my new year’s gift to one and all…a cover of a small part of Pink Floyd’s epic song, ‘Echoes’. Try and enjoy (inspite of the less than mediocre vocals)!

Random video

Cover of the outro of the song 'Sir Psycho Sexy' (from BSSM, by RHCP).
For those who haven't heard it, I strongly recommend it. It is one of the finest pieces of music composed on the guitar.

Now...wait a minute!

It’s been more than a month since my last post and I just realized that nothing worth blogging has happened to me during this entire time. Safe to say that my life sucks! So Im going to resort to the ancient, time tested trick of posting videos on your blog when you have nothing interesting to say! Believe me, the ancient Chinese have been using it forever!

When you click play you will be watching Part 4 of “When good songs happen to bad guitar players”. Like I always say...’Downsize your expectations to upsize your entertainment.”

One more thing: The flipping at the end was completely unintentional!

Try and enjoy people! It isn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be but feel free to diss or praise ;)

Thought Collage: Season 1, Episode 5

(From SouthPark)
Mr. Garrison: Let's start the day with a few new math problems -- what is five times two? Yes...Clyde?
Clyde: Twelve.
Mr. Garrison: Okay. Now let's try and get an answer from somebody who is not a complete retard.
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So as of now I feel a little stupid as I am in waist-deep academic shit and am in the process of the trying hard to stay afloat. That being said, don’t be fooled into thinking that I am working day in and day out......unless of course you are my advisor (in which case...I AM working day in and day out professor!)

In order to do some damage control to my dwindling readership I managed to salvage some thoughts and a simple video in the hopes that this will bring some credibility to my site-meter statistics. Please feel free to come back and reread this post as many times as you want to :P
Lets see what have we got this time...

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The World Cup: Some paragraphs
1) First of all...I am very glad the WC is over. No more guilt-filled escapades from work in the mornings and afternoons to watch the games. This just means I can attain my peace of mind again and get back to doing all the work that I’ve been avoiding and procrastinating. (All lies...Professor…all lies...don’t believe any of them)

2) Then there’s the usual stuff that I file into the category of ‘highly-subjective-and-evanescent-topics’...stuff which everyone feels like talking about from his/her POV and feels is right but after a week or two nobody gives a damn...stuff like Did Italy deserve to win?...Was Zidane’s head-butt unwarranted?...Shud Materazzi have been fined too?...so on. I am no expert in football so I won’t even bother indulging in these things...except maybe say..."Oh...the places I would have gone If I looked like Ballack :P ”!!!!

3) Finally, I see the reports everywhere as 'Italy beats France on penalty shoot outs (5-3)' and I feel like yelling...”Duuuuuuuuuuuuudes, France didn’t even get to take its final penalty...so its inaccurate to say 5-3.” I know these things don’t go on record and moreover, France wouldn’t care if it lost 5-3 or 5-4 but still, there is a certain inaccuracy in such a report and it bothers me a little!

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The Bible preacher: And how I pissed him off
Now I live in Mississippi...which is in the so called ‘Bible-belt’ of the USA. And it is not at all uncommon to sometimes find yourself trapped in a conversation with people (who I won’t be surprised to find, target unsuspecting internationals) who talk about the virtues of following Jesus etc etc. I’ve had quite a few friends who’ve been in such situations. It’s not like I want to convert or anything but I’ve always wanted to talk to these preachers only to see what they have to say and piss them off with my religious arrogance. And for some reason such an experience always eluded me...until last Friday. I was sitting on a bench outside when this middle-aged guy walked up to me and said, “I am very happy today”. I kid you not, my first thought was, “WTF...Did he have an orgy last night or what?...Even so, why does he have to show off to random people...Oh wait, I would brag about such a thing too to random people :P” But the next thing he said was “That’s cuz I have Jesus in me”.
“Bingo!”...I thought!
He then proceeded to inquire about my religion and if I believed in heaven and hell and if I wanted to feel the love of God et cetera et cetera. I listened to him carefully and started pointing out with a pragmatic line of reasoning as to why I didn’t want to do whatever he wanted me to do. His every sentence had ‘lord’ and ‘God’ in it and my every response started with “But...” and had words like ‘common sense’ and ‘sanity’. I know this makes me sound conceited but I really believe in everything I said that day. Anyway, the result of the conversation was that I successfully pissed him off.
Strike one was when at one point he called me ignorant for not knowing the right ways of God. I retaliated by calling him an extremist who lets religion control his life too much. This ticked him off a lot.
Then later, he offered to pray for a blessing for my successful graduation and I politely declined it. (I really was polite :)). To make a point or save face or whatever he asked me how I would feel if he prayed for a curse for me. I told him it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me and he could do as he pleased. That was strike two.
Strike three was when he offered to give me his phone number in case I was interested in getting together for one of his group meetings with other students. I again politely told him that I did not want his phone number because there wasn’t the slightest chance that I would be interested in such a thing at all. At this point he simply bid me goodbye and left.

In retrospect, I now have a slight amount of ‘winner’s guilt’. Maybe there wasn’t any need to engage him in conversation in the first place if I had made up my mind to be hostile. Whatever it is, I can never fathom the need to proselytize and in my opinion it is the one of the shadiest things people can do!

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Movie Reviews: You know you want it
I realized I really went a little overboard with my last post reviewing RHCP and all...so Ill try and compensate here with as little info as possible...

1) Superman Returns
Brandon Routh...surprisingly good.
Kevin Spacey...pretty good.
Kate Bosworth...both good and cute.
Movie...watchable once!

2) Pirates Part 2
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Movie...who cares? Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!

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Fractal Collage: Cuz only blog-ninjas can pull off such stunts
-->Did you know that Debra Messing (Grace from ‘Will and Grace’) named her son Roman. Cool eh? Ok...maybe not so much but at least it’s better than some other weird ass ones!! I mean its one thing to publicly acknowledge the fact that you are a superman fan but naming your son Kal-El is taking it too far Mr.Cage. Imagine how his friends will rip him apart when he grows older.
-->Starbucks wont make my hot chocolate any hotter that their set temperature. They fear being sued apparently. So I have to make do with lukewarm chocolate probably because of some fucker who was stupid enough to not know how to sip on a hot beverage and got his tongue burnt and then decided to sue Starbucks to make a quick buck!!
--> If you think you don’t have to stop completely at the stop signs only because you are riding a slow moving bicycle then you are wrong. If a cop catches you doing it he will definitely pull up right alongside you and give a stern warning making you feel like an idiot. I just know.

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The video: Straight from Roman Entertainment Inc. HQs
This is a video of me (on the left playing the rhythm on acoustic) along with my friend Avinash (on the right playing the leads on the electric) trying to capture the essence of the hindi song “Kya Maloom” by this awesome Indian band called ‘Indian Ocean’. We only play the first 3 or 4 minutes…the actual song speeds up immensely after that. I strongly recommend listening to the original song. I screwed up (as usual :() in a few places but hopefully that doesn’t ruin the song much.




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Right......I know this post does not and will not have the same magnetic effect on the blog’s readership that Mandira Bedi had on the Indian viewership when she wore ‘that’ outfit during the cricket world cup in ‘03. But hey...I don’t cross-dress and I have to try!
So until later...keep it complex! :P