Inspiration

Hope most of you have heard about or seen the amazing Andy McKee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_McKee)

If you don't already know him, he is an youTube legend and his peculiar guitar playing style has earned him respect and a stupendous fan following. His signature song "Drifting" has recieved more that 22 million hits in youTube alone.

I thought we should include him in our portal...Just for the sake of inspiration.

Enjoy!

My golf balls, gone missing

Someone forwarded the professor's mayonnaise jar speech to me once again this morning. I had read it years back. When the jar was empty the professor filled it with golf balls and asked his students if it was full- they replied, it was. He went on to pour marbles that filled in the empty spaces and asked again, they said 'twas full now. After which, he poured some sand that filled in the remaining spaces, he received the same response- it was full. Two cups of coffee followed to fill it more before the students finally said, now there's space for no more. Seemingly, the golf balls are a man's primary priorities- family, passions, love, and everything else that can still make a person full in the absence of everything else. The marbles and sand are the other priorities that are good to have, but not indispensable. If one pours the sand and the marbles before the golf balls, all the golf balls wont fit in.

Where are my golf balls? Did I empty my jar and pour the sand and the marbles before? I have, perhaps- my guitar gathers dust, my diary has comfortably enconsed itself in a remote corner of the bookshelf, and wherez my gifted ivory plectrum that I so fondly treasured all my life... I dont quite remember. I do talk to my parents once a while, I do watch silent wildlife documentaries at times, I do open a couple of nondescript trivia Web sites when I assume I have nothing to do, but where are my other golf balls? Gone missing!!!

The Spark - Its Coming... Watch this space

Excerpts from the Gtalk Chat

chiranjeevdas is online.

ankur: why dont you accept the invitation and start writing

chiranjeevdas: ill do it its good

ankur: when?

Sent at 8:41 PM on Tuesday

chiranjeevdas: its so emotional

ankur: whY?

chiranjeevdas: i feel like jamming again

ankur: Yeah man

write something

it would keep those treasured moments alive

did you sing btw...in any of the functions... i faintly remember something

chiranjeevdas: no i did not

there were lots of singers

hey i m writing a song called dosti

the lyrics

E maj, A maj, F#min, B maj

intro chords

the rest ill tell later

ankur: why dont you sing it to me over gtalk

chiranjeevdas: heh heh ill do it over the weekend

ankur: you can post that in the blog

i mean you can upload your songs there

chiranjeevdas: ok

ankur: it would be really fun

all the musical pieces you made

chiranjeevdas: yeah!

ankur: everyone can listen to it

chiranjeevdas: thats good...ill upload the musical titbits

ankur: the lyrics are really good...chiru you have got real talent!!!

yeah...

chiranjeevdas: yes it is

and its taking me a long time to write

ankur: hmmm.... i cant write songs.... :( i get a block when i think of writing a song

thats a rare talent actuallu

chiranjeevdas: me too

its taken me 5 days to get it

!!

ankur: :)

chiranjeevdas: i have got the song stiched up

just need a little bridge version

i got the bridge chords

but no lyrics

Sent at 8:56 PM on Tuesday

chiranjeevdas: u there?

sending u my recording

dosti

Sent at 9:08 PM on Tuesday

chiranjeevdas: accept the file

Sent at 9:14 PM on Tuesday

chiranjeevdas: ankur da accept the file

ankur: thanks.

chiranjeevdas: its a demo of the song

its raw at the moment

there is plenty of space to crack a guitar solo

turn up the volume

ankur: plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz upload in the blog with the lyrics and some words... its would really start the spark

i am listening to it now

chiranjeevdas: ok

ankur: WOW

great chiru

great

chiranjeevdas: thx

ankur: i am still listening

chiranjeevdas: the chords are E maj, A maj, F#min, B maj

the bridge chords are C, A min, F G

The Cassette Dukani

I used to be very happy when my uncles visit us on my Birthday's and on Bihu and more so if they forget that its a special day; cuz thats when they would hand me over a Rs100 or so(in lieu of a gift)... to buy something i like... They would mostly expect me to eat that money out :) ...they always thought that the best way to spend the money is to have a nice platter...its in their genes. But though i fall into the same genetic line i always kept the money away for something else. The 100 bucks would get me 2 audio cassettes!!! Those days we use to have just three major companies which sold international music ( yeah boy, i was always a firangi ass kisser) - MagnaSound, MIL and HMV.

And it would be extremely difficult t

o find the right album, specially in a place like tezpur ( Assam)

So i was always in the mercy of the beetle leaf chewing cassette dukani ( Shopkeeper) to get me some good albums. But somehow he miraculously was able to choose some pretty good ones - Like the "The Very Best Of Eagles", "Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits", "Blaze of Glory - Jon Bon Jovi" and the likes. I mean i really got those albums from this cassette dukani and the irony is i don't even remember his name....

I didn't get to buy a lot of them , given my limited resources , in a year i would be buying around 2 or 3 at the max.... These 2 cassettes will travel all round the small sleepy town by the way of our effective barter system at School. There we few guys like me who too had this craze for the

international acts...and our prized possessions would find way to each others tape players.

Though their audio quality has faded over the years...some have even become useless i still attach a lot of emotional value to them so much so that few lucky ones have found their way to Banglaore now!!!

I keep them as souvenirs; just to remind me of those days where i had so less to listen and so much to enjoy. And now when i can get any damn music i want; i still don't seem to get the kicks i used to get back then.

The cassette shop is no longer there and what we have now is a rampant sale of cheap mp3 pirated CDs for as low as Rs10 a piece. Thats less than a candy bar....Kids now don't have to try too hard to save the money for an Album. Then there is the iPODs and the iTunes and the P2Ps and what not. We seem to get the music so easily!!!

Lets See.

The original MagnaSound cassette cover of the #1 Best Selling Album of the US "The Very Best Of Eagles"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States

One of my prized collection.

Wherez my music gone?

My guitar stares at me day after day. As one layer of dust fights for space with another, I start wondering... wherez my music gone?

I dust it once a while, and lay it on my lap. As my fingers stiffen and the strings revolt , I start wondering... wherez my music gone?

I organize the folders on my desktop. And as I arrange arrays of vacation pictures and office folders, I start wondering.... wherez my music gone?

I marvel at my neatly piled CDs and DVDs; movies, teleserials, documentaries I have it all. And I wonder, wherez my music gone?

Food for thought

I dont really remember how I met Ankur....and how the Diabolique Soulz started.....all I know is that we enjoyed every moment of those REC nights when we used to practise non-stop throughout the night....never bothered about food or drinks....it was just the love of creating music....

Heart of Life is Good

I wasn't a John Mayer fan until recently. I had some preconcieved notion about the way be sings . I didn't dig into the lyrics but i hated the way he sang...your body is like a wonderland.

But that changed when i saw the movie "Ghost Town" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_(film)) which ends with a song by John Mayer - " Heat of Life" . Maybe it was the movie and the mood that it set ... i could actually connect to the song. It has got wonderfull lyrics and a great groove. And since then, thats the song i play over and over in my guitar just to feel good. Do tell me how you feel about the song. Its from his album Continuum.

The Endless Wait

I 've been waiting for a reunion from God knows when...there seem to be some cosmic force that works against it. When shovik is in bangalore, i am in chennai, Subhro and kangkan are busy with their MBA.While i am in banglaore , shovik is in hyderabad, Subhra is in the oz. Thats the way it is for... well almost 6 years and it never seems to work.

There was always someone who goes missing...The last time we were closest to being together was 24-Jan-2009, a day after my birthday...when most of the gang was together....Bhaku, kangkan ,Subhro and ofcourse our fans a.k.a cheer leaders Proku and Mistry.

I mean that was it.... We never met like that again... I am going to salute Subhro for making that possible , cuz when we here don't get the time out to meet each other when we are just 10 kms away... he came all the way from Kolkata to make the reunion ( well, a sort of ) possible!

We had fun together playing music... the old ones...it was really nostalgic...It just seemed so surreal...

We are no rock stars and we have don't seem to have any god damn fan following... but there's something very special about us. I mean, we do get the audiance listen to us and enjoy the moment. Maybe its the vibe...the special bond that we share with each other that makes us so special, makes us click. I could feel the the listner is connected to us with the "special" bond ( yeah, i know i am sounding cliche) called friendship.

I think thats the biggest thing Diabolique Soulz was most successful in doing... It kept us connected with this illusive,magical and now non-existant band. And thats why the spirit of the band should always be kept alive... Maybe we'll never play together for an audiance again, may be we wouldn't even get to play at all...But we should never lose the hope....we should always be looking forward to playing together again...we should always keep the flame burning and join our hands to save it from burning out...when its too windy.

You know what i mean?