Nowadays anybody who knows me personally has ample knowledge of my madness about a peculiar phenomenon usually known throughout the world as Rock Music. But yes, there was a day when I was completely ignorant about this whole business of rock, when Beatles and Elvis were merely some names that appeared here and there like thousands of other names. So how did Animesh the Ignorant became Animesh the Enlightened? Let's find out the answer.
My family was always into music, especially my dad. When I was young, he would almost sit daily with his harmonium and engage in another round of Rabindra Sangeet. But whether this really had any effect on me, I don't actually know, as until class 7 when I was about 12, I had almost no interest in music. As far as I can remember now, the virus of music began to infect me from class 8. The pioneer virus (as I would like to stylize it) was the music of the incomparable Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, composed by the great maestro Satyajit Ray himself (I intend to write something on this in the future). And that was the record which pulled the trick. I had all the songs in a single cassette (which was actually a legacy of my mother) and I remember playing it over and over again in that Sanyo cassette player. Well, 5 years down the line and it's still among my all time favourites.
In the same year I began exploring western pop songs (all from cassettes still) which included some Backstreet Boys, a little of the Beastie Boys and a sprinkling of Cliff Richards as well. The reader may note that at that time these names mattered very little (if indeed anything at all), and all that mattered was that I was listening to English songs!
Class 9 came and with it came my computer and it changed my whole life forever. Accessing music was no problem now (provided I stopped playing games on the comp). Classes 9 and 10 were spent drowned in the music of Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR) and some other pop groups. The only rockers in my life at that time were maybe Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, and a peeping Linkin Park. But class 11 saw me leaving the false façade of pop and pop culture and embrace rock and its ethos, especially DIY. It was not only the musical aspect that precipitated this change, but the ideology associated with real rock (a little of which tallied with my own independent thinking).
By this time I was completely into Rock music. Slowly in a span of 2 years I discovered Aerosmith, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Limp Bizkit, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Queen, R.E.M., Scorpions, The Police, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Bruce Springsteen, Guns N' Roses, Green Day, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Rolling Stones etc etc...
So that's my story. Maybe by western standards I am not that ardent rock fan, but by desi Indian standards indeed I am.
Hail Rock!!
Showing posts with label Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock. Show all posts
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Rock N' Roll's 15 Most Embarrassing Stage Antics
So as I promised yesterday, I am back today with the second part of the series. Hope you guys enjoy this one as much as you did the first part. But in case you have missed the first part of the series, don't worry, be happy and just click here.
9. David Bowie was forced to leave the stage 20 minutes into a 2004 show in Oslo after he was hit with the thin white stick from a lollipop, hurled by a fan, which lodged inside his left eyelid. Ah that is really sad.
10. Shock rocker Alice Cooper "retired" the huge snake that had been in his show for decades after an incident at the House of Blues in L.A. during which the snake pooped, and pooped some more. "I never expected there to be eight piles the size of a Doberman pinscher," Cooper later told Rolling Stone. "My whole stage costume was covered, and it smelled so bad I was gagging." Now this is what I call snaky shit!
11. Singers forget lyrics all the time, but preferably not in front of the President of the USA. During a Kennedy Centre honours tribute to Dolly Parton, Jessica Simpson abruptly stopped in the middle of her performance of Parton's big hit '9 to 5.' "Dolly, that made me so nervous," she blurted before running offstage.
12. The Who have always been one of rock's most fiasco-prone bands. No one held a candle, however, to the late Keith Moon, whose piece de resistance was the explosion he rigged to go off during the band's 1967 appearance on 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.' More powerful than planned, it propelled the drum kit and Daltrey airborne. See the video below
13. Fleetwood Mac celebrated their status as the world's biggest band by incorporating a 70-foot penguin into their act. The problem with this particular enormous plastic waterfowl was that it was always flaccid. "It would never fully inflate," recalled Lindsey Buckingham. "This thing was always limping and floundering at the back of the stage."
14. At Woodstock '94, Green Day took the fabled festival's legendary history of muddy conditions to the punk-rock extreme, starting an epic mud-fight with the audience. With the stage filled with muck-covered fans, bassist Mike Dirnt was mistaken for a trespasser by a security guard, who leveled the musician, knocking out several teeth.
15. It was a travesty of a mockery of a sham when U2, the world's BIGGEST band, got trapped inside a 40 foot lemon shaped pod when it malfunctioned, trapping them inside, during the 1997 Popmart tour.
The series is concluded, and I sincerely hope that you guys liked it. And as usual, comments are welcomed!
9. David Bowie was forced to leave the stage 20 minutes into a 2004 show in Oslo after he was hit with the thin white stick from a lollipop, hurled by a fan, which lodged inside his left eyelid. Ah that is really sad.
10. Shock rocker Alice Cooper "retired" the huge snake that had been in his show for decades after an incident at the House of Blues in L.A. during which the snake pooped, and pooped some more. "I never expected there to be eight piles the size of a Doberman pinscher," Cooper later told Rolling Stone. "My whole stage costume was covered, and it smelled so bad I was gagging." Now this is what I call snaky shit!
11. Singers forget lyrics all the time, but preferably not in front of the President of the USA. During a Kennedy Centre honours tribute to Dolly Parton, Jessica Simpson abruptly stopped in the middle of her performance of Parton's big hit '9 to 5.' "Dolly, that made me so nervous," she blurted before running offstage.
12. The Who have always been one of rock's most fiasco-prone bands. No one held a candle, however, to the late Keith Moon, whose piece de resistance was the explosion he rigged to go off during the band's 1967 appearance on 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.' More powerful than planned, it propelled the drum kit and Daltrey airborne. See the video below
13. Fleetwood Mac celebrated their status as the world's biggest band by incorporating a 70-foot penguin into their act. The problem with this particular enormous plastic waterfowl was that it was always flaccid. "It would never fully inflate," recalled Lindsey Buckingham. "This thing was always limping and floundering at the back of the stage."
14. At Woodstock '94, Green Day took the fabled festival's legendary history of muddy conditions to the punk-rock extreme, starting an epic mud-fight with the audience. With the stage filled with muck-covered fans, bassist Mike Dirnt was mistaken for a trespasser by a security guard, who leveled the musician, knocking out several teeth.
15. It was a travesty of a mockery of a sham when U2, the world's BIGGEST band, got trapped inside a 40 foot lemon shaped pod when it malfunctioned, trapping them inside, during the 1997 Popmart tour.
The series is concluded, and I sincerely hope that you guys liked it. And as usual, comments are welcomed!
Monday, 21 May 2007
Rock N' Roll's 15 Most Embarrassing Stage Antics
Many independent publications have regularly brought out things like 'Most Embarrassing Moments', 'Pop Music's Worst Moments Caught on Tape', 'Embarrassing Moments in 2006' etc etc. But here I found a rather unusual list, and man sure it is funny!
1. First on this infamous list is the Black Eyed Peas. The day after a Peas concert in San Diego, the Net was packed with pictures of Fergie on-stage with a huge wet spot on her crotch. Initially her publicist claimed that the stain was just "sweat," but later on Fergie finally confessed that she'd had a few drinks before the show and "didn't think to go to the bathroom" before they went on stage. "We were jumping around . . . it was all very rock 'n' roll. And my bladder just started . . . you know."
Shame Shame!!
2. Lip-syncing poster boys Milli Vanelli were busted on a 1989 MTV tour when the tape jammed as they mouthed 'Girl You Know It's True.' The public later learned that the duo hadn't sung its own vocals in the studio, either.
3. Kurt Cobain may have had a self-destructive streak a mile wide, but it was bandmate Krist Novoselic who put himself in harm's way during the 1992 taping of the MTV Video Music Awards. Near the end of the song 'Lithium', Novoselic tossed his bass in the air. The guitar hit him squarely on his head, and the dazed musician stumbled offstage.
4. Onstage in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 2004, Cyndi Lauper threw her head back to hit a high note -- and took a direct hit from a defecating bird flying overhead. Holy shit!!
5. During Ozzy Osbourne's 'Diary of a Madman' tour a giant catapult designed to look like a hand was set up to fling raw calves' livers and pig intestines into the audience. At one gig, the slaughter fell far short of its destination, landing on. . .Ozzy's head.
6. Sean Diddy tried to pull a page from the grunge playbook when he attempted a stage dive at a nightclub in Ibiza, Spain, in 2005. Instead of catching the rapper, fans moved away, and Diddy slammed to the floor. Wham!!
7. The Band's 'Last Waltz,' their farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976, was extravagant: a Who's Who of guests (Dylan, Clapton, Neil Diamond), and, by all accounts, a backstage smorgasbord of illicit substances. During Neil Young's appearance, the oblivious singer had a gob of cocaine clearly lodged in a nostril.
8. The Rolling Stones' massive 1969 concert in London's Hyde Park became an impromptu tribute to their fallen mate Brian Jones. Mick Jagger read from Shelley's elegiac 'Adonais' before releasing thousands of butterflies -- most of which were already dead.
This is part one. I will be posting the second part soon. Till then enjoy this one, and of course, comments are welcomed.
PS: To view the second part click here.
1. First on this infamous list is the Black Eyed Peas. The day after a Peas concert in San Diego, the Net was packed with pictures of Fergie on-stage with a huge wet spot on her crotch. Initially her publicist claimed that the stain was just "sweat," but later on Fergie finally confessed that she'd had a few drinks before the show and "didn't think to go to the bathroom" before they went on stage. "We were jumping around . . . it was all very rock 'n' roll. And my bladder just started . . . you know."
Shame Shame!!
2. Lip-syncing poster boys Milli Vanelli were busted on a 1989 MTV tour when the tape jammed as they mouthed 'Girl You Know It's True.' The public later learned that the duo hadn't sung its own vocals in the studio, either.
3. Kurt Cobain may have had a self-destructive streak a mile wide, but it was bandmate Krist Novoselic who put himself in harm's way during the 1992 taping of the MTV Video Music Awards. Near the end of the song 'Lithium', Novoselic tossed his bass in the air. The guitar hit him squarely on his head, and the dazed musician stumbled offstage.
4. Onstage in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 2004, Cyndi Lauper threw her head back to hit a high note -- and took a direct hit from a defecating bird flying overhead. Holy shit!!
5. During Ozzy Osbourne's 'Diary of a Madman' tour a giant catapult designed to look like a hand was set up to fling raw calves' livers and pig intestines into the audience. At one gig, the slaughter fell far short of its destination, landing on. . .Ozzy's head.
6. Sean Diddy tried to pull a page from the grunge playbook when he attempted a stage dive at a nightclub in Ibiza, Spain, in 2005. Instead of catching the rapper, fans moved away, and Diddy slammed to the floor. Wham!!
7. The Band's 'Last Waltz,' their farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976, was extravagant: a Who's Who of guests (Dylan, Clapton, Neil Diamond), and, by all accounts, a backstage smorgasbord of illicit substances. During Neil Young's appearance, the oblivious singer had a gob of cocaine clearly lodged in a nostril.
8. The Rolling Stones' massive 1969 concert in London's Hyde Park became an impromptu tribute to their fallen mate Brian Jones. Mick Jagger read from Shelley's elegiac 'Adonais' before releasing thousands of butterflies -- most of which were already dead.
This is part one. I will be posting the second part soon. Till then enjoy this one, and of course, comments are welcomed.
PS: To view the second part click here.
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