Top songs - 1

This, hopefully, will build up into another series. Songs currently spinning around my head, refusing to leave, and leaving that permanent mark. Songs whose lyrics keep popping up while I'm sitting at Nescafe, or whose solo I would hum inappropriatly loudly even while in the library, and very subconsciously.

TS, I shall name it. I've got this affection to short-formed-series now.

Anyway, here goes.

Mr. Big - Green Tinted Sixties Mind

No, I didn't make it for the Big concert. I did hear another incredibly talented band, Slain from Bangalore, perform it in college recently. The first time I heard the song was them performing it a year ago, at the BITS rock night. It is still a mystery to me why I hadn't explored Mr. Big till that late. The signature happy-jumpy intro and the perfectly fitting soloing by Gilbert, Eric Martin's intense emotion-filled vocals make this song an instant mood-lifter!

Zero - Christmas in July

Another song which became so much better after hearing it live. Yes, I did witness the God of tone, Warren, at I-Rock, and good GOD did he own the concert! Among all the other names that performed that night, Warren stood out like a saviour of good music. It poured that day like there was no tomorrow, and we still stood in the killing rain and heard every note played by the man! Something about this song that makes it in the switch-off-lights-throw-head-back-and-drown category! One of the best guitar instrumentals I've heard by anyone ever, let alone an Indian artist!

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Rainy Day, Dream Away/Still Raining, Still Dreaming

"Rainy Day, Dream Away

Oh let the sun take a holiday!"

Along with his pioneering guitar sounds, Hendrix has never stopped amazing me with his lyrics. The recent showers in Goa drew me to these two songs. The experience of listening to the songs one after the other, over and over again, while the rain pelted down on my window was one of the most memorable ones I've had! Every time it starts raining after that, I can't stop myself from humming those lines now.

The Allman Brothers Band - Whipping Post

Be it that sexy little melody after "Sometimes I feel..." in the song, or the solo, or the haunting bassline running through the song - this one's one of those everlasting ones. One of those that never get old, or you never get bored of. It's the pinnacle of progressive electric blues, what with the 11/8 verse and the 12/8 chorus! And the crowning moment of this song is that 22-minute live epic in the Filmore East tapes. Everything about those 22 minutes exalts pure Blues power!

Grateful Dead - Box of Rain

I had to really think before I typed out the name of this song, mostly because the entire American Beauty album has been one of my favourites ever since the semester began. But what with the weather being at its most beautiful yet (obviously in the middle of tests, when rather than breathing it into my system, I need to sit in the library studying and watch it through glass windows), I thought Box of Rain would be fitting. Not anywhere else have I seen vocal melodies pulled off so perfectly. The lyrics just seem to flow and in the tandem of seemingly disconnected music from three guitars rises a melody so uplifting, so joyful and so comforting! I don't think there's ever gonna be a time when Box of Rain won't get my mood up!

Writing this was way more fun than I thought it would! Hopefully, many more of these!

25 things

Arka started the trend(?) of posting the 25-things facebook thingy on the blog, so here goes. Facebook being blocked in hostel, it's a darn good idea. Besides, the now-usual dust on my blog was becoming too thick for it's own good.

Took me quite a while to come up with these.

1> The best roots of thought-processes and ideas come to me while I’m crapping, followed closely by when I’m bathing.

2> There does not pass a single moment when there isn’t some sort of music playing in my head. I cannot, for the life of me turn it off. Not that I want to, I’ve just tried to.

3> I’m obsessed with big machines. I’ve always preferred the mighty motors and the loud hum of the transformers in the electrical lab to the cute chips and suave CROs of the electronics lab.

4> Somehow the obsession of big machines never extends to cars and bikes. I’ve never really known anything and everything there is to know about any car or bike. Honestly, I just think it’s a waste of time knowing stats you really can’t do anything about. The rated value of a DC motor, however, is a different matter!

5> With all the risk of including a very clichéd line here, I’m addicted to caffeine.

6> I will stubbornly continue moving my feet (the kind you do in an exam or supposedly, when you’re nervous) when I’m thinking, in spite of different techniques tried by different people to change that. These range from simple slaps on the thigh to exasperated threats to amputate my limbs :|

7> Oh yes, before that slips out – I adore, respect, revere and unconditionally love the straight-face smiley. It’s the single most used smiley when I’m on any IM service. By FAR. The most used smiley on text messaging too.

8> I’m known to be really, really fast while texting and I like to show that fact off. Although in my private moments, I would agree that using similar models of phones for about four years now and a “10 paise a message” are very much to blame.

9> I’m very phobic to discussions about vague, discreet facts – facts about weapons, planes, animals, cellphone models. Such discussions pertaining to music, however, I completely dig!

10> Ever since I started writing this, I’ve been trying to put it in words, but I cannot possibly stress how dependant I am on music. It’s heroin-addiction-level. It’s there with me every minute, in my mind every passing moment. I’m as much in love with Hindustani Classical Music as with Rock Music or Jazz or anything else. My mood depends on the music, and my music depends on the mood. The obsession deserves a separate post altogether.

11> I love cheese. I love it like a child and I love it like a lover. I love it like any love the world has ever known.

12> I rival a Japanese tourist on a seven wonders trip when it comes to photography. My digicam allures me in a way that very, very few things do. And in most times, it’s not people I click.

13> I’m still superstitious, completely by choice and stupidly so, about stuff I care about. I still skip steps, cross my fingers and wear particular t-shirts to particular exams. Which is why I didn’t put any of the stuff I hold dear on number 13.

14> I fall head-first for women with a sense of humour I like. Nothing matters much after that.

15> A lot of my humour is spontaneous. I can never “tell a joke” when I’m told to do so.

16> I drink tons of water. I’d read someplace about how it makes you live a better life, and it’s become a habit ever since.

17> I love theatre, and acting in general. All kinds, all languages. (a translator would be nice, however) There are quite a few movie character roles I so badly wanna do, and I get into those characters when I’m in my room sometimes.

18> I talk to myself a lot, and I know we all do. So let’s stop associating that with being nuts, shall we? :P

19> I’m a comic-book freak and Batman more than the others. There is nothing more intriguing and cool than the mind of the Batman.

20> Words I use a lot – brilliant, insane, wrong, seriously, kinda, noice, anywho, accha, na, re,

21> Phrases I use a lot (on chat, mostly) – “haan haan”, “cool cool”, “I mean” “no no listen listen listen!”, “btw btw btw”, “dude, no.”, “.. and your point being?”, “so..totally…wrong!”, “oyya!”

22> I love my hostel. With all its quirks and idiosyncrasies. I try very hard not to imagine life once I’m kicked out of here with a degree. And I’m gonna be murdered for this, but I could not possibly have hoped for better corridor-mates than Bing and Pubby!

23> I’m an all-out connoisseur of bad jokes. There’s the good bad joke and then there’s the bad bad joke. The good bad jokes are the ones you really REALLY can’t stand, and the bad bad jokes are, well, not worthy of reaction.

24> I can never write for myself and then put it up on a public forum. Somehow, it just makes me feel like I’ve slipped in the standards I’ve set to my imaginary readers! I’m not sure whether that’s a bad thing entirely.

25> I am by all means more of a lonely person than a people’s person. I can spend insane amounts of time alone, and I enjoy every bit of it. As long as there’s music around!

And I tag everyone who manages to go through the list. I'm hoping this time around, the dust doesn't accumalate to the amount it had.