So after about a year of meeting and putting song ideas together and getting things in place, we finally are ready to unleash ourselves on the whole wide world! or atleast our circle of friends.

We have always wanted to play our first show for our friends whom we personally invite and ask for their feedback after the show and while we planned to do it initially in Jason’s house, we thought of Opus and the Sunday brunch was just too perfect a chance to pass up

So tomorrow, we premiere a lot of the original material we have written (we’ve written enough for a full length album BTW) and a couple of covers we thought would be fun to do! and we’d love to have some feedback from the everyone who comes to the show about the band and the music and what you liked and more importantly, what you din’t like!

If you are in Bangalore, please do consider this a personal invitation to come to Opus at 2 PM and watch Allegro Fudge’s debut show and after that, please do take some time to send us mail, or just post a comment or even catch one of us and tell us what you think of it all!

Website – http://allegrofudge.com

Email – music@allegrofudge.com

The new year was brought in just the way I like it! I went for midnight mass with the family and then headed to spend time with Shilpa. We even made pizza ourselves! I like this over the partying and the madness! And the rest of the year was going to get crazy anyway .. and it did

It was by complete accident that I started taking photographs at weddings. I carry my camera around with me all the time and when I first took some photos at my friend’s wedding, it was because I wanted to keep myself occupied! Some of the couple’s friends had made a movie about their life together and wanted to show it at the reception and since I had both my camera and my mac with me, I took a couple of hundred photos (like I do always), transferred them to my mac and ran a slideshow on the projector that was set up for the movie! This became such a great hit because a typical wedding photographer would take a month after the wedding for you to see the photos even and here guests who came in a little later could see what had happened earlier in the reception!

I started getting offers to shoot weddings which I still don’t take up for money. I am just not good enough yet and am still doing this as a hobby and for only my close friends. But then, sometime later this year, I should possibly start charging for it

Much to my liking, a LOT of music happened this year, with the new project (tentatively named – Allegro Fudge) that is making some very interesting music, to playing with old friends at Opus and other places around the city to the lovely ‘Raghu Dixit Project‘, its been a time when I grew a lot as a musician and I hope that will continue right through.

February 26th, 2008 was when The Raghu Dixit Project’s debut album was launched and from there its been a crazy ride with the band this year. From being MTV’s artist of the month, to seeing our album for sale in stores, to playing all over the country and some parts of the world, being part of the Roots Music Festival tour of the North East of India, to travelling around 5 countries in South Asia, to being part of a superhit movie score, my journey in music with Raghu has been tremendous this year! And I only hope next year will top it and will see me get better with the bass guitar!

This is my favourite picture of the band on stage taken this year. This was taken by Sayan ‘The Red Bantoo’ Datta, who is one of the best concert photographers I have met in the country!

The trip to the North East of India that I went on with the band, was more than just the music for me. It was a great lesson in management and I learnt more on that one trip about how to organize concerts, negotiate with people, delegate work, get work done, and just manage things than I have learnt in the past 25 years of my life! From the accident to having to set up promotional deals with radio stations in the North East and making sure things were on track in a place I have never been to in my life, in a language I don’t understand was quite an experience!

It was on this trip that I spoke extensively with Vijay Nair about the various things that we can in the realm of Indie music in India. Many of those ideas are being brought to fruition as we speak . This was also the trip that fuelled my leaving IT and eventually landing up where I am today. We’ll come to that in a bit.

2008 was the year that I was finally able to do music and work in the music biz a little more seriously and a large part of that was because of winning the IYME award for India. That was one of the best experiences I’ve had all year. I got to go to London, Liverpool and Manchester and see how the music industry works there and make friends and contacts that will be invaluable to me as I continue on this path in the music biz.

2008 was in many ways, the year for travel! Most of this was not purely travel, but I did get to see a LOT of the world and I am thankful for it. I will seriously invest time and money in travel over next year and the years to come. Its just the best thing in the world I should tell you! I used to be this person who completely disliked travelling on IT work because you are going to be stuck in an office in another country like you are now and it will only be a change of location. But I strongly urge you to travel when you can and do it NOW! go to as many places and see the world .. there is a lot you will learn

2008 was the year I finally quit IT! to pursue a life and career in the music industry and as a great first step, a series of co-incidences and great timing made me the VP for MuckWork and getting to work with Derek Sivers can be a great start to a career in the Music Biz and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am for it. More updates on how everything progresses will be made as things happen. But I am finally doing what I LOVE from my heart and its a great place to be and I am determined to make this count

There are a lot of interesting projects I am part of in the Indie Music scene in India and I will tell you about them as they happen. Right now its all just concepts but they will come together soon.

The project that started it all was relaunched late this year and I am really proud of what we have got here. The brand new RadioVeRVe now has more music and a LOT more features. I strongly recommend that you check it out and tell me what you think about it. This is just the start for the new RadioVeRVe. There is more that will go there and it will happen soon!

Another great project that I was part of late this year was FOSS.in. It was haphazard to start with, ambitious when it came close and finally when it happened, it was grand! there is a lot we did right this year, a LOT we didn’t and we learnt with everything that din’t go as planned. The team ‘bash’ after the event was quite an event and I hope that it makes us strong as a team together because there is a LOT of good that will happen with the event next year

Finally, Shilpa and I have been together for almost 5 years now and I could not have been happier about it! this has been the year when we grew a LOT closer to each other. When it was smooth sailing almost all year long The year when we started respecting our own space and learning or rather getting used to each one doing our own thing and not having to be around each other all the time. In many ways, that has been the secret to how close we’ve become.

This was also a year when I reconnected with a lot of old friends, made new ones, started many new projects and got qutie a bit of work done and enjoyed every moment of it. In a tremendous number of ways, this has been the best year of my life yet and I see a lot of good happening in 2009 as well. There have been many things I have forgotten to mention and I am sure they will come back to me soon and I’ll probably make new posts about it!

For now, cheers to a great year and here’s another one hoping for an even better year ahead

So coming back to the story, the guard who stopped me, took my ticket and started asking my name and my age and where I am from and all that and then said what are you going to Bombay for? to which I replied, “I’m going on work!” and he looks at me and says to me, “No chance! you don’t work .. there is no way you work!”

After much debate, I told him, its true, I am a musician and that probably explains my long hair and “non work” attire! That satisfied his curiosity and as he let me go ahead after thoroughly going through the contents of my bag he said .. “The minute I saw you only I knew, you must be a musician or something, there is no way you do ‘work’”!

Little do they know!

Please sample the music yourself here and tell me what you think of it. These are the first 3 songs we recorded in our pianist, Jason’s house. Its been mixed and mastered by him!

1. Maximum City – [audio:Allegro_Fudge-Maximum_City.mp3]

2. Plight – [audio:Allegro_Fudge-Plight.mp3]

3. Constant Paralysis (Spanish Song) – [audio:Allegro_Fudge-Spanish_Song.mp3]

We need a name for the band and we just can’t agree on any names that we have come up. So I need you to help me find a name for the band!

Please listen to the songs and come up with a name you think will describe the band best! Some things to keep in mind when selecting a name

- Please try to ensure there isn’t another band by that name already! (Search for the name on MySpace)

- We would love it if you can find us a name where we can register the .com, .net or .in domain for it!

If your name is selected as the band name, we will list you with muchos thanks on our website and album and give you a free copy of our first album signed by the band and personally delivered to you!

The musicians in the band are

Noella D’sa – Vocals

Joey Sharma – Guitars

Jason Zachariah – Piano / Keyboards

Rzhude David – Percussions / Vocals

Gaurav Vaz – Bass Guitar

I have been an amateur musician for about 8 years now and a large part of my education as a musician happened playing in the various venues in and around Bangalore. These were either college fests where my band Phenom competed or pub gigs where we played for measly sums of money, some places where we even had to pay and play but play we did! and we loved it and it was well worth it!

In a city where venues to play musc are few and far between, the few places that allowed bands to play were our saving grace! to us, the 20 people who were our audience, most of them friends we had dragged there, were the closest we would ever get to those videos of our favourite bands who would woo stadiums filled with people!

In one swift and stupid move, my city was culturally slaughtered last month! in a very strange twist of events, the Bangalore police banned live music in places that serve alcohol. Bad enough, they had banned dancing in clubs, they had to go do this ..

In many ways, I got out of this situation with my band now playing largely outside Bangalore inspite of being a Bangalorean Band! but its the worst feeling for those kids who put their heart and soul and every penny they can muster into their music. Like Girish Karnad, one of the finest playwrights from Bangalore had to say at the protest last weekend, “How on earth will listening to live music cause anything untoward to happen?” and just because accidents happen on the road, will you ban driving?

This is the 21st Century and we live in a free country but are still subject to such ridiculous restrictions that it makes me question the ability of the people who we have elected into power!

A bunch of us have put up a petition for online signing that we would like to take further once we have enough people supporting the cause. So if you feel what is happening in the city now is unfair, please head to http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition and support us!

This is a definite must watch for any music lover and if you like the Dixie Chicks music, this just can’t be missed!

You must admire the courage and conviction with which they make their music and all those songs I keep humming now have a whole new meaning!

]]> http://gauravvaz.com/taking-the-long-way/feed/ 0 http://gauravvaz.com/its-all-about-the-music/ http://gauravvaz.com/its-all-about-the-music/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:31:26 +0000 Gaurav Vaz http://www.gauravvaz.com/blog/its-all-about-the-music/ I have finally made up my mind and I am almost through convincing myself that I need to experiment with my music.

For as long as I can remember, I have been circling around in the prog rock circles and also the classic rock circles and not even looking beyond. But over the past year or so, I have seen so many people doing so much with music, experimenting, introducing cool sounds and concepts that I think it is unfair to only try or do one type of music …

I am not saying my love for prog rock and classic rock has dwindled, not at all in fact! I am just saying, I will now be looking to do some more cool music with interesting sounds and/or concepts!

There are a few things lined up from my end around this … so lets see where that goes!

I came back from watching MotherJane taking stage in Bangalore after a long long hiatus! The band seemed to be undergoing the standard ‘Indian Rock Band Mid Life Crisis” where the members are either scattered around the country (which is their case) or are too busy with things they do to bring home the bacon and some cheese on some days. The band still held together and rocked the 1500 odd people who had gathered there but they were not the MotherJane they were 3 years or so back when they changed the face of Indian Rock with “Insane Biography”. But its just a matter of them getting together and jamming more often and they will surely get back to the brilliant stage act that they are!

What made me happy as I left the venue was the fact that there were 4 bands that played there today towards the end of the day atleast, which included Bangalorean Extinct Reflections and Slain, Sling Shot from Mallu land and MotherJane. Not one of these bands played a cover. All of them played their own songs and managed to keep a crowd of about 1000 – 2000 interested. A sure sign that Indian Rock has taken many positive strides forward!

I wish these bands went a step or two further and actually spent time and did what was required to be done to get themselves heard beyond their little circles! I get the feeling that they are waiting for someone to come and spot them and take them the distance instead of doing it themselves!

More about that soon .. I am arming myself with some ammunition before I address that issue!