The weekend’s not near, it’s here : Download Festival 2012

Initially started as a blog to document my personal escapades and experiences, Absurd History has now diversified into a professional web-zine that is teaming up with the best of record labels, artists, bands and organizers from across the globe. But, even today, all of this fails to silence the excited boy inside me (I turned 25 this year, and I’m loving it) who had hankered about attending some of the most massive music festivals out there, someday.

What was once just a passing thought that had vanished into thin air, is going to be a part of three day’s of my life, starting today. Decades down the line this post here would remind me that I was there at the tenth anniversary of one of the most acclaimed, celebrated, full-mouthed and crammed congregation of music lovers – The Download Festival.

2012’s edition would have more than 70,000 people participating in it, a total of five different stages, more than 140 bands spanning over a period of three days and don’t even get me started on the jillions of other attractions planned for the attendees. A virgin when it comes to camping, I wouldn’t ask for a better place to put up my first tent than Donington Park. So yea, here’s to a weekend full of muck, booze, sweat, torrential rains and heavy fucking metal. Don’t get your pets along, they’ll get crushed. Alright, I’m getting late now. See you all next week, when it would be you, me and the post-Download blues.

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Absurd History in 2011 – an annual report

Here’s an annual report for this zine, prepared by none other than WordPress. I had to share it with all the readers because the count in this report includes you. Thank you all for visiting!

 

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 60,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 22 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

More than yesterday, less than tomorrow

Sitting here and doing a retropspective diagnosis of my life is not me anymore. Twenty eleven ruled for only one reason and that is this blog crossed a lakh hits, went dot-com and my mailbox began overflowing with demos, albums and teasers of bands across the globe. My only grouch is I could not write about every one of those bands that wanted to build a bond with this webzine. But I want to say one thing to each of those bands – I’m hearing, and it’s just that my job and my passion aren’t the best of pals.

Twenty Twelve looks plump as professionally its going to be different from the last three years. Implying I’d be leaving the country for a good one year. New place, new work and I couldn’t have been happier. That directly connotes that there is lots more to follow, right here on Absurd History. Stay tuned.

And, the slideshow below shows some multifarious moments I managed to capture when the three of us ushered the new years together – Me, Peter and Scot. Happy new year. To you and your foes.

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Pune airport – one of the worst in India

With just one terminal for every kind of departure, passengers going to Pune’s Lohegaon airport are forced to reach there earlier than is required, and have to more their asses faster in the queue. But does the security realize, that accordingly, they need to be quicker too? No.

Once you enter the airport you will find yourself looking at one of the most unexciting and lifeless airports I have come across in India. I will exaggerate only when I feel the need. Think twice before stretching your body as you might end up hitting the people next to you. Space crunch also puts a brake on the swift check in and security check process.

Don’t consider eating inside the airport because they sell shit and it is all overpriced. And there are no options either, just this one snacks center from where I bought a Chicken Kathi roll for fucking 180 bucks and had loose motions the very same evening.

Food is overpriced for the poor quality that is offered at Pune airport's only snacks center.

Once past the final security inspection, you expect the facilities to improve and the interiors to become more lavish but here there is no difference. Two snacks counters, one men’s clothing store and one book store. That is all. Forget the washrooms, they look like the least cared sections of the airport when it should be the opposite. So, hold your pee for a little longer, at least till you board your airliner.

Then I stumbled upon something useful and appealing. An imported chocolate and liquor store. It was locked and the board outside read “Only for international passengers“. This imbecility needs no explanation.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 11:10 a.m. sharp. There was no announcement about any kinda delay. It’s 11:05 a.m. and all the travelers still see no sign of any activity that would lead us to the aircraft. It’s like we are not at the airport at all, we are just sitting in a park, smoking up and just hallucinating about killing time at Lohegaon Airport. The time read 11:15 a.m., everybody formed a queue and we escorted ourselves outside.

Now comes the worst part. Boarding the aircraft. The passenger is on his own and s/he has to find their respective flights from a few of them that are parked in a single row, like a fucking bus stand. Go to the first one and you are asked to continue walking, then the next, then again the next, and so on and so forth. Somehow you enter the plane, and before you find your seat you need to lock yourself up in the loo to release .

Conclusion – The city of Pune requires a new airport or at least some serious renovation, like the city itself where the roads are dug up and left just like that, where road construction never ends, where flyovers are unplanned, and all of this causes the commoners to suffer excessively.

Note – Mine was a Delhi-bound flight via Indore, and from it’s outer appearance the Indore airport looked like a railway station. I wonder whether the Indore airport is even more pathetic.

After all, not all small packages contain good things.

Interact with Karnivool on twitter, today!

So, your invisible lord has finally heard your prayers. Well, almost. While Kapil Sibal is busy preparing his plan of action for screening content on social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, etc, you can make the most out of your Twitter account today on the 11th of December, 2011. On this historic day, you will get a chance to shoot questions at Karnivool, directly. I’d just say one thing about this Australian group – there isn’t another band like them.

Exactly a week before Karnivool takes the stage at IIT Bombay’s annual festival Mood Indigo to headline the pro-night, the organizers are giving all of you a chance to have a virtual tête-à-tête with the Australian progressive musicians.  Like I just said, Karnivool are ready to own all of y’all on the 18th of December, 2011 with their enlightening performance. In their own words, this is what a Karnivool fan can expect in their show, “A solid performance with an enormous amount of energy that is fed back and forth between ourselves and the audience throughout the entire show. We really push ourselves live and it’s really the heart and soul of what the band’s music is about.”

Feeling wet already? Chill, I got an erection too.

This particular article is to scream at all you Karnivool fans that you have an opportunity to talk to your favorite band through a Twitter interview. Twitter is an online social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. You wouldn’t remember your father’s name but you’d definitely know the description I just gave about Twitter.

This is all you need to do.  Tweet your questions @iitb_moodindigo with #Karnivool and the Australian progressive rock band would then tweet their replies. It is scheduled between 5 pm to 7 pm IST on the 11th of December, and that is today. Not enough? Then you better tighten your laces as the top three tweets, which are going to be selected by Karnivool, would get a chance to meet them personally on the 17th. And that is one day before your enemies get to watch them. Sexy, right?

Karnivool would be interacting with their Indian fans for the very first time and something like this hasn’t been attempted before. You wouldn’t be talking to some band from your neighborhood, it’s fucking Karnivool. The lunar eclipse was yesterday, let’s all make sure it’s total eclipse on twitter today and only #Karnivool is seeable to the naked eye.

Related topics –

Karnivool live in India – a sweet overdose of music

An Addiction called Themata

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The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (front cover)

Received my copy of The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor Lavey in the last week. I knew I had to order this book when I read the first few pages of the same in the pdf that has been lying around my personal computer for a while now.

If anyone needs the pdf version of the book just let me know and I’ll mail it you. But I’d suggest you should enrich your lives by owning a copy of this that looks beautiful from the outside and has equally sensible content from the inside as well.

I would review the book, or let me just say I’ll write about this book once I’m done reading it. For now I’d say this bible talks things you really want to hear. Don’t assume, just pick it up, read and gain priceless wisdom and while you are at it, get a kick out of it, too!

The author 'Anton Szandor Lavey' (back cover)

One Lakh Hits

The blog completes a lakh hits, with a total of 272 articles that I’ve written for my blog till date. Turn your eyeballs towards your right and stare at the Countdown to infinity widget.

Like I had promised myself, and today since the blog has crossed the one lakh mark, Absurd History has now gone dot com.

Thank you all for reading!

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Metallica live in India – an epic thrashfest

Today, when I think back a few years and recall the first time I played Metallica‘s 1983 classic Kill ‘Em All there was this force besides me that said “You’re never alone, metal is always with you“. It was at that moment when I learnt one of life’s biggest lessons that I should not give a fuck about any kind of trash in life. This album made me feel that powerful. And the rest, as every tom, dick and harry says, is history. I did not choose metal, metal chose me and that is how it works.

Back then I did not have the slightest of idea that playing Metallica was going to be a turning point in my life, a moment that I would be remembering years later. At that time thinking about watching Metallica live was only a thought in some corner of our minds. With very believable stuff happening in our country off-late with respect to metal, right now the Metallica event might not make you go nuts.  I suggest you hold on till that very moment when the lights on stage would come on and the four legendary figures would be staring down at you!

For me the party begins from tomorrow as I leave for the capital of Karnataka tonight. Agenda includes meeting friends and loads of pub-hopping complete with visiting Styx (I make sure I visit this place every time I’m in Bangalore).

Somehow whenever I try and picturize myself going to Palace Grounds, Bangalore on Sunday the 30th of October in an auto-rickshaw, I see myself telling the rickshaw-wala “bhaiyya, palace grounds chaloge?“. And he’d be like “haan, main bhi wahin ja raha hoon“. Everybody has heard Metallica at least once and this concert is going to be enormous. And we all will be a part of it.

The first time Iron Maiden played in Bangalore I almost got crushed. For Metallica we’ll be seeing multiple generations of fans coming together. You might want to carry an oxygen mask. The wait is finally over. As we are very close to witnessing Metallica – one of the grandest band that metal has ever seen – on our own soil. Can you feel the goosebumps already?

See you all in Bengaluru!

Also read – Karnivool line in India – a sweet overdose of music | Lamb of God live in India – Requiem for a Dream

Karnivool live in India – a sweet overdose of music

Come December, and these progressive musicians from Australia are going to take Bombay by storm with their uniqueness!

All you music freaks in the house, why so sewn and silent? Come on make some noise!

They say if a bird poops on you it is good luck, but this coming December the amount of progressive stuff Karnivool is going to drop on everyone in India cannot be measured. The moment I first heard Themata I wasn’t a simple boy anymore, in fact a whole new galaxy opened up. I was forced to walk through an alley of progression, that turning back from there was not an option. Boy, did I feel l1fel1ke or what!

Post-Themata came Sound Awake, in 2009. Fuck your definition of music, when I poured Karnivool‘s second full-length into my ears it sucked me in. I got trapped in a rubik’s cube and there was no way out. Music aimed at making even the extra terrestrial beings meditate, Sound Awake stalked me enough to be at one with myself.

Watching Karnivool play their tracks live, with Ian Kenny‘s vocals that give me a boner, eliminates the need to ponder over things that are insignificant. If you believe in a higher power then you definitely need to be present at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on the 18th of December. Karnivool are not only way above the higher powerless shit, they are visible too. Oh! Now you got it. IIT Bombay has set a benchmark in getting down bands that need to be here. Hitting the bull’s eye, yea baby. Be there!

I haven’t missed this event for the last five years (except for Porcupine Tree) but unfortunately I might be fucking off to UK before this humongous event happens. Unlucky is a small word to explain what point my mind is trying to drive home. If not here, I will catch them somewhere, sometime but I just hope destiny sets up my appointment with Karnivool on the day in question here. After all a standard deck has fifty two cards for a reason.

The rest of you are closing in on that feeling of a spacecraft that will take y’all to a place you’ve never visited. You are not even required to eat roquefort before attending the gig, you can enter the venue anyways. Now that’s a bonus! Adventure is in store. For all I know, you might even go through a metamorphosis after the concert, a change as they call it, unless of course you don’t allow that to happen. Just let yourself go.

Never heard Karnivool? And don’t have the time to? Make sure you at least learn the lyrics for the track New Day so you can sing along with them. You’re welcome.

Witness how your soul illumines itself and interacts with music, from a band that probably no body can not like. For the record, I will forever be indebted to Karnivool‘s brand of progressive rock.

A Vooligan. That’s what I am. Always was, always will be.

Also read –

Gig review : Katatonia’s gig at Mood Indigo, IIT Bombay 2010

An Addiction called Themata

This is how I had felt when Lamb of God’s Bangalore gig was announced

Gig review : Lamb of God live in Bangalore 2010

The Demonic Chef

The demonic fixation did not continue this time, with Sahil Makhija (vocalist, guitarist – Demonic Resurrection) naming his maiden cookery venture Headbanger’s Kitchen. Inspiring an entire generation of metal heads wasn’t enough that now he has set out to show them what he can cook up with his culinary skills.

Targeting only the interested audience, Headbanger’s Kitchen is an online show where Sahil prepares some really gorgeous dishes that are not just irresistible but have metal scribbled all over them. With names like One wing chicken picata, Bhayanak Bacon bomb and cheesy potato, Djentleman’s Roast Chicken with Gravy he gets down metal artists for an informal discussion about everything under the sun and of course to taste his preparations. In the past this show has seen he likes of Dubai-based Nervecell, Nile-drummer George Kollias and members of Indian bands Scribe, Bhayanak Maut, Amogh Symphony and Skyharbor.

With all this is in the forefront, we have Srinivas Sunderrajan (bassist, Scribe) handling everything behind the camera. Srinivas is an independent film maker with his own production house that he calls Enter Guerilla Productions. Get in touch with them here.

For the rest of us who are too lazy to try this stuff at home, we get to gorge all this at Headbanger’s Kitchen stalls. I happened to be present at one such event at B69, Andheri and what I had tasted was bloody good. Below I’m seen holding a half eaten blood red chicken burger and the unstoppable Sahil Makhija who only accepts cash. Makes sense. Since it was a Slayer tribute night the other two dishes also went by the names bacon ensemble and reign in beef.

But I could not get myself to avoid the term demonic from the title because I don’t like to leave my articles incomplete, and this one sure would be incomplete without the mention.

Check out all the webisodes at Headbanger’s Kitchen‘s youtube channel here. And you can keep yourself updated about what Sahil is upto in his kitchen by visiting the official site here or by joining the facebook page here.  So, save up and place your orders. You can’t expect everything in the Indian metal scene to be available for free. Happy eating!