The Good Old Days...Again!

I know I've posted about The Libertines before, but a couple of days ago a little bit of rock history was made. It has already been described as the reunion of the decade: Pete Doherty and Carl Barat performing together again!! Considering the acrimonious nature of their split, this is all the more welcome news.

For those who don't know, The Libertines were the most influential band of the decade (so far) in Britain, and a major catalyst for the current explosion of rock 'n' roll there (along with American band and Johnjohn favourite The Strokes). They broke up in 2004, with their eponymous second and final album featuring songs that chronicled their rise and fall. Here are a some of my favourite Libertines songs.

The Libertines - Don't Look Back into the Sun
The Libertines - What Became of the Likely Lads?
The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now

The Libertines, like all great bands, combined the talents of its two singer-songwriters in a way that was greater than the sum of its parts. Pete's band Babyshambles indulges all his junkie-rock tendencies, but lacks the lively up-beat qualities the Carl brings to the table. Carl's band Dirty Pretty Things rocks and rolls and swings, but lacks Pete's poetic flourishes and whimsy.

It's sad the Pete Doherty is known more for being Kate Moss's druggie boyfriend (and fiancee, now) than a modern rock genius. But that's how it goes I guess. I really hope they get together and make a new album.

Try this:

This thingie is extremely easy to use, and allows us to avoid ugly youtube embedding. This is all because Perakath has a tiny...hard disk. Ahem.

Suddenly She Sees

Such a cute little song! Cheery, and I love the melody just before it goes in to the chorus.

K T Tunstall - Suddenly I See

The T-shirt and Ties Combination (?!)

There's a button that says "recover post", but nothing that says recover blog. We have been infiltrated by the long-haired shredders! No offense to Perakath of course, I like having variety and debate.

But the time has come for some good music.

Last night I went for a concert. It was quite possibly the antithesis to the Maiden concert in Bangalore. It was in a seedy little bar, and there were like 20 people there. The band that we went to see, Scissors for Lefty, was pretty damn good though. They're getting a bit of buzz, and have signed to Rough Trade Records in the UK, which is the illustrious label of The Strokes, The Arcade Fire, and the band that launched a thousand bands, the late, great Libertines. They're from San Francisco, but have a healthy dose of anglophile dance-punk or neo-new-wave or whatever - the antithesis to the mope-rock one sees on the charts (on the rare occasions when rock music is actually on the charts). On top of tight solid playing and vocals that have been described as "flirty" they have real charisma - especially the front man. In an inebriated state, I declared my approval to him after their all-too-short set. I wouldn't say they're stupendous, but they're fun, and they're great live. Lot of potential.

Scissors for Lefty - Ghetto Ways
Scissors for Lefty - Next to Argyle

[Ghetto Ways Video]

Arctic Monkeys have charisma of a different kind. A Molotov cocktail of shyness, anger, sarcasm and sheer wit. Their latest single is a blistering and furious drum-and-guitar assault, with Alex Turner's street poetry guiding the way. He seems to mention Avril Lavigne. Or at least, he says "we can't take our eyes off the t-shirt and ties combination." Which is sort of the same thing. (Avril, meanwhile, has chucked her "punk" look in order to steal some poor girl's boyfriend. I guess, Like Nelly Furtado, she'll soon join The Pussycat Dolls, Fergie and Christina Aguilera in the wild world of skank-pop. Women's Lib is alive and well.)
I'd be interested to hear Perakath's comments about the drumming on 'Brianstorm'. Quite extraordinary for indie music. One techno-loving friend thought it was a drum machine.

Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
(Yes that's right, Brian, not Brain.)
[Watch the Video]


Here's Avril from the Age of Ties:


And here's a pic of Avril now. Hmmm. Maybe all is not lost. Wow.




Where was I?

Ah yes.


Elvis Perkins is a complete change of pace. He is the son of Anthony "Psycho" Perkins, who died of AIDS when Elvis was a kid. His mother died on one of the hijacked planes on September 11th 2001.

So he's a somber guy, okay?

This song just grabbed me with its sweet simple sorrow. But it's not about his own losses. It's poetic and strange. And he has a voice.

Elvis Perkins - While You Were Sleeping

Will anybody watch the Sabbath video??

I bet noone will! :P

Okay here goes -

1. Black Sabbath - "Headless Cross"

This one is from a 1989 lineup of Sabbath, featuring Tony Martin on vocals. I think his vocals are simply stunning! I also like the bass on this song.

As many know, Black Sabbath are generally considered one of the founding fathers of Heavy Metal - the other being Led Zep. They're still together (after lineup changes that surpass even Jethro Tull), and a spinoff called Heaven and Hell with Ronnie James Dio on vocals is rumoured to come to India sometime this year!

Here's a paragraph from the Wikipedia article:

"However, some degree of band stability finally came back to Black Sabbath by 1988 with the retention of Tony Martin and Geoff Nicholls and the addition of loyal drummer Cozy Powell, who replaced Terry Chimes. Powell, a legendary drummer, had had success with his own band, as well as with Rainbow, Whitesnake, Emerson, Lake & Powell and many others. With bassist Laurence Cottle replacing Jo Burt, Sabbath released the critically acclaimed Headless Cross album in 1989, their most Satanic and occult-based album so far. An MTV video for the title track received considerable airplay, and was released to mostly positive reviews. After the Headless Cross sessions, Laurence Cottle was replaced by veteran bassist Neil Murray (a former bandmate of Cozy Powell's in Whitesnake). Sabbath released what many fans maintain is their finest album of the Martin era, Tyr in 1990. The group toured extensively throughout 1990 and 1991 to support the Tyr album."





2. Mew - "The Zookeeper's Boy"

I saw this song on VH1 last year and promptly downloaded it - it became a Song of The Month! (On my playlist, that is.) Doesn't sound too good on Yourboob, but still. Nice and quirky.





3. Eric Johnson - "Cliffs of Dover (Live)"

This instrumental piece was voted #17 on a list of "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" that Guitar World magazine brought out a while ago, which is when it caught my attention. The list is composed of mainstream rock songs only, which of course led to a barrage of criticism. However it was a reader-polled list, which goes to show Guitar World's demographic appeal. (It's a great magazine though!)

Here's a blog post about the list (can't find the list itself online) on, oddly enough, an "indie music blog"...

#4 - Comfortably Numb, #3 - Freebird, #2 - Eruption (by Van Halen), and #1 - Stairway to Heaven - can't say I disagree with that order! :D

Anyway, this is the best video of the song I could find. It's terribly long and boring, but not if you follow my timestamp suggestion: watch from 05:00 minutes left to 02:33 minutes left. That pretty much corresponds to the studio version I have.

PS - Eric Johnson has also been a guest of Vai and Satriani on G3 tours. Always worth mentioning, I say!

Demi Moore, they ain't

However, I still really like this song!

I'm not one to look up the biography of a band when I've only heard a few songs by them. I try to let the music speak for itself, until I reach the stage where I purchase albums. Then I read up about the band - and there's always album art!

Until I watched the Youvideo, I thought the lead singer was female...

Ghosts - Stay The Night

Six Degrees of Dream Theater

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. The first non-indie music post on Zonuts!

I love Dream Theater to bits. Revanoor and I fell in love with them together, in Rud North in first year. I had picked up three Dream Theater CDs on a pre-college trip to the UK, on the strength of three mp3s that I heard while in Coimbatore "studying" for the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination.

DT are probably the world's best-known and most successful example of 'progressive metal.' To quote from Wikipedia:

Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music which shares traits with progressive rock including use of complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing. The high level of musical proficiency is often combined with a lyrical counterpart in the form of epic textual concepts, resulting in lengthy songs and concept albums. As a result of these factors, progressive metal is rarely heard on mainstream radio and video programs, much due to that the length of the songs are not suited for those media.

DT has every one of the qualities listed above. None of that made-for-radio 4-minute verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus formula for them!

Mike Portnoy is one of the most talented drummers I've ever seen or heard. Watch out for his playing in the final minute or so of 'About to Crash (Reprise)!' He's also quite a character in his own right - a boxing fan, a Simpsons fan... The band's spokesman, he loves to play the crowd, often standing up mid-song and egging the crowd on.

John Petrucci is widely regarded as one of the most technically proficient guitar players in the world today. He's a regular guest on the Vai-Satriani G3 tours.

Japanese-American John Myung is regarded as a deity by bass players, although I've always felt his playing gets drowned out by Portnoy and Petrucci. If you listen for it though, his bassline is always there. Seeing him play in Pragati Maidan at the Great Indian Rock a couple of years ago was heaven!

Jordan Rudess is a keyboard virtuoso, seriously. He's fantastically talented. Since joining DT after initially turning them down in favour of the Dixie Dregs, his influence on the band's sound and songs is discernable to an album-wise follower.

James LaBrie... sigh. Having heard person after person tell me that his singing is the main reason they dislike DT, I still think noone could possibly have his place as lead singer. He's been with DT for over 15 years now, featuring on all but one of their albums. True, he doesn't enunciate while singing, especially live... but he hits the high notes required of him with ease. LaBrie contributes least of all to the band's sound - they write each album without him, merely flying him in to dub the vocals once the rest of the tracks have been laid down.

The 3 videos here are the last three segments of the title track to DT's 2002 double album, 'Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.' Six Degrees... was the follow-up album to DT's 1999 stupendous masterpiece concept album 'Metropolis Part II: Scenes From A Memory.' The title track constitutes the entire second CD of the twin CD pack, making it probably their longest song till date. The song is split into 7 segments, allowing the band to play individual parts of the song live, and allowing listeners to skip to their favourite portions of the song without having to listen from the start each time.

Six Degrees..., although a good follow up to what I consider their absolute best work, marked the start of DT's move away from their signature sound of the 1990s. Jordan Rudess contributes heavily to the orchestra-like feel of the song at many points. The clips here are taken from 'Score,' the final show of DT's 20th anniversary world tour, recorded on 1 April 2006 at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, and feature a backing orchestra a la Metallica's S&M with the San Francisco Philharmonic, if I remember correctly. Unlike S&M, however, the orchestra is quite superfluous here as the Rudess-Petrucci combination is capable of creating all the sounds that the orchestra contributes.

'Solitary Shell' is one of my favourite DT songs, simple yet catchy. 'About to Crash (Reprise)' reprises the theme of an earlier segment of the long song. The end of 'About to Crash...' always leaves me gasping for more, so I put in the final segment too - 'Losing Time/Grand Finale.' If you're going to watch the clips at all, watch them in order, and after having let the entire video download!

'Solitary Shell:'

'About to Crash (Reprise):'

'Losing Time/Grand Finale:'

Phew... It's a lot easier to post images and videos on Wordpress!