Escapism is Wonderland

Just the other day, I was sitting in a train, after a long, long time. It felt good actually. Anyway, I was sitting in a train, and I think you should know, that in 2 hour train journeys, there is absolutely NOTHING to do except look out the window. So while I was, I was listening to music, and it so happened that my MP3 player was on shuffle. So while I was tasting variety, I was thinking to myself that there was no other place that I wanted to be, except on a stage, with a guitar. And I kept dreaming about what I would do, and how I would walk into an airport with a leather jacket and two-three guitar cases slung across my shoulders, signing autographs, with these real coo sunglasses on, and my long hair framing my face. It felt good, that I could go there, that I could be there. And I smiled to myself, this big cheesy grin, and I looked up to the sky and realized that God's given us the will to take us where we want to go.

You know, we have a gift, and it can take us anywhere we want to go. Some people don't know it, some people don't use it. But I'm telling you, fascination, living in an unreal world, it's the best thing to do to pass time.

Why do dreams happen? How do pictures automatically float across our minds during our sleep?

PS: Dear commenters, I know it's a short post, I know I haven't updated it in a long time, but it's the truth now. I don't really care about the comments. This post was just what I feel, and what I feel won't change because of you.
Sorry.

DDRF 2007 - March 9th and 10th

I will never forget those two days. I really don't know what to say either. I'll just take you down memory lane, insufficient as it may be, compared to captured scenes. But wow, what an awesome weekend it was. This weekend was the best one of my entire life. I'm sure those of you who were there (SK, Udai, Vinay, Vihaan, Jithin) would wholly comply with me for the simple fact that disagreeing would be home to a host of lies. How? I'll give you a detailed run-through of Desert Rock later. This is a more personal post.

How can music bring such a wide smile across your face? How can music discard all the worries that used to reside in your soul? I guess that's a mystery, but I'm so glad it is. I mean, over the weekend, I was standing less than 10 metres away from the members of my favourite bands, and I got to take a good look of them and realize they are only human. I got to exchange glances with them. Steve Harris, Lauren Harris, Maxim, Brandon Boyd, Bjorn, Peter, Jim Root, Corey. I have memorabilia from all of them, be it picks or autographs or glances.

I was waiting in patient anticipation for SO LONG, and those two days got over in what seemed like minutes. I seriously couldn't get enough. It's all we ever talk about these days. Desert Rock. It's such a, such a different thing.

I mean it was yesterday I was staring at the posters of Maiden on my wall, and then I'm so close to them.

This is where the cliche 'So close yet so far away' comes in.

They're only human! But they've performed inhuman feats.

I thought I'd only see them as pixels on a computer screen, or pixels on a tv screen. But I got to see them in person. Live. And since I was in the first row, I got to make eye contact with so many of them. I guess that's what a concert is all about.

But this was WAY more than just a concert. It was the miracle God works. God CAN make your dreams come true, and on those two days, I was living my dream.

How does it feel? How does it feel to see the band you loved so much live? To see them, to look into their eyes, to watch them walk and run in front of you, to see them do what you love them for. And that's what music does to people.

"Music brings us all together." - Corey Taylor, Stone Sour, Dubai Desert Rock - Dubai Country Club - 2007.

Records were set. Quotes were spoken.

Music was made.

Inspiration.

Inspiration is a fountain, a well from where you draw your imagination. It is a spring from where you relish yourself. It is the shallow pool where you bathe to relax yourself. It is the the minerals that you drink to quench your thirst.

It is the nutrients you obtain from your food to sustain yourself. It is the ground on which you trod to balance yourself. It is the trees under which you sit to shade yourself. It is the coal of the fire of your dreams.

Inspiration is the blanket you draw across yourself to shield yourself from the bitter, cold reality of dawn.

The Mars Volta

Finally, after exams, a lack of music, a and lack of sleep, I walk into my house, weary at first. I change into my house-clothes (something I call the clothes I wear at home) and gobble down a plateful of nourishing-things.

And then, I sit on the computer for a half-hour, completely lost in the music I needed for so long, diving into the harmony, the dissonancy, the crazy drum fills. Limewire, lying somewhere on the taskbar, with only a few songs in it, and the few, the only songs I listen to, for refugee from going study-crazy.

The Mars Volta.



They are everything I love. Brilliant music, just like that of Norma Jean, except they're rock, they don't scream; awesome lyrics, cryptic and vocabulary-filled, and traces of a foregin language; constructive guitar, exhilirating drums, and at the risk of sounding preachy, I must say these guys have really done what a band should do.

The Mars Volta.

The band is an extensive one, and they make use of many instruments, and implement them in their music. Here's the current lineup :

Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Composer, Guitar, synthesizers, production (2001 - Current)
Cedric Bixler Zavala - Lyrics, Vocals (2001 - Current)
Isaiah "Ikey" Owens - Keyboards (2001 - Current)
Juan Alderete - Bass (2003 - Current)
Thomas Pridgen - Drums (2007 - Current)
Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez - Percussion, synthesizers (2004 - Current)
Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales - Flute, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet and additional wind & percussion instruments (2004 in studio, 2005 in show - Current)
Paul Hinojos - Guitar, Sound Manipulation (On Stage 2003-2004, Joined Officially 2005 - Current)

As you can see, with the involvement of so many different sounds, the band is really original. There is no other band I can compare them to. Under genre, I can't really classify them, but they do come under Progressive Rock, Neo-psychedelia and Experimental Rock. I would personally put them under Progressive.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez are the heart and soul of the band, respectively, interchangeably. They compose all the songs, which is indeed a very commendable task, because I don't know how they do it. In their album Amputechture , they state that "The partnership between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala is The Mars Volta. These compositions are then performed by The Mars Volta Group"

Even their band name has a story to it.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala says that

" The Volta is taken from a Federico Fellini book about his films, what he characterizes as a changing of scene, or a turnaround; a new scene to him is called Volta. Y'know, changing of time and the changeover. And Mars, we're just fascinated by science-fiction so and it's something that ultimately looked as in anything I write, its meaning is always up to the listener. As the way we write songs and words, if it looks great on paper then to us it's like painting, so if it looks good meaning the second then people usually have a better interpretation than we ever would. "

In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war, and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez therefore says that The Mars Volta are the bringers of peace.

Here's an excerpt from one of their extensive range of lyrics :

Are they gone are they gone
Stung the slang of a gallows bird
Rationed a dead letter pure
Trackmarked amoeba lands craft
Cartwheel of scratches
Dress the tapeworm as pet
Tentacles smirk please
Flinched the cocooned meat
Infra-recon forgets
Now there are those who find
Comfort in the breathing
Wrong-is it wrong
It houses the watchful eyes
They're panting in a pattern in droves
Are they gone

Eriatarka - The Mars Volta

I don't know how they do that either.

The bottom line is, you have to hear these guys.

Eriatarka
Cut That City
The Widow
This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
Televators
Tetragrammaton
Concertina
Drunkship of Lanterns

Download them right away, and be pleasantly surprised.