A LONG WAIT....

Hello People,

Had been a very long time huh!

Yeah that’s true that it had been a very very very looong time since we had posted any new stuff on the blog. I think you might have already thought of forgetting us thinking RiverX has gone inactive, before even we could make some room in your minds to stick there forever. But we make this clear that RiverX cannot go inactive for any reasons. And please don’t keep any apprehensions. This post of mine proves that we are healthy and have become far far more active than before. It was just a transitional time-out that everyone had taken due to multiple reasons. We need to have stuff before we make a bang again and we were making that stuff ready during this time-out.

It was really strange and acceptable that life was experimenting on us and we all were experimenting with the life. A lot had happened during this period, and just to express we might need a 20000 pages note book which I doubt may fall short. So shall not try and make this too complicated or else I would get sued by the environmentalists for unnecessary usage of paper. SO! I would just cut down the unnecessary and shall jump on to few necessary and important things that had happened.

First of all Ashish da our drummer left due to his personal commitments, which is a bad news. Good news is that RiverX got a new member Kishore a replacement for Ashish da and later Bharath went busy for a while in Arth’s recording for good. After all these downs and ups, we jammed, jammed and jammed, built enough material to kick ass and were waiting for a right opportunity to unleash the energy which was there due to resilience. That’s when we got an opportunity to play at Sammad 09 at Durgotsav, Koramangala on 27th September 2009. A gig similar to what we had played a couple of years back on the same place.

Though it was a similar show, it was altogether a different experience we had. The stage was bigger, brighter and sound was awesome and audiences were a lot lot better. This show was a bit special, the reasons would be that, this was our first show in 2009, the first show we performed with our new member Kishore, Bipin's debut as singer :) and the show where we debuted most of our original compositions in front of a rock savvy and a wider audience. The show was more of a competition kind and unfortunately there were only 2 bands who had registered. Shame to say this for a competition but it’s whimsical. Well there was one more band besides 2 which were expected which didn’t turn up on time. Or else it would have justified the meaning of competition.

Without any countering the organizers asked us to hit the stage first and in the last moment Shubham found out that the lyrics for Paranoid was missing and had to copy the same from internet using GPRS on my cell phone :) Technology boss! Use it till it gets outdated!!! Or else u would miss a chance. Funnier thing was none of us had a pen to copy for which we had to borrow the same from a security guard. Well I had promised him that I will return it, but couldn’t. I am sorry boss! I shall return it in the next show same place almost same time but next year.

Soon we started off and as planned started to execute our play-list one by one. We started off with Another Brick in the Wall-The X Version and soon taking on our own compositions Droh, Zindagi Se Bhari, Ek, Quaza and ended with covering Paranoid-Black Sabbath. The stage time was constrained to 30 minutes and 6 songs exactly packed the time frame. As our play-list moved on song by song the crowd too enjoyed every bit of it. The songs that we had put on a small test had paid off with the reactions from the audiences.

This was a show that looked like a perfect rock show with Kick ass energy, Kick ass stage, Kick ass songs and Kick ass audience. The rains of appreciation started showering, especially Bharath, Kishore and Shubham due to their shear explosive energy. The whole of the band got some good opinions and suggestions from experts and critics. Soon after that the next band performed. Later came the better part of the show “the announcement” where we were felicitated for our victory and received cash prize as reward and that was the end of the show. Yet another important show to count on, that acted as a booster dose to us shouting ”Guys Pull up the Socks, It’s Time to Rock Now!!” No matter what, this show will definitely fall in our fond memories and we take this as another major curve in the relentlessly flowing RiverX..

THE THREE PIECE SHOW

Hmmm after a long pause I am back in action.......

Yes this is all about our recent Gig at The Mobile Store, Koramagala. This was the place where we played our stuff in front of a dynamic audience. The attempt was to convert the dynamic audience to static audience... well.. well...well.. that's enough of engineering jargons dont scratch your heads there no sense .

The show date was 14-Jun-08 and we were booked a day before... Cool we had enough time to practice and perform... I think RiverX has something special about the Date 14th cos three months ago from that date i.e on 14-Mar-08,we as a band had performed at Genpact.. ..... Isn't that COOL.

Back to the point... exactly a day before on 13-June-08 I was in office trying to close some petty jobs and was preparing for the end of the weeks work. Suddenly Shubham pinged me and started talking about the weekend plans and songs on which we would Jam on Sunday, our chatting went on and there was a small pause!!! no response from Shubham, I pinged him again but no answer.While I was wondering what might have happened, I got a call from Shubham, and to my surprise he said " we have a show tomorrow so get prepared!!!". And we started thinking of the songs that can be played for the show. The requirement was, for a band who can perform for 4 long hours at a retail outlet for some special event. All together it was a promotional event for which they need a band. Hence our thought process was running at high speeds thus throwing the names of the suitable songs immediately on the paper, and within few minutes our playlist was ready but needed to be finalized. At the same time Shubham told about Dada's and Bharath's nonavailability for the show, and for us deciding to play as an incomplete band was hard :-(. Anyways commitment is a commitment and we had to move on..

Bips was also kept posted and we three finally decided to meet-up at Shu's home at 9.00 PM that night to practice. I finished all my jobs at office and rushed to home, packed my bags and drove away to Shubham's home. Once I reached the place Bips was already there and we had some snacks then kick started the Jam. That night we jammed till 12.30 AM Midnight and were able to complete songs back to back. The playlist was finalized and made suitable for a three piece band ( and not for two piece bikini gals ;) ) I was overall happy cos out of 6 songs three were new and we did that all well.

The night was over and the next morning Shu had to take his car back from the service station where he had given it for a FACE LIFT.After our breakfast we again started the Jam at 12.30 PM in the afternoon, the time was less!! we were informed by the event managers that the event would start from 4.00 PM and we had to complete doing 17 odd numbers . Finally a break through!!! We got the information that the Show will be at "THE MOBILE STORE" @ Koramangala, the juicy side of Bangalore. The Time was running out and some how we completed around 14 Kickass songs and we started for the show.On the way we were welcomed with a huge pile of traffic , honks, chicks and 10 -15 calls from Event managers.

Finally we reached at 5.00 PM assuming it as 4.00 PM... welll... this is what we call it as maintaining the punctuality in not being punctual.. well sorry event managers we were very late.....

We arranged everything.. the stage was small , we felt if Dada and Bharath would have come then we all five of them wouldn't have fitted. After arranging we started kicking asses. While all these preparation happened, our finely confused Bips forgot the most important thing , ie his handycam so that we could record our show which was our first motive for that show. He forgot the cam in his car, while we traveled in Shubham's car... It was an awesome situation for everyone and our intension to take good quality videos failed terribly. Well there was a reason behind that, Bips was traveling continuously form past three days and without any rest we had to Jam.... he was terribly exhausted. I dono how he could manage to play with a high fever.

As we started playing, people use to see our performance, stop for while, applauded and then moved on. The sound arrangement was awesome, the moving crowd was awesome too ;). I was trying to be naughty unknowingly, whenever i tried to play some drum track with full volume on my keyboards, the models who stood there near the speakers they jumped cos of fear as if some explosion had happened. I found this out then did thrice or four times willingly till they moved out of that place(They were distracting you know!!), I was playing devil but no one could make out, ha ha ha.(Mogambo Khush Hua). The Hunger was overwhelming as time passed and we were surviving on water.

With hunger acting a spoil sport we were loosing our energy song by song. I still remember we were playing Eric Clapton's wonderful tonight and as we finished the song, suddenly we heard someone clapping from faraway, we were searching for the person who clapped for us, but couldn't find . Again we heard the applause, and for our surprise , a lady on a bike who stood there waiting in the opposite road for the traffic signal to turn green, removed her helmet and waved and cheered (Cool Man RiverX has a decent fan crowd). That act of the female was like a punch to our performance , everyone got recharged and had a blasting performance till the end of the show...

Overall, the response was good. Feedback from the event managers was awesome.

And there ends another chapter of our musical journey.

Cheers!!
Zo

'Steve' the wonder!!!

No I am not talking about using Stevie Wonder to feature in one of our songs..(Don't get confused again.. he is not that lucky as yet :) )

Its The Steve...yes, The Steve.. The guitarist .. who was with River X for a short span.. The person who opened up a new perspective towards the music of the band.

I would say it was tough to execute his selection of songs but was worth attempting it.. I still remember my late night struggle for weeks on end to replicate the bass line, what Geddy lee has put into the song YYZ , to my guitar.. When Steve suggested that song, for a surprise, it was dada who responded to it first.. He was so frustrated with the usual drum patterns in the songs that it looked like he was waiting for someone to suggest a song like that. Steve added few other covers like this to our usual list which was equally complex, but equally enjoyable nonetheless..

Steve's Effect :

All of a sudden, there was change in the band members' routine before our usual Sunday jam at dada's place. Using the 'soothing syrup' to get oneself high was never a habit for the band members before jamming till that time... fear of getting back home with a different and unwelcome scent and the possible mayhem thereafter kept us, especially shubham and myself, far from attempting it.. Zo being the youngest lad that time, appeared virtuous, contrary to the peers of his age.. But the very next week of Steve joining the band we were spotted sitting with him in a place with subdued lights and taking the "knockout drops", talking about Mayan civilization, White snake's songs, 2012 dooms day and many other strange subjects..( I still wonder how Zo managed to remain a total abstainer on such situations.. )

This ritual continued most of the weekends that followed until Steve was with the band.. Even today sometimes we feel the wrench for a stop over,while crossing that holy place...

Steve's Houdini act:

Setlist were ready and all set to roll for the Opus show.. It was then the viral fever put Shubham, Zo and me down to bed in succession for 3 weeks.. and by the time we all recovered... Steve had vanished into thin air.. :) We couldn't find him even in orkut :)

Buddy, wherever you are... You must be rocking the crowd around.. keep rocking..

Cheers
River B

My Journey - The Ticket!

Well I'm the newest and the youngest member of this band and here's how it all started!!!

THE TICKET:
while surfing the companies local classified website I came across a post by a person named "Roadster" and it said "Lead guitarist required", I sent a personal message to this guy, showing my intrest in the offer.

Few hours later:

I was busy working on some piece of shit(=Code), when my outlook popup diverted my stare. It said "Personal message received" (Receiving personal message was not something that would happen every now and then, It only happens when someone is looking for you, just like that way I did.. ;-) ). I checked the personal message out, and it said "There is a band which needs guitarist, we are also planning to perform in pubs etc.."
I acknowledged his offer and was on the River ride!
What happened next??
Surprise, look out for the next post!
Till then Ciao,
River "Dude" B

i drift on the river in trance..

Shubham, a word synonym with 'happy ending' which i normally used to see at the end of most of the malayalam films :) - was the name of the person who was at the other end of the phone that day... I was taken by surprise by the name (as he was the first person i ever heard/met with the name Shubham) as well as by the invitation for a musical rendezvous at his place in KR Puram..

Being with Val Moraes, a guitarist and a singer, for a year and listening to his wonderful voice and guitar, i had developed a fad for classic rock and blues and was following him almost all the places in Bangalore where he performed.

Meeting with Shubham was a different experience altogether... We discussed about our musical aspirations and interest and it was then that he expressed his idea of forming a band.. There was nothing more exciting to me than to associate myself with such an idea of forming a band with people having similar interest and passion...

River X, that was the name suggested by Shubham for the band and i had no second thought on it as he explained the thought behind framing that name.. There started the journey of the band called River X.

Zo(one of Shubham's greatest findings) joining the band was another important turn in the band's history.. a hardcore Rahman fan and a person with a good creative mind ... anyone can make out that " those hands are made for playing... "

Our hunt for a permanent drummer ended in Ashishda..Dada's style of playing drums made a perfect match with our band's sound.. so keen about going in a systematic way (being an ex-service man),he steered the rest of the wild rivers to the right valley..

Our first show, late night jamming sessions with the king of good times, our first song, 'Steve' the wonder !!!, Chiro and Preetam joining the band, break ups and the hunt thereafter for the new rivers, Sunday jamming at Dada's place and last but not the least , the 'dude' Bharath joining as the lead guitarist..These are few of the many interesting events unfolded before me in this journey of River X.

Few miles to our destiny, i drift on the river in trance..
Hang on to know more..
Hang on to get bewitched..

River B...

Our First Blog.... The story begins

It was a hot summer afternoon on Tuesday 27th of May 08 # at 2.25 PM I finished my lunch and logged in to my office system. I saw a blue taskbar item blinking on my desktop, and i never knew a great thought would emerge out of it. Yes it was my friend my band mate Bipin P Nambiar in short Bips who came up with this idea of creating our blog yes the RiverX blog and hence the story begins here.....

Without any second thought I said "let's do it now" and we started off and came up with the blog. In parallel Bips was very keen to know our blog ID and he was asking me every now and then about the status of each and every step in the blog creation.

To be honest this is my first blog where I am writing something honestly and very seriously. Well surprisingly our other friends doesn't know about it , let us keep it a surprise for them.. So Shubham, Dada and Bharath ... This is the surprise what we were talking about.

Cheers
River Zo...
(Zoheb Shadab)