'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)