My rock and roll misadventures - 2 : Burnt bridges,no string attached

Delhi, India. Jan-Feb 1991 : Freshman year in college and all ganged up with my friend Kartik (who later went on to front Gravy Train, one of the top Delhi bands in the mid 1990’s) to form a band we called Grass. Ha! Kartik did vocals , I tried a stab at rhythm & lead. There were Suhas on drums, Kim on lead guitar and Samson on bass.

We entered a rock competition during the Oasis fest at BITS Pilani in Feb 1991. We worked down stuff like Judas Priest’s Living After Midnight, Pink Floyd’s Mother, Status Quo’s Rocking All Over The World, Kiss’s Heaven On Fire and Police’s Every Breath You Take. The competition had an elimination round where one track had to be a Judges’ Choice.We were okay with that but hoped they wouldn’t want us to do Every Breath because , see ,we couldn’t manage the bridge section.

We began great with Living After Midnight. I was excited as it was a rare number I could sort of play the full solo on. ( Well as excited as I could be anyway in the tightest , daftest jeans I’ve ever worn in my life , a sleeveless shirt in that freezing Rajasthan winter and boots that weighed more than me). We get to the bridge that leads to the solo. “I’m aimin’ for ya” Kartik screams. Dhandhandhandhan Dhan Dhan Dhanan our power chords refrain. “Aaaawwll night long” Kartik shrieks. I launch into guitar solo pose. I play the first note.

And twang the effing first string breaks!

The rest of the song is a blur. But a couple tracks later the judges hand out their request.

And, no shit, its Every Breath You Take.

The end. We 're out of it. (To be fair , we’d have been out of it anyway I guess. )

No probs though, as the next couple of days were spent not unpleasantly thank you .There was plenty of stuff to do,consuming our name not least! Other mentionable highlights I remember includes providing very loud audience commentary when my friend Gaurav was on stage acting in a play. That couldn’t have gone down too well but here’s Gaurav now , he’s done that cartoon up on top this post.

And then there was a great band from Chennai (or Madras then?) that eventually went on to win the competition. They were called Shakuni And The Birds Of Prey and they did a mind blowing cover of Steely Dan’s Bodhisattva. Never heard of them again. If anybody has any, er, stuff on that band be great to know.