Ladies n Gents, Boyz n Gals, make room for the Rock to hit you, coz here they are: Wagon Rags to knock your socks off with their rock and well make Bollywood remixed bitches eat dust. But well, Mr.Lead Singer, Jh**ga (though he specifically mentioned his displeasure over being referred by this name and that Jh**ga is not derived from Abhishek JHA but from his affinity to prawn dishes) would put it otherwise. (I asterisked the name coz my chicken platter is at stake) He says, Wagon Rags aren’t here to compete or battle against any form of music. Wagon Rags are just here to belt out their music and sweep the crowd off their feet. Ok, I know Wordsworth said “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. And well, “A little of Self Promotion is SuJOY forever *wink*”. First, lemme introduce the band before I go into the intricate details of the seven hours in Sound Ideaz Studios of Pune where we witnessed a nine month old tune take its shape, riff by riff, solo to solo and beat to beat.
Drum Rolls: Dheessh!!!!!!
Dean on the Bass.
Gyan on the Drums
Vatsal on the Guitars
Parag on the Lead Guitars
Abhishek on the Vocals.
The Band: Wagon Rags . First Single: Devil’s Ride
In a way, it makes sense that the bands Rhythm guitarist:  Vatsal Raicha is a Mechanical Engineer from NIT Surathkal. But then, he has lost all of his mechanical gyan of IC engines, and that now all he knows is screw up the nuts of his project teammates (he is a project lead in an respectable IT Firm ). And well, to say that Wagon Rags has anything to do with Mr.Raicha would just be cool for the sake of it. That is so not how it happened. Wagon Rags emerged as the winner over such great ones nominated as “Marcoly’s Punch”, ” Pure silver Brutal Farce” and well the one suggested by me – ” Paanch Badan Ek Jaan” (5 bodies, one soul). Clearly Wagon Rags seemed logical to them, but well I still think Paanch Badan to be a clear winner.

BAND PROMOTION PICS FROM RECORDING ROOM AFTER THE JUMP

Venue: Sound Ideaz Studio run by Nitin Joshi
The band is already there since 3 pm trying hard to put together the drum setup. But then, the mixing of Brute Force’s next track is on. So plans are a bit postponed. And then, the clock have now been set up to start ticking at 4:20 pm. Nice choice. Drums setting up starts. The quest for the perfect bass, and THE sound on the tom is on. Muting, tuning, taping, cushioning with extra pink pillows, tightening of screws (or screwing em up) and getting rid of the extra toing. It takes an extra hour and it  almost consumes three hours to get it done right (not to forget, we had a fun jam inside the studio and then finally realised that we were being charged by the hour, and that before we could actually settle down and record a thing, the Rags are already been charged a cool 1000 bucks). But then, the Rags wont stop until the perfect sound is achieved. Such a bunch of perfectionists. (A slight element of promotional stunt, given that these guys are my close pals, but what the heck, they even made me a pseudo publicist and promised me two meals of chicken for this post).

Drums all set to roll. Gyan takes his Throne. Headphones on. Mirrors tilted to see the reflection from the mixing room. Nitin on the Mac. Guys ready with their instruments for the demo take. The plan was to go one by one. The order to be followed was: Drums >> Bass >> Rhythm Guitars >> Lead Guitars >> Vocals . Gyan gives the cue, and we ROLL. A taste of the lyrics is given below.

Worlds movin, but on really slow feet
tryin to keep time, its missin a beat
an ol black n white
I wanna paint it, i wanna paint it in speed

I dont even let the wind set the pace
gonna overtake the storm and set the chase
gotta make every moment a raceday out here
i leather my skin, i get ready to race

(pre-chorus)
and theres that sign ahead that says go slow
never cared to know what the fuck that means
have seen them lights all red n yellow
but i dig only … i dig green …

(chorus)

I…. get on the devils ride,
kick up dust … leather my stride
blazin wheels … better watch your side
coz I…. m doin the devils ride

First take of drums- a bit flawed. First take was a bit of a disaster as everyone didn’t seem ready. The guitars went out of control and so everyone was shut down. But surprisingly, the tempo is a bit on the higher side than the one in the rehearsals. And it sounds GOOD. Gyan hits for take 2 and it goes goo..oood until the last 20 seconds when his headphones fell off. Take 3..and we are done with the drums. Best part in a band is when everyone knows his flaws through and through. We listened the entire drums track closely and carefully, and couldn’t deduce any flaw until Mr.Gyan pointed it out. And with some help from Nitin’s mixing skills, drums are served on the platter. Next up :Dean Vaz on the Bass (try to say it as a rhyme).

Dean on the bass, goes easy and smooth. Just a bit of improvisation required and with instructions from Jhinga, Vats, Parag and Nitin, job is done. And yes, it looked as easy as it sounds here. Very smooth.
And we are almost four hours into the clock. Now the debate for recording the rhythm guitars:- whether to go for direct Line Out Recording, or go for the Amplifiers. Vatsal knows it best. Amps it is. And we enter the studio again. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, Gyan is already out of the room, and is puffin some smoke of the tobacco kind.

Vatsal settles down, overcomes his stage fright, leaves all his worries of Project deadlines and attritions behind, and gathers the confidence to PERFORM. Must be the Hide n Seek and Cashew Nut Good Day that he ate (You guys I spent 25 bucks  on that). First take- Vats not satisfied. Second take : went well until he looked up through the looking glass and saw Alice…no I meant Jh***a. Third take: Job Done…or was it the seventh? Parag is in next. The Rhythm parts to be filled first. Done. Solos in the verse part, Done. Intro Solo..one take ..Done. Outro Solo..Done. The solo part where the spotlights are to be on on Parag..3 takes. Done.

Last but not the least, Mr.Jh***a  (Abhishek Jha) takes control of the microphone. He entered, he made some mistakes, he corrected em and was then beaten to pulp. Why do I keep deviating? Must be too much of Korean gore that I have been watching lately. The recording on the other hand went smooth, quite.
And then, it was up to the Man to make the pieces fit perfectly. Mr. Nitin Joshi. And so he did. With regular inputs on the volume levels, the punching in and punching out,etc. after almost 5 and a half hours of clock time, Devil’s Ride was ready to ROCK THE WORLD. Go here to the Myspace Page of Wagon Rags to listen to the Track. I have the MP3 but they won’t let me upload it here for download.

Bonus Track :Live recording in two takes: Tie Your Mother Down: Original Artistes- Queen
Long story short: Signed, Sealed ,Delivered. Hear me in the Chorus. LOL.
CD Burned: Thanks Steve Jobs for the Mac. Thanks Sujoy for the cookies. Thanks Nitin Joshi and Sound Ideaz.

PROMOTIONAL PICTURES AS PROMISED ABOVE:

The Pseudo Band Manager / Publicist

Photographs Exclusive to : OneKnightStands

CONTACT for Band: wagonrags [at] gmail [dot] com

MySpace Page: myspace.com/wagonrags

500 feet above ground! And I am not talking about any altitude. See 500 feet above ground, jumping to a song called “Opportunity Denied”, and think no further. Just let yourself react to the Metal of Brute Force. I thought of writing this article for a Wikipedia page. But then, thinking of the number of times of the appearance of words such as fuck and fucking awesome, and… you know the words, I realized this article wouldn’t make it to wikipedia anyway. So I had to settle down for my own small blog, again. And well, also for the fact that I really don’t have much hard facts about Brute Force either, coz I don’t know them personally, neither do I have a written track record(I don’t believe you actually need to meet the guys to know their music). But I have been a witness to the growth of a band which has stepped out of that norm of covering the yesteryears’ Metal anthems and adopted such a monstrous form of their own, which can only be expressed best by the euphoria that you get to see when Brute Force takes centre stage.

I wouldn’t exactly say, I have seen the band from their nappy days, but yeah, pretty much during the early days. My first experience of Brute Force live was Western Zone Finals Campus Rock Idols, 2005 in Pyramid Lawns, KP. There comes this short haired guitarist with eyes that can barely open (as mine) and with fingers that can just create Mayhem. Yeah!!! That guy on the drums, I had seen him scream out “Master Master” for Nemesis in the previous Campus Rock concert, when Prestorika won the finals. Don’t remember the set they played then, but yeah the self-titled original wasn’t out yet. And the results, runners up: Medusa from Bombay, and winners: Nemesis. The judges say-“It was a close call between Brute Force and Nemesis. And why didn’t they come second then?The journey from that Campus Rock Idols concert in 2005 to headlining this year’s Western Zone Campus Rock Idols 2007, has been quite long, but sure LOUD as hell. Of course, when a band has a lead vocalist with long hair, a lead guitarist with short hair, and a drummer with power arms and thunder thighs (I had to steal this phrase from an article on Sameera Reddy), and yeah a bassist who makes your ear drums go bum bum bum, what else would you expect.

Anand on the rhythm guitars and lead vocals not only takes control of the crowd, but also sings his songs, plays the riffs. I mean, yeah, you have that showmanship and all going. But what point does it make if you forget your lines and mess up with your guitars, which is not the case here. The frontman knows his music, and well does his stuff too. The weakest link or rather I’d say, the one who lags in the entire band relatively, is the bassist Aniket, the new bassist in Brute Force, according to me is just an “also exists” kinda scenario, purely because the other members just excel. So personally, I’d like the bass to be a bit louder, and a bit more prominent in the tracks, but yeah, not at the cost of just making it loud just for the sake of it. The entire song has to sound good as well. Akshay on the drums really knows the endurance limit of the drum kit and puts it to the test every time. Just see him drilling hard on the double bass, and you feel like a 100 bullets being shot at you at once. But yeah, drumming skills aren’t measured on the double bass criteria only. The main thing is, how tight they can pull the act together, and all the rolls and bangs on the cymbals with all the off beats plus the backing vocals, all have to perfectly align with each other. And it does SO. Hear them cover Dread and the Fugitive Mind, and you instantly feel how organized this band is, when it comes to timing.Wayne, hmm….talking about you is of no use. You all have seen him play live and you know what he is capable of doing with those six strings. So it makes no fucking sense in adding up those big adjectives here. Just one thing though. Wayne, no matter what they shout out at Pune concerts, Hakka noodles and all that bloody racist comments shit, you kick ASS..bigtime.

The Brute Force original composition list as of now (to my latest information) stands as the following.
Rise, Force Fed, Axis, Recipe for Disaster, Opportunity Denied and the most popular of them- Brute Force. I remember the first time I heard their first single. Man it blew me over. It sounded like some unreleased track from Kill ‘em All with the ghostly blessings of Cliff Burton. The riff starts and your head just cannot manage to hold itself straight. Its going up and down rampantly and there comes the double bass for the Kill, and then we have a Sixer…Nataraj phir Champion. Fuck, I got carried away. It was like Hit the Lights reincarnated, and in no way this sounded like any of those “We wanna be Metallica” shit. This was so Fucking Awesome. I tried to get hold of all the possible video sources of their live performance of Brute Force, and my favorite is their performance at Livewire, IIT Bombay. The sound is much better, and I can hear Wayne do his thing. Haven’t really listened to any of their other songs in the studio version, except for Opportunity Denied (I’ve only heard their other songs live). O.D. just grows on you with the intro solo, and when the distortion kicks in, you should see the crowd. It just looks like MADNESS.
Fan following, you ask. Come to any given concert where Brute Force is playing in Pune. And it certainly looks like they own it. They have a strong fan following here in Pune, and weirdly though, any concert which doesn’t play Brute Force in Pune, seems empty. As in “Janta nahi Aatee”. Is that just a coincidence, or a myth or what? Just think about it. There’s some weird connection.

To conclude, I’d say, Brute Force is the band to have come at the right time (when there were probably no bands playing original stuff) with the right kind of sound, which the fans accepted with open arms. From those utterly dark, smoky underground gigs, and the Battle of Bands at Pune Central to winning Independence Rock and many other accolades, I just hope that the journey is far from over. In my own twisted words stolen from Robert Frost,

The woods are lovely dark and deep, but Metal is what you got and Metal is what we need, and You got miles to smoke that Weed, and you got miles to smoke that weed…

\m/ . May the (brute) FORCE be with you!! Peace.

Also published at Wordsutra.com