The Solder Story So Far

Well it's been a while since we wrote, or ranted about the happenings at our end. Though subjects aplenty, we somehow never sat down to write about our off stage happenings. So here, finally we write an update, an insiders' perspective on what we've been upto. Hope you'll find the read, ermmm interesting??

We last played our brand of "Live and Loud" at Zara's on Ulsoor Road in Bangalore to a turnout that helped us rock the socks off the place!!A big heartfelt thank you to those of you'll who came. There we played some new material, which got a good response, so overall we were super happy with the gig. Thank You Karan and Sowmya of Live Gig!!

As we had promised April to be "Live and Loud" we had lined up a few shows through the month, but weren't able to confirm them as our rhythm guitarist, Akhilesh (Apple) Kumar, strained a hamstring while attempting his own version of "Wild and Loud" view it here And as a result we've been kept off the stage, but we've taken this time off to write, write and write some more. And though we may be complaining of the lost time on stage, the new material makes up for the time on stage (well not really, but yeah we tell ourselves that)

Anyways onto matters of further update worthy rantings. Our man on the bass, Samson "Dorris" Philip, has decided to take a holiday in this off stage time and ran off to Kuwait. So come for our next show and get free kisses (read: the chocolate) from Philip. And yes, most importantly, the bass man be getting a new bass from Kuwait, bring on the groove son. And amidst all of that we also hear he's indulging in the colourful slipper fetish he has. So next gig, new bass, different coloured slippers, and kisses (read:chocolate. You pervs)

Our man handling the rhythm guitar and backing vox Akhilesh "Apple" Kumar, as you know recovering from an injury, has not been fighting anyone, or practicing parkour, or beating Joel and Mark up. Yes the hyper destructive soul has finally been grounded, though only for a bit. And this calm facade seems to be bringing him some immense good fortune as he recently became the proud owner of a POD X3 Live (This is when we thank his Mother for such a cool gift. Thank You Aunty). Another reason for you'll to come for our next show. Come see how awesome it sounds!! Next up, he eyes a new guitar which we should acquire soon enough.

Mark Escotee, after leading the life of a student and then a jobless BEER drinking BUM finally, at the age of 30 (though he still claims to be 24) has landed a job subtitling some uber-cool Movies and Television Serials, and amidst all the new, first time ever viewing of the latest seasons of T.V shows, he came out of the closet and admitted his love for Desperate Housewives. Awwww, Mark, we somehow knew the 80s influence had something to do with the leather and tights. On the musical front, he still works hard at writing new songs and tweaking them guitar parts, always adding (and sometimes subtracting) always to make the song sound better. He too will soon be a proud owner of a new guitar, which hopefully will make all that wizardly playing sound better. And yes, the man for his talent deserves some good equipment.You agree??

Our drummer, Joel Michael Rozario, on his time away from the stage is on the road to the 12-pack.This new found confidence about stepping on that weighing scale and looking the other way, deserves them applause, so can we hear it for Joel??*Applause*

We love you Joel :D

And yes, he will see new equipment coming his way too. New skins and another cymbal on its way.

Siddarth or Puttu, screwed over by genetics has finally come to terms with his loss of hair through all of them bald jokes. But we must admit, we still haven't come to terms with that bald pate, Puttu, the jokes will continue!!:D And this is when he tells Joel "I'll never have a bad hair day dude". Not many know that this smiling un-assuming face of Solder can be quite a tyrant. Ask his kick-boxing students that, they'll vouch for our claim!!Know??Adi Poli mallu only.

Our (EDIT: Trying to be cool) Manager, Akshath, as many people (EDIT:don't) know tried his hand at singing() but decided he should stick to things he does best, cracking (EDIT:Bad attempts to be Awesome) PJs!! As always the enterprising young turk that he is (EDIT:Thanks Gais) has been keeping up to the business plan we drafted for the quarter, and been ideating and coming up with some killer ideas that we should implement soon. Oh and also he's applied this year to take his exams FINALLY!!(EDIT: Yay exams, I'm so excited, its like having sex after a long time, but the only problem is we all know while writing exams whose gonna get fucked:P)

(Final EDIT: I know I shouldn't have used cuss words and the whole profanity bit and I'll probably get beaten up by Puttu for using the same, after all I was supposed to EDIT this??Hahahahahaha. But then again, it adds to the experience, no??)

(PS:Don't judge my singing, I was a sport enough not to take it off:P)

Other than that, our website www.soldermusic.com should be up soon. Our super cool and awesome at the same time friends JP and Sunita are working on the same. A huge, warm, heartfelt thank you to them for all the love and support they've given us!!Thanks JP. Thanks Sunita :)

And before signing off, a small shout out to all of you'll who've been part of our journey through the past few months!!We really don't know how to thank you'll!!But we love you guys, and you'll validate our existence. :)

Thank YOU!!

Well thats us for now!

We'll see you at a stage real soon and we promise to play it "Live and Loud"

Till then keep an eye out for us at the following links:

http://www.myspace.com/soldersomething

http://www.reverbnation.com/solder

http://twitter.com/SolderIndia

http://www.facebook.com/SolderMusic

Cheers!!!

P.S. Watch this space for more updates

(This Note was written by Siddarth Abraham and Edited by Akshath J)

Update!!

(Pic :Gaurav Jayprakash)

A bit late may-haps, but in our first update of the New Year, we'd like to start off by thanking each and everyone of you'll who have been to any of our shows, enjoyed our music and spread the word about Solder.

If the first two months of the year are a sign-age on the path of our journey forward, then we need no sooth sayers telling us the future augurs well for us. Or so we'd like to believe. But yes, these two months saw a whirlwind of positivity emerging from the band which reflected itself everywhere we went, be it a studio, a pub show or the jam room. The year started off with us recording two more demo tracks, namely "All By Myself" and "Passerby" in Kishan Balaji's home studio set up. (Any band looking to record do contact him, super guy to work with). All by Myself has already been released, but Passerby still needs to be mixed and mastered so expect a new single release sometime this month!!:-)

That was the studio, then we got down to jamming hard and playing some shows. January saw us head back to Kyra for our first show of the year, where we were met by a mixed audience, half of em there for the music and the other half for dinner, but by the end of the night the place was groovin to SOLDER (or so we'd like to think), but we did leave the place with a positive vibe, and for us as a band that is important, no negative vibes and feeling uncomfortable after the show. Next up, we were headlining the Jyoti Nivas College Fest- Scintillations '10. This was one mad mad mad gig!! We were supposed to start our set after the competition and play for about an hour, but due to programing issues the schedule went awry, and we were left playing a fifteen minute set. But what a set that was, JNC Scintillations '10 would rank among one of our better shows, and me thinks we did get them ladies singing along to Irish Coffee. Here a shout out to the boys at All The Fat Children (who won the competition that night) they were a huge help with the sound at the console, Vineeth Vincent, you be the (black) man.So yes, "Thank You JNC for one insane show"

Towards the end of January we were scheduled to open the "Red Bull Sound Clash" Bangalore, which featured Something Relevant from India vs Call from Pakistan, we were excited at the prospect of being the opening act of such an awesome concept, but when we reached the venue for our sound check we were told that we wouldn't be able to have a proper sound check as the channels already set by the band earlier could not be changed. Shocked at first and worried at the prospect of sounding horrendous on the day, we resorted to worrying and the nerves kicked in. But then to our rescue came Francis from Total Productions. Francis gave us separate channels for our guitars and vocals and we had a decent sound check though we weren't too happy with the drum sound, we couldn't do anything about it. Then when it was time to hit the stage, we did so with a renewed confidence and a sense of purpose to put on an awesome show, which I think we managed to do. Got good reviews from the people at the show and from the STR boys and Ameeth Thomas of JYG and some constructive criticism from Bruce Lee Mani of TAAQ. The very next day we had a show again in the afternoon this time, at Opus in The Creek. We played to a bunch of about 150 Bulleters and holla what fun!!

And so ended January.

February saw us play a show at Opus, Palace Cross Rd again. This time we were playing at an event promoted by The Bombay Elektrik Projekt for UTV World Movies and Music Nights. Good fun the gig was, sampled a new song too, and left the place well fed and drunk!!Thank you Opus, The Bombay Elektrik Projekt and UTV World Movies.

After this show we started the process of sound proofing our jam pad. Sourcing material from Chennai, we took about four days to get it done, and now we have ensured that we can spend that much more time jamming in the jam room, without disturbing Joel's' folks at home!!

So hard work here we come, are you ready??

All By Myself...

Folks They Say that the simple things,
Never seem to make any difference now.
What can I say when I feel this way?!
Never know why, but I'll play that game.

Moving down to the centre,
To make my world come true.
And when I come to the final,
It breaks this feeling through.
All By Myself.
And I've waited for that open road!!
All By Myself!!
And I've waited for that open road,
All By Myself..

Wasted times,
Wasted moments.
Who am I, I cant quite place,
What can I say what I feel,
When I feel like this, I feel it anyways.
All I know is that I'll stay that way

Moving down to the centre,
To make my world come true.
And when I come to the final,
It breaks this feeling through.
All By Myself.
And I've waited for that open road!!
All By Myself!!
And I've waited for that open road,
All By Myself..

2009!!

When scraps of paper and cyberspace are wasted in scribbling down the year that was 2009, the story of 5 people jamming every evening in a noisy corner off the Commercial Street Main Road is not going to find utterance. Nor is the story of the sacrifices made to achieve their ends. And nor is the story of many other musicians across India living sometimes with nothing but a passion!!

I'll limit myself to our journey, SOLDER's journey.

2009 is our year of stepping out, of finding utterance in the world of indie music, of reaching out to the world at large with nothing but a few guitars a drum kit and the voice of our soul. We play this music not to be underpaid by venues or sometimes not paid at all. Nor do we play this music for the (false) lifestyle that is associated with the guitar, and we certainly don't play it for the prejudice it brings from society. We sacrifice our family time and social life not to get drunk silly and laid every night, but to jam every evening and become better at what we do, for when we play music, it makes us happy!!

To borrow words from Suraj Mani of Motherjane," You might ask us why do we choose to live our life with music, and try to make a living off it, what you don't understand is that it is a passion, the five of us are living a passion. Now let me ask you (esp those sitting and reading this at their office desks), how can YOU live your life without passion"

The year 2009, for SOLDER has seen us living our passion and living it with a smile to show for. In terms of what we have done, we feel good about playing more shows to newer people and getting them to sing along to our songs, we feel good about our exploits at Strawberry Fields, we also feel good about Irish Coffee, and we also feel good about the beer at the end of a show. We think we've earned it. But one thing we wont do is to rate this year or quantify it with a pre-defined standard, for to quantify this life experience is to put a value to this experience thats been the past few months. We wouldn't give it up for anything else in the world. One thing is for certain though, this journey that started in the quaint jam room in some obscure location found its sail in the wind of the year 2009. We recognize that this is just a beginning and we also recognize the journey ahead is not a stroll in the park. But what we do know is something that goes by the christening, "HARD WORK". We recognize that its easy to move mountains only when you pass them on the road. We look forward to the year to come with a hope of our music reaching out to many more people. And if that means a little less time with family, friends and loved ones and a lot more hard work, patience, perseverance and toil, then bring on 2010!!We are ready and waiting!!

Joel Rozario: Ladies, gentleman, and the such like, meet Joel Rozario, the critic, the perfectionist, bullet-er and the part time joker. An NRI who takes pride in living in Shivaji Nagar (we think it has something to do with the beef there, but anyways), this Malaysian drum lord is the vision behind Solder. Taking pride in everything he does, right from hitting the snare to nailing that Roll (pun intended), he makes sure he does it right. If you've not realized by now, Joel is the man behind the drum kit for Solder. Apart from the drums, Joel handles certain vocal responsibilities thrust upon him as well, enabling us to venture into that territory known as vocal harmonies. Influenced less but inspired more by the Dave Matthews Band, Joel cites Carter Beauford, Mike Portnoy, Gino Banks, Bill Stewart and Joel Taylor as his main inspirations to pick up a pair of sticks

In his free time, Joel works (Hahahahahaha) but he doesn't mind, cause apparently the work place serves a continental lunch buffet (see: Joel's turn to laugh), and that apart his work includes filtering search options which is primarily to give you people better search options, if you haven't understood yet, go do a yahoo search. ;-)

Thats about all there is to the multi-dimensional (pun intended) Joel Rozario, oh yes I forgot, for those who haven't met him, he's the really thin guy (read: sarcasm), atleast he claims he used to be.

Hahahahahahaha

Cheers Joel,

And amen to that shawarma!!

The Leprechaun Tales!!

Samson Philip: Knock knock!! whose there?? Dorris!! Dorris who?? Door is open!! This is our instinctual intro to the man behind the thick strings of Solder. Meet Samson Philip, aka Dorris, aka Maggie, aka Sister, aka a whole lotta other names you'd call your BFF if you were a girl. Built on a frame that fits a live wire, our man Dorris is just that, a live wire, be it on stage, in jam or in his sojourn through life. Philip is a sound engineer by qualification and a multi talented musician who when approached by Solder to handle the Bass section of the band, he readily agreed. In his free time, Philip scores music for short films or any other media that requires music.

Influenced by the thrash scene of the 80s, Philip cites Metallica's first 4 albums as his reason to start playing music. That apart Philip also has a keen ear in the gospel music scene, listening to bands like Critical Mass, Switchfoot, Petra, and the such like.

Chipping in at times with his voice as a backing vocalist, Philip's vocal abilities allow the band to enter the adventurous zone of vocal harmonies, and in the process, layering the melody with different vocal parts!!

Being the only smoker in the band, Philip draws the wrath of the others in the band when he lights up. But heck who cares, smoke that cigarette and kill those fellas Philip!!

Cheers to the Thick Strings,

And thank you for smoking!!:)

Apple

Akhilesh Kumar: Meet the youngest kid amidst the madness that is Solder, Akhilesh Kumar or "Apple". Apart from asking the really stupid questions, Apple mans the rhythm guitar section and the backing vocals with a reassuring smile that he wears with his affable personality. Calm under all circumstances and unfazed by situations that would make those senior to him wilt under the pressure, Akhilesh straddles the dual role with a panache that only he can pull off. His vocal abilities come to the fore in songs that require singing in higher scales. Influenced by the glam rock scene of the 80's, Akhilesh cites Skid Row as his single biggest influence. That apart, Akhilesh has grown up on a platter serving unadulterated 80's glam, from the likes of Motley Crue, Poison, Cinderella and many more.So dont be surprised if you find him walking around in tights and make up. Hahahaha!! Whilst not jamming Akhilesh can be seen active in the Rotary scene of Bangalore, and is also a professional martial arts trainer. (Yeah there are two pro martial arts trainers in our band, don't even think of messing with us). The guy involves himself with various other social activities activities as well (and by social we mean the social worker kinds and not the socialite kinds) which we still don't seem to know, wonder if its a ploy he uses to get off jam??Hmmm!! Oh and yes, if you do spot him making an error with his grammar please do let us know, we shall report the same to the concerned authorities that take to task, the people responsible for the corruption of the Queens English!! Hahahahahahaha!! Cheers Apple!!