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..