No, not *that* kind of black metal, silly! Although actually the holiday was rather helpful; due to the light traffic, it meant that my hour-long drive down to Mokena through light snow wasn’t a complete nightmare like it could have been.

I strategically arrived just before Enslaved began, missing Abigail Williams, as well as two local openers, Liche and Withering Soul (who I can see this weekend at Heathen Crusade).

The last (and only) time I’d seen Enslaved was when they played the Milwaukee Metalfest several years back and played about four songs. So it was nice to see a mostly-full set from them, although it was heavily skewed towards new stuff. Beyond one song from ‘Monumension’ and one from ‘Frost’ (which Grutle oddly referred to as their first album), everything else was from ‘Ruun’ and ‘Isa’. They had a projector going the whole time with (kinda amateur) trippy visuals, which contrasted heavily with their quite “metal” appearance, but perfectly matched the psychadelic/metal mix within their music. Some creative promoter really needs to get these guys and Isis on a tour together. It was funny to see that on their ‘Isis’ song (‘Ruun’), the keyboardist/backup-clean-singer strapped on a 3rd guitar, just like Isis.

I’d never even heard any Dark Funeral before I checked out a few songs when I heard about this tour. They sounded a fair bit less shitty than I expected, and since I paid $30 to get in, I figured I’d stick around to see at least some of their set. Their full-on Black Metal getup strongly reinforced the “Enslaved needs to tour with a band like Isis” idea. The guys in the band were all wearing leather armor and full makeup, which made them look just like Peter Jackson’s orcs. The singer was Lurtz, Saruman’s Uruk-hai captain, while the long-faced guitarists were Mordor orcs. Haha, I realize just now that black metal personalities like Shagrath and Count Grishnakh originally took their names from Tolkien’s orcs, so I guess the whole thing has come full-circle!

Musically they weren’t too bad. They easily had the best sound I’ve ever heard out of a traditional black metal band; everything was very treble-y and cold and grim just like I’m sure their albums sound, but also clear and not buzzy. Given their look, it was quite shocking when the singer spoke between songs in a normal (and quite smooth) voice, especially considering how raw his ‘singing’ voice is. At one point he said something like “I’ve been ripping my throat for 20 years, and the reason I keep doing it is for you guys!” I thought I detected an undercurrent in their that said “I’m getting too fucking old for this clown shit and really wish I didn’t have to do it anymore, but I gotta make a living!” Anyway, despite their surprising goodness, I was coming down with a cold so I checked out after 6 or 7 songs.

Sometime during the night, Dennis returned to the Mumbai airport to meet Swati (who had been in the city shopping for her lengha) and pick up his mother Gloria, and sister Robin. Thankfully, the rest of us slept.

In the morning, I had my first case of, uh, “the loosies” as Swati would say. I’ll spare you the details, and just say that it could have been a lot worse. Beyond the one major issue, I didn’t have any other symptoms.

After a leisurely morning spent reading the newspaper out on the veranda, all six of us went down for a leisurly lunch. We went out for a brief shopping trip on MG Road (MG for Mahatma/Mohandas(?) Gandhi, kind of like MLK Drives in the US, except much more upscale!) Arjan bashed his head into the side of the rickshaw, and the ladies weren’t that interested in the shopping there, so we returned. Of course Tony managed to buy bunch of knicknacks and hand out money to a beggar woman who followed him the entire time we were there.

Swati came by the Turf Club with the driver and we headed out again, first to Jai Hind to pick up the clothes we had ordered a couple of days before. Of course, my suit wasn’t ready, so I’d have to try again later. But at least we wasted a lot of time trying to find out where it was.

Then it was into rickshaws and into “The City”, as they call it, which is basically the old part of the city, with a really narrow maze of streets that can only clear a rickshaw if everyone else gets out of the way. It reminded me of the Plaka area in Athens, if the Plaka was not pedestrian-only and was filled with all manner of vehicles, and if all the places were actually working businesses and not just tourist shops. After asking several people, we finally found the turban shop we were looking for. Turns out Dennis’s white-boy head is too fat, so he couldn’t take one off the rack; it would be custom made.

While they got that squared away, Arjan, Tony, and I visited the large temple right across the narrow street. The guys inside were very friendly and showed us around, but before telling us too much, they asked me and Arjan (two tall guys with very short hair, and one with a red-and-yellow scalp wound above his forehead) if we were Hare Krishnas. Somehow I got the feeling that they wouldn’t have been as friendly if we had said yes!

Next, Swati suggested that “Shopper Stop” might be a place that Gloria and Robin would enjoy the shopping more at. They were delighted to find a department store and mall that was just as Western and probably even more upscale than most malls in the U.S. So far we had seen nothing even close to it. The whole time in India I had been wondering where all the Swatis were (you know, the good-looking, Western-clothes-wearing, look-at-me girls) Clearly, they were all visiting this mall. Tony and Arjan picked up a bunch of CDs at a music store there. CDs are relatively cheap, with “imports” from America maxing out at about $10, and a lot of things available for $6 or $7. And they still had a bunch of cassettes for sale too!

Keep in mind that I’m not the biggest fan of shopping in the first place, and then add in my intestinal issues, and you’ll understand that I was completely worn out by the time we returned to the hotel. Swati’s cousin Pankaj came over to take us out for the night, but I just didn’t have the energy so I got some sleep instead. Sounds like they club they ended up at was kinda lame, so at least I didn’t feel like I missed too much.

After four hours of sleep, we’re in the car again, this time driving north a couple more hours to Ajanta.

Driving in India appears to be utter chaos. Lane lines are completely ignored, horns are beeping constantly, and cars, trucks, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, cows, dogs, and anything else you can think of all mix freely.

It’s only after observing for a while that you understand there is actually a method to the madness. The essential rule is that the responsibility for not hitting things is solely up to you. Instead of relying on a passive, lane-based approach where assumptions are made that drivers will not shift left or right as you pass, in India a more active approach is taken. The horn beep means “I’m going to pass you, so please give me room to do so”. As long as no one makes any sudden moves, everything flows quite smoothly. Everyone assumes that everyone else will move in relatively straight lines, and everyone has an uncanny knowledge of the exact dimensions of their vehicle. It is quite common for vehicles to pass within less than an inch of one another, but they almost never touch. If I found myself on a bicycle within an inch of a big truck on the right side, my first instinct would be to flinch left; here that would send me straight into the rickshaw on my left. The people here have overcome that flinching instinct and travel in perfect calmness under such conditions.

The upshot of this system is that traffic is almost always moving. Traffic lights are extremely rare, and stop signs are nonexistent. Most intersections are completely uncontrolled, and traffic constantly flows through them. Given the sheer amount of traffic, and the mix of traffic types, I believe this ends up being a much more efficient system than a more regulated, Western approach. Another nice advantage is that you could close your eyes and wander aimlessly through the busiest intersection, and no one would hit you; in fact, no one would even take notice that something strange was happening.

We have had several drivers in our time here, and they all have skills that would take us years to learn, but Yasin(?) the driver who took us to and around Aurangabad is the champion of them all. I don’t believe he was ever passed, and he would go flying down narrow country roads at over 60mph; on the same road, I might drive 35 if it was completely empty; of course, these roads were nowhere near empty. His ability to squeeze through the narrowest gap, or get just enough out of the way of oncoming traffic was incredible. Most amazing was that he would drive this way and under these conditions for five hours straight and not be phased at all. Most of us, even if we could drive in such conditions, would be exhausted within half an hour.

The caves at Ajanta are in a more beautiful setting than Ellora (a horseshoe-shaped ravine), and they still have remains of paintings covering the walls and ceilings, but the scale of them is a bit smaller. Also since we were working on four hours of sleep, we probably didn’t enjoy them as much as we could have.

Upon our return to Pune that evening, we collected our belongings from the Saxena house and moved out to the Pune Turf Club. We have a row of rooms that open onto a large balcony, with a view of the lawn below and the race track beyond (unfortunately they don’t have horses here until July). In terms of cleanliness and ameneties, the hotel is a bit behind current Western business traveller standards. But I happily trade that for the permeating ambiance of faded luxury that brings us right into the bygone era of the British Raj.

In the morning, Dennis, Tony, Arjan and myself (and our driver) left for Aurangabad to see the nearby rock-cut cave architecture. The original plan was to see the caves at Ajanta first and then see Ellora the next day, but luckily just before we were to take the road to Ajanta, I discovered in the guidebook that it was closed on Mondays. So we headed for Ellora instead.

The travel guides advertise Ajanta and Ellora as the places to see in the Aurangabad area, and really in the whole state of Maharashtra. However, the Daulatabad Fort, which is listed more like a sidetrip, may be equally impressive. It’s an ancient fort built almost Minas Tirith-like, with seven concentric walls surrounding a steep mountainside. We paid for a guide who highlighted all the very intelligent things the designers did to keep invaders out, including fake doors, circular passageways, and unlucky camels used as cushion between a spiked door and charging elephants. Our guide took us about half the way up, and of course we climbed the rest ourselves.

The whole way up, we played the role of celebrities to all the schoolboys. Simply taking a picture would get you mobbed by requests for more, and of course the same litany of questions: “What is your name?” “Your country?” and “Your profession?” Occasionally a blow on a whistle from the teacher would clear them all out. One time they really helped out me and Dennis, because when they surrounded us, they squeezed out all the annoying vendors trying to sell us stuff.

From there, it was on to Ellora, which was beautifully lit by the setting sun. The main temple there was hewn out of a solid piece of rock nearly twice the size of the Parthenon. They chipped away rock until a temple shape remained standing, surrounded by the rest of the mountain, and then carved out the inside of that temple as well. The feeling you get when walking there is like you’re living a real-life version of a three-dimensional first-person shooter computer game, such as Tomb Raider. In fact, I’m sure that one of those games must have a level that’s an exact copy of that temple. The rest of the caves were generally much less ambitious, but still amazing in their own right.

We returned to Aurangabad and got rooms at the Rama International, which was a pretty upscale hotel, and quite nice after a day spent driving and tromping up mountains. The bottles of Kingfisher that we drank while eating dinner and playing cards were rather large, and soon we had to move out of the restaurant and into the lobby.

From the lobby, we decided to go outside, at about 2am. Tony wanted to go find a bar, but we were told that everything was closed, so I figured it would just be an aimless walk around the area. The streets were almost empty, which I never thought could happen in India. A little way down from our hotel, Tony chatted up a couple of helpful guys who thought they might have known of a couple places we could go, and even told us how much to pay the rickshaw driver so that we wouldn’t get ripped off. After a very short ride of a few blocks, we come to some darkened storefronts that look just like any other darkened storefronts. Tony finds a way inside, and emerges a few minutes later and tells us to follow. We convince our rickshaw driver to wait for us, then go inside, down some dimly-lit stairs, up some stairs, around a corner, and up some more stairs, and amazingly find ourselves in a small, dingy bar.

There are several people in the place, and it’s difficult to tell who is a worker and who is a patron. Understanding of English was pretty minimal. One notable patron was a large, round man sitting alone against the back wall with a scarf wrapped around his neck. Somehow I was convinced that he was an Afghan warlord, and when Tony shook his hand with his left hand (supposedly a taboo in India), I figured that was the end of it for us. There was another fellow enjoying himself that me and Arjan were trying to talk to for a little while. After some time, I happened to mention something about our rickshaw and our driver. Suddenly, his eyes light up, he points to himself and says “Me, rickshaw driver!” So there we were, sitting and drinking with our driver, and we’d had no idea. Well, at least that meant that he hadn’t left us! Soon after, the landlord of the building showed up and cleared everyone out, so that was the end of that.

We continued onwards towards the railway station in search of more adventure. On the way, Tony tried to drive the rickshaw for a bit. And then somehow the driver turned on a radio or something, and the rickshaw started pumping out some groovin’ Hindi music. In every rickshaw I’ve been in since, I’ve checked if they have speakers, and so far I haven’t found another one. Just more proof that we had found a magic rickshaw.

Somehow we ended up stopped at a vacant lot/garbage dump. There were several cows there, so Tony got the grand idea in his head that he wanted to ride one. The group of guys hanging out there (who knows what they were doing there at 4am?) were quite happy to assist. Once they rounded one up, Tony awkwardly leaped aboard, hung there for a second or two, and then was promptly dropped to the ground. Luckily for him, his fall was cushioned. Unluckily, the cushion he used happened to be a big pile of cow shit. The helpful guys came over with some water and attempted to clean the stuff off his pants, but that really only made the situation worse. So we got back into the rickshaw and headed back to the hotel with Tony in his boxers.

But before we made it to our hotel, our driver stopped in front of another darkened building. We could hear music inside, so Tony went to investigate. When he didn’t come out after several minutes, the rest of us went in afterwards. This place was completely pitch black, and felt about as shady as shady can get. When we were led to an upstairs room where we saw a few women hanging out, we all immediately decided “yeah, we’re getting out of here”. They wouldn’t exactly tell us where Tony was, so we had to go find him by ourselves in the dark, and finally we found him sitting in the basement. We hauled him out and returned towards our hotel.

The rickshaw driver was really having a good time by this point, and was amusing himself by driving towards stray animals. Really no more dangerous than normal traffic, where you’re constantly avoiding collisions by the slimmest of margins, but a littly jerky when there’s no traffic. Despite that lack of coolness at the end, he still got hugs all around and probably more money that night than he makes in a month.

So that was quite a night, and I have to give credit to Tony’s magical powers to find an adventure even when we were told that that was impossible. Although the whole thing probably sounds a bit risky or unsafe, the general feeling that we took away was how helpful and friendly most people are, and how even halfway around the world, there are probably more things that make us similar than different. “Local color” doesn’t get any more genuine than that, and you sure won’t get in touch with it on any sort of package tour!

On the latest edition of ABC’s ‘The Bachelor’, the eponymous Bachelor kept thanking all the American women for travelling “halfway around the world” to meet him in Paris. Uh, no dude. That’s not even a quarter of the way. If you want to see what halfway is like, try India.

But if you’re going to be travelling halfway around the world in coach class, British Airways is probably about the best choice to do it with. Adjustable headrests that you can lean your head against while sleeping is about all it takes.

After a somewhat late arrival, followed by quite some time waiting for two pieces of luggage that never appeared, followed by a two-hour drive from Mumbai with a stop in the middle at a roadside diner, it was nearly dawn when we were welcomed to the Saxena house.

A pleasant early morning stroll to see the neighborhood with Mr. Saxena was a good way to keep us awake. Then some breakfast, and time spent out on the back porch. Weather is perfect; the temperatures allow all the doors to remain open, and moving from inside to outside is almost unnoticed.

Then it was time for some shopping. We drove in towards the center of Pune, and after taking a walk through Swati’s old college, we went to a Western clothing store to find a suit for Dennis. Then it was on to an Indian clothing store. Dennis got decked out in the full regalia for the wedding ceremony. Tony couldn’t pass up a turban-styled hat, which somehow makes him look a bit more like a Russian than an Indian. And I got a 3-piece suit, Indian style. Overall it was quite an impressive show of shopping fortitude by five guys (and Swati) who were working on hardly any sleep.

Between the two stores, we had our first auto-rickshaw ride. That’s one of those three-wheeled, open-sided, lawn-mower engine powered vehicles that are ubitquitious on all city streets. The ride (with 3 of us inside) cost about 30 cents; in the US they could set up the same situtation (roads, insane traffic, noise) call it an amusement park thrill ride, and easily charge $20 for it. It’s quite a rush, and in the non-thrill ride version, is actually really good at getting you from place to place.

We had lunch at Pizza Hut, and on the way back to the house were involved in a minor fender-bender. I figured that was going a little farther than necessary to show us the true Indian experience, but appreciated the opportunity anyhow!

While Dennis and Tony wussed out and fell asleep, Arjan and I accompanied Swati and her mother back into Pune where they went looking for wedding dress. As we were driving back, we nearly ran into a giant elephant crossing the street in front of us. Then a minute later, we saw someone riding a horse down the street, and a minute after that, a couple of camels. And no, I don’t think the circus was in town.

Finally, a dinner with everyone at the Pune Club wound down the very long day(s). Arjan had been awake for at least 36 hours at that point, and I had gotten probably 10 hours of sleep in the previous 72 hours. The good news is after that effort, we were left with very little jet lag.

In an effort to practice what I preach, I designed and built a new music-listening system for myself around the beginning of the year. It’s been in use for a while now, so I thought I’d post a report on it, particularly in light of my other posts today. The overall goal is to wean myself off physical CDs.

First, I’ll describe my old system. There are basically three places that I listen to music: my house, at work, and in my car. I don’t use headphones in my house, and only rarely carry music portably.

My House: I have a fairly standard home stereo system (floor-standing speakers, 5-disc CD changer) in the main room of my house, which has an open floor plan. Whether I’m in the “living room” or the kitchen, that’s what I use to listen to music at home. At the side of the room I have my 2 CD racks holding approximately 800 CDs. Like most people, when I wanted to listen to music, I’d pull something off the rack and put it in the CD player and listen. I’d rarely use the CD-changer capability.

At Work: I have a small stereo system on my desk in the office, and am lucky enough to be able to listen to music all day. Every morning, I would choose ten CDs from my rack at home and carry them into work, listen to them throughout the day, and then bring them home.

In the car: I don’t drive all that much or that far, so I just grab a CD or two off the rack whenever I know I’m going to be out for a while.

Now, to the new system.

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Take your pick for the topic of this post once you read the whole thing.

I recently got three new DVD-Audio discs, which contain 5.1-channel surround-sound mixes. They are:

Porcupine Tree – “In Absentia”
Bruce Dickinson – “Balls to Picasso”
Megadeth – “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?”

I had read that the Porcupine Tree represented a new reference standard in high-definition surround-sound audio, so I was really looking forward to that. I hadn’t been able to find any opinions about the other two, so I had no idea what to expect from them.

I listened to all three of them in their entirety. I thought the Porcupine Tree sounded amazing, both in fidelity, and in the multi-channel mixing. It was everything I expected it to be.

The Dickinson sounded rather strange, the sound quality was worse than the CD, but it was kind of interesting because it was something different, and really gave a new tone to the album. The surround mix seemed decent if not as adventurous as the PT, although I thought it was strange that the guitar solos were put in the left front speaker. I might expect that with Maiden and their two-guitar attack, but it seemed weird here. None of that surprised me though, because it wasn’t mixed by a known surround-sound mixer, and I figured it was just crapped out in a hurry because Sanctuary wanted to get a bunch of DVD-Audios out.

I’d never really heard the Megadeth on CD before, but it sounded about exactly what I’d expect a 1986 recording to sound like.

So last night I was messing with my DVD player, and I discovered something interesting. I had the 6-channel connections between the player and my receiver completely mixed up! The rear surround speakers were fine. The front center and front left were switched, and much worse, the right front speaker and subwoofer were switched!

And I still thought the Porcupine Tree sounded great. Yikes! Was it because I was expecting it to sound great, because I’m a moron? I’m guessing it’s the former, but then I’m probably a bit biased. Or was it because it actually did sound great even with everything messed up?

I listened to a bit of the Dickinson with the connections fixed, and it sounded a LOT better. I haven’t re-listened to the others yet, but I’ll give a better review when I do that.

Saw this menagerie last night at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. The $12 price balanced the 9PM Sunday night start time, and then the bands really made it worth my while. It happened to be a benefit show for Lymphedema/Breast Cancer awareness, though there was less social commentary from the stage than the average Queensryche show. Reportedly more than $6000 was raised. On to the bands:

Cougars: Eight guys on stage, including the usual five of a standard 2-guitar band, plus trumpet, trombone, and keyboards. So what do they play, some kind of hardcore-jazz-funk-ambient-death-metal? Nope. Just regular old kickass rock-n-roll. Played nice and loud with perhaps just the slightest punk edge. I don’t know why brass instruments don’t appear more often in rock bands. They’re “loud”, distorted, and can really add an extra melodic punch. When the two guitars, horns, and keyboards would all get going, there was sometimes an epic level of layered harmony that was really cool.

Sweet Cobra: A bit like Mastodon, if Mastodon wasn’t as good. Heavy riffs and screamed vocals, that got a lot more repetitive than Mastodon. But they had some cool breakdowns in the middle of some of their songs, and I actually got a bit of an early 90s doom-death (like Paradise Lost) vibe in their last song, which was a nice surprise.

Pelican: Four guys, four songs, one hour, no singer, and totally captivating. I was repeatedly reminded of early Opeth. Not because they were at all similar sonically, but the songs are long musical journeys, starting at one point, continually shifting from phase to phase, and ending up somewhere different. They also work repetition to perfection; like Opeth, at the very second you think “hmm, this is cool, but I might start to get bored with this riff soon”, they’ve already moved on to something else. I figure any band who can keep me and the rest of the crowd interested for an hour while playing music I’ve never heard before, without a singer, and without any hummable guitar lines, must have some pretty unique songwriting skills.

Mastodon: After being really wowed by Pelican, I wasn’t sure if Mastodon would be able to top them. But they did, oh yes, they did. They started off by playing some really melodic stuff that was much less intense for me than it seemed to be for the Mastodon guys, who were thrashing about more than the previous two times I’d seen them. So I thought maybe I just wouldn’t be able to latch on to their vibe. But then they hit some heavier, familiar stuff and that’s when things started rockin’ and didn’t stop. I think they played a whole lot of new songs, and it sounds like it’s easily better than “Remission”. More melodic, but still with some really intense sections as well. My favorite line: “This is ‘Workhorse’. It’s a song about work. Work sucks!” And I still think the bass player is the son of Peavy Wagner.

I’d say “Catch this package in a town near you!”, but it’s not coming to a town near you. Suckers!

After reading about this several times here and thus having on my list for a long time, I finally got around to buying it. It was an iTunes purchase, and it worked out really nicely. I was sitting around yesterday trying to decide what I wanted to listen to next, and was thinking of something sort of modern-ish and new-Anathema-like, but I didn’t want to listen to Anathema. So I suddenly remembered that I’d seen “El Cielo” put in that category of music, I hopped to the iTunes store and was listening to the album probably less than a minute later as it started downloading. It was $9.99 for the album, and I think that’s an instant kind of service that’s pretty hard to beat any other way. Even downloading it from an illegal source would have taken a good bit longer and been more work.

Anyway, I only listened to it once, but it sounds pretty cool. If I was to compare unexpected major-label pseudo-prog-rock releases, I think I’ll probably end up liking this one more than The Mars Volta.

The one thing that surprised me though is that I’ve never seen anyone compare the album to Katatonia (and I checked the archive!) To me, it sounds quite similar to “Last Fair Deal Gone Down”, although it does seem to have more tonal variety across the album. I can certainly hear the modern-Anathema comparisions too, which is a good thing. iTunes also has “A Natural Disaster” available, I’m still deciding if I should take the chance on that one.

After reading about this several times here and thus having on my list for a long time, I finally got around to buying it. It was an iTunes purchase, and it worked out really nicely. I was sitting around yesterday trying to decide what I wanted to listen to next, and was thinking of something sort of modern-ish and new-Anathema-like, but I didn’t want to listen to Anathema. So I suddenly remembered that I’d seen “El Cielo” put in that category of music, I hopped to the iTunes store and was listening to the album probably less than a minute later as it started downloading. It was $9.99 for the album, and I think that’s an instant kind of service that’s pretty hard to beat any other way. Even downloading it from an illegal source would have taken a good bit longer and been more work.

Anyway, I only listened to it once, but it sounds pretty cool. If I was to compare unexpected major-label pseudo-prog-rock releases, I think I’ll probably end up liking this one more than The Mars Volta.

The one thing that surprised me though is that I’ve never seen anyone compare the album to Katatonia (and I checked the archive!) To me, it sounds quite similar to “Last Fair Deal Gone Down”, although it does seem to have more tonal variety across the album. I can certainly hear the modern-Anathema comparisions too, which is a good thing. iTunes also has “A Natural Disaster” available, I’m still deciding if I should take the chance on that one.