Off to Oasis ' 13 : The songs we are performing in BITS-Pilani

I am just dropping in for a quick post because that is what I promised in an earlier post. All my enthusiasm to post about every single thing turned out to be ephemeral like almost every other ambition I have these days. Ephemeral. Ahh, this word wiil never leave me. The irony.

I am leaving for BITS-Pilani's cultural fest tomorrow. We were supposed to go to IIT-Kanpur's fest but things got messy and our college's music club didn't get accommodation there.

Well I am not really excited about the Pro night because it is going to be Farhan Akhtar. I am mainly excited about the Suicide at Midnight event. You are supposedly taken to a dark room at midnight duh with candles etc and made to write your own suicide note. This time they are also going to make us write a will. Other than that I've heard that they have 3 v 3 football on a field watered with soap. Well I really really really hope it is true.

Well the primary motive behind going to Oasis is for participating in the western band competition. We are performing a total of 4 songs. Others are also participating in Indian classical and other solo categories.

Even the Dance troupe of our college, Dance Coders , are coming to Pilani. The drama group is going to Kanpur. Everybody is split up. Ah, the commotion and drama.

Anyway, you should check all 4 of the songs we are performing.

Jeremy by Pearl Jam. It is about a guy named Jeremy who faces bullying. It is really a masterpiece. It is based on a real life incident. Jeremy was bullied a lot and was suppressed, and he finally speaks in front of the class by committing suicide in front of everyone. You really need to watch the video. Eddie Vedder was inspired to write this song when he read a small article about Jeremy in the local newspaper.

There is a sudden surge of Pearl Jam songs being covered in my college. What more could you want? I think every Friday Night Live has one Eddie Vedder being performed. I am really proud of DAIICT's music scene. I think I will write one post about it when I return.

Who did that to you by John Legend. This song reminds me of Jack White's cover of Love is Blindness. Ah, I just love this song. Well this song is in Django Unchained's OST.

Under the bridge by RHCP. I am sure everyone of you has heard this song.

By the sword by Slash. Well we are covering this in acoustic. More like the Myles Kennedy one and not the Stockdale one.

Band Introduction : Bastille and the story behind some of their songs

Introduction to the band Bastille, and also how it got its name. Also discusses the story behind the songs Flaws, Icarus and What would you do?


It's a band from London, first formed in 2010. It started out as a solo project by Dan Smith, who later decided to form a band. It has 4 members.

Why is the band named as Bastille?

Well, because Dan Smith's birthday comes on July 15th 14th which is the French National Day also know as the Bastille day. French revolution?

I had stumbled upon one of their songs before, but never really gave them much attention then until, I heard Flaws.

Flaws is a very beautiful synthesized song. It just has such a good feel. The voice is such emotive and innocent. And obviously the British accent always is an argument winner.

I love the tiny synthesized fillers in the song, they remind me of the music in  Mario. This song is just too innocent and peppy.

What is the story behind the song Flaws by Bastille?

Well here is an intercept from an interview, It tells what the protagonist in the song feels.

"perplexed by, and probably a bit jealous of, some people who seem so completely confident and comfortable in their own skin"
Which does make sense too. But for me and for many other Youtubers who commented on the song, the song is more about two people in a relationship. It's about how this guy is completely amazed by his girl's way of being carefree and wearing her flaws on her sleeves. He wants to be like that and learn that. It's like two opposite people completely compatible in a relationship, both on the opposite side of the spectrum and still ending up being in the middle of the rainbow. (Oh my god, that was cheesy. Pardon me.)

Anyway, the band denies any such intention in the song. Isn't it funny how songs can be interpreted so differently by different people?

" I don’t see Flaws as a relationship song at all, but pretty much everyone who has spoken to me about it has heard it that way"

Check it out on Itunes!

Another good song by the band is Icarus. Icarus from the Greek Mythology.

What does the song Icarus by Bastille mean?

Here is what the band has to say about the song,

"Icarus’ makes it difficult to believe the band are exclusively singing about a Greek Myth: “Icarus comes from things I feel about myself and other people that I know, I generally try not to write songs that seem too personal and sometimes use characters or stories to try and move the focus away from myself and from more obvious topics."

Before you listen to the song, what exactly is the Icarus reference in the song?

Well for those who have forgotten or don't know. Icarus comes from the Greek Mythology. Icarus was the son of Daedalus the architect behind the Labyrinth. Daedalus and his son both were imprisoned by the king Minos of Crete.

To escape, Daedalus comes up with idea of making fake wings attached to his arms using wax and feathers. He and his son both get these contraptions. Daedalus warns Icarus not to go too close to the sun because it would melt the wax away and result in a tragedy. But when they begin flying Icarus gets really excited and giddy about the fact and ends up flying too close to the sun. His wax melts away and he probably ends up frantically flapping his arms for a moment or two before falling down ( Unreliable cartoon source). Anyway, he ends up falling and dying and this becomes an classic example of failed ambitions also known as Hubris which also comes from the Greek Mythology .

"Hubris means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power. Hubris is usually associated with the "simple-minded"."

Source: Wikipedia.

Anyway, here is the song, it will make way more sense now. I just love the way he says the word Icarus.
Check it out on Itunes!

Another song which I really liked by them is "What would you do". 

It is a cover of a pretty famous rap by City High. It has some really nice lyrics. I don't want to spoil it but it is about this girl who ends up being a stripper because she thinks that the only thing she can do to feed her baby. She tells her story and then this guy tells her to leave the job and says there are other respectable options to earn some buck. That she is not the only one with problems. I cannot decide which side to take. What would you do?

I like the cover better than the original because its more musical in a sense and I just love the reverb in the song.

Check it out on Itunes!

Another song which you should check out is, Pompeii. 
Check it out on Itunes!

Anyway, comment what you think about the songs? Which side would you take?

Check Bastille out on Itunes!

Share this, share some good music.

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Why I Keep Getting the Writer's Block and What I am Going to Do About It Now.

Also Kitchen Utensils.

I was thinking why I have not been writing or blogging lately. Well, I had been looking at my blog completely wrong. Sorry blog :( This blog is meant to be a blog. I was treating it as my own magazine with all the longer articles, quality and themes. All the expectations of getting a really good 'article'  killed my enthusiasm and I developed a lot of inertia. I have so many partially written articles which are rotting as drafts waiting to be published into the real world but will never end up being mouthed by other lips just because I don't think they are good enough.

Expectations are stupid stupid stupid. 

 If I look back, most of the times I have stopped writing is because of this reason. Expectations from writing in the longer form. I used to have so many ideas which could have been penned but I ended up tweeting about them (shorter form with minuscule expectations) . Tweeting them gave me the false idea that I have been 'writing' and giving justice to all the ideas in my head which wanted to be penned but were cheated ultimately. False advertisement.

"Don't tweet about your next article's idea. Ever."

Blog V2. Macro Micro Blogging. 

Anyway, I have decided to treat this blog differently now. I am going to treat it like twitter just in the longer form. Macro-micro blogging. Which is um just blogging. So smart. Haha. Devolution.

So I am just going to blog anything that comes to my mind. Anything that happens in my day. Just about anything. No expectations. Just writing whatever catches my mind's fancy. Anything random. There is an ant walking over the banana resting on my desk. Probably feeling very proud.

So, yes.
I won't give a fuck about expectations. The length can be any. I will just write anything. Not falling for this trap again. Hopefully. No expectations, no disappointments. I just want to keep writing, it makes me happy. I don't want any kinds of inertia. Just free flowing writing.

The power of one-click publish on the internet gets demeaned if it takes so much courage to do it. It's supposed to give me a voice and I am reclaiming it :)

Stop being an idiot before your exams!

How all of us behave like complete idiots before our exams.

Pre-Examination Rant:

Second in-semester exams start day after tomorrow. We've got Algorithms and Database Managements systems on the first day. I can count the number of lectures of DBMS I have attended on the fingers of my hands, one hand, even if I were suffering from Oligodactyly . I really find it uninspiring and have sympathies for the person who has to handle databases when he graduates. I don't want to be that person.

Its too much theory and blah blah. I am probably wrong and am sure DBMS is a very important subject, but I just don't get inspired by it. I have to start studying it. Probably after this post.


I had a lot of tiny epiphanies today, Um usual pre-examination behavior. Even the beginning of this blog was through one of these mini epiphanies.

Anyway,
I hate something about examinations a lot. No, not about the system or anything. It's about how most of us behave in the few days before exams.

We dedicate few days before examination to studying. Just studying. It may be ten days for few or a maybe a week. These days suck. It's like the only thing that you think you are supposed to do in these few days is to study. And if you are not studying you better be sleeping or eating.

If I look at my complete day in which I was supposedly studying and denying myself of any recreation, I hardly studied. Then what did I do? Nada. Void. Nothing. Neither is my studying proportional to the time I invest in it nor do I permit myself in doing anything else. If I want to take a break, I take a nap. Wake up in cold sweat and rush back to my desk to make up for the extended sleep.

This is completely stupid. Stupid Stupid Stupid.

Shouldn't I just study properly for some part of the day and do something else in the remaining. No. Rather take the small amount of learning and distribute it throughout the day so in the end half of it doesn't make sense and there is hardly any retention. Argh. Who are you trying to fool?! You are just being stupid! You keep checking your Facebook, Twitter, Webmail and Gmail. You keep cycling through them. You read random articles. You strike up a conversation with friends you've not talked to in a long time.

Hey!
Long time!? How have you been?!

And then you don't even look for a reply. You don't give a fuck. You are busy reading comments on Feline videos on Youtube. You think how can everyone be so easily distracted? Oh and in between all this you read a line or two. Pretend you are studying. You are just killing time and waiting for the day to end. Waiting for the exams to end.

Dude, I spent the whole day studying! The course is just too large!

Can we just be a little smart and not waste 10 or 7 days before every exam pretending?! We anyway pretend a lot in our lives. Leave this out please. Don't pretend to study just because everybody is studying the whole day! It is not sacrilegious to do something else than studying before exams. There is no police.

Don't be a sheep!

Source:  Fluent in Spanish

But it is really funny, how I am so touchy and feeling so much about productivity just right before my examinations. Because after it ends, I'll turn a deaf ear to all such pleas in my stupid head. I'll be completely vella. I'll be in the state of doing nothing at all and wasting time till the dates for the next examination are announced.

"Vellapanti is a series of endless actions having the sole aim to kill time and doing chutiyapa at the same time"
Source: UrbanDictionary

True. We miss something when it's denied.

On an unrelated note. Only know you love her when you Let Her Go. Awesome song. Check it out. One of my favorite voices! The band is called Passenger.

 

PS. I have been tampering with the blog layout throughout the day and finally decided upon the sidebar thingy, which you see on the side. Duh. Tell me what you think of it? Please? I just can't decide.

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