Jam session gone wild

CHENNAI: This seems to be the season for bands, old and new, good and bad, to get together in the city for gigs, small and big. The most recent concert by two bands, The Shakey Rays and Adam and the Fish Eyed Poets, falls in the small category, and turned out to be a pretty good way for someone to spend a Friday night. As a part of the Score Night series by Score Magazine every Friday at Star Rock on Kodambakkam High Road, this particular performance seemed more like a jam session by the bands, with musicians yelling into the mike, requesting their friends in the audience (who were a majority of the audience, minus the occasional compulsive alcoholic, obliviously head banging) to hand them over their guitar from the silver couches. Shakey Rays, the rhythm and blues band that went up first, mostly played their own songs, but also two covers. Some of their tracks deviated to have a bit of a rock ’n’ roll beat to them, inviting the audience to dance along. Their play list included No Secret, This is Where it all Begins, a daring protest song and a rawer and noisier version of The Beatles’ Yer Blues. “Most of our songs are based on everyday stuff, things that happen to us like night outs and getting caught by the police,” says Vikram Kannan, one of the singers of Shakeys Rays. He, along with the other singer and guitarist, Dhruva Gautham, writes all the songs, from their album Tunes from the Big Belly. The band also has Niranjan Swaminathan and Iuni Yoomi. And if you are not an expert on the Chennai’s music scene, you would have expected an all-girls band to take the stage when Adam and his Fish Eyed Poets were about to begin playing, but three guys walked up, delivering some blues numbers. Led by Kishore Krishna, who writes a majority of their songs, Abhinav Krishnaswamy, Prabhu Muralee and Nischinth Murari were the other band members. They played original tracks from their two albums Snakeism and Dead Loops. With an almost dark side to their songs, Kishore says, “My songs involve narratives featuring universal characters in unique or ironic situations trying to come to terms with circumstances and deal with consequences.” The name of the band does catch one’s attention. “The name came out of an instinctive attempt to divert attention away from the artist and back to the music,” he explains.