It's been a while

I realize that it has been more than a month since I've written, and now that I have some time after work I thought I'd write a brief synopsis of the last 5 weeks. For the sake of clarity and convenience, I've divided this entry into sections.

Wow, can you tell I've been working too much?

1. Thermal and a Quarter

So I've been playing with a rock band in India called Thermal and a Quarter, and it's been awesome! Just last weekend, I had a wireless setup for our show at St. John's Medical College that allowed me to wander all over the huge stage that featured a fashion-show-like ramp that went over the crowd. Despite the pouring rain throughout the show, more than 400 people stuck around to catch the show. I don't think they were disappointed. It was the 10-year anniversary for the band, having played their first gig at the same college fest 10 years ago. I think the best moment of the gig was during our spot-on cover of Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," where during the sax solo I walked out on the ramp over the crowd (it had stopped raining towards the end of the show) only to feel the hysterical crowd surrounding me. They were reaching towards my feet and I was a little concerned one of them was going to grab me and not let go. Total adrenaline. Crazy, eh? I don't have any pictures (yet) but I do have this review of the gig that was in the metro section of today's Hindu, which is one of the biggest daily newspapers in India.
There will be a video soon, but in the meantime check out this video from a gig several weeks ago in Chennai (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2sNJrr8sr4)

2. Traveling

Since the last time I wrote, I had a biz trip to NYC and London. Conveniently, I scheduled my flights such that I got into NYC on Friday night with no work to do till Monday morning. That left plenty of time for major league debauchery with Jake, Zach Mo, and some total throw backs from high school, Brad Twohig and Rob Phillips. The crazy part about the latter two is that I've been good friends with both of them for 6+ years, but they went to different high schools and never knew each other till they moved to NYC a few months ago. They met through a mutual friend and now live together, which made it easy for me to knock down two birds with one stop... that included 5 bottles of wine and a completely unnecessary bottle of champagne around 11:30 PM. I renewed my visa in NYC, had a few meetings (all over lunch/dinner), and caught the Medeski, Martin and Wood Halloween show on Tuesday night. Awesome! Then I was in London for about 36 hours for a day of strategy meetings. I would have stayed longer, but I had to get back for the aforementioned gig. Here's a picture of me, Jake and Winnie. My worlds were totally colliding.


3. Future Plans

So I think I finally have it figured out, but it's not what I had originally thought it would be. It turns out I'm not coming back to the US after all. I'm moving London. According to my current schedule, I will be in London in January. Permanently. I'll be working for IndiaIT there helping to build what is currently a skeleton crew marketing team. I'll be back in Bangalore from time to time, so hopefully the gigging can continue.

That's about it. The past 5 weeks wrapped up in a nice little blog post. I think part of my reluctance to start posting again was knowing that I'd have to somehow summarize the last month, but that wasn't bad at all. I should be getting some more pictures soon, so I'll post them. The next month or so should be crazy, including several gigs outside of Bangalore and a week in London to scout apartments and have more strategy meets. Time will fly but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.