London Apartment

I had a few minutes and wanted to post some pictures of my apartment in London to those of you who still read the blog. The place is in Wandsworth, which is in South London near the border of Zone 1 and 2. Maybe not as close to work as I'd like it to be but it's important to me that I'm in a good apartment in a nice area. After all, these will be my first steps into the real world. While India has been quite real, maybe too real, I've been living in an apartment supplied by my employer and I don't pay any bills. I didn't have a choice of neighborhoods and I live with the people I work with, so in a lot of ways this has simply been an extension of college. For the first time in my life, the money I make in my job will pay for my basic human needs. I'll pay rent, buy groceries, pay back loans (hopefully) and be able to save money on a scale that is significant to my future financial wellbeing.

I'll keep everyone more updated as my move gets closer (Feb 21st), but in the meantime you can check out my apartment.

Yep, that's the Thames you can see from my balcony

In other news, I talked to Paul Vockler today. This guy was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Carter and Reagan administrations from '77 till '89 and was succeeded by Greenspan. Probably the most important person I've ever met in my life. I was supposed to meet the Prime Minister of Italy on Sunday, but unfortunately I'll be in Delhi for gigs.

Home for the holidays

As much fun as Christmas was in Bangalore last year, I've decided to head home this year for the holidays. It’s about time I get an opportunity to relax, and enjoy the 3 B's.

Beef
Beer
Bowl Games

Tomorrow morning, at 6:45 AM I will get BACK on British Airlines Flight 118 to London (for the second time in a week) and then another 8.5 hours to Chicago, where I will be meeting my parents for a dinner at Ruth's Chris...man, a steak in simmering butter accompanied by a glass of good red wine sounds nothing short of a dream come true.

On Wednesday (20th), I head back to Chicago to meet with a few of my best friends from college who I haven't seen in almost a year. This is sure to be a tame evening.

On Thursday (21st), I head to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field to see the Packers take on the Vikings with my dad and uncle, two men who clearly understand the necessity to stay warm in low temperatures through the imbibing of alcohol. Hey, it may sound like a throw-away game, but both of these teams at 6 - 8 are technically still in the race for the playoffs. I'll get to tailgate with my longtime roommate Jim, just like old times. However, this will be quite a longtime of old times. He wants to begin tailgating 4 hours before the game. Of course, we're spending the night.

Friday (22nd), nothing planned but a day of healing. Then again it's Friday. This is a GTD (game time decision).

That's really all I got right now, but it's a damn good start to what will be an awesome few weeks. Seeing as there will be a healthy amount of partying, I've gone ahead and purchased myself an insurance policy for the time I'm home. This is obviously a good decision for many reasons, but I figure with my planned schedule of activities that includes a hotel room in Chicago on New Years, getting 18 days of $50,000 coverage for 1200 rupees ($25ish) is a bargain I can't afford to pass up.

Lots of 14 hour days

Again, it's been a while, but I haven't had as much time to much of anything besides play rock 'n roll and get ready to move to London. I know, rough life, eh?

So the last month has been exhilarating, and exhausting. My days have gone something like this:

5:30 AM - Alarm goes off
6:00 AM - Bruce picks me up for Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ) rehearsal
6:30 till 9:00 AM - TAAQ rehearsal
10:00 AM - Arrive at work
Between 8:00 - 9:00 PM - Head home
10:00 PM - Get home from work, crash

This has been the schedule for many of my days over the last few weeks.

I usually don't work as much as I have been, but out of the three members of my team, including myself, two of them were out of office for about three weeks. So I was doing my job, as well as doing large parts of their jobs, while rehearsing and traveling on weekends to gigs.

This last weekend I was in Delhi, where we had 2 gigs. The first was for an AIDS benefit put together by the EU and the Thomson Foundation. Eight bands in India wrote original songs for a compilation album, and the top three bands played live for the awards ceremony. So I left on a Wednesday evening, played on Thursday night and then Friday night we had a proper gig with the same two bands we played with for the benefit. (go to the website do download the tune, Keep the Promise) The three bands, Soulmate, Skinny Alley (who I played with about 10 months ago) and TAAQ played at Lodi Gardens in New Delhi. What an amazing gig! The lead guitar players of the three bands are literally the GODS of guitar around these parts. Here are some pics, really only of TAAQ, because that's all I could get my hands on.

The band, minus Rajeev behind the skins. (Bruce, me, Tony, Rzhude)

Tony and I. I love Tony.

It was pretty cold, about 45 degrees F. That's our keyboard player, Chandy, on the left side.

This is Rajeev, my boy. I may be the youngest in the band, but this guy acts more like a 21 year old than anyone. Damn good drummer, as well. Can you believe he started playing the drums when he started playing with TAAQ 10 years ago?!
Intense.

Rzhude (pronounced Rudy). A frickin hilarious guy. We have a lot of fun on road.
I look like someone out of Huey Lewis and the News.

The next night, Saturday, we had the TAAQ 10th Anniversary party. This included a press conference, sponsorship by Wrangler who fitted us in our apparel for the night, and sponsorship by Seagram's who sponsored the booze. We played for about 90 minutes, and then partied with the friends and family we invited. I have yet to get any pictures of that but I'll post them when they come along.

Seeing as I've been having so much fun, I'll be postponing my transfer to London till the middle of February. If I keep having this much fun, we'll see if I ever leave.

I have 4 gigs this weekend, and then I leave for London on Monday for about 5 days. When I get back, I'll head to Chennai for a recording session, and then I leave on Tuesday morning for the US. I will need the R&R!

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.

Taj Mahal Pics

I wasn't sure if I was going to see the Taj Mahal before I left India, and to tell you the truth, I was never that broken up about it. There are so many places on my list that I need to see before I leave India in the next 3 - 6 months, I just didn't see Agra (where the Taj is) making it. After all, I've seen maybe a thousand pictures.

Missing it would have been a mistake. It's not one of the 7 Wonders of the World for nothing. Here is a photo tour of my trip to Agra:

The entrance to the Taj Mahal compound, where it costs a foreigner 750 rupees (about $18) and a native Indian 20 rupees (45 cents)

This is the main entrance to the gardens

The Taj Mahal from the main entrance in the last picture

From the steps inside the gardens


Some guy blocking my view of the Taj.

One of the two identical mosques on either side of the Taj Mahal

A river runs behind it

All of the Islamic script is inlaid marble. Sounds boring, but really pretty cool when you actually see it.

From the front of the Taj Mahal towards the entrance to the gardens.

My whole reason for being in Delhi was to play with a rock band, and I'm waiting to get those pics. I'll post those this week before I head to Delhi and then to Chennai to play a couple more shows.

Taj Mahal

So I haven't posted in a while, but there really hasn't been anything to post. Just business as usual.
I'm headed to Delhi today with a rock band, Thermal and a Quarter, to play at the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi for a student festival and we'll be stopping at the Taj Mahal while we're in Delhi, so hopefully I'll have something damn interesting to post when I return on Tuesday.

Northwestern University: 1 - 0

In an extremely emotional football game that I could only read about, Northwestern beat Miami (OH) 21 - 3 in the Pat Fitzgerald's first game as head coach. Fitzgerald is the youngest coach in Division 1 football. In an odd twist of fate, Miami (OH) is where Walker played and coached before coming to Northwestern where he was the first coach to take Northwestern bowling 3 times.

Man, do I miss being able to watch these games...