Being the 'never say never' person I am, I kept at it and began attending numerous underground metal gigs in Chennai at "Unwind Center". "Unwind Center" was a dark, dingy hole in the wall performance venue for the most obnoxious teenage boys from a myriad of random metal bands, along with their 10,000 million anorexic groupies. I tried hard to fit in by wearing black clothes, dark make-up and scary looking junk jewellery. Unfortunately, my roundness (I was 65 kilos back then) gave me away.
A few years later I met a bunch of "humour metal band" boys who were super talented, humble, down to the earth and the exact opposite of being obnoxious. I found their behaviour rather puzzling. Were'nt they in a band? Where were their groupies? They introduced me to a world of underground metal in Mumbai. These folks looked scary with their gloom and doom metal acts on stage, but were extremely sweet and so approachable offstage!
These "humor metal band" boys opened my eyes to the world of music. They underwent hours of practice (jams, in their language) to perfect every act they pulled off on stage. They spent precious man-hours writing songs, recording them, making them into a full length album and finally selling them to a handful of "fans".
For the longest time I was proud to be known as their friend. I tagged along with them everywhere. And now that I'm married to the guitarist of the above mentioned band, I see the turmoil in his soul for not being able to really pursue his musical dreams.
It's time that this country recognized talent and actually paid that talent, HARD CASH. And I don't just speak for the music fraternity, I speak for all artists - painters, writers, poets. We demand recognition! Give it to us today or your future generation are going to be a bunch of unappreciative, artistically illiterate idiots.
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