Tale of A Rock Band from Lucknow

In my life so far, I have confronted many bands and been at the managerial end of a few. Things are different for a band that is based in a city like Lucknow and others that are based in metros like Mumbai and all.

When I was a kid, when music meant nothing more to me than just something you would listen to while you are travelling long distances of whatever your car stereo caters. As I grew up, there was a great paradigm shift and I realized agrreing to the fact that it is the greatest platform to score with chicks and get laid. This view of mine was reinforced when I really came to know some of Lucknow’s musicians.

Over the span of past 4 years, the ones I get to interact with can’t even define genres precisely, I don’t mean to say ‘I can’ but I have got a decent number of views to back up my point. And it is rather disheartening to see in an online forum for a Rock Competition, to announce its entry criteria as “Only Rock Bands” and then there was a post by the same admin looking forward to a genreless band to participate and grace the occasion.

To be frank, I am not the best of musicians, I am not even the tiniest bit of the talent I have been with but, there are times I feel saddened by the fact that there exists an altogether different category of musicians who play with music (mind it ‘play with music’) just to satisfy their alter self egos.

This blog, is about one such band I used to manage about a year back or so. We ended up on very bad lines and I won’t say all the fault was theirs. We both made mistakes. Being from a communication design background, I somehow had a feeling that everything should point in one direction and they quite didn’t second my views. I never charged them for any of my services. I made their logo, designed their graphic, got those contacts and clicked their profile picture. (not The Works, they are nicer fellows, at least they give credits)

I realized when I should, that the band was about lies, lies, lies and some more of lies. It is rather interesting to see that how the other three innocent members of the band had to stand with two culprits. I was in mood to mend my ties with this particular band and I just wish the following incident wouldn’t have happened.

While I was with one of the leading news papers, in Lucknow, these guys drove all the way to catch me and to tell me that they are the first rock band (a quick word: they have always told me that they don’t follow genres, or else they wouldn’t have sang songs like Mauja hi Mauja on stage) in city to recorded ‘LIVE’ (quite an oxymoron, isn’t it? Either you can be recorded or you can be LIVE, not both! ) I asked them to mail me a release and since my bosses were a little strict, I decided to cross check the facts mentioned in the press brief by them, 9 out of 10 facts were tampered with. I wrote a mail back stating those facts, and incidentally these guys manage to get it out in the paper I was working with.

If it would have been just the article, it would have been fine with me, but the picture that was carried along with the article was clicked by me, without my permission and without credits with my ‘Copyright Notice’ being mercilessly scraped off. There was never a bigger insult for me as a photographer or as a person who wanted to help out others. It was still acceptable, if I wouldn’t have told them an year back not to use my photographs for their promotional practices. They ignored.

I was hurt and I was no exception. There were instances that one of the two culprits wanted to chop off one of the three innocents photographs because that fellow, surprisingly an amazing keyboard player was about to leave the band. I pity him. He didn’t deserve that. What was even more surprising is the fact that these two culprits lied on his face more ever threatening me raise my voice against this copyright infringement when they should be the ones apologizing.

I don’t know if I am a good photographer or not, but one of them made me believe that I am not a good photographer, despite everything. I never knew, I could be so weak and let it seep in for a day but then, the next day I realized, if I hadn’t been such a good photographer, why would they let me click them and why the picture that belonged to me was published. The answer seemed pretty clear. I was hurt for a day, and the words he said echoed in my mind.

I am not afraid to take the name of the band I have been talking about throughout, they are known as Soul Rebellions. I remember, I was the first one to write a proper feature on them three years back, the first one and by far the best one to be written on them three years back and I never realize that my articles about them in coming time will speak about their failures instead of their success stories.

As the rumours stay, they are busy  defaming me in the small town named Lucknow and to be honest, it’s not a matter of worry for me. I have lived my dreams and I m fighting this battle being true to my words.