Chasing monsoons in Goa

My two month overdue Goa post :

I had always wanted to go back to Goa since my first trip there last year, when I stayed at Anjuna. This time around, we stayed at a place near the Candolim beach.
The onward journey was a complete nightmare, owing in part to Bangalore's notorious traffic jams, and a lousy bus, which had no shock absorbers whatsoever.

However, once we got to Goa and had taken some much needed rest, we lazed around, drank made merry, sat staring at the Ocean till well past midnight with a bottle of Zinfandel, took long walks on the moonlit deserted beach, wondered at the abandoned mysterious "River Princess" anchored and left desolate in the middle of the ocean, the dark silhouette of a ghost ship, just off limits to the people on the beach.


Late in the evening, gorging on tuna sandwiches, fried fish and the ever-dependable beverages churned out by the flamboyant Mr. Mallya, sitting by a shack half open to the breeze blowing in from the sea, and listening to some good old live music, I was convinced I was in paradise.

Fortunately for me, my cell phone conked and refused to start no matter what I did, worked well for me. With no one to bother me, I felt totally liberated. From chasing peafowls perched on stark tree tops early in the morning, waiting for the sun to shimmer down and dry the dew of their beautiful feathers, hoping no one would notice them, to observing fishermen returning to the docks early in the morning after a night out on the violent sea, unloading their catch, an early morning drive through Goa is a revelation in itself.


Soaked to the bone by the monsoons, devoid of too many tourists, hotels that are not too over-priced, and with only the occasional junkie touting heroin and ecstasy, Goa I discovered, is just a slice of pure heaven in the off-season.

So, so you think you can tell ??

Don't you just love it when you rediscover the brilliance of an absolute gem of a song that you had long dismissed for a cliche', and whose musical value you had equaled to no more than the drone of a house fly !

The flip side of the combination of cheap digital storage and "sophisticated" music players , is that you end up with all these gigabytes of songs lying in your hard disk, but do not devote enough time to let them grow on you. The songs just play in a sequence, and you hardly ever pay any attention to the music or the lyrics.

Given that I don't consider myself a luddite, it would be stupid, not to mention futile, to oppose the innovations in the field of digital storage technology.

The need of the hour, is therefore, either better design, or more intelligence in music players.
Something that can make it easy for listeners to organize their music, by tagging, intelligent rating, or ways of creating playlists that people can actually use.


Cover Art :

Album art, is another feature, that is in jeopardy of being lost into oblivion with the rise of digital technology, and is in desperate need for a revival by means of integration with music players.(fortunately there has been some relief in this aspect with most major players recognizing this need already, notably Apple, Winamp etc ...) .


Informational Tidbits or Trivia :

Often I have noticed that when I like a song, its not just because of the music or the lyrics, but also because of the history behind that song, or what you could call trivia. It helps people relate to the song, and helps create a more lasting impression.

Some examples of these that stand out for me, are U2's "Stuck in a moment ..." as a tribute to INXS' Michael Hutchence. Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" incident where Syd Barrett walked into the studio, where they were recording the song as a tribute to him, after an absence of seven years.
The more popular one, might be Don McLean's "American Pie", the interpretation of the lyrics for which, radio stations devoted entire shows.

It would be great if there were meta-information of this kind, that is released along with every album which contains tidbits on the songs, including but not limited to the history of the band, the composers involved, the circumstances that led to the composing of the song, the kind of guitars or pedals or other relevant instruments used, the lyrics of the song, the music sheets for the songs, and any other relevant information that they might consider significant from the perspective of the enthusiasts who buy their albums.

Considering that before the advent of the digital age, most of this information was part and parcel of the physical album art, I am at a loss to understand why this most straightforward of all adaptations has been overlooked when producing digital media. The absence of it just makes everything that much more fuzzy.

The meta-information could either be hosted on a site for music players to retrieve online or could be embedded as part of the cd itself, or perhaps both (Considering not all music players have access to online information) Either way, the goal is for music players to integrate and use this information and provide it to the end listener.

The benefits of adapting this way are bidirectional. It would greatly aid the cause of the musicians by helping them fixate the impression of their albums in the minds of their fans. It would help music enthusiasts differentiate between different genres, understand the music they listen to, figure out what kind of music appeals to them ...

In short, it would help people understand the music they like.



Or, maybe its just me ? :)

Run Baby ...

You, in your track suits, and your plugged-in ipods, when will you learn to run up to your lofty gymnasiums, enclosed in its air-conditioned, glass-walled goodness, blaring Ricky Martin on surround-sound, high-wattage speakers .

'cos that's the only way you're ever gonna lose those extra jiggly pounds.
Not by driving up in your swanky air-conditioned car with your tinted windows pulled up, nor by buying a two thousand dollar 8 in 1 home work-out machine.

Run baby run ...