Banning The Bands

Bands are now everywhere, and here when I talk about bands I mean the rock bands. The infestation of the bands has turned into a plague. Go to any town or city, nay any village even, and you are sure to find a band even though there may not be a school. What are these bands? Where do they come from? What do they do? Well, these are the questions that haunted me after a series of auditory torture at the hand of bands!

I grew up to the music of bands like The Beatles and The Carpenters and I had a lot of respect for them. When I was about to enter college, band music entered Bengali culture through bands like Bhumi and Chandrabindoo. There music was refreshingly new with a touch of Bengali folk music. But before I came to college I had never been to a live band performance. The first bands I heard in college were Indian Ocean and Mother Jane. It was a wonderful experience and I simply loved it. But that was it! That was the last time I wanted to hear a band play!

My experience with bands after that has been very traumatic. I have been forced to attend live band performances where high pitched cacophony is regarded as music, with a sprinkling of bad lyrics and worse voice. I have also been forced to tolerate live band performances that lack melody, lyrics or music, being hailed through the Public Address System! I have had enough but no one else seems to mind. So I decided to study the various bands active in my town and in Calcutta and Delhi. I must admit that the whole experience was a test of my sanity and sensibility and also a test of my temper. I have come across only 3 bands out of about 25 who can perform decently.

Most of the bands start at school. Students who think they are ‘cool’ and whose parents can afford an electric guitar or drum set and amplifiers are the ones who start a band. It is mostly a three or four member band and the lead singer is always the leader of the band and is the ‘coolest’ of the lot. The knowledge of music or any talent whatsoever is unnecessary as long as one has the money to buy the gadgets or is ‘cool’. Since not many have the money to buy these instruments, each school has one or two bands, and the band members regard themselves as elites. They have a place to jam, where they let their animal instinct loose and the result is apocalyptic noise.

These bands perform at school by playing songs of hit bands, and in the absence of any competition, they are hailed as awesome and talented. By the time the band members reach college, their ego has been bloated up to the size of the universe, and they regard themselves as authorities on music, fashion, coolness and women. They have this weird accent copied from some rockstar which they impose on others. They start keeping shabby long hair, and strange and dirty looking beards, dressing up in clothes that are either too small or too big for their size. They stop hanging out with guys and start hanging out with girls, and you are sure to find a gang of girls swooning over them. These bands start performing more regularly and even go for competitions. They now sing their own songs that are unpalatable. To hide the harsh voice and the bad lyrics, they resort to playing death metal and metal rock and other such genres where the electric guitar and drum drowns the voice and lyrics. But even then it is a torture.

In my town, bands are now playing at all occasions, even the pujas. The puja held near my house had a band night this time and the performance was broadcast over the PAS. The band had no tune or melody, and sitting in my house I felt a strong urge to borrow some money, buy some rotten eggs, go over to the event and throw the eggs at the band members. Thankfully my sanity prevailed.

But seriously; does no one mind what goes as music these days? Do we have to tolerate whatever is served to us in the name of music, consoling ourselves by saying that we do not have the money to hire better bands? Should we even allow anyone and everyone to perform in public? Do we not have a law against noise pollution? People have every right to form bands and jam but why can they not play melodious music, if not lyrics? Why can the band members not understand that they are singing rubbish and improve themselves? I guess the answer to most of these questions lie in the fact that people who form these bands is not driven by the love for music but by the urge to be popular and get girls.

I do not know about you, but I hate these bands and their music.