I'm Back....

...from my little three week holiday and better than ever. Well, that’s if being better than ever led to being sore, slightly over tanned, a tired like never before.
It’s been awhile since I wrote here. It’s been awhile since I even typed on a keyboard. That’s colossal since I’m only online every other second. What’s even more massive was the amount of messages I received on Facebook and on e-mail while I was gone. During my trip I met quite a few musicians and discovered some new music that I can’t wait to share with you guys. Got Theja Meru’s album ‘Believe’ {score!}, I received an album from a singer I had met called ‘Changsen Pongen’ {double awesome} and while I wont be around in Dimapur to watch White Lion in concert I got a hold of their music.

Three weeks escape could be considered a dry spell {a small death if you will}, but I shall try and attempt to return EC to the brilliance that it was before my heart was reminded, yet again, of how much I love the mountains. So on with the show.

Nagaland was brilliant and impressive abounding with several mountain ranges, beautiful lakes and streams, the food, the military, multiple camp sites, countless shopping, open mic nights, local talent and a general sense of achievement and connection. But now I’m back, I should unpack soon and I must finish this blog before that. Let us all commence crossing our fingers.

While I didn’t have normal access to the internet during my stay in Dimapur, I still kept a record of the things I had experienced and seen during my days there. The next few posts might be filled with bits and pieces of notes from my journal.

For all my readers out there,I hope your November was a funfest like mine and you spent it getting tons of shoes and loads of food in your belly. I know I did. It really is something to behold and as this is my first long vacation since I joined my company, I surely did enjoy it to the fullest.
But regardless, if you had fun or not here is a track that anyone can enjoy. Consider this an introduction to the greatness that is to come. I hope to have a steady stream of posts from now until the New Year with a lot of great music, and quite possibly the best stuff you’ll ever see and hear on EC. Honestly.

If I was in my room all alone on a Sunday afternoon then this track leaves me head bouncing. Wait for the beat to pick up about thirty seconds into this one. It is worth the wait. ‘There goes the neighborhood’ by Sheryl Crow. More music is being collected as I speak. I’m off to unpack my life in awhile. Have fun this week in whatever country you’re currently located at. Cheers, and come back often.

And for anyone who would like to get in touch with me, send me music to listen to and possibly promote, or just say hi contact me: evelinerajan@gmail.com

On Vacation.

Hello dear readers, this is your captain speaking.

For those of who who have just stumbled onto this blog, I've been spending the past week in Dimapur, Nagaland and I've been living it up on a little slice of winter vacation. Due to these good times I haven't had a lot of access to the internet and it's really difficult for me to get to a cyber cafe in town and upload music. So I have no new music for you kids to gobble up. I’m spending this week visiting the capital, Kohima- specifically 'Dream Cafe' and the war cemetery. The following week I’ll be visiting some towns and villages in Dimapur.

As I wont be around for awhile, I’d like you to check out these fine blogs for your reading enjoyment in my absense.

Bhumika's Boudoir

Confuzd Jughead

Manuscrypts

Jugular Bean

The Eastern Glow

Pete

Enjoy them at your leisure. EC sincerely recommends them. To all my readers: Enjoy your November. Cheers.

Note to self: check the status of the flight.

I'm neurotic when it comes to travel. I hope I score a nice aisle seat with a cute guy beside me. I have always been a nervous flyer. This time I'm alot more jumpy and anxious as it's the first time on my own. I seem like I'm not bothered but I keep an eye out for all of the world's evils.

Xanax, anyone?

Days Until I Fly To Dimapur: 1

People Left on Shopping List*: 50

*Number is a minimum and subject to change.

A couple more hours until I'm out of this place! I have compiled a list of ten things I hope to accomplish before I return to B'lore at the end of the month:

1. Go for the movie 'Quantum of Solace' with some new friends.

2. Dine on smoked bacon, smoked bacon, smoked bacon!

3. Travel safely on two non-delayed, hopefully non-nauseating and non-painful flights from here to Dimapur via Kolkata.

4. Meet my niece –Abigail.

5. Visit my friends from college, Zenith, Ralli and Ela.

7. Meet an old friend and recently made DCP officer of Dimapur.

8. Get drunk.

9. Get lots of shopping done and visit places of interest.

10. Go for a local concert.

OMG, TGIF, welcome at last to another artist showcased here on EC. I'd never have heard of this radiant artist if not for Imcha. The name is Senti Toy.
At first listen I loved it and that prompted me to take a trip through this article written on her here.

Her sound reminds me of a lot of different and equally diverse influences and for the first hour or so I found myself unable to accurately put into words what I was hearing.

I guess you could say this is a serious example of the new wave of genre blurring musical acts (and really, what's a genre today? Everything is broken off from multiple patterns. Even MySpace has you list the three- yeah, you heard- three genres your band's music fits into.)
So the track below is by Naga artist, Senti Toy called 'How Many Stories Do You Read on My Face' and it's my new favorite song because it sounds so very intricate and oriental. After this track ended, my head mentally ticked off and said "ok, that's going online," because it easily makes for one of the best songs I have heard in a long time.

I'll shut up now so you can listen more closely to 'How Many Stories Do You Read on My Face' by Senti Toy. Happy weekend, everyone. I shall try to post from Nagaland if I am able to.

I'll miss you almost as much as you'll miss me.

Varied Updates

You can never keep a secret from your mother.

Not that this blog was going to be much of a secret anyways, but I decided to only spread it to a few people at first to gather reactions, critiques, choose the sort of tone I would write with and finally tell everyone about it. My older sister, brother-in-law and twin read it when I had began writing here. One of them told my mum, not sure who and now I'm in trouble. In proper official fashion, I am opening the blog up to the whole wide world. Or whoever happens to stumble upon it. Whichever.

I'm starting to feel icky and I'm just about convinced that I'm going to be catching some nasty ass TB or pneumonia or the flu or a cold. My mother kicked into on- the- spot- nurse so that I won't be sick when I have to travel- which gets on her nerves, especially since I don't listen to a thing she says when I'm sick.

(I think it's time for a collective *sneeze* for those of you who feel my pain. Ready? AaahhChhoooo. Ah! Much better?)

One more day until I depart for Dimapur, Nagaland and already word is starting to spread there that I'll be coming into town. This will mean a bit of travel, probably a bit of money out of pocket, and I don't think I'll be posting very often here. Also, it will mean leaving behind my crew (who I'm so used to seeing every day) and a lot of things that can only be found in Bangalore {family for one}. Fortunately, and this is an additional benefit for me, there will be no boyfriend left behind. If you read this blog, feel free to submit a list of reasons why I should devote some of my vacation to you, and I shall put you into consideration. Oh hell, if you put up with reading this blog, you pretty much deserve anything you want from me.

As promised in my previous post, a wish for Sheethal and a track of your choice up here on EC. And this dude gets his track played here today. Thanks for writing in Pete and for providing us all with some awesome music.
Thrice is an Experimental Rock band from California. The first couple of times or so I heard this track titled 'Come all you weary', I didn't know what to think. What I think it proves though is that I'm a sucker for the indie sound when it's used in a song that builds and builds and builds until it is an indefinable sonic shower of joy. And I like it. I probably would have given a kidney to sit in on a live set of this song, but instead I'll just give them a little slice of this blog. Congratulations to both of you (Pete and the band), this is a fine song. If you like the music here, and want to share it, please go ahead and link to this blog post. Thanks.

So, Mom, welcome to Evuhleen's Corner.

And that's today's offering! As always, if anything caught your eye this time around, feel free to let me know about in the comments section below. Cheers.

Some people believe that after a certain age, folks should stop thinking about modern fashion and take on a more classic approach on dressing. We’re not going to talk about what that certain age is supposed to be but what represents ‘classic’ is open to discussion. The thought of wearing unflattering clothes and loafers when one hits thirty, brings to mind the Brady Bunch.
I am not a student of fashion, and most of my knowledge in that area comes by virtue of being around people who have great dressing sense. I do have an eye for good lines and awfulness for anything originating in the nineteen forties; attempting to categorize my own style invokes the image of a slightly trendy college kid. Nevertheless, I keep my eyes and mind open and respond appropriately.

I suppose my question is, at what age does someone decide to do this to himself or herself, and is it even a bad thing to ignore what other people think we should be wearing in favor of fashion and comfort? When a woman turns thirty-five or forty, is she to sit down and decide that from this day onwards she’d begin dressing like an old woman? Which means, of course, that she would also begin acting like and being treated like an old woman.
I suppose all of this implies there is something wrong with being an old woman, and there most certainly isn’t. Nor do I believe that being forty constitutes being “old.” As usual, I am just concerned about this with associations to my own life. Will there ever come a time when Iwill  abandon my personal style? Or (and this is more likely) will I cling to the fashions from my generation and maybe redefine “classic”, comforting myself in the bargain.
I suppose I’m worried that I will all of a sudden hit some sort of wall, after which I won’t struggle to meet the expectations I made for myself.

That’s the day I will be old.

I am alone most of the time these days. I am alone but not lonely. In the large-scale stress of the past few months, I have just given up on even trying.

But I’m guessing it will all balance out in the end.

Update 1: Today is my dear friend, Sheetal’s birthday. Whether you know her or not, drop in a line. Bonus points are involved. You can request for a song or an artist/band and I will put it up on my next post!

Update 2: I know I’m way over the age of crushes and infatuations but there’s this guy who is so cute I can hardly stand it. Since I have no way to know whether my crush is actually reading this or not (because of course I can't do something as sensible as ask him), I am going to be constantly tortured by uncertainty about whether he's read what I wrote about him or not and realize what a neurotic girl I am.

He is so cute I can hardly stand it.

So I was debating in my head which artist to choose for today. There were quite a few songs/artists I could have chosen from, but my mind was made up last night as I went through my play list. I like this new James Bond track because it features two of my favorite artists- Jack White and Alicia Keys.

Now for those of you who are just showing up to these posts here on EC let me explain a bit. Normally I post about music that I really love and artists that I support. While that is true of every post I write here on EC it does seem that most artists I choose to write about could fit into a small subset of music. With this track I was aiming to finally admit that I listen to other music, yes even top 40 music, in an effort to show that good music can be found in almost every genre {except techno}. I must admit, I’ve listened to this track, at least three times in a row and I’m not sick of it. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. Enjoy the tunes.

I started writing this post a couple of days of ago. Since then, current events, one-month farewell parties and work have left me far behind. I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this post so I’m going to make it short and limit myself to inserting pictures where appropriate...like here-

In the days following Imcha's Fashion show, I have been filled with happiness and pride for my best friend.

If you had told me when I was eighteen that one day this quiet reserved guy would be my best friend I would have laughed in your face. Well, not really; I would have nodded and smiled politely and not really think much of it. But now, it’s hard to not think of him as part of my family and there was nothing but delight to hear about his very well deserved career success.

My friend and I would often spend hours at his place which was down the street from where I lived. We discussed every aspect of our lives and if there was one person who knew me better than I knew myself, it had to be him. (As a side benefit, I often got to meet many interesting people through him.)
We knew that it probably wouldn't be long before life steered us in different directions. God bless him, I hope he's still creating as fast as his nifty mind will let him.

Today’s track hails from American folk rock band, Augustana and I can say in all honesty that I genuinely like listening to this song. Enjoy the music.