Broken Tooth comes to Delhi

For a long time (viz. April to September) I didn't hear much about or from Broken Tooth. My magazine article about them had been rejected by ***, although the official line on it was that it was postponed, they were waiting for the band to make it big in some small way. And since the four-some (or five-some) had decided not to contact me, I did not contact them either, engrossing myself instead in covering the gigs at the local pubs in Gurgaon and the suburbs of Delhi.

Then one fine midnight I got a call from Pablo, "Dude," he said, sounding over-excited, "We are coming to IITD!"

"Cool," I said, "So is Broken Tooth going to compete in the IITD rock fest?"

Pablo became silent for a while and then replied, "Well, not quite, but the main thing is that we are coming to your city...to IITD! Broken Tooth shall have it's first gig outside the college."

I didn't get it, if they were not going to perform at the rock fest (which was a great platform to be on because of all the rocking bands that had spawned from a good show at the IITD grounds), what were they going to do? Would they be like a street-band and give a street gig at the corner of some college street? I put forward the question to him "So where exactly in IITD are you going to perform?"

This time his silence was longer than the last, he hemmed and hawed a bit and then said, "The thing is, I have taken part in this 'Western Music Singing-Solo' competition, and the whole band is going to perform in the 'Western Music Singing-Group' category."

"But that's not exactly rock and roll?" I asked him, these competitions weren't exactly what people in rock bands etc aspired to perform in. "Are you sure you guys want to come?"

"Of course, it would be cool, at least we would be getting some form of stage exposure, and then there's the prospect of attending a good rock show."

Well I guess there was something in what he said, so I said that it was cool that they were coming and that I would be with them in IITD, covering their performances.

The contingent from BHU was rather large, still I did not have many problems in locating the band, they were the most dishevelled of the troupe, (apart from PC), and they all looked at me and warmly greeted me. I took out the old faithful pen and spiral notebook in hope that there might be something of note in the conversation.

"Right, first of all welcome to Delhi, this is my city..."

"Oh I love Delhi...practically my second home." Pablo cut me short.

"I have been here before once or twice." Adi said, and then decided to become silent.

"I have come to the city several times too," Alex chirped. "though I won't go so far as to say that it's my second home."

"Obviously everyone has come to Delhi..."

"Right, right." My previous interviews with them had taught me that I needed to be rigid while conducting the proceedings, the group had a tendency to digress. "Now, I don't see your drummer here, the studious chap. Where is he?"

They all looked at each other sheepishly. "The thing is," Pablo said, "We have a new drummer."

"I would like to say a different drummer." Alex spoke, and then he glared at Pablo, who seemed to wilt under his gaze.

"What happened?" I asked them, "Some problem with the ex-drummer? I mean these things happen, I guess no band is 'made' till it changes it's line up at least once."

"No, it's not that, just a communication breakdown with the old drummer."

Apparently it had transpired that when the band had asked Himanshu to go along with them on the Delhi trip, he had not been to keen on the idea and had declined politely. However the cause of his declining the offer was that he thought that the trip was going to be ten days long, instead what the band had said was that the trip was ten days away. Stuff happens, I guess the biggest mistakes in the world were committed because of some person mis-hearing something.

"So you are without a drummer?"

"Of course not," Pablo beamed, "We have Divesh." And then he caught the look in Alex's eye and stopped beaming all together. "He is okay."

Their 'session' drummer Divesh was the result of another mis-hearing, this time by Pablo. While looking to fill the void left by the studious drummer, they had come across a friend of the party named above, he claimed to know a bit about playing the drums, and thus was given the chance to play with the band. However, in reality he had said that he claimed to want to know about playing drums, and didn't actually know how to play.

"It was tough." Adi said, he appeared to be a man of few words.

"It was very tough." Alex emphasized.

"But here we are!" Pablo beamed again.

"Obviously!" PC smiled.

"Which brings me to another question, what's the set list?"

Alex laughed and said, "There isn't much of a set list, we are given 10 minutes plus two to perform, and we are going to play two."

It didn't promise to be much of a rock show, "One of the songs I guess would be satisfaction, which is the second one?"

It was Alex's turn to smile, "Take it easy by Eagles, you must have heard it."

Obviously, I said to myself, invoking PC, who hasn't. "Yes that's a great song."

"It is!" Pablo said, "And Alex has nailed the solo pretty well."

"It also has a tough harmony part at the end." I pointed out, and then almost wished I hadn't, there faces turned a bit downcast. I felt I was just marking out the chinks in their armour.

"We are...working on it." Pablo said, and then looked at Alex, raising his left eyebrow. Much to my chagrin PC started working on it right on the spot. I took their leave and promised to be back to see them perform.

"Do come to see this play I am acting in, called 'To The Moon and Never Back.' Besides, Broken Tooth has given the background music too." Pablo said, as he came to see me off to the gate.

I am a fan of english theater (more so theater in general) and was pleased at the prospect of watching a string of plays. Watching the BHU play however, wasn't a very enjoyable experience, admitting to the fact that their lead actress was cute (there was only one female in the play, there's a serious dearth at their college), I also found out that Pablo was the worst actor of the lot, he delivered his dialogues in a dead-pan voice, and tried to let his long and unruly hair do the acting for him.

The background music was that word with e, eccentric? No, I guess I am looking for erratic. Apparently Alex and Adi were rather doing there own thing, playing around with the bass and the guitar, and there were times that they weren't even looking at the scene being played out at the stage.

I exited after their allotted fifteen minutes were over, hoping that when I return the next day, they would play better than they were in the 'play.'

I had underestimated the strength (in numbers) of the competition at the Western Music Singing-Solo thingy. They announced BHU at the very onset and I braced up to hear Pablo sing, instead I came across a girl looking like a close approximation of Edward The Head, and then followed a fat character with a mild voice, their singing was to put it mildly, not something I had come to hear. I believed that Pablo would be next since the intelligent people at IITD would be doing away with BHU en masse.

I was wrong, I had to sit through fifty odd singers before Pablo's number came up. Mind you, there were some that were really good, there was this guy with a ghastly french beard who gave a rendition of The Scorpions' 'Still Loving You' and did a great job about it.

For a minute or so Alex and Adi tuned their instruments, and then stood facing each other like dueling gunmen, Adi with his back to the audience. Pablo took the mike and said, "This is a song about...This is a song about Lost Love."

And Alex played the riff of 'Last Kiss' by Pearl Jam.

Their performance was okay, there were a couple of screw-ups in maintaining the rhythm, but admittedly it was a strange song, I don't know how Eddie Vedder used to fit the words to the music, but without drums, it wasn't easy.

And then it struck me, why hadn't they used the drummer? The song had a pretty sweet drum beat to it. I asked them later as I accompanied them to the hostel in which they were saying.

"That went of well, didn't it?" Pablo asked me and his band mates.

"Well..."

"What the fuck were you doing in the second verse! Where was your 'so-called' Beat sense!" Alex looked peeved, the trio looked at each other, and then started laughing.

"In all, I enjoyed singing it," Pablo told me, "And you know there were a couple of cute girls singing along with me."

"In your dreams." Adi said, "And besides, even if they were, it was probably to tell you where you were going wrong."

Sitting in the audience, I had clearly seen the two places where Pablo had screwed up, because in reaction Adi had thrown up his hands in despair. Pablo couldn't see it, he was too busy imitating Eddie V.

"And anyway, this was just a short prologue, it is tomorrow that you shall see the whole of Broken Tooth in action."

"Yeah I was going to ask you that, where was your drummer today?"

The cloud passed over their faces again, "You see...the thing is...actually, we have been able to practice only one song with him, and we are really hoping that he doesn't screw up that one song."



The next day I came in a bit early to catch the hindi plays going on along with the Western Music Group competition, entering into the auditorium I could see that this particular event was not a place for a rock band. Because right outside the building there were hordes of students standing in circles singing a cappella versions of orchestral songs like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'We are The World.' Perhaps Broken Tooth had interpreted the whole thing wrongly, this was a 'group singing' competition and not a 'group' singing competition.

When I entered the place, I saw Pablo sitting sans Broken Tooth. He was constantly looking at his wrist watch and visibly fuming.

"Hi," I called up and said, "Where's the rest of the band?"

For some reason he snapped back and said, "Oh you wouldn't know would you!"

I agreed that I didn't know, but that did not give him a right to be angry with me, I mentioned this to him.

He said, "Sorry, it's just that our band's performance is in less than half an hour. I myself have been waiting here for the past thirty minutes, none of their Goddamned cell phones seem to be working, and they don't really look like they want to turn up here either!"

He then proceeded to go to the convener of the event and asked him to delay their performance by a spot or two. He told me, "I am going to look for my band, and if they come by here, do keep them in sight."

The singing groups that had come had pretty much got their act together, signing songs by The Beatles, Seal, Queen and Michael Jackson with the aplomb of barber shop quartets. The experience was more enjoyable than the solo stuff. Also each group consisted of atleast ten people, and apparently there was a lower limit of five members on stage. Broken Tooth had five.

After half an hour the band did come to sight, although Pablo wasn't with them, perhaps he was still on the quest for the lost band. They came and coolly took their positions in one of the last rows, and in accordance with my promise, I kept them in sight.

A little while later Pablo appeared, he ran up to them and started mouthing angry words, (from the distance I couldn't exactly make out what the words were, but the visual was enough to deduce that he was angry), and then he jumped around on the floor, all red faced etc. He shook his finger, particularly at Adi, and Adi in turn looked at him with cold eyes, said a small sentence, and in effect poured water over him. Pablo fizzled, and took a seat at a distance from the band.

While this hugely animated conversation was going on, the stage was empty, because it was the turn of the band from BHU, it stayed empty for a goodish five minutes until the convener caught sight of Pablo. The latter then pleaded for just a little bit more time while the guitars were finally tuned.

After sometime they finally took the stage, Pablo-looking angry, Adi, Alex, PC-looking cool, and Divesh slightly nervous.

When they announced the song 'Take it Easy', they were greeted by cheers from the audience, a large section seemed to be a fan of The Eagles. It was when they started playing that the problem started, the major problems being Divesh's drumming was too mechanical, and not in a good way, and the sound engineer totally screwed them up, by keeping Alex's guitar volume very low, even after a preliminary sound check.

Of course, the lowest key was when they tried to haromize in the end, that was when the public had had enough, and if it wasn't for the fact that the song ended then, we would have had a minor riot on our hand.

They performed 'Satisfaction' a bit more satisfactorily, and because Divesh didn't know the drum track to the song, he promptly left the stage, thus disqualifying Broken Tooth from the competition, because they were no longer five up there.

Not that they had much chance in any case.

After the show I learnt that Pablo stayed angry for the better part of an hour or so and made it a point to bring this gig up several times in the future.

My personal assessment was that Satisfaction was good, but what they really needed now was a drummer. And a good one at that, nothing stop gap.

It would take them six more months to find someone good enough.