Watch out for Independence day

Another weekend getaway to yet another beach. Went down to Beruwela this time, and by golly it was packed! With foreigners too! Never have I seen a Sri Lankan beach with so many foreigners! But the fun is over, the sand has been washed off, Djokovic just won in Melbourne, and now the things-to-do list is staring at me on the eve of the first 5 day working week in 3 weeks! First up on the list is the release of the 10 Second Rule album. We've decided to release the album online for free download, taking inspiration from Radiohead of course, on independence day, i.e. 4th of Feb. Album is titled "Monsoon Sunday 3: After the Rain" and will be available at www.rock.lk. You won't be able to do anything on independence day, apart from stay at home, so you might as well download the album;) Well, off to the showers now!

I want you back...KT Tunstall style

Good lord, she only keeps getting better! Armed with her acoustic guitar, a tambourine and her trusted Akai E2 Headrush loop/sampler pedal (just discovered that today!) this is KT taking my breath away! Again!

If I Was Prabhakaran...

...I would be thinking to myself that this armed war type of thing has been going on for a while with not much success. I must prove to those southern buggers that I'm a nice, like-able kinda guy. Cause if the South believes I'm a trustworthy, decent chap, they might actually consider me as a plausible alternative to dearly beloved Mahinda. So for starters, if I was Prabhakaran, before wasting another suicide bomber, I would blow up Mervyn Silva to smithereens. I'd plant not one, but two claymores on either side of the road so that he gets hit from both sides, much like he did at Rupavahini, only with much more force and shrapnel. That should win me support from the masses. Tell me. What would you do if you were Prabhakaran?

Running Late

You know it's not your day when you over-sleep not once, but twice, and then go on to ruin surprise birthday parties that aren't yours in the first place! The new place requires me to be at office at 8am sharp. So there I was happily dreaming of not being late, which is unusual for me, when my mum comes crashing into my room and goes "shouldn't you be getting ready? it's 7:35!". Fuck. 25 minutes to shower, iron, get dressed, and get to bloody work! By a miracle of some sort, I get to work by 8am on the dot. Distressed but on time. As I was heading home, the missus and I decided that I shall pick her up at 7:45pm, in order to be at C's GF's house by 8:15, in time for C's surprise, scheduled for 8:30pm. Right, that's not too hard is it? When I get home round 6ish, I think it's only prudent to have a nap, so that i'll be fresh for the eve. So there I was, prudently napping. Or so I was until missus calls me at 8:20pm and goes "where are you?". In that delirious split second between deep sleep and wide awake (induced by shock) I thought to my self "Is it already time to go to work?". Then it hit me. Fuck. C. Surprise. 10 minutes. Ran to the shower. Ran out only to see C himself had called me while I was in there at 8:29pm! Now why's this bugger, who was supposed to be surprised a minute later, calling me at 8:29pm? Why's this bugger, who I have avoided wishing all day, calling me now? So what to do? I call him back! (In hindsight, that was the biggest mistake I made. In my defence, I thought the surprise was over, and he was calling to find out why I was late). So here's what happens. C : Machang where are you? Me : err, at home! C : Ado come for a drink you bugger! Me : ah, err, ok. Happy birthday machang! C : thanks. Come to N's (C's GF)! Me : mmmmm, ok. Where are you now? C : at N's. Me : (thinking to myself, fuck I missed it!) no probs, i'm on my way. 15 mins. C : you are? why are you heading to N's? Me : didn't you say you were there? C : No i'm at dinner. Me : Oh fuck. err. yeah. I'll come once you get there. (at this point I'm confused as fuck. Is he there? Is he not? Had I missed the surprise? Had I ruined it?) C : Ok Bye! Me : bye! 2 minutes later, C calls me back C : *Laughing away* Me : (i assumed I had missed it) Shit I missed it nuh? C : Missed what? Me : err nothing. See you at N's. C : yeah machang! At this point, N had frantically passed the message to those who were at N's already that C might have a clue as to what's going on thanks to me not being on time and thus me not knowing what to say to him. So I get a barrage of calls from all sorts of people there asking what I had told C. So there I was, confused as fuck, thinking that C had already made it to the surprise, and the rest were calling to take the piss outta me for being late. The general gist of the calls were like "ado wtf did you tell C man?" And there I was maintaining "don't bullshit me you bugger, he's already there and you buggers are just taking me for a ride. I'll be there in 15." Now the story gets better. I hurriedly pick up GF, then rush to N's. Park the car behind C's vehicle, cause obviously he had made it there before me. Then check with N's maid as to what time C & N got there. He says "ahhh dang vinadi 10k vithara avilla". So I think to my self, ah that's cool. So I rush up the stairs to the rooftop, on the way passing N's door, that suddenly slams abruptly. I run all the way up and open the door. "SURPRISE" everyone shouts. I dunno who was more surprised, them to see that I wasn't C, or me to realise that C hadn't yet come up. So they say C hadn't made it yet, so I hurry back down and move my car away, only to hear "surprise" again, while I was walking back up the stairs. C had been in N's room and they had walked up 2 mins after me. Man, talk about fucking bad luck! Obviously I wasn't allowed to live it down for the night. The moral of the story? Set an alarm.

10 Second Rule - Sneak preview of the new album

This is very exciting stuff. The first song, "Monsoon Sunday", of the upcoming album is now ready for a bit of a sneak preview. You can find it at www.reverbnation.com/10secondrule . Please feel free to go have a listen, but pump up the volume first. Let us know what you think! More tracks to follow.

Religion and bollocks

Religion - To me, religion is more personal than my underwear. My boxers might show when I wear my jeans, but the strength of my faith and belief is only for my eyes. I'm a Muslim. I was born one. Much like your school friends, you have no choice in the matter. If I was born to another religion, I'd be of that. If you take religion as a faith or belief in a deeper meaning to life, then I'm religious. If you take religion as a division, such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, blah blah, then i'm not so religious. But I still do the basics. Does that make sense? So there I was at mosque on a Friday, performing my basics. As usual I was drifting off to sleep as I couldn't understand a word of what the preacher was saying as the sermons are always in Tamil. I woke with a start when I heard him switch to English. But soon enough I wish I hadn't woken. According to this guy, there are two evils in this world - Listening to music and, what he calls, injustice. He kept telling his "respected elders and brothers" that music was bad and so is "injustice", and to avoid the wrath of god we must avoid those two evils. Injustice he defines as sexual behaviour outside of marriage, homosexuality, alcohol, etc., most of which is looked down upon in most religions. I'm not going to look into that this evil too much as that deserves another post altogether. Suffice it to say, I have nothing against sexual behaviour outside of marriage, homosexuality or alcohol. That doesn't mean I practice all that. So what irked me about his sermon was that he started talking about the tsunami. He started by saying that even pious people died in the waters of the rising sea. But then he was quick to add that the people who died, suffered their fate because they listened to music and were practicing social injustices. I found that utterly disgusting. The only thing that stopped me from getting up and walking out was that I was there to perform my basics, and I wasn't going to leave till I had done so. I did not want to go to mosque to have some uneducated, misinformed idiot tell me where I'm going wrong. I go to mosque for preachers to tell me the beauty of god, not for them to instill in me their belief or faith, which is incidentally my definition of religion. Moreover, I do not go to mosque to have so-called learned people pass judgment on other humans. One of the fundamentals of Islam is the belief in the day of judgment, where god, and god alone, would pass judgment on the way you've lived your life. No one else has the authority. This is where we should ask "who died and made you god?" The Quran is read in a poetic, melodic manner. If a tune is carried out in reading the Quran, wouldn't that make listening to god's verse wrongful? My faith and my belief is just that - mine. It's my personal business as to how I live my life. I don't pass judgment on anyone else, so I don't want anyone else passing judgment on my religious commitment. Here's news for you mr preacher. I make music. Now does that make me the devil? Bollocks - Religion. That's what's bollocks.

Love hurts, but sometimes it's a good hurt

Everything's been looking up since that disastrous Saturday. The mistakes are in the past, but the lessons learnt are for the future. Music is my love, but I won't let it demoralise me. So on Sunday I went to the beach with friends. We decided to go to Negambo for a change from the usual down south trips. I hadn't been to Negambo in years. All I remembered of it was that it was a lot hotter than down south. Unbearably hotter than down south. I wasn't prepared for the surprises in store for me! We went to this lovely hotel called "The Beach". The name alone resulted in a lot of frustration in a 'Dude where's my car?' sorta way when trying to explain where I had gone to others who couldn't make it. It went something like this. Friend : oooh you guys went on a trip? where to? me : Negambo. We decided a change would be good. Friend : oh really? where did you guys go? me : This place called The Beach Friend : No really? How smart of you. Which hotel you idiot!? me : The Beach you cow! Friend : I KNOW YOU WENT TO THE BEACH. BUT WHICH HOTEL DID YOU'LL GO TO!? me : IT'S A BLOODY HOTEL CALLED THE BEACH DAMNIT! IT'S THE OLD ROYAL OCEANIC. Friend : Oh, why didn't you say so. me : sigh So the hotel gave us a room for the day too, which was very nice of them. The room was lovely, one of the best I've seen at a Sri Lankan hotel (if you discount the boutique hotel rooms I guess). The bathroom walls were made of glass, even the door, which would be quite interesting for couples and not for a boisterous group of 10 like us. We headed out to the beach (the beach, not the hotel. Although we were at the hotel. So that would make it the hotel's beach. Comprehendo?). The Negambo beach is beautiful! It's so wide and the water was calm! It's the first time that i've seen yellow flags on a Sri Lankan beach! The sand is soft, unlike down south. Did I tell you how wide the beach was? It was as wide as half the length of a football pitch! So after many thrills and spills on the calm waters, and a joint effort at making a sand-car (castles are just boring) that we sat in, it was time for lunch! Lunch deserves a whole post on it's own. But I ate too fast to even remember what I was eating. But I do remember there was sushi, smoked salmon, cream cheese, chillie crab, lamb chops, roast chicken, batter fried prawns to name a few. The buffet was definitely as good as, or even better than, Blue Water Wadduwa. Slightly cheaper too. It was a big spread, so I was a happy child. It's a must have! After a lunch like that, the only thing to follow is a nap. So there we were, 10 of us cramped in one bed, but all knocked out from stuffed belly syndrome. A drink, a dip in the pool, a broken bead bracelet, a sprained ankle and we were on our way home. Last morning I caught up with a good friend, and spent the afternoon shopping for Christmas presents. Came back home and I was ready to drop. But not before I attended to important business. A passport, a credit card, a few clicks and a smile was all that was needed! What was all that about? 7th March 2008. Singapore. Incubus.