have you heard?

Oasis are over.

It could be said that it was a wonder that it lasted this long, given the history of murderous behaviour between Liam and Noel Gallagher. Their fights have been well-documented, and Noel and/or Liam have threatened to/have quit before – which lends this (to me at least) an air of disingenuousness/hot-headedness. And many are hoping that is the case.

Oasis were my first favourite band.

The year was 1997, and I thought they were the biggest band on the planet.

In a sense, that was probably the height of their popularity, or at any rate the point at which the curve started to drop. They’re released one of the most successful debuts in UK Chart history, and followed that up with (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, a sophomore album that cemented their legend. 1997 saw the release of their third album Be Here Now, which became the fastest ever first week seller – a record, if I recall correctly, that still stands (and probably will for a while yet, seeing the decline in album sales etc.).

And then came the fall, and all that went with it.

But I didn’t care. Well, I felt really bad that my loyalty (hey, I was 12 then, mind you) was with a band who were such… dicks. They were and still are absolutely arrogant uncouth bastards who badmouth pretty much everyone. It didn’t matter when they made music I cared for. I felt bad for the very decent seeming Damon Albarn, though out of some misplaced loyalty I didn’t start listening to Blur years later.

By the way, I didn’t think Standing on the Shoulder of Giants was all that bad. It was during this period of time though that I experienced the first Oasis crisis – Noel threatening to release a solo album, and Liam adamant that if that happened, Oasis was over. It didn’t happen; crisis averted.

My predominant thought at that point was that they, to me, had so much more to offer, in light of releasing the Beatles-go-to-India tinged ‘difficult’ album that tries (not a difficult prospect, seeing as they were playing with a couple of colours at most till that point, and seemed like they preferred to eat sand than draw) to expand the musical palette. Hardly experimental (coming out at a time when Kid A blew everything else out of the water), but at least they seemed like they were trying.

But three albums later, I’d stopped caring. I didn’t even give Dig Out Your Soul a proper listen, so utterly bereft of character it seemed on the first go, extending the rot carried over from Heathen Chemistry and Don’t Believe the Truth. Were they even trying anymore?

It could also be said that Oasis haven’t been Oasis for almost a decade, that regardless of the song-writers in the band, the ‘classic’ line-up brought with them a scraggly glow that was clinically cauterized after their exit. After Bonehead and Guigsy left, I never could tell the replacements apart. Behind standard-issue sunglasses and inscrutable pouts, the swagger in their music had been replaced with self-important boorishness.

Even looking at them (but I’m just reading too much into it here), the pictures in the article of them then and now… the joy is gone. Liam, incidentally, could be a ringer for Tom Cruise these days (see: the BBC article link; first picture).

Reading about it today, it made me feel sad, when thinking back about how much they meant to me – I had all their albums (till that point) on tape, and scoured Napster, iMesh and Audiogalaxy for B-Sides, covers and anything they’d done. On a dial-up connection.

It’s with some sadness and no relief that I admit to myself that I won’t miss the fact that they’re done. All things end anyway, and I hope it stays this way, lest they get back together and become this generation’s Rolling Stones.

But sigh, they’ll probably be back in a few years.

I refuse to title this post or make any references to 'Live Forever'.

winds of my actions

It's not often that I go drinking in Chennai, and even less within those occasions to hit bars other than Zara's,* so with some delight I can say that I've been to two new places in the last week.

The first was 10 Downing Street, which is a decent place with food cheaper than Zara's, and a better floor plan - it's the ground floor of a house, so has segments, and feels spacious. Frankly, the wittiest thing about the place is the tags on the doors to the toilets - Maggie for women and Major for men. Truly, the '80s are alive.

The other, and by far more entertaining, was the Xzuberance Bar at the Raj Park Hotel (on TTK Road). Even as we descended I remarked that basement bars have a tinge of shadiness** to them, seeing as they don't have windows and can be a little more stuffy than I'm comfortable with.

The bar has no shoe policy at night and very reasonably priced cocktails (Rs. 160 per, compared to Rs. 300-400ish at Zara's), but oddly enough beer/bottle is priced the same (I am not familiar with the taxes pertaining to alcohol that probably causes it), which was heartening to know that the next time at Zara's drinking beer, I could rest easy and know that it's not too much of a rip-off by Chennai bar standards. Hell, even Chennai Cultural Centre (opposite Satyam Cinemas), place of the 10% levy if 'not a member', charges roughly 120 per bottle. That is, of course, if you haven't ordered a pitcher that's piss-flat.

Anyway, the Xzuberance Bar is also home to the Karmi Kaze, which is one c short of being a wind that's not only divine, but also retributive in the next life - presumably implied post-hangover. Yes, its constitution is pretty much the same as its cousin, except for an affinity for castor sugar, something shared by a fair number of cocktails on the menu. To be fair, was probably a fourth of the drinks on it, but it just seems an ingredient that stands out.

Shadiness of bar menu aside, little placards on the tables advertised Vodka Red Bulls - which at a place like this we hoped would be priced fairly reasonably. But when asked, the reply is 'Um. Red Bull is X rupees. Vodka is Y rupees. You can order the two and mix them. The ads are just there for the tables. We don't actually serve it.' So it went.

The place really lays it thick with free food, rendering the short eats menu useless. Even before the ordering started, preliminaries consisted of some five different eats laid out on the table, enough to suffice as dinner for two, and later on in the night they started breaking out the chicken too (sent back apologetically by two vegetarians.. for the night, in any case).

Oh, and it had Sun TV on, which was playing '80s music - glittery (like, actually glittering) costumes, bushy mustaches and sets that hinted at a future capacity for economic prosperity/profligacy.

Whee.

* Well, also did go to Zara's, which has introduced a bunch of shameless new 'fusion' drinks, which regardless of how they taste (mine had a bunch of constituents I didn't recognize, but sounded cool and Japanese), come with battery-operated glowing faux ice-cubes. In three different colours. The blue looks like Prometheus emerging from the depths of the Arctic, while the green looks like liquid Kryptonite. They're quite harmful to indecisive drinkers unsure of what to order. Ooh, ooh. Light in drink.

** We were aware though that the two of us were probably contributing to the shadiness of the place - one bald guy and another in black tee shirt and torn jeans. While we can and did comment upon the shadiness, other people seeking something similar possibly saw and took us into consideration when computing the shadiness of the establishment.

Two posts in three days. Scary.