Well, where do i start my own disconcerted conversations to myself .. now should there be a question mark here or not ? damn.the nuisance of being a verbal faculty.you lose ur sense of proportion, every line is a probable question; there are corners and corners around everything.every question has atleast five answers and each answer is insufficient to answer the question...am i making sense?(damn, an ellipsis) probably not...oh god! another ellipsis...when will the internet community stop the abuse of the ellipsis...the whimsical and the tantalising ellipsis...damn idiots.

finally, i have a place where i can rock in peace, literally! no longer caring about those pink floyd gangs, or cobain reincarnations.my views.period.

where do i start my rock education. guess it started with shania twain's "come on over" though it can hardly be called a rock album.more countryish pop.i was crazy about it..n still am.the best 125 bucks i ever spent.

then it would be boyzone "greatest hits" seems crazy that i used to love that pop mishmash! how could you? how dare you?

then, umm, bryan adams "best of me".wore out the cassette by playin' it so much.that guy's got an awful voice, but he makes some groovy music.loved 'cloud no. 9'

then it was back to hindi stuff for a while.it was std XII. i had other things to worry about.girls.studies.IIT.entrances.adolescence..stuff (by the way, '..' is my own form of ellipsis..the 'half ellipsis' )

also there weren't many places where u could buy english music in aligarh.infact not many in India.i've lived in 5 states.i should know.

engg first year was when i got initiated..himanshu gave me his "eagles greatest hits vol.I".what a start ! what an absolute gem to start of ur collection with !! i still have the cassettte recording.

next few months were direct in competition with himanshu. lawd, he had 150 cassettes; i had 3. what a stupid fight !! i played catch all year. couldn't even come close. also matters weren't helped by his recording every single cassette that i possessed !! i was a stupid idiot n he knew it !

welcome..my first steps..in the world of rock n roll

late nite edition..rock on..

nowadays its a wee bit different b/w me n him. i overmatch him by at least a couple of thousand albums..says a lot about the cyclicity of time.

anyways, for a long time i was just a hungry buyer than a listener. i used to listen to an album maybe a couple of times n then used to get the new ones.this habit was made worse by those mp3's. you know, get an mp3, get about 10 new albums immediately !!

wow! what an idea. here i would like to say my heartfelt thanks to the idiot who thought up file ripping, compression & of course sharing..you are THE man (or woman !!)

so for a long time i was kind of a lost soul. to redeem myself, i used to share music gossip with friends or acqaintances, yahoo chat rooms and what not. all this time i really used to dig those "rock" guys of the college (you know the guys am talking about..ur old friends n enemies); the ones who used to listen to ROCK music n got all the chicks. man ! they were cool !! so i thought, why not hang out n learn the lingo, so to speak. imagine my disappointment when the first 'dude' i met n talked with had the rockability of freddie flintstone. he was cool alright, n he never stepped beyond the bryan adams '18 till i die' album. mebbe he was an exception, but this story got repeated a bit too long. another 'nirvana addict' as he used to be called by chicks, had never heard/couldn't recall 'lithium'...and so flowed the waters through the muddy banks of wishkah.

i do not blame those guys. hell, they were just not interested in further music. it was me who thought too highly abt them. i thought i might get different company elsewhere. so i joined up a lot of forums (incld. PG).. the result..my disappointment is crushing.

well, everybody has a choice with his/her music.you all are free to listen to whatever you want, in whatever quantity u want.i got no complaints. but hey, even i got the right to be elitist, to choose my companions. Sadly, there are none.

that doesn't bother me though. as i posted in a thread, rock is dead. its dead when all people can recall as singers are metallica/megadeth. these fringe bands have always been there. but its singers, nay, institutions like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Chuck Berry, Santana, Hendrix, Clapton, R.E.M., Springsteen who have defined rock; taken it to the place where it is now; at once elitist and mundane both.

all people have are usually greatest hits albums which go easy on the pocket, or so they reckon. but buying a greatest hits defeats the whole purpose of the artiste. albums are not about hit singles or 99 cent downloads, they are about moods. you capture the mood of the artist when you buy an album.

don't believe me.try this.

ever bought hindi hits compilations of singers like kishore/rafi/lata. when you play the CD/cassette, doesn't it sound strange when tracks change; some tracks tend to strike out as sore thumbs n u don't listen to them although in its original album, it was a hit track? why does this happen?

simply because a track in its album has an assured place nd more importantly, an assured sound. it can't gel as well as with songs made at a different point of time.

what this has taught me is that real rock fans aren't the ones that you think they are. they don't dye their hair or wear punk ear-rings. real fans are some of the quietest people you will ever come across. they don't shout from rooftops about their hobby. they don't play rock afficinado at gatherings. but they do one thing about their rock.

they indulge it.