Quick, take a moment to hitch your suspenders and comport yourself. Yes, count your limbs and make sure they are all quite there.
Now that we’re prepared, pick the Swat Kats theme out of the sugar-rush induced haze that was your childhood. (If you are part of the Ben Ten generation, go to YouTube, listen to it, and then retcon your entire existence. We mean it!) Now, damn you, mash it up with Nakka Mukka. And then, when your ears have finally stopped bleeding from the shockwave of sheer awesomeness, throw in Ringa Ringa to the mix like it ain’t nobody’s business.
The beast that I just described is a typical Live Banned song. It’s called Ringa-Mukka Kats, because when you’ve made something this awesome, why waste time in subtlety?
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And that, in a nutshell, coated in crack (obtained from tree that grown on a diet of speed and nicotine patches) is what Live Banned is. Final Countdown meets A. R. Rahman in Slumdog meets Baazigar in three minutes of implausible quantities bloody-mindedness. Suddenly, there’s Silsila in the midst and before you know it, Jim Morrison is doing his trademark what-in-fucks-name-is-that-between-your-teeth glares with Roadhouse Blues.
Oh, and at some point Munni and Sheila got down and durdddyy to Eye Of The Tiger, for the musical equivalent of that girl-on-girl action of your recurring wet dreams. And, at one very memorable night at B Flat bar in Bangalore, Kylie Minogue was quickly followed by My hump My Hump which was then replaced by System of A Down’s Chopsuey. And then Hit Me Baby One More Time. And then, a VAIRRY Tamil Backstreet’s Back. All this, in a span of five minutes and twenty two seconds. Basically, at this point they are just messing with your fanboy tendencies, and laughing at your fluctuating expressions of admiration and distaste.
Not much in way of avant garde musical abilities; they’re beyond that. Nothing left to prove, young padawan.
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When I was doing my research for this article, I came across their Reverbnation page, which goes into some (highly metaphorical) detail about how the band came to be, which involves appendicular irregularities and a god forsaken mango tree. Since our target demographic has the attention span of a dead goldfish, I will neatly and inaccurately sum it all up for you guys in four MBA type questions:
Who Are They?
LIVE Banned.
Really, it should have already been written in really large font somewhere on this page. But in case you want to get down to the particulars = Amrit Rao, Dheerendra Doss, Dhruv Kumar, Raveesh Tirkey and Siddhart Kamath.
Why Are They?
Because they are the sole artists of the musical genre they call “Awesome.” And because, come on, about time somebody incorporated that Jhandu Balm jingle into a song.
Where Are They
Bangalore mostly. Check B Flat, or Kyra. They’ll be playing around somewhere.
When are They
Welcome to the present.
Try not to scratch the TARDIS.
They wear a lot of wigs and the Keyboardist (will evolve into Keytarist, one day hopefully) has a nicely ambiguous hat with what seem to be rose-petals in it. And the guitarist always wears half-pants. Why? Because AC/DC, that’s why. Their songs are not pinnacles of poetry and do not capture the enraptured soul like a certain Dark Desolation, but they are one thing: Awesome.
Remember as a kid, those songs that you thought your future rockstar self would write, while air guitaring and simultaneously killing invisible Ninjas? Live Banned is The Mix Of All Those Songs.
Happy Listening!
