When a song starts off with the lines ‘Somebody left the tap running all night’ and the vocalist delivers it in a smooth, easy-going fashion, as if he is in the middle of fixing a broken tap, you know you are listening to a band which does not take itself seriously. The seriousness is discernible only in the craft with which they have shaped these infectious tracks.
‘White mug,’ the groovy rock ‘n’ roll band started by four youngsters from Thiruvananthapuram, has been making ripples in the Bangalore gig scene for the past two years. Now, they have released an ‘extended play’ (EP) of four songs online, to test their waters before the full-fledged album release later this year. In a music scene crowded by a mishmash of genres, it has been quite some time since someone released an album of good old rock ‘n’ roll. ‘White mug’ thus comes off as a surprise package.
The band members have their roots in blues, metal, and alternative rock and some of it does peep in at unexpected points in the tracks.
The band has Mathew on vocals, acoustic guitars and harmonica; his brother Louis on the lead guitar; Sachu on the bass; and Anoop Baben on drums. They started off from that locality where almost every other Malayali band in Bangalore started from – BTM, in a rented house which they used to call ‘Asylum.’
“ These past two years, we were busy performing in pubs and other venues. We have had a gig almost every weekend and that is how we made the money to record this EP. There was a lot of hard work, from perfecting our sound to knocking on doors for a chance to perform. We are still a long way from making it to the top, but we are well on track,” says Mathew. The first three tracks go off in the same playful mood, which at most times make you bounce about happily on your seat and at the extremes will make you hop about inside the room.
The last track ‘Bluebird’ is on the ‘trippy’ side though, with some interesting use of the cow bells. The lyrics are uncomplicated, playful mostly and brooding, at times. “We are a bunch of happy people and that naturally comes out in our music. We are waiting to perform in our hometown,” says Mathew.
The meaning of ‘White mug’ though remains a mystery. Their music can be downloaded at www.oklisten.com/Whitemug and from iTunes.
