Today on MAHA SHIVRATRI (the 'Great Night of Shiva') is a Hindu festival celebrated every year in reverence of Lord Shiva, I would like to post an article i wrote long time back. In fact, this was my first my first article that I never published or post. Loads of memories are attached with this article. I bought my first phone, a micromax Q5 just to take a phone-in interview of a man who changed my way of looking at music. This article is all about him and his band I.Q.CANNABIS.

 

AND YES MY REASON FOR NOT PUBLISHING IT WAS ……………
THE VERY DAY I COMPLETED MY STORY  A GOT A NEWS THAT THE MAN WHO TAUGHT ME THAT MUSIC IS LIKE GOD AND ITS BEYOND ANY CATEGORIZATION WAS NO MORE …………

AHISH DA I AM SURE WHEREVER YOU ARE NOW, YOU MUST BE PLAYING BLUES AND TRYING TO MAKE THAT PLACE A BETTER PLACE
                                                                BOL BAM !!!!!!!!!!!

THE BAND FROM THE VALLEY OF KHANCHANJUNGA

I.Q.CANNABIS...............

By Arghadeep Barua

 

 

I.q.cannabis is a three member band hailing from Darjeeling. Three of them are childhood friends. Ashish Adhikari aka A is the front man and the guitarist of the band. Tsheten Bhutia aka C is the drummer of the band and   Pranup aka P plays the bass. The three friends together are sometimes fondly referred to as “ACP”.

They come from the small village of Rajbari. They started about 7 or 8 years ago playing heavy metal. But after they had been to Kathmandu, Nepal and with one meal a day for a couple of weeks, they realized blues was their cup of tea. Now they play all sort of music from blues, jazz, rock n roll, funk, progressive etc. According to them, music is something that cannot be categorized, it is something beyond categorization. "To us, music is like God" says Ashish.

The journey for the band has not been very smooth - at times terribly upset, and sometimes they were not supported by their parents. When they moved to Kathmandu, they used to have only one meal a day. Their first gig as a blues band was at Mangan Fest, Sikkim, where they became runners up. While doing the gig, they didn’t have enough money to buy high end instruments. They didn’t even have a processor. Forget about anything else, they had to borrow the drumsticks from a fellow band. They bought their first instruments with the prize money, they won at Mangan. Even though they had lots of difficulties, they love performing in the stage and love doing what they can do the best, that is playing good music. They believe that it is not the instruments which can move one’s heart but the music that we play.

I.q.canabis music is all about living the moment. Some may find it hard to believe but it’s a fact that they never prepare for a gig, they just jam on the stage. Once Ashish said in an interview, “All our compositions are based on 12 bar blues because it helps. As I start strumming and look at the crowd, music comes to me naturally. Even for my band mates, it’s the same story. It just happens. Sometimes, even I wonder why”.

 

I.q.cannabis has very interesting own original compositions. “Bollywood Crap no hard feelings ....”  It’s about your mom, watching mother-in-law and sister-in-law soaps on television and crying their heart out. “That’s not politics, which rule the nation; it’s we the people who rule the nation”. It’s about politicians screwing up the nation. “Chew... spit it out” it’s about Guwahati’s fascination with pan and spiting everywhere, “Cloud” is about an abandoned Nepali kid, they met with, during their travel to Kathmandu. Whenever, the i.q.cannabis performs people like their music. And they get a positive response from the people. In fact their appearance on stage is something very unique. They wear the Shiva outfit on the stage and they begin with a BOL BOM slogan before their shows.

 

I.q.cannabis tested their first exposure to the Indian rock scene only when they visited Nagaland and won the NORTH EAST ART FUSION CONTEST organised by Music and art fusion society Nagaland. I.q.cannabis played Bollywood crap; the song titled it’s all about politics and a special Roadhouse Blues which ended in five to one. I.Q. was the second last band to perform. The moment I.Q. started it was pure magic. The packed hall along with the judges and the special guests ‘ABIOGENESIS’ stood up in unison to celebrate saying that they never had seen such a thing in their lifetime.

Ashish performing at FIREBALL

   I.Q. Cannabis, since then have performed at IIT Guwahati’s annual rock festival, Rock O Phonix where they were the runners up. They were also the Guest Band, at Fireball, Guwahati’s biggest music festival. This year it was headlined by Bhayank Maut and East India Company. They have already performed at various fests in Darjeeling and have headlined in a major event in Kathmandu. They are also going to launch a Nepali song album there. I would end this article just like the way Ashish signs off normally, ‘Bam Bam Bhole to everyone’.

                                                                   

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