 |
By Shama M.Raghib |
Reborn…it is like feeling fresh and alive again. It is how some people feel whenever they have listened to an awesome track that makes them realise it is good to live on. Rising Stars got a chance to have a tête-à-tête with the experimental rock band ReBORN. Starting out initially on 1999, the band progressed immensely, releasing their tracks in mixed albums 'Agontuk-2', 'Lokayot' (song Agrashon) and also in 'Dinbodol' (song: Shobkichu). Now they are up for releasing their debut album hopefully by January next year.
MEMBER PROFILE:
Rintu - Guitars
Chisti - Guitar
Ali - Vocals
Turjo - Drums
Salek - Bass
RS: How and when did Reborn start out as a band?
ReBORN: ReBORN was formed in the year 1999 when Rintu (better known as Rocker) and Salek started jamming together. Back then Sanjeev and Rana joined in as vocalist and guitarist respectively, while Tony (Black) filled in as a guest drummer. With this line-up, ReBORN started its journey. Later Sanjeev and Rana had to leave the band for thier personal reasons. Thus the band was inactive for a while. Then Rintu and Salek started looking for permanent members. Many came and went, finally Ali, Turjo and Chisti gets discovered. Here, ReBORN enters our music scene.
RS: Who are your major musical influences?
Ali - Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Skidrow, Mr. Big, White Lion, Pearl Jam, Sevendust, Creed.
Rintu - Megadeth, Pink Floyd, Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Joe Satriani, Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Sepultura, Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam etc.
Chisty - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppellin, Steve Vai, Tori Amos, Marty Friedman, Megadeth, Pantera, The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Buckley, Pearl Jam, Rush etc.
Turjo - Dream Theater, Rush, Metallica, Megadeth.
Salek - Megadeth, Metallica, Iron maiden, Sepultura, Slayer, Stuart Hamm, Billy Sheehan, Dream Theater etc.
RS:Anybody you would like to credit for your band's success?
ReBORN: Our families! For their immense support and belief in us throughout. Our friends, Sumon bhai, Duray bhai, Jewel bhai, Khaled bhai, Kamal bhai, Pappu bhai, Rumman bhai all the Underground Bands and above all, our fans!
RS: The band has been in the underground scenario for quite a long time. Do you feel that you get the appreciation you deserve?
ReBORN: We feel great when we hear the crowd cheering us on stage and it's an even greater pleasure when people recognize us here and there. But honestly we are not expecting much till we get our debut album out. We believe an album for a band is a must before the audience can truly understand them. Appreciation should hopefully follow after that.
RS: When did you have your first ever performance in front of the public?
ReBORN: With the permanent line-up it was on October 16 2003 at the Russian Cultural Centre.
RS: What (if any) was your worst stage experience? What happened there?
ReBORN: There was this time when Rocker got on stage at a Fu-Wang Auditorium gig without checking if his guitar was tuned properly. Guess what? The show was a huge mess. But hey, the crowd loved us nonetheless.
RS: What do you think are the major accomplishments of ReBORN so far?
ReBORN: Surely for now they have to be the 80 plus gigs we have performed and our singles released in Agontuk-2, Dinbodol and Lokayot. Also, not to mention the fact that we can make our listeners appreciate our music and bang their heads even when our album is yet to come forward.
RS: What are you guys doing right now? When is your debut album due?
ReBORN: We have finished recording a special single called 'Batighaar' for which we are making a music video all by ourselves. We are working towards the completion of our album, hopefully by January next year. We haven't decided what to call it yet but as we are intending to launch our website by December this year; rest assured we'll keep our fans informed about everything.
RS: Please comment on the present underground scenario. What aspects do you think need to be changed in order to promote the underground bands?
ReBORN: The underground scenario today is better than ever. There are many talented musicians out there. However, what we need is media exposure. More record companies, producers (if any) and sponsors willing to promote such bands. Not to mention providing better sound systems live on stage, trained technicians/mixers, decent auditoriums and disciplined ways of organizing concerts.
RS: There was a relatively energetic performance on THE END II show on September 29 this year. Any more upcoming shows we can expect from you?
ReBORN: Thanks; we love doing gigs whenever we get the chance. Since Ali moved to Chittagong, it's been difficult to perform regularly. Right now we are focusing towards the completion of our album. As concerts tend to distract us a little; we are going to be in hibernation for the time being. But hey, we'll be back with a kick hopefully, says a smiling member.
RS: Anything you would like to say to our readers?
Thank you for all your support. Pray for us. Hang in there. We won't let you guys down with the album. Peace.
Review by Gokhra
Bo Duke - Seann William Scott, Luke Duke - Johnny Knoxville, Daisy Duke - Jessica Simpson, Uncle Jesse - Willie Nelson, Boss Hogg - Burt Reynolds
The Dukes of Hazzard was a short-lived TV series from the late 70's and early 80's. Okay so it wasn't that short lived. So that means it was famous, right? Sort of I guess. So that means it was damn good, right? Not necessarily. So what does it mean about this movie? Hmmmmmm.
The plot:
The Dukes of Hazzard are cousins Bo and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville) who live in a small town called Hazzard. They're a couple of good ol' boys who deliver Uncle Jesse's bathtub gin, tear up the backwoods in their muscle car and seduce townie women. Of course, you can't have an action story without some obligatory big boss bad guy. So there's Hazzard County's cigar-chomping Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds in a ridiculous white suit).
Now bad guys always have bad ideas up their white suited sleeve and here the Boss Hogg is plotting to strip-mine the cousin's family farms. That's bad news in both ecological and financial ways. But the day is not lost for in steps the prominently featured Jessica Simpson any time the Duke boys need a diversion.
Sure that's a lot of star power but the real star of the entire movie is the orange '69 Dodge Charger named General Lee. Yep, there are plenty of people who name their cars. The car is a star because it ca withstand just about any amount of torture you put it through. Of course, they smartly delete the scenes where the car actually lands and becomes more crooked than a Bangladeshi politician before election time. Yes, there are a lot of car stunts and a lot of high jumping highflying action. Unbelievable but also unbelievably riveting because of its sheer ridiculousness.
The verdict:
So what made me write about this movie. Well, first of all despite the criticism I gathered all my courage and watched it. Partly because Jessica Simpson looks good. Knoxville isn't a very good choice but Sean Scott plays the lovable buffoon with aplomb. Reynolds makes a very good villain while Jessica simply looks good and plays the buxom blond who is witty and thus doesn't fit the dumb blond stereotype.
I was expecting a dud but this movie turns out to be a fun movie. You dot' watch it to get deeper meanings into life. You watch it so that you can take a break from whatever else you do that makes you go "oh, damn".
It's a movie about breaking out and having tons of fun. Watch it and have some fun. Just don't take it too seriously.
Einstien Light
[doiop.com/einsteinLight]
Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the most famous idea that so few understands, is now completely explained in five one-minute films. Well, not really. The University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia advises that it'll take some more effort on your part to grasp the whole thing, but they certainly help get the ball rolling (or the watch ticking). Get this -- the speed of light from a uniformly moving source is always the same, regardless of how fast it's moving.
Opera 9 "preview"
[Snapshot.opera.com]
It looks like going free hasn't hurt Opera Software's ability to innovate. The company has just rolled out the first "technology preview" (an alpha version) of Opera 9.0, which includes a raft of new features (basically better page rendering). You might want to check it out, but I find the current 8.5 version just fine. Use Opera along with your primary browser (Mozilla Firefox from GetFirefox.com) and you'd get a superb browsing experience. And if you're still using the ancient Internet Explorer, switch to something useable. Seriously! Reason 1 http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/2113/getfox1he.gif and Reason 2.
New browser hitting the net
[flock.com/developer/]
This new browsers are not for the casual net users. This one is for the folks who really use the internet. I'm talking about blogging, sharing photos in flickr.com, or using del.icio.us and such: the real Web 2.0. For the readers who don't have a clue about Web 2.0, it's a new way of browsing in which websites are a lot more interactive. A rough way to describe it is by saying it is "social browsing": you're interacting with all the visitors of the site and their content instead of the content the webmaster put up there. I guess I'd have to write about it to tell you more. Anyway, for the power-users of the net who has blogs and sites and all, Flock is a new browser that has built-in blogging, posting, sharing and tagging tools…as well as better support for most of the (new) Web 2.0 applications. Check out this alpha version, this one looks promising.
App: Double Killer
[doiop.com/doublekiller]
This little free application lets you easily find and delete the duplicate files that you often have all over your harddisk. The program lets you define various characteristics of files to be considered dupes, such as size and creation date useful if you have, say, several files called notes.txt that aren't dupes. Once running, it makes quick work of scanning your drive and offers one-click deletion (or moving, if your cautious) of dupes.
Game: Puki: The Swarm
[gskinner.com/games/puki/]
This one is a first-person Flash game in which you walk down an endless corridor and get attacked by cute but vicious Pukis. But it's really quite a lot more fun than it sounds. There's surprising depth to the gameplay and the graphics are great, if a bit low-contrast. Check it out.
Desktop mod: FlyakiteOSX
[osx.portraitofakite.com]
FlyakiteOSX is a "transformation pack". Essentially, it will take your Windows XP computer, and make it look and feel (almost) exactly like Mac OSX. It really has to be experienced to be understood. And the site for FlyakiteOSX is out of this world the site itself feels like OSX.
Game: Gravity
[doiop.com/GravityGame]
There are a lot of games (and, for that matter, screensavers) which feature cosmic bodies going 'round eachother, propelled by simulated gravity. Gravity is such a game, but with very creative gameplay. The object this Flash game is to launch your "atom" in the field of "gravity sources" and set it into orbit.
If its orbit outlasts the timer, i.e. if the atom doesn't crash into anything before the timer runs out, you pass the level, and the longer your atom keeps going, the more points you get. Everything on the randomly-generated field of play attracts everything else, which makes for endless variation (and frustration).
That's it for this week. All the links are available at niloywrites.blogspot.com so that you can easily visit the sites just by clicking the links. You can also log on to my site BDcomics.blogspot.com if you're into comics, or check out my photography at flickr.com/photos/niloy/. You can contact me for whatever reasons at niloy.me@gmail.com
