Let me first tell you that ‘Shotgun Blues’ went terrifically last Sunday (the 27th July) at The Zetter. After a two month hiatus Stigmata decided to shatter the spell of silence with a tripped out ‘Blues’ gig ‘cos you know almost everyone (even in the Metal and Rock ‘n Roll community) have gone electronica and trance. We felt that a ‘Blues’ gig would add a twist to the popular trend (beach parties and people talking to trees for 12 hours straight) which is widely apparent (mainly an excuse for many of these losers to just inebriate themselves with methamphetamine, ecstasy, speed and LSD) at the moment… and besides the good ol’ ‘Blues’ lies at the dark foundation of Rock ‘n Roll and it was time to acknowledge that with a good, kick ass gig. Besides it was a healthy Fuck You to all the posers feigning their Rock Star frolics all over the country. If you’ve got the Blues then you’ve got the cock to strut your walk… Know what I am sayin’?

So Stigmata performed with Wagon Park (a psychedelic/blues/Bob Dylan meets a paduru party band) and Ritual (Hard Rock/Progsters) whose mainman Speevy is migrating to the US in a few weeks. So it was more or less Ritual’s last gig with their charismatic frontman.

Now we had absolute hell to stage this concert. Let me tell you why. First off the Powers-that-be of our little island decide to hold the SAARC summit here; therefore heretically and abrasively turning the country’s metropolitan inside out in a matter of days. All the SAARC leaders and delegates are down at the moment, and so most of the main roads are blocked out so they could all travel minus any threats. People can’t get from their homes to work, from work to their homes as some roads and areas are blocked even when the delegates don’t travel about. So we’re looking at traffic jams and pure chaos on the roads for hour long durations, first time I’ve seen so many people getting out of their vehicles and walking about. Security is on a maximum high and the law (which endorses corruption by nature) is having Christmas early. Having total control – the local authorities are having a blast but even they are slightly confused over the sudden routes and rules passed down in fervent succession.

First off our country is in turmoil: facing economic recession and the cost of living is so high you’d figure there would be self-inspired Robin Hoods stealing from the rich AND the poor to survive back here. That may very well happen soon. It has reached a point where the Middle Class and everything in between and below that are suffering seamlessly. It’s not funny anymore… life back here is merciless. Dog eat dog, cat eat rat… whatever you call it.

Secondly with a popular civil war brewing here for as long as I’ve lived, it would seem somewhat dangerous to have all these delegates over – but I must commend them on their tight security precautions… no problems or anyone in Barney outfits setting off bombs anywhere so far. Logic seems lost when intention and incentive have a bigger pull. So to cut a long story short; little shops and boutiques were broken down and trees and plants uprooted from all over the place & were forcefully planted in a hurry to decorate certain key traveling areas. Imagine that? A one week last minute decoration – you should see certain parts of Colombo (and ONLY these parts) where they’ve placed banners, pennants, hoardings, fancy colorful lights, the roads are clean, some contaminated wastelands now full of trees and greenery… so that the delegates believe that our lovely country actually looks like this all the time. I wonder if they’ll uproot the trees and take them back to their places of origin once the summit is over.

So the national security and safety factor was the main issue. Then we were to hear that some of our so-called peers had teamed up with an Indian Band bragging to be the next biggest thing in Prog Rock & were set to have a gig on the 20th of July and coincidentally decided to postpone it on the same day as ‘Shotgun Blues’. Now the irony is that the so-called peer bands knew well in advance that Stigmata were having a concert, and it would be on the last Sunday of July as we tend to nail our advertising a bit earlier than most. So knowing that they rescheduled their concert to clash with ours – which is fine ‘cos hey it’s the music biz. When we aren’t busy composing or performing earth shattering music we spend all our free time cutting each others throats. Or not.

A dear, dear friend of ours was to play the skins with the super-prog Indian band and he had asked them to fuck themselves and left them. We asked him why and he said the only thing they seemed to be concerned about – apart from the hilarious fact that they were going to play 15 cover tunes (one doesn’t have to travel from country to country to play other people’s music right? Especially if you’re self proclaimed and that HUGE) – was that they would somehow kick Stigmata’s ass. And what a nice bum that is. So up to that point we didn’t even know who they were - great balls of roasted toast – they wanted to take us head on… Cute. Then they go on their ‘Sri Lankans can’t play Metal… what can they possibly offer’ trip which had finally resulted in this very gifted skinsman asking them to go drown in the ocean. He was furious and snarled ‘No one insults our country’. Love the guy.

Now we’ve been around for a pretty long period of time you know. 8 years and so we’ve seen trends come and go, bands proclaiming to be the greatest in the very core of the underground’s bowels joining hip hop outfits to make money, bands changing genre tags every time the snow falls (oh we don’t have snow here… unless you’re trippin’ balls every second of every day) and now guys and gals who swore by their life’s blood and the blood of their kin to serve Rock ‘n Roll are proposing to plants along the southern coast of the country. So we took the whole thing in good spirit. We really had nothing to worry about ‘cos we are professional enough to have realized that –

a)It was an indirect acknowledgment by these jokers that if WE are the targets of their antipathy and hurtful words (teeheehee) it is simply because they felt WE were the most threatening entity here. What flattery…
b)We actually have maintained very good relations with dudes in some REAL Indian Bands who rip – who don’t even know who these guys are (now that begs a question… Bands in their own country not knowing them? Wow. They must be true underground sensations.)
c)Stigmata understands that this bears no reflection on India, the fabulous artistry of their Metal bands nor its people.
d)Who are these guys again?

There were also two other events staged for the 27th itself. One was called ‘Sirasa All Star’ another overtly hacked Amercian Idol spin off which will choose the best musicians through a hefty competition and finally put together a Super Band. It’s a masterful ploy by the jazz ambassadors of Sri Lanka who want to crush everyone and every other genre of music. So 5 puppets will be picked, be given a dashing reward, a record deal (where they won’t make a cent) and be dangled in the name of some sarong wearing, musical super ape’s vision.

‘Say there shall be jazz and nothing but jazz and all the vermin who infect our earth with their brutal music shall perish. Perish I tell you…’

Hee fucking Haw

The other is known as ‘Balafest’ another celebration for the Cold Play and Nickleback worshippers & necrophiles. The whiny club. This is the musical community that still embraces and believes that their MTV Alternative culture can be salvaged by 10-15 artistes performing twice a year, jamming the same tunes one would hear on radio everyday. Apart from one or two respectable artistes on the bill everyone else just plays music for the sake of supporting the ‘one hit wonder’ theory that it’s better to regress and grow stagnant than to improve and make some evocative music. It’s for all the sugar babies, gossip pros and Rock Stars who care more about their Gucci shirts & the latest Paris Hilton news than seeing if their instruments are actually tuned on stage. Metro-sexual karaoke, in short.

So the 27th dawns and despite most of our peers, friends and others telling us that the gig would be a flop… asking us to cancel the gig or to postpone it we decide to stand our ground. Because there was no other day to postpone it to, nor were we going to cancel it ‘cos Stigmata have NEVER cancelled a self organized gig in 8 years. It wasn’t a matter of pride, it was a matter of principal. The only thing that worried us was the security crisis and if people would get hurt or arrested, but we cleared that out. The amazing Baffer scanned and sent a map to us which indicated the closed down roads and the ones that would be open on the 27th surrounding the venue. Tenny sent a series of direct mailers, emailers and posted the map on facebook, our myspace etc., so people don’t waste their time traveling in circles. So having sorted out the sponsors, the backdrops, tickets, sounds, the venue and everything else we were ready to stage the gig ‘cos we found out that the roads that would be dangerous to travel in wasn’t near the Club. On the day of the event the man behind the negotiations on behalf of the Club is adamant to cancel the event. I receive phone call after phone call, the sound guys had reached the venue by 8am, and our Bassist Vije got there at about 10am and the Club was locked! There was no one from the venue there. And so the stories start on how the roads are blocked, that the employees can’t make it to work and that n one’s willing to work that day: frankly not OUR FUCKING PROBLEM.

We’ve hired the venue out and it’s their responsibility to show a modicum of professionalism. But the place locked till afternoon when the event kick starts at 4pm? That seems a bit silly.

So finally the rest of us make it to the venue and save for one Manager, and one guy at the bar there’s no one else there. So I get a call from the resident DJ cum Entertainment Manager and he still wants to cancel the event… and I keep stalling.
Then comes the big bird dropping the size of an elephant… the dude calls and says that a sudden new law has been imposed that vehicles can’t park around the club’s vicinity nor can they park at the club’s car park!?! Apparently for security reasons vehicles couldn’t park around the club… but the clubs very own parking space? Not unless the registration numbers of the vehicles were given a week in advance. Now why wasn’t this told to us before? And furthermore is it not the clubs responsibility to obtain permission or a permit for their own parking space when they were having a concert at their very own venue? So we were faced with a massive dilemma ‘cos the club said we could stage the event but they would take no responsibility for the vehicles (even ours) if they were to be towed away. So we say fine and get the sound guy to set up and while all the band guys are about doing their thing I stroll around on the venue’s rooftop trying to calm myself down, trying to make sense of it all.

I am not good with my math. But even I figured out the play. The Club wanted their 30 grand for the venue and to simply cancel the gig… Stigz look like a set of losers and are compelled to send all their hardcore fans back home. That wasn’t going to happen.

After making some calls to some people who tried to reach the Chief Inspector of the areas police station I decided to chat with the manager who was at the venue. A nice, soft spoken guy who was being pressured from his superiors to pull the plug on Shotgun. I told him the truth. I told him it was about our reputation. It was about principal. I told him that Shotgun wasn’t about making money, it wasn’t about loading the place up with people and I told him the turn up might quite possibly be much less than usual. I told the guy that if truth be told that a handful of people would make it in vehicles but there would be a great many utilizing public transport, guys and girls who’d been waiting for a gig for a long, long time who would travel by bus, three wheelers or cabs to make it for the gig despite the security issue and they deserved to witness the gig. No bullshit. No marketing tactics. No PR charm. Just the truth. This guy is a gem. He understood. He personally walked to the cop station and obtained permission to stage the event till 9pm. Kudos to this guy. He helped make ‘Shotgun’ happen. I better buy the dude a drink or two sometime.

So the gig rolled on… We had about 150 people in total at the Club (which wasn’t bad at all considering the fact that there were 3 other concerts and a national security crisis) and there were 84 tickets sold. Leaving out the VIPs, Invites, the Bands & the Crew, 84 people took the trouble and risk of turning up despite all the issues and they deserved a great gig. Wagon Park played an obscure but strangely entertaining set, Ritual played a great gig and WE gave it every ounce of soul we had. The guys even jammed some Blues and we played Deep Purple’s 70’s killer ‘Highway Star’ with a twist to it and after a long set… everyone had a blast.

And it’s true that the other concerts may have had larger turn ups… And obviously a great many pretentious Stigmata fans would have checked out the Indian Band’s gig ‘cos it’s a foreign band and shit… And you know what? It’s all good.

Despite every obstacle, hazard and hindrance we were able to stage ‘Shotgun Blues’ and it shook the foundations of Colombo’s heart. There was no bullshit. Just pure, beautiful, crushing music and the energy of everyone there was hectic. Almost like everyone shared the sentiment that this could be the last gig on earth.

But what puts a smile on my face even while concluding this post is this… Every single person present at Shotgun Blues proved that they really love our music and that whether we were to sink, swim or even if the world would split in two - that all of them would stand with Stigmata every step of the way.

And that means more to us than anything else this universe has to offer.

Thank you.