About 10 years ago, I remember sitting on a couch in my college dorm, looking at my roommate's guitar as he was strumming along to No Rain by Blind Melon, Under the Bridge by RHCP, and Wonderwall by Oasis, thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell... wait, no sorry, I was actually regretting the fact that back in 8th grade when my parents enrolled me in guitar classes, I did not take advantage of the opportunity. And I already knew back then that guitars = chick magnet. For some reason I still did not pursue it - mind you, when you're 13-14 that's a humongous incentive, or should be anyway... I still wonder why - I think my boredom at the repetition of certain songs and the theory kept me away from seeing the bigger picture. And in this case I don't just mean the ladies :) But yeah... no pain no gain. In my case it was more like, no sitting your arse down, no rocking out the town (which will make sense later).
So here I am, listening to the songs, and wondering, "what if" when my roommate says to me, "V you should try it" and... I do. I pick up the guitar and play a tune (in my head), which sounds like a wailing sheep (yes that's a reference). He doesn't budge. Tells me to try again. So I do. And again, but this time the sheep have multiplied. Yet, my roommate is not phased. I decide that if I'm going to go sheep-style, I might as well try to represent the entire population and so I start belting out tunes, feeling sorry for Clarice, and wondering just how NZ-landers would probably feel hearing me now...
Fingers bleeding, back aching, ears numb..... and suddenly I hear someone say, "oh hey - is that Wonderwall?" and in that moment of my own Silence of the Lambs, I am reborn.
This is where I will fast-forward to the present, but as I'm fast-forwarding just mention some key points. Imagine images are flicking through in 4X speed or so. I play for friends, get suggestions of songs to learn, join a band on bass, then join another band, then randomly play anywhere I go, start traveling with the guitar, decide that the guitar is another appendage, join yet another band, and another, and another, and all this time, practicing because I enjoy it. Because I want to. Because I choose to. Loving every second.
OK - back to real-time. Crap, no guitar with me. I'm sitting in a hotel room in Sri Lanka typing this up - let's rewind ever so slightly.
Boom - P3 INSEAD - with a show called "Cabaret" on its way. On the steering committee looking at the line up of acts, realizing that I know a few folks that might be interested in jamming a couple o' tunes for this here show, why not, eh?
And this is where I met the Lebanese Percussionists, an Indian guitarist/prodigy from NYC, our Israeli rhythm guitarist, and Dutch keyboard extraordinaire - all wrapped and sealed with a Korean American LA-native who represented us on the front line - ie our lead singer.
Le Shaken was born.
And why the shaken? A few reasons... first and foremost, we have a bar in Fontainebleau called Le Shaker.
And secondly, more importantly, because we like to shake things up.
Sing a song to the tune of another similarly composed tune, or change the lyrics, maybe even transition into songs unexpectedly, or with mashups as some call them - and much like most musicians i've had the pleasure of performing with, most of us knew our own instruments quite well.
Pick a song. Everyone learns their piece and then we meet - at a friend's chateau (Le Taverne - because we couldn't actually find a place to practice) and we jam. Most of the time we end up changing the lineup, until we're satisfied for that day with our song selection.
After about 3-4 practice sessions, we finally set aside a few goldens - Sweet Child, Save Tonight, Bad Romance, and finally Ice Ice Baby.
Cabaret in P3 was amazing. The night was... well - surreal. We had no idea what energy we were coming to the stage with. To start, the lead guitarist did the Sweet Child of Mine intro, and I accompanied on the bass - both of us standing in the style of one of Pearl Jam's most famous posters:
Coming out of this show, I can only say there was an amazing high. A high that was unmatched by the party that followed because our adrenaline was so deeply surging that we can only remember the smiles, the screams, the sounds of a happy INSEAD crowd singing a chorus for you... an amazing night to remember. And one that kept us pretty content...
And then we had a redux in P5. Most of us reunited in Singapore, another Cabaret pending. This time, we decided to really challenge ourselves, and picked out some recent mashups - things that were somewhat significant to our classmates, but also just good tunes... Chasing Cars sang to the tune of Every Breath You Take, followed by Fallin' with Seven Nation Army on chords, and finally - Party Rock - complete with a reggae beat.
Once again, the adrenaline. The energy. This time Le Shaken was a smaller few, but the energy was not compromised. It was almost doubled with the realisation that this was it. One last chance for us to belt some tunes, enjoy the company of our classmates, and give them a performance worth remembering... so with 2 percussionists, a guitarist, a bassist, and a vocalist, we transformed a few minutes into what we'll remember as golden memories encased in a name, forever immortalized: Le Shaken.
Will miss you guys. Am sure we'll find moments to jam in the future... but until then, keep making music!
