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More Hell Than Hellborg
Written by Ravi   
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
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More Hell Than Hellborg
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Between having these guys relentlessly flap their metaphoric dicks in our faces and the largest part of the audience incessantly chattering throughout the show, I was thoroughly depressed by the end of it all. I looked at all the people around me and thought of friends and colleagues who spoke of this place like it was the saviour of music in this city and got even more morose. Whatever this place is about, it's definitely not music. I couldn't but help think of the gig Bhargava's had organised just around a week back -- it was superficially quite similar; two musicians (Virgil Donati and Brett Garsed - the Bangalore gig reviewed here) with a very niche primarily music geek appeal. That show was free, and the guys at Bhargavas actually had their store open later than usual so people would have no trouble picking up passes. The atmosphere was very laid back and casual and the acoustics at St Andrews were stunning. They had CDs by the artists up for sale at the venue - something that just about every other organiser fucks up on, and a comprehensive meet and greet autograph session after the gig. And the music was of a searing testicle shrivelling intensity with nary a dull moment. I walked in with a throbbing headache that I was completely cured off by the time I was out. Insane props to Bhargavas and Sandeep Chowta for organising such a perfect gig.

I have a theory on this, so if you dislike theories, stop reading. People flock to the Blue Frogs of this world because of their deep seated desire for rudeness and self abasement. They are schooled through college in being ignored and humiliated by 'lesser' pubs like Toto (a claustrophobic monstrosity of a place with the most boring by-the-numbers songs on an infinite loop where you are actually shushed for being too noisy by a sad old man who looks like a suicidal professor of Hindi literature. Yeah, it IS a pub and a very popular one at that). Having gotten too rich or *cough* too eclectic for the likes of Toto, they go for the express purpose of having their social and educational inferiors lord over and bully them. They are driven to obsessive insane orgies of spending trying to impress the cuntlike waiters into politeness -- people they will (possibly) never meet in the regular course of their lives, and would have ignored in any other social interaction. It's a horrific inversion of keeping up with the joneses. And it's a futile pointless exercise since it’s not about the money for the management and staff at Blue Frog – it’s about the insane delight, the psychotic headrush of having totally pissed over someone else’s evening. Which is pretty much why they occasionally get musicians with an actual fanbase to play there sometimes.* So they can fuck with people other than their ‘regulars’ who troop in every week, sick of themselves and their lives and needing to see an external validation of it in the sneering contempt of the waiters and their giga-snob minders.  

I for one am never returning – not even if Blue Frog in a shocking display of good taste gets Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Uli Roth, Jeff Beck, Paul Gilbert and Mattias Eklundh to play one hour slots followed by a three hour jam session. I just might return, though, if the place burns to the ground to dance on its ashes.

*aside: Most nights it seems to be artists of well deserved obscurity, created by a word randomizer with place of origin  and a couple of other words as variables and jazz as a constant. Sample some of the acts that have played there and try to guess which of them is fake –

a) Radius (Delhi): Jazz, rock - a circle of unique mystical styles and colours.

b) Kamal Musallam Quartet feat Mounir Troudi (Dubai): Groovy, transcendental Arabic jazz.

c) Kookaburra Saheb (Australia): Indo-Australian jazz with aboriginal/tribal nuances.

d) Julien Lourau (France): Afro-Cuban jazz-funk saxophone.

e) Rinpoche Guevara (Tibet): Revolutionary Tibetan acid jazz salsa.



 
Discuss (25 posts)
More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 21:12:51
This thread discusses the Content article: More Hell Than Hellborg

Oh man! That was some face-melting, titanium-dissolving bile there, and every ounce of it well deserved. Being subjected to constant assholery was one of the reasons I stopped going out to any place even remotely upmarket. Never encountered anything this crass, though.

Mudslinging time!
#6210
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 21:24:29
Yeah. Probably not going to make a difference but you should send this write up to who ever owns Blue Frog.
#6212
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 21:29:23
Oh slashgod intended forwarding it to a few of his friends who work at the place. I'm assuming it will get through finally. Though I've a feeling the only reaction will be high fives and bonuses all around.
#6214
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 21:29:55
Boy oh boy...
#6215
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 21:30:50
Classic! Let's post it on facebook etc.
#6216
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 26 2008 22:35:42
hahaha. A friend of mine wants to send this to Time Out, probably the largest supporter of this join in Bombay.
#6217
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 00:42:37
...patronised by hipster cunts for whom all music is just background noise to clusterfuck photoshoots for their facebook profiles.
Haha, so true! Facebook is otherwise great if not for this glaring obstacle - our friends obsession with photos and who fucking has the most number of photos or albums. I hate such wannabe page 3 cunts and their duplicated assortment of Marilyn Monroe-inspired poses, but with cocktail glasses. The scrambling of hands and arms as they mentally process how many more bodies they can cling onto before the one taking the picture can reach 3 and then click.
#6218
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 01:21:01
Afro-Cuban jazz-funk saxophone.

Buzzwords, buzzwords. Is there even such a thing?

Excellent write up :)
#6219
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 02:37:42
There was this McLaughlin gig I wanted to get to some weeks ago in the Blue Frog. Was told tickets were sold out after holding on the line for half an hour and speaking to three different people..

Then again, no way I'm gonna go to this place after reading that..
#6221
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 13:50:29
LOL. I guess with a name like blue frog you couldnt expect anything less.

Hopefully it should go bust in a year or so. These places usually do.
#6235
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 19:22:29
Kamal Musallam...Groovy, transcendental Arabic jazz
I prefer Murgh, has a far more meaty touch.

All in all BF is a Dilliwala sort of place I guess, that encourages customers to pull out guns and shoot the staff.
#6239
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 27 2008 22:04:09
hehehehehee......
#6255
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 28 2008 22:59:55
Has anybody heard Kamal Musallam Quartets latest album "Na Nasbandhi , Na Mala D" ?
#6280
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 05:55:34
holy shit ravi! this article OWNED! I couldnt really decide whether to laugh hysterically or to stop myself from cringing so i wouldnt be sick. did a bit of both.
also, i couldnt really guess which one of the last 4 bands was the fake..;p

hey panaman, post this on facebook!
#6334
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 11:23:05
Of course, we've been pimping it there.
#6335
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 11:56:54
Not enough! Has anyone posted this on RSJ?

EDIT: Done!
#6336
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 13:01:19
Link me to the Facebook page, someone?

This thing needs to be posted across forums and Orkuts and Facebooks. That fucking place is a fucking embarrassment.

What's up, kvltsite. First post. :P
#6338
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 13:13:18
Hello and welcome, go to the general section's intro thread and do the needful too.

Well, we posted the link in our profiles. Yesterday we made a group for KvltSite too, so join in www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23334754748&ref=mf
#6339
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 13:40:51
:O You're really Enrique Iglesias?!
#6340
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 15:31:05
Hahah!
#6341
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 16:53:14
xD

A guy can't wear a fucking skull cap? :D
#6342
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 20:02:23
Ahoy Pradeep!
#6343
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Aug 31 2008 23:53:01
Allo, Kow! =D
#6349
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Nov 28 2008 17:50:29
I finally got around to reading this but unfortunately I was too late - I did so after visiting that place. Where do I start? Well, to make it clear I wasn’t mistreated by the waiters. In fact, we got them to kick out Sikhander Kher from his table where he was sitting with his elbows on it and doing nothing basically. But the experience went rapidly downhill from there. First, what’s with the fucking seating arrangement? It’s reminded me of that lame ride where people sat in colourful gay tea cups which went round and round. Here the only difference was that the tea cups had light installed in and around them, and instead of the cup-like thing going round and round, we were going round and round – because some of us weren’t able to watch the band and had to take turns to sit in places from where we wouldn’t have to sprain our necks and backs to watch it. I soon realised it really wasn’t worth the effort. The band played Afro-jazz/rock/funk whatever and was obviously fucking annoying. For instance, the vocalist often picked up some tribal drum while moving around on the tiny stage and kept hitting it randomly. He was completely oblivious to what the other members were playing and just kept beating it incessantly, deriving some obscure spanking-like pleasure out of it. Fucking asshole, I wish I could give him a taste of his own medicine by tapping my boots randomly all over his head with the gleeful “Are you enjoying it?” expression on my face. What further enraged me is that people around me, including my own friends, were very nicely pretending to enjoy it. Fucking wannabe blind niggers who don’t even listen to more than a handful of English songs were suddenly enjoying Afro-jazz. Some bastards even had the audacity to dance to it.

That place served probably the worst (vegetarian) food I’ve had. It was definitely the most I’ve ever had to pay to eat artistically decorated shit. After a disastrous attempt at ordering some starter that had some two or three tiny cut slices of bread with a layer of awful smelling and tasting paste on it, my genius friend (the only other veggie in the group) ordered another starter for us. I was shocked (also because it cost 500 bucks) and asked him “(Bastard – in my mind) what did you do that for? Didn’t you have enough expensive shit to taste already?” He very confidently told me that as the first one was horrible, the next one was bound to be good. Obviously he was so wrong and I even made a face to convey that to him that from across the table. This fancy dish which had yellow chana powder stuffing in some pasta kinda enclosure was nothing but pure shit of the kind that you get when you’re having diarrhoea. About the only time I laughed there was when I got my other non-veg friends to taste it and watch their joyful “Oh I’m trying so hard to enjoy” expression turn grotesque in an instant. One almost puked in his mouth, hehe. It wasn’t funny anymore when we saw the bill: 7000 fucking bucks, which came to roughly 1800 per head after counting the entry fee. This for a mocktail, a couple of horrible starters, a barely eatable mushroom pasta and an extremely irritating band. (Who gave these untalented niggers a visa? Please fuck off, we have enough headache-inducing bands in our country; we really don’t need another one and certainly not a pretentious one.)

Overall it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. I’m surprised I left that place intact, even the toilet where I hid after my drunk friends began forcing me to approach some girls for them because they thought I was more “presentable”. (Fyi, my school banned me from giving the SSC board practical because I vandalized school property - smashed switch boards [it was personal], tore down charts, scribbled shit on the blackboard, damaged benches and desks, hung from ceiling fans, etc.) I guess I was too happy to get out of there but I really, really hated myself after that.
#7778
Re:More Hell Than Hellborg
Nov 28 2008 20:57:25
Ahahaha. Well your miserable experience makes for an absolutely entertaining anecdote to all your friends.
#7780

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