I for one, do not believe the allegations. Here I provide several reasons, which provide an alternative explanation for his actions.
1. Afridi was hungry.
Fed up with his limited eating options in non-halal Australia, Afridi was driven mad with hunger. He started hallucinating on the cricket field and when he was handed the cricket ball, he thought it was an apple laced with heroin and bit into it. Now most of us would probably have shattered our front teeth and realized that we weren't eating a apple laced with heroin. But since Boom Boom Afridi is awesome he probably bit a massive chunk out of it, chewed it, digested it and shit out an AK-47 and a pellet of naswar.
2. Afridi was showing aggression.
What could be more terrifying than seeing a member of the opposition act like he is going to savagely devour your testicles? Clearly a calculated move on Afridi's part. The Aussies must have collectively shit their pants when they saw Boom Boom gnawing away at that cricket ball like a deranged beaver. We might have even won the match if Afridi had started chewing on a bat handle...
3. Afridi was horny.
In an effort to show that he was ready for mating, Afridi had to send out some signals. Here were his options:
Masturbate furiously in the middle of the pitch
Prove his virility by forcibly boning Peter Siddle. (mostly so he could make a rhyme about how he was able to “diddle Siddle”)
Thump his chest and take a shit near the boundary.
Bite a cricket ball to show his hunger for producing offspring.
Luckily for all of us, (and for Peter Siddle) he chose option 4.
4. Afridi is awesome.
Biting a cricket ball is merely the latest in a long list of awesome things Afridi has accomplished. A copy of his itinerary was found in the Pakistan teams dressing room yesterday. Here it is.
7:00 AM: Wake up, kick bitches out of room.
8:00 AM: Give team pep-talk. Threaten sodomy.
8:30 AM: Record new version of Nazia Hassan hit “Boom Boom”. Add “...will fuck you” to lyrics.
9:00 AM: Lead small Pathan village to revolution
10:00 AM: Audition for next Die Hard movie.
11:00 AM: Acknowledge awesomeness and laugh.
12:00 AM: Lunch: Find weakest member of Aussie Team and eat him.
1:00 PM: Start match. Go to Australian dressing room, rub testicles on all their gear.
2:00 PM: Score match winning 2 off one ball.
3:00 PM: Bite cricket ball
7:00PM: Find bitches.
5. Afridi is batshit fucking insane
How has this never occurred to anybody?
That's how Afridi rolls. He's unpredictable. He's loco. Insane in the membrane. Does he even know he's playing cricket? For all we know Boom Boom has no idea what the fuck he's doing in the middle of a stadium with 7,000 screaming fans. Heck he probably has no idea who the fuck Boom Boom is. Can you imagine the confusion? The poor terrified Afridi just wanted all those white people to stop yelling and that other white dude to stop hitting that fucking ball towards him all day. To make it stop, he picked up the ball and bit the fuck out of it. He was merely registering a legitimate, but ultimately, batshit-fucking-insane protest.
I've been playing music in bands since I was 16. I've grown up jamming with all sorts of people from similar to varied backgrounds. The most memorable bits of the journey have always been the personalities of the people I'm playing music with.
When you join a band, you become part of a fraternity, a gang, you are forced to spend time with people you wouldn't normally find in your social circle. Sometimes the only thing you have in common with them is music. During this time, you will discover that most people who join a band are by normal standards, pretty fucking insane.
This is not always a bad thing. Rock'n'roll history is littered with examples of famously insane but outrageously talented musicians like Keith Moon, Syd Barrett and Keith Richards. Who doesn't love a good character?
What has been scary for me, is seeing people, who I consider to be fairly normal by all accounts, slowly unravel. I see their facade of mental health crumble, bit by bit, slowly revealing glimpses of their thorough insanity.
Take for example, the newest member of our band, our drummer Giles. By all accounts, Giles appears to be a fairly normal guy. He's jovial, really polite and gets along with everyone. He's genuinely making an effort to fit in with the boys. I really like Giles.
But I'm pretty sure he's a serial killer.
Take for e.g. the following 100% REAL SMS exchange I had with him the other day.
Me: Guys we're having band practice today at 7:30, see u there
Giles: Do u want me to get u nething like cheese or glass or may b some wood?
Me: Huh? What the fuck?
Giles: Don't u know wood is become a drink now.
I have gone over this conversation many times. I confronted Giles about it. He laughed. He claims that there is a soft drink out there called "Wood", which is what he was offering me. If in fact, there is a soft drink called "Wood" out there please, loyal blog followers, inform me.
I have also tried to hypothesize the many scenarious where this conversation might look to be less insane. I started thinking, "Well I do like cheese, most people do, so maybe he was just offering me some of his cheese". This is pretty random, but not entirely insane. Maybe there actually IS a soft drink called "Wood". And maybe he was offering me a glass. So that I could drink this delightfully named beverage. If you consider each of these things in isolation, it doesn't seem so bad. I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But as I mentioned earlier, when I gave him the chance to explain himself, all he did was laugh. It wasn't just a normal laugh. It was the laugh of a fat kid who had found the cake.
I''m willing to put up with this for now, because he's a damn fine drummer. But I feel it's only a matter of time before Giles shows up to practice dressed in a panda suit, takes a shit inside his bass drum and then murders us all.
People will remember Asim as one of the great minds of his generation. They will remember him as a great artist. They will remember him as a rebel, a true believer in the power of struggle. They will remember him for the many incredible things he did and the incredible body of work he left behind.
I will remember him as all these things as well. But most of all I will remember the warmth Asim radiated. I will remember the affection I felt in his presence. And most of all I will remember his stature. I was in awe of Asim for all these things.
Asim's younger brother Ahsan is a close friend of mine from college. I got to know Asim through him. The first time I met Asim was at a friends house, at a dinner. Upon being introduced to him, I blurted out how much he resembled Ahsan. Asim took mock offense and reminded me that Ahsan was the one who resembled HIM. We had a long conversation that night, he found out I was a musician and we talked about bands and performance and art. I didn't know too many artists at that time. I had a stereotype of them as being quirky stoners who were airheaded, overly obsessed with emotions and frankly I thought most of them were pretentious.
But Asim wasn't a typical artist. He had a fierce intellect, he was incredibly self aware and he had an opinion about everything. Not just an opinion gleaned from conventional thinking, but well thought out, well articulated opinions that put me, for once at the listening end of a conversation. I thought Asim was simply humouring me because I was his brothers friend. But I think he sensed that he had broken down a lot of preconceived ideas I had about art and artists. I remember him inviting me to come by his studio, I was touched by his invitation, I didn't think artists like to share their space and I made a mental note to take him up on his invitation.
I had no idea at the time that I was speaking to such an outrageously gifted man. I had never seen his art, until I went to his first exhibition called "Tableaux Noirs" at Zenaini. In fact that was the first art exhibition I had ever been to in Pakistan. I went solely because of Asim.
I remember the first time I saw one of Asim's painting. I remember the exact sensation. I felt like I had been hit in the chest. I felt like the colors from the canvas were touching me. Not just touching me, they were grabbing violently at me. I remember how vivid his work was, until then most paintings I had seen could best be described as passive. Not Asim. His work was alive, it was angry, it was funny, it seemed to rise up out of the canvas and dance in front of you. His figures were in a constant state of animation, and the loving detail to every muscle, every hair, every sinew of flesh was a kick to my consciousness. The paintings showed real people, real animals, real buildings everything was so vivid and real and yet it was a work of art. He made the dirty, the grotesque, the ignored seem beautiful and alive. You couldn't take your eyes off them.
That exhibition of Asim's sold out in record time. It was unheard for such a young artist. I wasn't surprised at all. He was creating a buzz. When I spoke of him, people referred to him as the next big thing to come out of Pakistan. When I talked to younger artists, especially from Indus Valley, they all idolized Asim. His work and commitment were legendary. He was an inspiration to so many.
Asim was the first artist whose work touched me. Maybe I was finally old enough to appreciate art, or maybe my perspective on the world had changed so I could appreciate what he was doing. But he was the first, and for the longest time, the only art I had any time for. I never missed any exhibition that had his name on it after that.
Asim and I continued to meet after that. Most of the time he'd be up late at night on facebook and we'd chat about everything under the sun. He'd recommend new music to me and excitedly send me emails with a long list of artists and pieces of music I should listen to. I couldn't keep up with him. He was intense, and passionate and had a childlike enthusiasm that was contagious. And while he was obviously smarter, better read and infinitely more talented than I could ever hope to be, I never once detected a tone of condescension in his voice.
Asim was an artist, but he was also that rare breed of artist, a true rebel. One moment he was a studio artist exhibiting work for the elite of Karachi in the most posh of art galleries, the next minute he was out spray painting graffiti in the dead of night. Like a modern day superhero, Asim would stealthily dart in and out of locations and spraypaint his message, using the simplest of symbols.
His 'eject' signs starting popping up all over the city during the last days of the Musharraf presidency when the protests took place. He wasn't just a passive, hidden protestor, he would actively take part and organize demonstrations. Most people will tell you they don't care about what other people think of them. Asim truly didn't. He simply didn't think like you and I did. Where you and I would think of the problems, the obstacles and reasons not to do something, Asim thought only of the goal, the achievement and the reasons something should be done.
He spoke to me one night of organizing a massive protest to stop the demolition of the beautiful and historic Hotel Metropole facade in Karachi. While I gently tried to point out the reasons he would fail, Asim simply didn't grasp the concept, or back down. He was always looking for a way. Its not that he was naive, or ignorant. He truly believed that anything could be done. That is why to me, Asim is the only true rockstar I have ever known.
His strength, his single minded determination to do the right thing and never compromise on his belief were an inspiration to me. I wanted to emulate him. And more than anything I wanted to impress him. Since Asim was so generous with his compliments, you always felt good around him, but I wanted his genuine approval, I wanted him to see me as an artist as well.
I invited him to every single ADP show, but he always refused, citing his aversion to large crowds. It became a running joke between the two of us, and I would tease him about what I thought was his irrational fear of people. Finally he showed up, without telling me, at the last Shaanaakht gig we did. It was one of our best shows to date. I guess Asim's incredible aesthetic sense told him to pick the right time to see us. He told me later how much he enjoyed the show, and how thankful he was that I wasn't some 'bubblegum' pop singer. (Asim's only previous exposure to us was watching the 'Nazar' video on youtube and according to him, this dented my rockstar credentials considerably). His short, simple praise meant so much to me.
The last time I met him was almost exactly a week ago, the Sunday of Open Mic Nite. I was running around, harassed trying to manage the immense crowd and was fretting about my own performance. I spotted Asim in the crowd and waved out to him. He flashed me a big smile and waved back, I called out to him reminding him of how much he hated crowds, yet here he was in the middle of the most congested, uncomfortable and raucous crowd we had seen in a long time. He looked visibly flustered, threw his hands up and said he was leaving. I smiled. It was enough for me that he had simply shown up.
That's how I'd like to look back on Asim's short but very special time on this planet. He was in my life for a very short time. But it was enough for me, that he had simply shown up.
Here are some of my favourite pieces, both paintings and graffiti by Asim
After our fantastic gig at the Shanaakht Festival, (November 2009) where we played with Laal, Fuzon, Taal Karisma and Noori, we did what we do best. Put our heads up our asses and disappeared.
Well not entirely. We had noble intentions. Buoyed by the success of Shanaakht we went back into the recording studio with renewed confidence in our abilities. So far the only song we had recorded at Mr. E's studio was "Mujhay Sahara Do". Now when we recorded that song with Omar Khalid back in the day ( July 2009), we thought it sounded pretty good. But upon listening to it after 4 months, we realized it was rather shit. We asked Mr. E to mix it for us anyway. Mr. E mixed it in a rather unconventional manner. By also putting his head up his ass.
For two weeks he didn't give us the song. And then when he gave it to us it was unmixed. When we told Mr. E "Hey Mr. E, this song is unmixed", he was most surprised. He felt that he had done everything he could. No doubt, Mr. E too had noble intentions, but his practice of trying to mix a song by placing his head slowly up his own butthole was slowing down the process.
So we did what any band would do under the circumstances. We said, "OK nevermind Mr. E, here lets record some more songs". You see we had already paid him an advance amount of money to record our album. So we really were stuck in a corner. We could either beat his testicles with our shoes and hope that he gives our money back. Or we could get him to work. We chose the latter. But only barely.
This was not entirely a bad thing. We got Giles in the studio to play drums, and he did a fantastic job, so we were able to record the basic tracks for 'Hum Na Rahey' and "Jaaney Vaaley". Like a bunch of dudes peeing in the snow, we felt pretty good. Soon it was time for us to get fucked. So Mr. E decided to get up one day and leave the country.
So here we are again. Fucked.
I really wish I was making some of this up. But I'm not. The sheer levels of unprofessionalism are just beyond me getting mad anymore. To me the situation has become just sickly amusing. We are heavily in debt. We don't have a studio to record in. We can't shift to another studio. We don't have any gigs lined up, concerts these days are getting more scarce by the day. We have 9 to 10 fantastic original songs that we are fully set to record. We're basically sitting waiting for Mr. E to come back someday so we can tell him to go fuck himself and give us back our money. Now this, if you're in Pakistan, you will realize, is un-fucking-likely.
Surprisingly, the band has remained fairly upbeat. We're all frustrated. But I think there is a sense that there's no point making a bad situation worse by bitching and moaning. So we're back to jamming, and I gotta say I'm feeling very good about how the band is sounding. We took a break in the winter, Rahail was travelling, I was busy with family and Giles was busy with Christmas. It gave me some time on my own and for the first time in a long time, I actually got down to some serious songwriting. The results were a whole bunch of new songs, one of which I performed with Ali at Open Mic Nite, a fantastic event we did last weekend showcasing some great upcoming talent and my favourite performers.
So while we might be fucked in the recording process, I'm feeling very good about the bands' sound. We're sounding tighter than ever and the songwriting is coming around well. I really can't say whats going to happen in the next couple of months, I can only hope we find a way to get back in the studio, or at least some gigs. But for now it's all just up in the air.
Once again, I apologize for not updating the blog as often as I should. But it's a new year, and this was one of my top resolutions, I'm going to try and stick by it.
It's time I confirmed what many people have suspected, that Omar Khalid, the drummer and founding member of Aunty Disco Project has left the band.
Usually when somebody leaves the band there are rumors of an acrimonious split, whispers of fights and clashing egos. Then each party issues some sort of statement with the usual 'creative differences' being listed and how they wish each other well etc. I want to make clear that this truly wasn't the case with OK leaving.
There were several reasons contributing, but the most prevalent one is that OK's life plans simply couldn't accommodate being part of a band full-time. He won't be in Karachi much longer and he simply couldn't carry on with us the way we were. ADP is looking to get to the next level, we've all collectively decided that we don't want to do this just for fun anymore. Even if we don't succeed, we have to try to make it, and that meant an increased focus and a lot more dedication and commitment to the band, something we simply couldn't ask from OK anymore.
There's been no hard feelings, we all knew that OK would be leaving, it was just a matter of time. When we performed our last show at Rangoonwala Auditorium, we were all fully aware that it could possibly be our last show with OK. And it was. I'm glad he got to go out on a high note because that show was probably our best, and OK gave it his all in a fantastic performance.
I can't speak for the rest of the band, but for me, the whole thing was really sad. I'm going to miss him. We'd been together right from the start, we'd gone through so many highs and lows together, we'd been part of the struggle for so long that it kills me to see him go now, just when I think we're finally starting to make things happen. To me OK wasn't just a drummer, he was this hilarious character, my brother, my partner in crime who just happened to be an incredible musician.
In the beginning it was just OK and me, just two guys jamming in my bedroom. For the longest time we didn't have anyone else. It was just me on guitars and him on the drums. It was the beginning of a long and joyous musical partnership that formed the backbone of the band. I built my guitar playing around him and his style of drumming. He really did have a unique style of drumming. He smacked the skins harder than any other drummer I had played with and his beat had a really heavy stomp, which came from a massive kick-drum attack. I think the fact that he played the kick-drum so hard contributed to his knee problems later on. But that was the way he played, loud and aggressive and a trademark swing that kept him just behind the beat that would create this wonderful push-pull dynamic, that was so evident in songs like “Sultanat” and “Shehar Kay Aansoo”. Playing fast wasn't his thing, he liked to get stuck into a slow but powerful groove that sounded like a sledgehammer. He was massively into hip-hop beats and that's one of the things I loved about his drumming was that the guy had swing. He didn't simply play wooden straight beats, he loved to accentuate and vary. To OK, drumming was all about the groove and feel, never about simply keeping time. You'd never see it in his demeanor, because Omar remained stoically poker-faced every time he played drums.
Omar was the complete antithesis of the 'wild drummer' image. He was never flashy or an attention whore (I suppose he had to balance the obvious showboating of Yasir and myself). He never really paid much attention the whole 'rockstar' image, probably because he cultivated his own cool/aloof image so effortlessly. It's true that while onstage, Yasir and I got most of the attention, OK had his own clique of female fans who were intrigued by his 'mysterious' persona. OK's trademark look involved him looking like he just got out of bed, with a heavy stubble and a cigarette nonchalantly dangling from his mouth. While Yasir and I would obsess and fret over our hair and clothes, OK would turn up for a show wearing a red t-shirt and track pants, much to our exasperation. He spoke little, but when he did it was usually hilarious. He was the king of sardonic commentary and a master of ripping apart someones stupidity. He had a particularly evil sense of humor and usually Yasir was at the receiving end of it. Yasir and OK had a special bond, despite the fact that OK had, on various occasions...
Convinced Yasir that there was a bomb in the car.
Convinced Yasir that I had kicked him out of the band
Convinced Yasir that we were throwing him a surprise birthday party. When we weren't.
Hidden in the backseat and scared the shit out of Yasir when he got into the car.
Convinced Yasir that the plane they were on was going to crash and that he should start praying.
A lot of times, OK would get criticized for being inconsistent. In the beginning a lot of factors affected his playing. His troublesome knee, his grip on the sticks, if his monitoring was bad, he tended to fall apart midway through the show. But he was a pressure player, The bigger the occasion, the bigger the performance from OK. He relished a challenge. Just when you thought he couldn't pull something off, he'd do it. I remember back in July 07 when we were due to play the K-Fest show at Royal Rodale with Mauj and Mizraab and we had been toying with the idea of performing Led Zeppelins 'Black Dog'. Anyone who's tried to play it knows its a complete nightmare to do, with its complicated rhythms and stops and starts. Till the last minute, I wasn't convinced we could do it. It wasn't until the very last day that OK simply powered his way through it and got it spot on. We performed it the next day at the show bowling over the audience with such a massively difficult cover, OK was magnificent and his volcanic performance was the highlight of the show.
And man did he improve. While we all improved together as a band, OK had a single minded determination to become a technically better drummer. Once he finally bought his own drumkit, he practiced religiously and it showed in leaps and bounds. This past year, OK's drumming was incredible. Before he had raw power and talent but now, he had the technical knowledge and the polish that truly began to lift our songs to the next level.
He was the guy I counted on to be the voice of sanity when I thought I was losing mine. When we were doing a PACC show with Mauj, I was down with a 105degree fever and completely bed-ridden, unable to do anything for a show I was organizing. That same day we were shooting the video for “Iss Tanhai Ko”. OK stepped up to the plate and completely took over all responsibility, handling the money, ticketing, transport, soundcheck, setup. That show was really special to me. With our backs up against the wall, we played out of our skins thanks in no small part to OK's timely management of the crisis.
I hope this doesn't read like an obituary, because OK isn't dead. I simply wanted to pay tribute to one of the most talented musicians I have ever had the pleasure of playing with and I hope he continues to play. He'll always be my friend and brother, and this really is the end of an era. But I know it's the beginning of a new one, and I know that nothing would make OK happier than to see us succeed. And if we do, it'll be because OK was part of the Aunty Disco Project.
Yes it is yes it is! I'm back all you beautiful people. I missed you all. Where do i begin? Oh I was supposed to do a part 2 to the ADP weekend wasn't I? about Rangoonwala Auditorium. Well well well, I will. But so much has happened since hasn't it? Some of it is crazy exciting, some of it sad. But all good. I promise to be good, I missed writing, I just got so busy in the middle. Then depressed. Then fat. Then thin. Then horny.
I have overcome my fat, thin, horny demons and now I bring the blog to you again. I plan to update every week. In the meantime, check out ADP's Facebook Page and Twitter page for constant updates on what we're doing.
Check out our brand new spanking website www.getyourauntyon.com where you can finally download our music, both studio and live recordings!
I now leave you this space below to abuse me for neglecting my blog.
So the Independence Day Weekend 14th-16th August was a dream weekend for ADP. We had two incredible concerts, one at the Indus Valley School for Art and Architecture (yes, I have to say the whole thing, it makes it sound grand) and one at Rangoonwala Hall.
We used to have a college love affair with IBA back in the day when we started, now it's with Indus Valley. They always have such a great, festive atmosphere at their events and we jumped at the opportunity to play at the their annual Independence Day Mela.
Now it's always tricky playing Independence Day Gigs because there is this pressure to perform patriotic songs, i.e. Dil Dil Pakistan, Jazba Junoon or sing the Roz Roz Good Milk jingle because the crowd demands it. We took a conscious decision not to play any national songs because a) we sucked when we tried to play them b) Omar Khalid refuses to play a bhangra beat c) we thought it might look like we're trying too hard to pander to the audience. Now don't get me wrong, I am an expert panderer to the audience as long as I get love. (Listen carefully children, this is what an attention-whore sounds like). But at the same time, the whole 'qaumi'-songs-on-14th-August has been done to death and the whole idea of forced patriotism is just cheesy to me.
I shall now save you haters the hassle of leaving stupid predictable comments accusing me of being unpatriotic by doing it myself. This is the problem with burger bachas like you, you hate Pakistan and all things desi and you love America that's why you don't sing qaumi songs on 14th August. You're just trying to be too cool by not playing patriotic songs Our culture...blaah blaah...national identity..bllaah blaah...Begum Noor Jehan....bllah blaah...music inspiration.Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan....blah blah... i'm proud to be desi...blaah blaah...next generation...I hate you.
Anyway, so the Mela itself was great, we had a couple of local college opening acts that went on before us, the most memorable of which was a duo that played an angry, punk rock, completely out of tune version of The Backstreet Boys "I Want It That Way"
I got my face painted in the spirit of things, and the boys and I all chose to wear some form of green. (Notable exceptions were Rahayl who wore black, because he hates happiness and Omar Khalid who wore red because he supports communism. But also because it was a present from his wife.)
As we were sound checking, a large gentlemen in a starchy shalwar kameez came and wistfully asked OK if he could play some bhangra because him and his buddies were in the mood to dance. I kid you not, this actually happened. OK, never being one to miss an opportunity to mess with someone then told the gentlman that he didn't know how a bhangra beat went. Obviously the guy proceeded to demonstrate with his best bhangra-beat-box effort. OK then pretended to get the beat and forget it, driving our starchy bhangra man insane.
Right after sunset, we were ready to take the stage. There was a massive , really excitable crowd and they were warmed up by some Pathan students (who introduced themselves as the rather mencaing Pukhtoon Federation) came and did the tradiotional dance to Bibi Shireen. I thought it was fantastic and the crowd really got into it.
With all the excitement bulding up, we took the stage and kicked off with Baba O'Reilly.
It was absolutely fantastic! Even though the stage was sparse and had only two floodlights on either side, it ended up looking really dramatic with the huge Pakistan flag in the background. We had been treating this show as a bit of a warmup for the big one we were going to do at Rangoonwala Hall, but suddenly with the crowd and the electric atmosphere it became a full-on rock show. We played a short set, probably only half an hour but it was really energetic and the crowd were having a fantastic time singing along and dancing. We also got to unveil our brand new "Get Your Aunty On" ADP t-shirts and chucked a couple into the crowd (much to our managers dismay).
After the show, we were completely drained, but relieved. This had been the first ADP show with new line-up of Ali and Rahayl and we felt the curse had finally broken. We hadn't done a live show since we were in LUMS in May and this short, fantastic little gig had really done wonders for our confidence. We were all set for the big one on Sunday...
Tell all your friends in Karachi! We'll be debuting brand new tracks from the upcoming album, never been played in public before! Also lots of ADP merchandise will be on sale.
My name is Omar Bilal Akhtar.
I'm the vocalist/guitarist for the Aunty Disco Project.
We're a struggling rock band from Karachi, Pakistan. This blog is a way for me to be self absorbed and embarassing to my band members.
A.D.P is
Omar Bilal Akhtar (Vocals/ Guitar)
Ali Alam (Vocals/Guitar)
Omar "OK" Khalid (Drums)
Yasir Qureshi (Darbuka/ Percussion)
Rahayl Sidikey (Bass/Vocals)
