Evergreen featuring on Rosebowl!

Having had a day of filming at Rosebowl Studios, Evergreen will be featuring on the channel as part of a Christmas Day Special...

We filmed songs from our first album (Between and Beyond), plus the new hit single, City Blocks.

Be sure to tune in and watch our performance on Rosebowl channel, on Christmas Day from 1.30pm until 2.30pm.

See you there!

Evergreen airing on UK Radio Stations soon!

Well, after the much appreciated positive feedback on the launch of our new single, City Blocks, we are proud to announce that we have been able to secure the airing of our single, City Blocks, on UK radio stations!!!

Keep reading the blog to join us on our journey to this...!

Are You Ready?? The new single.... City Blocks.

Today we received the master track of our new single, City Blocks, straight from USA ...

It will be released for you all to listen to at exactly midnight tomorrow (that's 12.00am on Friday 12th November) only on ReverbNation - click below to listen!

http://www.reverbnation.com/evergreen

We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

ALL FOR ROCK GETTOGETHER.... Featuring Evergreen!!!

CAC (Arts and music school) is a pioneer in the field of music education with many generations of Rockers having been students of, or are associated with this institution.

RAJENDRAN 'MAASH', as he is affectionately known and revered by his students, is a stalwart amongst classical musicians in Cochin. A prominent figure in the COCHIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, managed by CAC, he is also the tutor to many fine violinists who have made their mark all over our homeland. He shot to news recently for gaining highest marks in India, at the 8th Grade examination held by the Trinity College of Music, London.

Maash, is undergoing treatment for a curable yet serious medical condition, and requires funds to the tune of 20 Lakhs to provide for his treatment. The hospital has kindly offered a huge discount, and now the rest of the music brotherhood have stepped in to be a part of the four day music and dance extravaganze dubbed CARNIVAL @ COCHIN 2010 (28 - 31 OCT 2010) to help Maash.

ALL FOR ROCK is a community of rockers and rock music enthusiasts formed by John Thomas (Motherjane), Sunil Silvester (EVERGREEN) and Joe Peter,(freelance vocalist and trainer) and serves as a platorm to promote true rockers (musicians and otherwise).

ALL FOR ROCK 'GETTOGETHER" is aptly titled cos CAC and ALL FOR ROCK get together for a rockers ball to raise funds for a senior musician in dire need of medical treatment.

All four bands have kindly consented to be part of this gig to raise funds for our brother in need. Look out for, and come and support, EVERGREEN!

15 Questions with Sunil Silvester...

Heres a peek into the guitaring life of SUNIL SILVESTER ( he insists on spelling Sylvester with an I ), the man behind the powerful riffs and melodic solos from EVERGREEN 's debut album 'Between and Beyond'....



1.Hows the journey been, between and beyond?
Well, recording 'Between and beyond' was an uphill task cos that was our maiden venture so to speak…and we struggled a lot initially, though post production turned out to be fun. For starters I'd considered it wise to record guitars on my own pc, which was pretty old and to cut a long story short, the tempo seemed to vary when Suraj tried to lay drumtracks to it. And so did the rest of the band. The guitars seemed perfect on my system but started acting weird on the studio system. But somehow we managed to fix that without losing our sanity. The post production bit took about a year and a half cos we could never be satisfied. A big thanks to Gopi chetan (T.J.Gopinath) who worked on our sound at his studio. He went to the extent of investing in high end equipment in his studio just to get our sound right. He was a Godsend.

2.How do you guys make your music? Do you jam and stumble upon ideas or do you come up with a preconceived melody and work on it?
'Between and beyond' was a compilation of songs that we jammed up and stitched together, with a vocal line and suitable lyrics added in later. But now we are working the other way round..a good melody line first and then a music structure around it. Having said that, we try not to limit ourselves to searching for that killer tune in a definite format..if a riff kicks in something interesting, we stake claim to it then and there..hehe….

3.Describe your gear and why you like it? What more would you like to add to it?
Im using Ernieball Musicman JPM6 , Ibanez RG guitars , MesaBoogie MarkI Amp with 4x12 Laney Cabinet (for practice sessions and recordings), a Voxtonelab SE floor processor and a Korg 1000G floor processor (for live gigs). I didn't have the MesaBoogie whilst the first album was recorded, and I use the musician and tonelab to recreate that sound for live gigs.
I'd love to add some good effect stompboxes to my amp in future.

4.How different is live playing from playing in the studio?
My challenge is to reproduce the sound I've recorded in the studio at a live gig. I feel more experience in the studio brings about more accuracy in terms of that reproduction.. But on stage, I believe a musician is a performer too, and should have loads of energy, to entertain. I try to strike a balance between accurate tone reproduction and transfer of energy to the audience.

5.Suraj Pallan leaving the band and Anish joining the ranks as drummer was a major change.Was there a challenge to face, and if so, how did you cope with it?
Hmmm..it was a change as both their styles varied. Suraj was a mellow no nonsense drummer, while Anish is like a lion let loose on stage…Coping with Anish was not a major challenge cos we found his style and blended with him as he did with us. The style of music has changed cos we're happy to give the lion his share of space in the creative department.

6.In your opinion, who are the young guitarists to watch out for?
I think Varun from TDT is a versatile chap. And so is Kevin, I forgot the name of his band though. I recently met a lovely girl named Aarabhy with amazing playing skills and a great personality. Theres definitely many more out there, but these are the young guitarists to look out for.Oh, I forgot to mention Manu from the now defunct 'Samhaara'. He's a good guitarist with a great style.

7.What kind of music do you listen to?
I'm lazy when it comes to exploring new genres. I do believe its important to listen to varied styles though..and thats funny. I used to be a classic rock freak, but now I've opened my ears to different genres thanks to good friends who are wise enough to listen to good stuff without limiting themselves to a particular style.

8.Tell us about your performances at the Leela, Kovalam. How does it feel to cater to a totally different kind of crowd in a restaurant as opposed to the headbangers you really want to cater to?
Playing in many different hotels over the past ten years has really helped me in terms of meeting new people with new ideas, and working with varied artistes and learning new styles. At the Leela Kempinski at Kovalam nowadays where we play covers mostly, we experiment (if I may use the term) with songs rather than just reproduce them. That helps to make boring 'done to death' songs interesting for the audience as well as for us, whilst helping us in our creative process. We play our own comps too and thats definitely a winner.

9.What or who influenced you to pick up the guitar?
I've always been restless in a group of people…my folks' disapproving looks were good evidence of that..haha…I always wanted to, and I guess I still do, stand up and be noticed when in a crowd. All the raw energy on stage, long wild hair and prancing about on stage attracted me to the life of a guitarist. Oh yeah, I loved music from the guitar too..LOL

10.Whats your personal practice schedule? Has it changed from what it used to be when you started out ?
I had a schedule when I started out, and stuck to it religiously come what may. But now I've relaxed on the schedule a bit cos a lot of work I do puts me in close contact with sharpening my creativity and skills on the guitar anyway.

11.To those young guitarists who are reading this, what would your advise be on their approach to music?
Don't limit yourselves to a genre. Try everything you stumble on, you'll enhance yourself that way. Relax and enjoy …..thats the only way to play music.

12.Suggest a good place in Cochin to buy a guitar, and why?
Well if I wanted to import a guitar, theres only one person that pops to mind first for dependable information on whats out…Jose Stephen (Jose chettan) of Stelsie music…I could depend on his advise cos he's a great guitarist himself and would understand each guitarists' requirements and apprehensions…

13.You are pretty adept at recording softwares..do you think its mandatory nowadays for musicians to learn that?
Keep oneself updated..constantly…in terms of music as well as equipment…definitely…thats the only way forward.

14.What is the one attitude from Cochin audience that bugs you, and you'd love them to change?
Enjoying at a concert causing discomfort to others..that bugs me and I hate playing to them..grow up assholes!!!!

15.Whats a piece of advise you’ve imbibed from a senior guitarist?
Enjoy what you are doing. And don't stick with something that doesn't provide satisfaction.

City Block Video Shoot - Day 2

So we began the journey from Jagan's aunt's house at 8am; we were heading to the location for the shoot. We discovered we had a new make up artist - the first one obviously gave up on us and probably wanted to share the pain of making us look decent with someone else!

The new location was in a village so we had breakfast at a teashop... unfortunately, the owner only had appam and egg roast.

We were surrounded by paddy fields and greenery. Again, we needed to set up all the sound equipment. After setting up came the make up - and the make up artist requested Sunil to go first. Bad move! Everyone including Tom asked the make up man not to do that but he was very insistent... maybe he was speaking from experience! A couple of hours later (!) the make up man began complaining about all his make up being utilised on just one person. This meant the rest of the band faced the camera without any make up... This WAS a waste of time and make up - Sunil looked no different than 2 hours earlier!

Shooting commenced and by 1pm, we needed a lunch break. Jagan's aunt had very kindly prepared a good, old-fashioned home cooked meal - Kerala rice, fish curry and other accompaniments. The house helper, Rajappan, bought some toddy from the toddy shop - Anish and Saji had beaming smiles stretched across their faces! Jagan's cousins, Joe and Jubin, were also helping. After lunch, as tradition goes, we took a nap - Sunil was over the moon!

After awaking, we began shooting again. Usually we would get a lot of onlookers, comprising of the local villagers, but because of a village funeral, visitors were few. But soon, children began returning from school and stopped to get a view of the shoot - for them, it was a first to see a band performing. They were so excited, they wanted to get a feel of the drums and strums of the guitar. Anish and Sunil entertained the children and showed them how to play their instruments.

The days shoot was over.. Jagan's aunt was ready and armed with tea and snack (tapioca and fish fry!) We packed all our stuff after eating and prepared ourselves for the journey back to Cochin..

Unfortunately, nobody remembered the issues we previously had with the accelerator cable. The driver of the vehicle was sleeping the whole day so on our way back, we had to stop once to sort out the same problem as before.

Eventually we got back home. We dropped off Tom and his assistant in Fort Cochin (he was planning to go shoot a boat race in Allepey the next day). He said he would shoot some additional footage without the band members.

Now... we are awaiting the pre-edited version of our video for City Blocks but in the meantime please enjoy this promotional video clip of the days' shooting!

City Blocks Video Shoot - Day 1

Camera Direction: Tom P
Shooting Location: Godown, Cochin

Picture this... a place full of dust and mess. This was to be our shooting location for the new video, City Blocks. It was so messy that Jagan and Arun had to go get their vacuum cleaners to tidy up the performance area.

This was the first time we used a make up artist - someone had to make us look presentable! Actually, aside from this he had to make us look slightly fairer skinned than we were. Arun and Saji thought they were Snow White - the fairest of them all but it took an hour each for them. Jagan and Anish's make up took half an hour. As for Sunil, the make up artist gave up after ten minutes as he knew he had no hope in hell of making him any fairer!

It was now time to take the drums, keyboard and all the other music equipment from the practice room to the nearby godown.

Tom had planned on shooting the video using only natural light. But after playing around with the camera, he asked the band for more lighting, which Sunil paid for cos it was needed just for him :-)

Jeffin (a friend and well wisher of the band) was also on hand to help; he was handling both the digital camera and the photo camera - a few times, trying to imitate Tom..

The shoot finally began at 12.00pm. The doctors at the ENT hospital nearby complained about the noise made by us - patients having had ear surgery that day were not so pleased about being at that particular hospital. So one doctor sent an assistant to ask us to reduce the volume - perfect time for a break!

Shooting resumed after the break with no more complaints from the hospital, as we reduced the volume. But before this, the make up artist insisted we all had a touch up and make ourselves look decent for the continuation of the shoot.

By 6.30pm, the day's shooting was over - Tom's words were 'pack up!' The same day, we travelled to another place to continue the shoot, Thiruvalla (Central Travancore), 100km from Cochin. The usual journey time is 2 hours but we went one step further and took 5.5 hours - we were helped by the failure of the accelerator cable of the vehicle in which we were travelling.

Everyone stayed at Jagan's aunt's place, really exhausted from the shoot and the nightmare journey so we went straight to bed (Sunil's first love!) but none of us were ready to miss out on dinner first!

Keep reading to find out about Day 2 and to see an exclusive footage of the video shoot, which will be posted soon...!

The new single... City Blocks by Evergreen...

Today, we received the premix version of our new single from our next album, Singularity. The song is entitled 'City Blocks.'

This time, Evergreen are working with Rex from Avial. The song is entirely different to all the songs from the first album, namely due to a new drummer and the style of music we have chosen to go for.

All the band members are excited about the uniqueness of the new sound!

A few friends have also listened and the feedback is extremely promising - they all really enjoyed the catchiness of the song. The comment that was universal amongst them all was the energetic vibe they got from it.

Keep reading... and we'll post it soon!

Evergreen working on 'From Here To Clarity' - Chilled Out Version

After the extremely positive feedback gained from the chilled out version of Sublime, Evergreen began working with Sam, a very good friend and talented musician, on their hit song 'From Here to Clarity.'

As it stands, the drums, guitar and bass parts of the song are pretty much complete... The next step will be to merge these sounds with the keyboard; the song will be complete with Jagan's vocals.

As you all know, the chilled out version of 'Sublime' is very different in terms of it's style and sound when compared to the original version.

'From Here to Clarity' is also very different - remember, it's a chilled out version... But again, very different to the chilled out 'Sublime.'

Sam is going out of his way to maximise the potential of Evergreen and take them to higher places; and Evergreen are working hard to utilise his capacity to their advantage.

Here follows a jamming session with Sam....

Evergreen @ Hard Rock Cafe, Delhi

After two rocking performances in the space of five months at Hard Rock Cafe in Hyderabad, Evergreen are getting ready to work their magic with the crowd at Hard Rock Cafe in Delhi...

Fans should prepare themselves for the original and unique compositions of their own, as well as covers of tunes that Evergreen know will satisfy the rock enthusiasts amongst you!

Be sure to party with the band at Hard Rock, Delhi on Thursday 30th September 2010 from 9.30pm onwards... See you there and stay tuned for all the post-performance details!