“Let us know when we should be expecting calls for shows in London, then,” bassist Arka jokes. “Our frontman will make you curry if you get us shows,” guitarist Shahed joins in. “He is a brilliant cook.” I first met Shahed in the trenches of retail, selling and shifting furniture for the well-healed and oft ill-mannered denizens of the King’s Road area of London while he was studying for an MBA. I knew he was a metalhead right away, with a serious fondness for the classics. I would walk into the stockroom to take a morale moment and catch him hard at work swinging pallets around, belting out the lyrics to the oldies accompanied by a much-abused radio cranked on Planet Rock Radio. I still own the black Stagg electro-acoustic he sold me with some regret many years ago, the white trim stained yellow from cigarette tar. The smell of tobacco smoke would rise like a phantom from the wooden body when played. Shahed returned to his native Bangladesh and joined the Dhaka based band after a ch
Strange tales in stranger times