skeptikal - the rock band

SoundCloud Home

2012-01-31T04:07:00.000-08:00

Our SoundCloud page is now up, we have released 3 of our Home Recorded Demos. Have a look at:

http://www.soundcloud.com/skeptikal-mu

2012: Who said ?

2012-01-24T23:05:00.001-08:00

Who said nothing would happen in 2012?

Happy New Year

2011-12-29T22:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to All of You.

We think You Rock; We heard your shouts; We heard your voices.

We appreciated all the feedback you gave to us.

We made new friends.

We loved the support.

We will share a few gifts next year! Stay sick! Stay tuned!

22nd Dec

2011-12-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

We're quite excited to support other local rock bands there. Hope to see you there \m/

2nd December Concert

2011-11-25T02:26:00.001-08:00

Tickets will be available at the door and are on pre-sales too at Rs.200. Feel free to contact band members to get yours early.

Local Jazz Artist Richard Beaugendre will be opening for us with his Jazz Trio
&
Ash of Beasts will roar with its explosive guitar riffs on their favorite rock tunes

Stay tuned \m/ and see you there

Last Concert of the Year (2nd December @20:00): Conservatoire Francois Mitterand, Quatre Bornes

2011-11-21T20:20:00.001-08:00

Hello peeps :)

Let's do something awesome and honor the girls. As our end-of-year gift, we decided to give you girls a FREE entrance to our next concert which will be held at Le Conservatoire Francois Mitterrand on the 2nd December 2011 as from 20:00, how cool is that? (er.. well, guys are paying a minimal fee)

The location:
http://g.co/maps/3zukc

We believe in openness to other genres, while on our side, we will remain true to rock music \m/ and we will open with a different music style this time. A popular funk band from the mauritian scene, an awesome jazz artist, the crowd heater metal band Ash of Beasts and of course, we will offer you a few new songs.

Cheers and see you there \m/

Upcoming concert dates

2011-11-15T20:49:00.001-08:00

19 Nov  : Le Sapin, Rose Hill

2  Dec  : Conservatoire Francois Mitterand

The Fall - Sneak Preview

2011-11-13T21:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6twixFoC__A

A short preview of my guitar parts on 'The Fall' from our band. More stuff coming soon!

We will most probably replace this video soon with an 'HD' version and with the vocal line - which I muted on purpose for this track - to keep focus on the guitar parts.

WANTED! Skeptikal, Escaped, Musical Democracy

2011-11-10T20:50:00.001-08:00

How do we sound like? Have a sneak preview of one our home recorded demos, the intro of The Fall: http://bit.ly/sxar9H

Skeptikal - Live At Le Sapin

November Rock Fest - 6th Nov

2011-10-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

Skeptikal will be playing alongside with Unmind, Escaped, Ash of Beasts on Sunday 6th Nov @ Amnezia Pub, Ebene from 12:00-16:00.

an opportunity for you to hear our songs and discover other mauritian rock bands

check out a short preview of the songs soon on our own youtube channel.

Live on Music FM radio - 20:00-22:00 (GMT+4)

2011-08-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

We will be playing live in studio on the local radio Music FM Mauritius NORTH 92.4KHZ, SOUTH 94.9KHZ, CENTER 90.8KHZ http://www.mbcradio.tv/MusicFMPop.html (works in Internet Explorer only) on the 1st Sep 2011.

-Talk show: 21:00-22:00

-Live Show: 22:00-23:00

We should be playing our own songs: 3 of them are still in the labs but we will be giving a sneak preview anyway ;)

We are all excited about the event

Radio 1 - Radio talk

2011-08-16T23:39:00.000-07:00

Check out Radio 1 on 18th August at 12:30

Sneak preview

2011-07-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

Have a look and comment:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150719891640381&oid=23791940773&comments

Walking

2011-06-10T04:04:00.000-07:00

It seems logical when starting to move out of the cocoon to have an external eye on the world and expose what we do. Because we can't possibly do everything on our own, we needed a helping hand who likes rock music and has some experience with marketing.

We would like to welcome Vrigesh, as our marketing guy and we are looking forward to rock together throughout the year\m/

2011: Alive and running

2011-05-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

The Skeptikal machine is alive.

A glimpse of our songs on a popular media, sounds good?

We will give you more details in a few weeks, stay tuned

2010 : A year with one post

2010-11-17T02:09:00.000-08:00

It's hard to control events, especially when you love your band members and that they leave. We've always had that: "departures". My conclusion is that people never really leave, at least not fully. They leave their experience, smile and emotions, and well, they do keep in touch.

We did welcome Fabrice, our new drummer, who's quickly integrated in the structure.

We still have the help of our previous members and we're grateful for that.

It's been a long and rich year with 2 concerts, with 3 full recordings, and some investment in gear, and we are most of all happy to share the music - our passion.

2011 promises to be a great year, which I hope will reflect the hard work of 2010 ;-)

JP.

Live In The Box - 12th Dec 2009 at Keops

2009-11-29T23:39:00.000-08:00

It's our first official concert in 2009. A milestone somehow. We did spend half of the year working on our own songs and we're pretty happy of the end result; not that the songs are good, but it's about the group work, the friendship we shared and the fun we had working on them ^^. 5 songs is not a lot, but more than enough if we consider the fact that we meet to rehearse and work once a week.

Thanks to a few friends again for helping us out through the whole process: Dev, Patrick, Tania and Evan mainly and a few other persons for their precious feedback/help.

Our first recording is still on its way; we'll do our best to release it before the concert. We have faith.

Here is our official set list for the concert:

Shout (cover)
Pop Tarts
Barrier
Amniotic Fluid
Wasted
The Fall

Our page on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Skeptikal/23791940773

The facebook link for the event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187229860959&ref=nf

Do also check our friends' pages:
HumaNoID: http://www.myspace.com/humanoidtheband
UnMind: http://www.myspace.com/unmind5
Hazarder
Paranoid

A Special Thanks ...

2009-10-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

a special thanks to all those people who made skeptikal a reality: baston, aum, carol, dorian, yannick, patrick, just to name a few ...

December 2009

2009-10-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

our next concert. our songs + a few covers + our friends HumaNoID.

more news coming soon...

2009-10-08T02:33:00.001-07:00

Close To 5!

2009-10-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

here we go:
- barrier
- pop tarts
- amniotic fluid
- wasted
- in between

no big talks

no virtuosity

just group work

just friendship

the music speaks, our feelings go with the flow

a concert coming soon

just check the blog from time to time

A minor update

2009-02-24T08:13:00.001-08:00

A recording and gigging year ... more coming soon.

Thanks to all the people who believed in us all this time, we're all grateful for that.

NO BACKYARD : IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

2009-02-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

NO Backyard Festival 3 on 28th February. We're sorry for those who reserved their tickets ; we're also sorry that we can't give you any reason for that but we simply don't want to have an argument about that with the organisers here...

We'll keep you updated. The music itself didn't die and after Eulogy another Real Concert is coming soon... we don't think it will be called Backyard... but it will surely be something hot.

Eulogy Concert 12th December

2008-12-08T06:33:00.000-08:00

Band members are selling tickets too :)

This is one hot event, so don't miss it.

Eulogy Concert

2008-11-23T22:09:00.000-08:00

Backyard 2.5 - Eulogy Concert.

--------------------
Subject: Tickets on Sale!

Hi everyone!
Tickets are on sale as from today at Otayo!
Here are the 12 selling points of Rézo Otayo.

1. Siège social, 5ème étage Discovery House, Quatre Bornes
2. Magasin Mikado, Rue SSR Port Louis
3. Comptoir d’information Caudan
4. Librairie Papyrus, Grand Baie
5. Equateur, Sunset Boulevard, Grand Baie
6. Magasin Grand Bleu, Centre Commercial London Rivière Noire
7. Librairie Allot, Curepipe.
8. Magasin Mikado, Centre Commercial de Phoenix
9. Magasin Mikado, Gare Routière, Rose Hill
10. Magasin Mikado, Centre Commercial Trianon
11. Magasin Mikado, La Source, VIP Complex, Flacq
12. Pharmacie Santé Plus, SBM State Reality Building, St Antoine, Goodlands

Tickets will also be available at the Conservatoire and with the bands performing as from next Thursday.

Eulogy Concert 12th December

2008-11-15T19:48:00.000-08:00

Join us at the Eulogy Concert on the 12th December at Francois Mitterand:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=35618102723&ref=ts

The bands playing:
A Perfect Tool
Feedback
Deepsix
HumaNoID
Instant Pigx
and.. yeah Skeptikal ;)

This concert is a tribute to Tool and A Perfect Circle.

On our setlist: 2 of our own (Barrier and Pop Tarts) and loads more...

Pop Tarts

2008-10-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

Some official news. Our song now called "Pop Tarts" is complete. We're already working on 2 more songs, and recording is part of the project. More coming soon...

Vinnie and the Pop Tarts

2008-09-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Vinnie and the Pop Tarts is the (beta) - lol- title of our next song. We're getting there; it's having some composure. We'll play it in our next show for sure once we're all satisfied with whatever we've done. I wonder if we should post lyrics, I guess that'll be a band's decision. I'll keep you updated...

Get In The Ring (mini review)

2008-07-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

Get in the ring concert was awesome. Skeptikal's set had a few Covers of Nirvana ,Incubus and the band's first song Barrier. The band started with On a Plain by Nirvana to start the gig, followed by Lake of Fire, The man who sold the world, Drive (incubus) and Barrier. We're awaiting feedback on the show and especially on Barrier, our live performance video can be found here:

http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=18059587729

Just join the group on facebook and you will be able to watch it.

Hope that those who were here enjoyed the show; see you at the next gig and thanks for the support. Rock on.

Neo.
p.s: edited by JP.

Facebook page

2008-06-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

We now have a facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Skeptikal/23791940773?ref=ts

and we do have a video there too :)

Get in the Ring!

2008-06-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Our next gig is on coming Friday, June 27, 2008 at 9:00pm
we'll be playing some punchy rock stuff at the Cercle de Rose-Hill's Music day celebration
we will be sharing the stage with three other bands namely:
Feedback
Trance-Poz
Metropolis
there is a high probability that we conclude the gig with a huge jam!

the band is working on fistful of songs... most of them being Nirvana covers
Moreover that'll be the first time we'll be playing ''Barrier" in front of an audience and we're all excited about that!

for more details check out the facebook event page
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=17057296545

introducing me

2008-06-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

hey folks
from now on i will contribute to the bands blog
taking the opportunity to drop in some news
Joel, JP and myself had great fun at Backyard Festival II
we did meet a lot of great musicians and are looking forward for the 3rd edition...
we're active working on songwriting, and trying to come up with a demo of our song Barrier
Myspace and Facebook page to come soon...

MySpace ...

2008-04-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

I guess we'll finally create a MySpace account, without sound samples pretty soon. It might be a good way to expose ourselves like a few hundred thousands of bands are doing.

I was not reluctant in doing that cause we had nothing relevant to post, but things are changing gradually and in a positive way... We'll post our first sound sample soon with lyrics.

We will keep you updated.

new line-up (?)

2008-04-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

We now have one more member who did play with us once in the past. He plays guitar. He's not a replacement for baston, but a complement to the band's direction. He will be replacing baston for a while. Ah, his name: Dorian !

matala - the review :)

2007-11-13T10:12:00.001-08:00

matala was exciting on paper. An opportunity to play with the 'bigger' bands . It was a good experience for us, and we did learn a lot. we have got loads to do to improve, and we will be actively working on it.

I want a Matala no.2 !!

concert @ matala - 10th November

2007-10-24T05:58:00.001-07:00

we're all excited by the event :) tickets are limited but my guess is that there are still a lot of tickets available.

how to buy tickets?
a) There are 2 phone numbers on the flyer. Click on it for a larger view.
or
b) You can buy them at Rs.200 only (pre-sales) at Density Shop, Galleries Evershine, Rose Hill

our unofficial playlist:

californication
the warmth
under the bridge
fiddle and the drum
drive
be yourself
time after time
loving the alien
enter sandman

P.S: a few people of our tiny fan base have been asking us on why we were not playing our own stuff on that night. The answer is simple. Our songs are still work in progress and need more preparation. We feel it's better to play those when we are all happy with the way they sound. I'm however confident that after this show, you'll hear more of the Skeptikal sound and less of those cover songs listed above...

P.P.S: concert from 9:30 to midnight. dancing party from midnight to ... sunrise (?)

some action...

2007-07-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

we're slowly getting into it.

jo, baston & I went to see 'Reborn Orleans' live http://www.myspace.com/rebornorleans

we were so happy for them, it was a great show. what about us? well, we ended up at my place having some vodka ;)

we're trying to complete some songs. here are the 'not-so-official' titles

barrier
vinnie & the pop tarts
dance in the fire (has no lyrics yet)
wasted

the music..hmm.. well.. rock, we're trying to make it sound good

i'm probably going to post lyrics soon and set up a myspace account and maybe you'll hear our first official sound samples. the lyrics will be up to interpretation, I don't want to post meanings or say that it relates to one of us or someone else...

Our official logo

2007-05-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

ok, he does not talk about it often but some of his work can be found at http://zwel-kun.deviantart.com/

March 2007 - laribluz @curepipe

2007-04-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

thanks to Ali for the nice pics. I'm afraid I don't have much to say about this concert:

[zwel and our bass player Aum]

[nicolas (baston) - and our drummer (who's not hidden this time) Yannick(supo) ]

( well that's me )

Mike's place - August 2006 ?

2007-04-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

all acoustic..

Mike, the SA guy is really a cool bloke we know. This was an awesome night. A private concert at Albion for a party at his place ... that was us playing without our drummer :( too bad we can't bring all of our stuffs there... :D

pics for this event are blurry.. but I saved an unusual one (what we did after playing guitars):

[ahem !!!... not so unusual joel roaring... and I'm playing for the second time in my life 'that' game.. whatever its name..]

Jazzi Acoustic Session - 10th June 2006

2007-04-24T04:51:00.000-07:00

calm session at jazzi pub - we had some nice pizzas, vodka-juice and we played later in the night... pics coming soon...

our playlist:

PART A

The man who sold the world
Ana's Song
Wonderwall
You
My Friends
Tears in Heaven
Lightning crashes
Wish you were here
Sant Lamour

PART B
Midnight
Be yourself
Time after time
Where the streets have no name
Lullaby
on a plain
Blues dan mwa
Blues du peuple
Patience

PART C
Always with me
Staring at the sun
High and Dry
Californication
Nothing else matters
Creep
Something's wrong
Where did u sleep last night

2006 - January @ Riverwiew

2007-04-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

Our friend Yashil organised this one and invited a lot of bands including ours. We hadn't played for a while and we had been missing 'live' action. It went fine this time, except for our bass player who was busy. He got replaced by our guitar player Nicolas :) and Dorian ( a friend ) was playing guitar. Our complaints are the same every time: why does sound have to be that bad? but it was better than most of our rock adventures...

[looking everywhere except at the audience]

our playlist:
- enter sandman (metallica)
- always with me (satriani)
- muscle museum (muse)
- hysteria (muse)

[roar joel !!! the audience is listening]

2005 - ...

2007-04-23T23:54:00.000-07:00

loads happened in 2005... I feel so guilty not to have any pictures, dates of events, and videos... I'm trying hard to find them...

our band played live on radio-one on a Thursday night in Patrice's show; we played at Saints (an event to forget - the vodka night and the broken string); I think we played acoustic at jazzi on the same year (or was it 2006?), I just can't remember...

roughly here is our playlist for 2005: under the bridge, the man who sold the world, time after time, sunburn, muscle museum, new born, hysteria, nothing else matters, trouble, californication, parallel universe, be yourself, one last breath, lullaby...

9th May 2004

2007-04-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

a few months later... motivated again.

this time we were at College du St.Esprit (a familiar place to some of us in our band) . Nicolas and I busy tuning our guitars. This time we had a different audience; it was a rock concert.

Our playlist: ( again not too sure about this, I'm waiting for other band members to actually visit the blog -_-" and post comments)

Under the bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Muscle Museum - Muse
My Own Prison - Creed
Ana's Song - Silverchair
Hysteria - Muse
Nothing else matters - Metallica

Nicolas playing the bass line exceptionally on this song ;) ... That was a good show, motivating everyone of us to continue our rock adventure...

Our first concert... (2004 - not too sure which month)

2007-04-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

That was our first night out! dcdm business school student party (crap party and badly organized in my opinion). The audience was around us and not the least interested in any of the bands that played on that night, except for the last band who sang out of tune on a Bob Marley song (mediocre but applauded .. :( .. ). As far as I can remember here was our playlist:

Godfather theme
Under the bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Time after time - Cindy Lauper (rock version - lol)
Stay - U2
Patience - Guns n' Roses

Kill the guy with the blue shirt!!!
I wonder why in Mauritius, a lot of people call themselves sound engineers, but this one was one of the worst we've had so far. A salsa band was playing before us and their sound was perfect. There is something people hate about rock on this island. The m#$f$#cker with the blue shirt just lowered the volume on the guitars as soon as he heard some distortion, meaning that I couldn't hear my guitar at all during the whole show, except for the acoustic part. What the f#$ with that guy...

the beginning...

2007-03-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

I don't have an exact date to begin with. It started 3-4 years ago at Joel's place... er or maybe a little before at 'spiritual' sessions at the Foyer Fiat. Nicolas, Joel, Patrick and a few other guys (and one girl - Nat that we probably won't forget that soon) used to bring their guitars and jammed after the sessions. I was there too; obviously with my classical guitar with the trembling G string ;) ... we used to talk about what we liked and we sure had a lot of things in common, we all liked Muse, Nirvana, Red Hot, RATM, Metallica, Radiohead. I had tried to market my stuff at the time telling them about dream theater, vai, satriani... but all those weekly meetings were just jams to have fun. I don't remember exactly who came up with the idea of a band but I don't feel this is important now..

Our headquarters was Joel's place, I had an electric guitar (an old yamaha which doesn't exist anymore but which I still use), a 10W amp, a korg ax100 (now I realise how bad that combo can be), Nicolas had his acoustic (I wonder whether that was his?), Joel had a squire and the same korg . We were 4 there: Joel, Nicolas, Patrick and I. At a point in time, Patrick left the country but the idea of having a full band with bass and drums was still there.

Joel's cousin, Carol, joined us, he was supposed to be the bass player (but no offense - he really wanted to sing) - he was a good singer and I still believe he is. Carol had no bass guitar at that time but bought one later. He stayed with us but left us recently to concentrate on studies and was planning to leave the country in all cases this year.

(still 3-4 years ago) We were still looking for a drummer everywhere and it was really hard to find one. There was Roger who was one of Joel's contact, who said he would be interested to join us, I can't remember whether we ever played a gig with him, but what I do remember clearly is that he never showed up at whatever meeting that we had planned. Then there was my friend Dorian who told me about Yannick. I met this guy at Rose Hill and talked to him about what we wanted to do: Rock Music. He had no drums, was a beginner but he was really motivated. We came up with a name: skeptikal ( an odd name for a rock band - but well we decided to keep it)

So this was our line-up: Joel (Zwel), Yannick(Supo), Nicolas (Baston), Carol and I(JP)...

2011 Update: ever since we had several line-up changes. Aum, Kenneth, Dorian, Yannick, Patrick, Rubain, Gary are all those who contributed somehow to the progress of the band.