State of Pecos

I owe a lot to Pecos, the dingy little pub on Rest house road in Bangalore. I would be there at least 5 days a week, with my friend. We would drink flat beer by the gallon, eat Kerala beef and listen to the Dead, Steely Dan and Creedence for hours. We would check out by 11:30, come home and eat Maggi noodles for dinner.

The music system was the worst in town, but the music just the opposite. One day you could see Paul at the bar, next day he was gone. Elango, the pub manager, never cared much for guys without girls, so we didn’t care much for him either. Technology took over, they got a CD player. But they still played the tapes.

Years passed, my visits became less frequent- thanks to the traffic situation in Bangalore. In the last one year, probably I went there 10 times, and may be only once I could feel the good old Pecos. All the other days, they played the same music: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley-almost in the same order too! Though there were familiar faces in the waiting staff, the regular crowd was different – not just the faces, but the people too.

Pecos is history. Maybe we need a Rick Rubin to save Pecos - getting it back to where it once belonged. :)

For old times’ sake, let me compile a quintessential Pecos play list. Making a list of “singles” for Pecos would be blasphemous, as the tradition is to play albums – start to finish. But these are the songs that define Pecos (for sure, I would have missed many–I just put a cap at 10 songs).

1. Bad moon rising – CCR
2. Ruby Tuesday – Rolling stones
3. Truckin’ – Grateful Dead
4. Homeward bound – Simon and Garfunkel
5. Locomotive breath – Jethro Tull
6. Boston Rag – Steely Dan
7. Domino – Van Morrison
8. Free as a bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
9. Riders on the Storm – The Doors
10. Heading for the light – The Traveling Wilburys

PS: I didn’t include any Jazz tracks here (pity, they don’t play Jazz anymore) and deliberately kept the Floyd, Zeppelin and Marley out.