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A: What influenced you to start drumming?
   S: I have always been fascinated by the tempo and the technical way death-metal drummers play. It’s astonishing how they play so fast without ever missing a beat and that is what inspired me to start drumming; and I was always awed by their drumming capabilities.
   A: So did you get the wide array of drum pieces that the death metal drummers use?
   S: I wish, but no. I had to start out with the locally made Tama drum-set, and with all it’s fault, it still served my purpose quite well. After quite some time, when I had some financial backing, I eventually replaced the Deshi snare with a Pearl snare, coupled with two Iron-cobra pedals, and got some quality cymbals, one 14’ Sabian AA Rock Hi-Hat, one 14’ 502 Paiste Hi-Hat, two 18’ Paiste Crash, one 10’ Paiste splash, one 24’ Sabian Ride Cymbal.
   A: How did you get to join Artcell?
   S: All of us were friends from school. Ershad was then the guitarist of a band named Tantrik. Tantrik disbanded as Tomal, drummer of Tantrik went to the USA. Lincoln also joined Tantrik just before that. So they both started looking for a drummer and a bassist as Rony, the bassist of Tantrik, also stopped for personal reasons. They had Cezan in the friend circle and I was just learning drum that time. So they decided to give me a chance.
   A: How did you end up playing progressive material when your main interest was death-metal drumming?
   S: Well, as my experience in playing drums matured, I realized it wouldn’t be realistic trying to learn the death-metal material. So I aimed at learning some of Lars’s Ulrich (Metallica) drum part, and then aiming a little higher, by learning some of Dream Theatre’s materials. Slowly, by aiming higher and higher, I became more technical, which resulted in me playing progressive materials.
   A: You have already shown your expertise as a drummer. Basing on that, who do you think is the best drummer in the country?
   S: Nobody can say who the best drummer is. In fact I don’t believe you can call anyone ‘The Best’ in anything as long as it is musical instrument. It’s all in what one is playing. For example, Mike Portnoy (Dream Theatre), Neil Peart (Rush) or Danny Carray (Tool) is very renowned for their progressive work. But when it’s about playing death metal songs, they would be of no match against the death metal drummers. So who should we call the best? It’s a never-ending argument. So I think it’s not justified to call anyone the best.
   A: What are your future plans? Any plan of going abroad, so that other bands get a chance of proving themselves as the best in the progressive field?
   S: We don’t need to go outside for any bands to do that. All are welcome to join us. But about future plans, we are most probably bringing out our next album by the end of August. Of course, plans do change!! And we do apologize to our fans for this unexpected delay from us in bringing our second solo album out.

Live Now, a concert organised by Shabab Murshid Foundation was held at the National Museum Auditorium on July 7. The concert, featuring 16 underground bands performing together on the same stage on the same day, was a fund raiser for the Shabab Murshid Memorial Foundation that aims to promote music, sports and culture while creating health awareness among the youth.
   Shabab Murshid (15), son of economist KAS Firdous Murshid and artist Shameem Subrana, passed away on May 10, 2005 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia while playing basketball at school. The cause of his death was a sudden attack of Pulmonary Cardiac Arrest.
   The family and friends, in memory of Shabab, have gotten together to form ‘The Shabab Murshid Foundation’ (SMF). SMF aims to reach out to children of all age groups and want to send the message that what happened to Shabab on that fateful day can happen to anyone. SMF will actively work to ensure that schools and parents are informed of the things that can go wrong and the measures that need to be taken. The foundation also aims to work with street and destitute children in slum schools etc.
   The crowd raved over the performances of the 16 bands consisting of Defined, Decipher, CCCP, Obhishaap, Soothsayer, CnG, Delude, Druids, Arbovirus, Birodh, dNA, Artcell, Nemesis, Cryptic Fate and The Watson Brothers. Sound engineer Dure also made a special appearance during Artcell’s performance. Artcell dedicated the song Bhul Jonmo to Shabab while The Watson Brothers dedicated Rong to Shabab since it was his favourite Watson song.
   The newer bands, starting the show, mostly presented hit English numbers from the metal genre with the crowd not very happy with what they delivered. CCCP was an exception though. The band performing together for the first time made an impact with their own compositions and it was a commendable performance by vocalist Rizwan. Another young gun to set the stage on fire was Faraz, drummer of Baahsznought. Though the band didn’t perform well as a whole, Faraz’s solo performance later in the show proved his mettle. The rest of the bands wasn’t too bad either.
   Death metal fans were awed at the performance of Druids, even though majority of the fans were not big fans of the genre. Not only were Druids melodically superb, the vocals matched up to the efforts of the instrumentalists. Arbovirus and dNA presented their own hit numbers and the crowd were in full swing, singing at the top of their voices. With Arnob and dNA performing together, the audience experienced two different types of music merging on stage.
   Artcell presented their numbers and the crowd went crazy about them as well.

Evan Hunter, who as Ed McBain wrote a genre-defining series of gritty police novels, has died at his home in Connecticut, his representative said. He was 78.
   McBain had died on Wednesday from cancer of the larynx, his agent Jane Gelfman said.
   Hunter was a prolific writer, producing plays, screenplays and short stories under a variety of pseudonyms, but it was the 87th Precinct series of bestsellers — beginning with ‘Cop Hater’ in 1956 — that will be his most enduring legacy.
   With their vivid, sometimes brutal depictions of urban crime and the flawed humanity of the police who deal with it, the series took the police novel genre in an entirely new direction and spawned a host of imitators.
   His books have sold over one hundred million copies worldwide.
   The Mystery Writers of America awarded Hunter its Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986, and in 1998 he was the first American to receive a Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.
   Among his screenplay credits was Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ (1963).

10:00pm-11:00pm, Discovery
   On an average at least 60,000 commercial flights criss-cross the skies of the United States in a day.
   Americas skies are among the safest in the world because of an elaborate network of radar, aerial highways and an army of air traffic controllers.
   Air Traffic Control shows its viewers why the job of an air traffic controller is among the most stressful jobs in the country.
   It also looks at the high tech equipment designed to make their ohs easier and the traveller's lives safer.

Oscar-winning movie legend and director Clint Eastwood has reportedly recruited screen star Ryan Philippe to star in his next movie ‘Flags of Our Fathers.’
   Film industry bible Daily Variety reported that the World War II-era film, which Eastwood is directing and co-producing along with Steven Spielberg, is based on the book ‘Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima,’ by James Bradley with Ron Powers.
   The movie, which is due to begin filming in August, tells the story of American troops who fought a bitter battle with Japanese soldiers for control of the island of Iwo Jima in the final months of the war.
   The screenplay will be written by Paul Haggis, who wrote the script for Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby,’ for which the former movie tough guy won the best director and best film Oscars earlier this year.

NTV will air Jhut Jhamela at 8:20pm tonight. The drama is scripted and directed by Devashish Kakon and Manirul Hassan respectively.
   Different roles are played by Ataur Rahman, Chitralekha Guha, Tisha, Intekhab Dinar, Zitu Ahsan, Afzal Sharif, Farhana Mili and others.

9:00pm-9:30pm, Animal Planet
   In San Francisco Bay area, a thriving community indulges in an ancient game of cat and mouse. Eagles, hawks, coyotes, badgers and rattlesnakes all view ground squirrels as an easy meal. But ground squirrels are not fact food for anyone.
   Having developed a sophisticated alarm system, they operate an effective neighbourhood watch.
   This is the story of ground squirrels growing up, socializing, exploring, and finally, making great leaps into the outside world.

Four friends - Jonesy, Henry, Pete and Beaver, rescue a mentally challenged boy from bullies, and later discover that they have acquired a strange new ability of mental telepathy.
   Twenty years later, while on one of their annual winter reunions, they head out into the snowcovered forests of Maine for a weekend hunting trip. Their bonding is forced to take a backseat, however, when it becomes clear that something menacing is stirring deep inside the woods.
   The Army, led by Col. Abraham Curtis encircle the forest in their attempt to exterminate the menace.
   Trapped in the woods, the four find themselves pitted against an enemy that they've been prepared for all along, and the fate of the entire human race comes to depend on their success to defeat it.
   Dreamcatcher
   HBO
   9:30pm
   Starring
   Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg