Mumbai has engendered a great number of bands but the Bombay Band that once shook the foundations of indie rock culture in India is a relic. So, it is refreshing that the reprise of that once-favourite memory comes to us from one of the youngest and most talented groups in the city. They represent the panache and insouciance that makes Bombay so dear and fondly remembered. That band is Something Relevant. . . . → Read More: The Bombay of Something Relevant
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In its May 1 issue, Tehelka has published my counter-point on the Indian rock scene – you can read it here. . . . → Read More: Tehelka hears us out My friends at Thermal And A Quarter and I read Inder Sidhu’s outcry against “the media’s hysterical coverage of Indian rock bands” (and before that, in 2008, Deepanjana Pal’s diatribe against Indian rock) in Tehelka with familiar feelings of resigned amusement and piquant regret. While Sidhu makes some pleasant noises and points available fingers at the usual suspects, he disappoints us by stating the obvious and therefore fails to offer us any fresh insight into what actually ails the rock scene. What ails the media we already know. Sidhu writes that the “vocabulary and context for rock criticism does not exist in India.” When was the last time you met an editor who condescended to carry a major story about any Westernised urban counterculture in India? When was the last time any self-respecting commentator (such as you, we hope) turned away from the clippings morgue and did some legwork to find out what’s really happening in India’s underground music scene? For instance, how do Indian bands approach songwriting, where do they learn to play their instruments, where do they rehearse? How do they finance gear, studio time and production efforts? What level of initiative does it take for a band to bag concert dates at Hard Rock Cafe or Blue Frog, or plan a five-city tour? Or to cut an album and market it independently? These realities offer story ideas for any journalist with a serious interest in writing about Indian rock. Perhaps Sidhu might want to consider exploring these areas instead of expending two thousand words on a subject he believes is not worth writing about. That’s laughable. Of course, we are aware these stories can’t be written within a week’s deadline but has any journalist cared to investigate the possibilities, or any editor dared to commission them? . . . → Read More: Don’t believe everything Tehelka says about Indian rock! The ‘One Small Love – Bangalore for Mangalore’ concert on February 14, a red-letter day made infamous by Hallmark cards and various killjoy extremist groups, will bring together musicians Konarak Reddy, Ravi Kulur, Alwyn Fernandes, Gerard Machado, Karan Joseph, Gaurav Vaz and Swarathma along with Thermal And A Quarter. . . . → Read More: One Small Love – drawing the line I have always been intrigued by what makes good art great. And when artists judge artists the subject gets murkier. Choosing between art for art’s sake and art that moves is like calling for a tossup between the heavily melodramatic Bollywood denouement of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black and the cold, quiet finis of Bergman’s Through A Glass Darkly. . . . → Read More: Kseniya Simonova – genius or pop star? Indie band… I’m not a fan of the phrase myself because I think it is a label for styles of music that you can’t/ don’t want to stick a label on. I mulled over that blog title before I posted it but I kept the word in for a reason — to catch the eye of those who debate over what indie is. I don’t think an indie band need make money at all. But it must make original music even if it appeals to an audience of one. And it does not even have to publish or promote this music. But then again, indie also refers to the endeavour to create music independently and make it available and accessible to an audience whether through performance or distribution. Derivatively, indie also refers to the infrastructure that must exist for indie musicians who want to make a living doing what they love and believe in. Most important, I feel that indie needn’t be seen as some low-on-frills, preachy fringe movement but a sort of cooperative society for independent musicians that helps them feel confident about the worth and validity of their music. Of course, this feeling of self-worth and achievement should also put money in their pockets because they too need to feed their dogs, send their kids to college, and splurge on a vacation at Bora Bora. . . . → Read More: When Indie gets the blues Just when Bangalore, and other parts of the world that had earned a chance to experience them, had grown immensely fond of this lovable brat pack, Zebediah Plush, like those that marry too young, followed its destiny to disband, but sans acrimony or bad blood. After bringing out one studio album, Afterlaughs (2005), the members of Plush decided it was time to go their separate ways — to university, into careers, and perhaps even to explore oblivion. But their way of going away was not to peter out but to explode, supernova-esque, in one last gasp of glory. . . . → Read More: Remembering Zebediah Plush Just when Bangalore, and other parts of the world that had earned a chance to experience them, had grown immensely fond of this lovable brat pack, Zebediah Plush, like those that marry too young, followed its destiny to disband, but sans acrimony or bad blood. After bringing out one studio album, Afterlaughs (2005), the members of Plush decided it was time to go their separate ways — to university, into careers, and perhaps even to explore oblivion. But their way of going away was not to peter out but to explode, supernova-esque, in one last gasp of glory. . . . → Read More: Remembering Zebediah Plush In Kodungallur and Latur and Dibrugarh, they don’t know of Van Halen or U2, Beyonce or Bobby McFerrin, Bob Dylan or John McLaughlin, John Denver or Kid Rock. Heck, they don’t even know the Beatles. But they know Michael Jackson. And, as of this morning on this side of the world, they know he is dead. It is the day we were afraid to wait for. It is the day we thought would never come. Or if it did, that it would go away without bothering us. It is the day the music died. It is the day the Internet almost died. It is the day that has completely washed away the tears that are being wept for Farrah Fawcett. Hacks have been ready with MJ’s obit for nearly a decade. Which explains why the ones you read in The New York Times and The Washington Post are so meaty. All they needed to add was a paragraph on the day and time of his death, and whisk up a soapy ending. Around the world, radio stations have not stopped playing MJ since the news of his death. Even in death, it is a festival like never before for the pop icon who blurred the boundaries of everything society has struggled to define demographically – gender, colour, religion, age, crime, morality… He was the most hunted celebrity of all time – in fact he demonstrated, with his life, the glory and the anguish of celebrity. His life had no private moments – his life was the original Truman Show. But, because he is gone, we shall not remember MJ for his foibles – for the black skin turned white with wilful vitiligo, for the prosthetic nose that slipped off during an interview with one of many media vampires, for his uncomfortable marriages and his alleged paedophilia, or for his escapades around Bahrain in a burqa. Those shenanigans will soon be forgotten, for MJ was a rarity among celebrities – he was the soul of innocence, a child all the way. As NYT put it, he was “the Peter Pan of pop music.” It is only a matter of technicality that he died at 50. And, most of all, we will remember him for his music. And for being a performer without parallel or peer in mediated history. Proof, apart from everything else in his life, lies in the musical legacy he leaves behind – ten albums, of which six were bestsellers from the moment they hit the shelves. Many a child growing up in the 1980s has attempted the moonwalk and blanched at the urban legend that Jackson broke a few ribs just dancing. And many of us, now with more grey hair showing than Jackson ever did, may still feel a hot flash of adolescent adrenalin coursing through our tired veins when we listen to Thriller, or Bad, or Beat It. As with the great legends of music who never die, Michael Jackson shall live on. MJ can never be mourned, only celebrated. May he go in grace. And we, for our part, shall remember the time when we fell in love. . . . → Read More: The day the music died, Michael Jackson lives on Autorickshaw is a reasonably well-known Indo-Canadian Carnatic Jazz outfit. That’s a lot of hyphenated identities there, and (since I was employed with an Indian-American paper) I was primarily interested in the story of the singer Suba Sankaran, daughter of mridangam maestro Trichy Sankaran. Raised in Canada, she had trained in Carnatic and adapted her lovely, trained voice to jazz. Autorickshaw at that time was just one album old (the eponymous Autorickshaw – 2003), and the lineup was Sankaran, tabla player Ed Hanley, bassist Rich Brown and percussionist Patrick Graham. Since, they have cut two more albums – Four Higher (2004) and So the Journey Goes (2007). Four Higher, incidentally, is a play on the words ‘For Hire’ seen at the back of autorickshaws in India. I have with me Autorickshaw and a demo CD that Sankaran had sent me, and I still play both whenever I am allowed. Sankaran’s voice is not heavy on body (the way Susheela Raman’s does) but she handles her scales well and her phrasing is quite interesting. Some Carnatic purists I know, however, have been parsimonious with praise for it, but I like it nonetheless. As for the domain of jazz, I’m not sure where exactly Autorickshaw the band fits in. Or how their journey has placed them on the global canvas. Yes, they have a whole lot of gigs lined up, and that’s always nice for any band. I observed, with some disappointment, that Sankaran’s vocals have not matured with the music as much as I would have expected them to. I thought the title track of So the Journey Goes was rather tedious. But for memory’s sake, I shall treasure the early Autorickshaw I knew. Thumbing through my archives the other night, I came across an interview that never made it to print, or the web. The responses are unabridged, and I have retained Suba’s spellings for Carnatic (Karnatak) and mridangam (mrdangam) among other idiosyncrasies. The second part of the interview iss more about Suba the artist, and some questions may seem pedestrian. But hey, I’m no arty-farticulate music critic! . . . → Read More: Suba Sankaran’s Autorickshaw – circa 2004 |
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