Back and off

OK it is definitely time to resume the catharsis. Right now, the mind is as usual proving harder to master than even the mighty winds. How easily I quote from the Gita. A sign of the frivolity of us young people some might say but I may turn back and say I am not so young anymore either!

I digress.

Driving to work this morning, listening to the Phish Camden recording for the nth time, I was thinking how Phish is once again becoming central to my musical leanings. I come to office and the first thing I see on my Facebook update is a message about Radiohead's latest song which they are giving away for free download. And now as I listen to "These are my twisted words", the Universe seems whole again. Reason and meaning is gushing like a cheerful gurgling spring back into life.

What's more I am off to Ladakh tonight. Until then keep on keepin' on.

26 years on...

Confession time: I don't cry often. Not much moves me to cry. But I've come close a few times. And I've cried a few times. One I clearly remember till this day is when I was not selected for my state Under- 13's cricket team. Another time was Rock Werchter 2008 ...certainly a time when my eyes were moist...when Neil Young walked on stage. I will remember that till the day I die.

Strangely enough, the Phish show that didn't happen...Camden N.J 2009/06/07 for which VJ had me a ticket...I downloaded the whole show and I have been listening to it over the last 2 days. Phish came together in 1983...I was 2 years old then. And now in 2009, they are still as fresh and sweet and incredible as they have ever been. This is something that I am a part of, a journey I have been on for the last 5 odd years and its something I cherish in a way I cannot describe. I've come close to having moist eyes several times as I listen to these 4 guys do their thing. I feel privileged. When they play "Silent in the morning" on this show...I came close to just letting go.

OST

On a Kingfisher flight to Delhi and now in my room at the guest house here, I’ve been watching the first part of the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ documentary called Runnin down a dream. What is amazing as I continue to watch their story is how deeply they have touched my life. One of my dreams has been to watch Tom Petty live in concert and while I probably think I won’t now, considering how little they tour, despite that I don’t think any musician or band has influenced me and reached out to me as much as they have. Even more incredible is the way they connect with who I am and my hopes and dreams. Here’s a band that came together in 1974 in Gainseville, Florida. Tom Petty was born in 1950. And here’s an Indian boy from Bangalore who feels closer to Tom Petty’s songwriting than with almost any other expression of art, music, books or popular culture, in his own country or otherwise. Surely there is a cosmic explanation to this which I cannot fathom at this point in time.

I began hearing Tom Petty at almost the perfect time in life…when you are unsure of the world, when you feel at your most vulnerable, when you experiment with life, when there only seem to be questions and a cloudy horizon.

The story behind Tom Petty’s rise as a musical genius only adds to the feeling of comfort I feel when listening to his lyrics. His music has become such a comfortable companion to me over the last 10 years that I hardly even stop to really listen anymore. Its like those friends you meet at the local café or bar: they’re always there and all they require in acknowledgement is a friendly nod, smile and you sit down at the table. The warmth and camaraderie needn’t be reinforced. It’s simply there, ever present but never overwhelming.

Right from “American Girl” to Damn the Torpedoes, Southern Accents, Into the great wide open to Wildflowers…I’ve never really stopped to consider the breadth of his music and how I resonate with those songs: from Pecos to Starters, from Vikhroli to Rotterdam, lonely, lost nights in Shunde, train rides and plane rides, bus rides and long waits, long drives and now that feeling when “learning to fly” kicks in when I’m on the 18th Km, no single person has kept me company, made me laugh, found me smiling in understanding or nodding in hope than Tom Petty. Its taken me a long time to realize this but listening to him talk, seeing the method behind the music has suddenly thrown into stark relief what I always knew. Its eerie at some level to think that a lot of the soundtrack to your life was written before you were born and since then has kept pace with how you grew up. Sure there’s no element of rage or angst here but that’s why this music is so great. You don’t have to be in a certain mood to feel close to it, I can just be me and still feel like this is an OST to the life I’m living now.

Thank you.

Music

Thanks to ADB for sharing this:

Music,all said and done,was among the best friends - and among the few real confidants - I'd ever known in my life. Whereas you could talk to and confide and hope and trust in a lover, that lover may still leave or betray you. A great song, by contrast, would talk TO YOU-and its truths would NEVER betray you.At 3 A.M.,there was nothing that could mean as much as a song that told you secrets about your own fucked-up and yearning heart.
- Mikal Gilmore

Bittersweet Motel

Every time I think...OK that's it I can't possibly feel that feeling of ecstasy and floating and joy when I listen to them....it all comes back as if it was the first time I heard "Cities" or "Slave to the traffic light" or any of the dozens of others.

"Waste" from Bittersweet Motel

This is really something I can call my own...a very private, incomprehensible- to- most passion and yet shared by a small (or large...depending on how you see it) community of crazy people.

Werchter 2008

Rock Werchter 2008 was a dream list of musicians. The 3 days I was there all blend into one unimaginable whole. The highlights in this dream were:

• Day1: Lenny Kravitz taking you higher with "Fly Away"
  
• Day 1: R.E.M performing "Electrolite", "Supernatural Superserious" & "What's the Frequency Kenneth" and in their Encore of course the two eternal gems
  
• Day 2: Jay Z was pretty good...kept us hopping and clapping "I say Jigga who you say Jigga whaaat?" :-)
  
• Day 2: Neil Young at 62 rocks it better than anyone dead or alive. "Love and only love, Spirit Road and Heart of Gold"
  
• Day 3: Ben Harper with "Better Way"... gooseflesh
• Day 3: Hidden surprise of RW 2008! Sigur Ros! He was simply awesome with his guitar and violin bow! Wow!
  
• Day 3: The festival headline act Radiohead. I can't point any one song. The entire 2 1/2 hours and 22 songs torpedoed me out of Werchter. Prod me and I would say that "There there", "Idioteque" and "Just"
  

Here's the set lists
Radiohead

01 Arpeggi
02 The National Anthem
03 Lucky
04 All I Need
05 There There
06 Nude
07 Climbing Up The Walls
08 The Gloaming
09 15 Step (Thom not being too strict on the lyrics)

10 Faust Arp (Thom: “Is it true Neil Young played here last night? Should be enough for anyones lifetime to be on the same stage as Neil Young”)

11 How To Disappear Completely
12 Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13 Optimistic
14 Just
15 Reckoner
16 Idioteque
17 Bodysnatchers

Encore:

18 Videotape
19 You and Whose Army?
20 2+2=5
21 Paranoid Android
22 Everything In Its Right Place

Neil Young

1. Love And Only Love
2. Hey Hey, My My
3. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
4. Spirit Road
5. When You Dance, I Can Really Love
6. Fuckin' Up
7. All Along The Watchtower
8. Oh, Lonesome Me
9. Mother Earth
10. The Needle And The Damage Done
11. Unknown Legend
12. Heart Of Gold
13. Old Man
14. Get Back To The Country
15. Words
16. No Hidden Path
    ---
17. A Day In The Life

R.E.M

1. Orange Crush
2. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
3. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
4. Ignoreland
5. Drive
6. Man-Sized Wreath
7. Imitation Of Life
8. Hollow Man
9. Walk Unafraid
10. Houston
11. Electrolite
12. The One I Love
13. Begin The Begin
14. Fall On Me
15. Let Me In
16. Horse To Water
17. Bad Day
18. I'm Gonna DJ

Encore

19. Losing My Religion
20. Supernatural Superserious
21. Driver 8
22. Pretty Persuasion
23. Man On The Moon

Ben Harper

1. Dressed In Black
2. Please Bleed
3. Whipping Boy
4. Fool For A Lonesome Train
5. Diamonds On The Inside
6. Use Me
7. Burn One Down
8. Black Rain
9. With My Own Two Hands
10. Better Way
11. Faithfully Remain

Export Quality

No. 1 A grade high quality Toronto export
2 hours of ecstasy on July 4th, 2008

Why India rocks - No. 137

From today's NY Times online edition

"Consider Rewben Mashangva’s story. Twenty years ago Mr. Mashangva, a carpenter’s son, was at home in his tribal Naga village in neighboring Manipur state, near the border of Myanmar, when a friend came over, bearing Dylan cassettes. He played “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and to Mr. Mashangva, whose English remains broken, he explained the lyrics, line by line. Mr. Mashangva slowly fell in love. It was foreign music, to be sure, but how deeply it resonated with his landscape.

“So relevant to our area,” he remembered thinking. “No drum, nothing, just guitar. Paddy field. Cows. Looking at the buffalo. So matching our area.”

Full article here

Lekker

Hmmm :-) and more to come

Glimpse of Heaven

Another magical event came to be on Saturday night. The Santoor combined in divine fashion with the Tabla to create magic like we don't experience but for a few brief instances in our lives. Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Ustad Zakir Hussain played together. An incredible 3 hour performance which left one weak and exhausted...the only word I guess to describe the experience is celestial. As an Indian, I can only say I must have been very, very good in previous births to have seen something like this, that after seeing Remember Shakti last year.

Celestial.

System Overload!

A surge of excitement shot through me...I am sure making me involuntarily shoot up from my chair by an inch or two. Sorry not shoot up but elevate.

In the space of the last week, I have discovered new albums by Suzanne Vega, Manu Chao and Mark Knopfler. It's almost too much to handle all at once...the salivating shows no sign of abating and then I go and read this.

Credits for helping me discover:

• Beauty & Crime thanks to India Uncut
• La Radiolina thanks to Surya
• Kill to get crimson first heard at Taverna
  

I'm a fan

Challa was in town last Saturday after a year in the sun and surf i.e. Hawaii. Needless to say Tavern happened and we headed back to VJ's place where Ananth was waiting. As the cosmic forces sometimes tend to conspire to your benefit, I had left my guitar at VJ's. We got in and after a little coaxing, Ananth opens his party pack, lights a cigarette and picks up my guitar. What followed was the stuff legends are made of...events that we'll probably be looking back at...drowned in sweet memory and lifting a jar. Neil Young, Marley, Stevie Ray and a lot of blues...blues blues.

I'm always at a loss to describe musical experiences that leave me in a delightful daze...like you're floating just a few feet above the ground after. What I am glad about...what really warms me from the inside is that we have people like this in our midst...music really has no borders.

Ananth is part of a band called the Galeej Gurus whose influences include Clapton, RHCP, Stevie Ray & Albert Collins. When they do release their album I'm going to buy a copy. And when Ananth cuts his first album, I'm going to be in the queue.

OST

Trippy times spent with Delhi visitors always throw up interesting questions: if you were to have a soundtrack for your life, what would it be like?

:-) Interesting no? Definitely something to think about....

Á mi me gusta

Beth Orton isn't for everyone but her bordering-on-alternative style of song mixed with heavy folk influences has pleasantly surprised me. And her lyrics reflect her maturity as an artist:

Heart of Soul by Beth Orton

So tell me what Neil Young said
You pick a flower then it's dead

Put a little love in your heart
C'mon put a little love in your heart
I don't care how much religion you've got
You gotta put a little love in your heart

Gotta Jibboo

I just laid hands on complete albums "Farmhouse" & "Undermind". Immense joy.

You legends....

Yet another...

Yet again bombs have been detonated in a major Indian city by those who don't like peace and are deluded by a misled sense of being left behind or being denied...honestly I don't know why. Anyhow, immediately following the explosions riot police came in to defuse other devices that were planted and to disperse the mobs that had gathered at the site of the explosion: the biggest mosque in Hyderabad. In the ensuing confusion, violence broke out and the police fired shots into the crowd killing 4 people.

The next day, several Muslim - political organizations and supposedly "activist" groups (mainly Muslim) supported by political parties, staged day long protests in Hyderabad indulging in (the now almost routine Indian practice) of burning effigies of the chief minister of the province. What left me confused and bewildered was the fact that these groups weren't protesting any security lapse in protecting the mosque or anything of that sort. Oh no, they were denouncing in their hundreds, the police firing that led to the death of4 people.

Here we have possibly a terrorist outfit exploding bombs in one of India's global business hubs and the next day we have people coming out to protest, not the insanity that was setting of explosives in a mosque but the ensuing police action. As is now routine I'm left with the inability to understand.

I'm not with him on this...well not completely anyway but Dylan I guess reached his own conclusions when he sang:
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Rare

I recently saw what I think is one of the most influential (for me) 2 hours of audio visual footage. Joan Baez, Martin Luther King Jr., Woody Guthrie & Johnny Cash serve but to accentuate the genius that will forever be Bob Dylan.

No Direction Home is a treasure I shall gift to the people who I think will see it the same way I did, to those in need of or seeking inspiration, to impressionable young minds, to anyone wanting to learn about how they could probably lead their lives.

There are many, many recountable scenes & moments from the film. One of them that struck me was a photograph (black & white of course) of a very young Dylan (probably around 25 years or so) standing next to a poster as tall as himself, that said "Fight against the rising tide of conformity"

He saw it back then...before most people did. Most people actually still don't. Watch the film.

Rewind

This might as well turn into a music blog. I was sent this song by a friend and the lyrics brought a big smile to my face and a knowing nod...I keep saying that I was born twenty years too late....here's another validation of that belief (minus the flowers of course)

From "Wish I was a punk rocker..." by Sandi Thom

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late and to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When the head of state didn't play guitar,
Not everybody drove a car,
When music really mattered and when radio was king,
When accountants didn't have control
And the media couldn't buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything

When popstars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when God Saved the Queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
When my mom and dad were in their teens
and anarchy was still a dream
and the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail

When record shops were on top
and vinyl was all that they stocked
and the super info highway was still drifting out in space
kids were wearing hand me downs,
and playing games meant kick arounds
and footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face

I was born too late to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

Why Spanish - Explanation no. 123

I'm periodically asked, "Why Spanish? Why Spain / Latin America?" (add a dash of puzzlement and throw in a fistful of impatience)

Here goes explanation no. 123. No other language I have come across so far can allow words like these to be penned and and to take it one level higher, be put to a tune so good:

From "tabaco y chanel" by Bacilos

Con olor a tabaco y chanel (with a whiff of tobacco and Chanel)
Me recuerda el olor de su piel ( It reminds me of the smell of your skin)
Una mezcla de miel y café ( a mix of honey and coffee)
Me recuerda el sabor de sus besos ( It reminds me of the flavour of your kisses)

Me preguntan por ella (They ask me about her)
Me preguntan tambien las estrellas ( Even the stars ask me...)
Me recleman que vuelva por ella ( They demand of me that I return for her)
Hay que vuelva por ella...( I have to return for her)

Pero fueron las mismas estrellas (But they were the same stars...)
Que un día marcaron mis manos (that one day marked by hands)
Y apartaron esa flor, esa flor de mi vida (and they set apart that flower...the flower of my life...my life)
De mi vida

Hay que vuelva por ella...( I have to return for her...)

If you hear the song and really feel the words, explanation no. 123 will suffice. :)

(Si hay cualquier erors en mi traduccíon por favor perdóneme porque ahora estoy aprendo todavía jefe)

Lurgee

I was asked recently what kind of music I listen to and when I listed out a handful of bands and singled out one of them the reaction was "Yes I've listened to a few of their songs but after a point, they get really weird".

I feel better, I feel better now you've gone.
I got better, I got better, I got strong.
I feel better, I feel better now there's nothing wrong

Now if you'd said this about Phish I would have conceded but not with these guys...they aren't weird honey but mostly melancholy...mostly melancholy.

Blu Bop

Discovering new music & new bands is a thrill that comes second to none. Its almost as exhilarating as visiting a place as breathtaking as it may be unlooked for. However, music wins as you cant cherish a place except in a photograph whereas music can be savoured to your heart's content and when one desires.

Watching the video of a Phish concert in Austin, the lead Trey Anastasio talks of how they drove for hundreds of miles to Austin because they heard Béla Fleck & the Flecktones were playing there. And so I came to discover Béla Fleck.

Ever hear the electric banjo?

With a p h

Who would have thought that a 30 odd second clip of a song heard in a Simpson's episode 4 years ago would lead to the personal discovery of one of the most entertaining & heady kinds of music, in addition to just letting yourself go to the experience that is Phish.

Out of body experience

"Dude, there's a concert on this evening. You're on right?...Good good."

And yet again thanks to Pablo, I was mesmerized, held in thrall & transported to another world. A world of melody, romance, soul, colours and so many other emotions & feelings. Irshad Khan played with just 50 of us sitting in rapt attention, about 10 feet away from the maestro. And in this case, the tag maestro well & truly doesn't do justice. He is the nephew of the late great Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of the 2 contemporary pioneers of the Sitar along with Pandit Ravi Shankar.



The concert was originally scheduled for 2 hours but with a little coaxing from the audience, Khan-saab played on for an incredible 3 1/2 hours with just a 15 minute break in between. What made this concert special was his unique blend of sitar & vocals, an unexplainably beautiful thumri, select compositions, some of which date back 400 years & best of all, a performance on the Surbahar: a unique bass sitar. The first concert of 2007...and it'll take a lot to match this one. Shakti, Ustad Shahid Parvez and now Irshad Khan...I am truly blessed.