Month: June 2009

The Kolkata monsoon, promised weeks ago, may have finally arrived this evening with the first rain in some time. In honor thereof, please cool off a few degrees by listening to the following, in no particular order, except you must listen to the new cut from rreplay, “Wash Away,” first last or in between.

• Rreplay, “Wash Away,” from our most recent sessions, this one on June 9.
• Jimi Hendrix, “Rainy Day, Dream Away.”  Jimi, with killer sax over jazzy organ…sit back and groove on a rainy day.
• Velvet Underground, “Hey Mr. Rain (version 1),” Where John Cale gets it all to himself.
• Beatles, “Rain,” psychedelic classic, backwards guitar, how can you go wrong?
• Robert Johnson, “Come on into my Kitchen,” You can feel the humidity and the vague sense of threat in this one.
• Elmore James, “The Sky is Crying,”   Listen for “and I WUNDAH,” one of the greatest single vocal phrases in the blues.

Back to Boston tomorrow night…not sure if I’ll get another Kolkata post in before returning to the states.

OK, so I’m probably not the first to think of that pun but I could not resist. Monisha and I made a side trip to Shantiniketan, the rural retreat founded by Nobel-prize winning poet Rabinranath Tagore. It is a wonderful break from the Kolkata chaos. I was a bit disappointed as far as my quest for original and edgy music because the biggest original music event of the year was taking place the day we left and we could not make it.

I was not expecting any consolation from the home of the poet but we were in for a treat. While there, we had several encounters with Bauls, mendicant mystics of Bengal who follow a way of life based on the pursuit of divine madness or frenzy. They mix elements from Tantra, Sufi Islam, Vaishnavism and Buddhism into a practice based in the body with the goal of reaching a union with the divine on earth through love.

The earliest textual traces of the Bauls date back to the fifteenth century although some posit a relationship to Persian Ba’als, wandering minstrels who can be documented as far back as the eighth century. They interpret the lack of documents as an indifference to leaving anything behind, and when I interviewed Binod Das Baul, he said the sect was as old as time. At any rate, by the mid eighteenth century it was well documented as a major sect. Baulism was probably in part an answer against the inroads made by Christianity and Islam into Bengal. Membership is by initiation and one must be of the right temperament to even be considered by a guru. Once in, it seems they live on donations for their singing and playing. There is a Baul festival every year, and Bauls come from all over. It has a bit of a reputation, as one of the things they are known for is their ganja use, which I can witness to (but of which I did not partake). Apparently a lot of city guys go to the Baul festival in mid-January, the Jaidev Kenduli Mela, to get high. It is supposed to be a pickpocket’s paradise, with lots of city dwellers involuntarily donating their wallets, too stoned to notice the absence or care.

The Bauls sing and play instruments associated with their way of life. The most common is the one-stringed ektara, which acts more like a drum. It is designed along the lines of a tiny washtub bass. A string passes through the inside of a gourd resonator and is attached to a tuning peg at the end of a piece of carved bamboo acting as a neck. The bamboo is cut so that two thin, flexible pieces surround the string before terminating at the top of the gourd. You pluck the string rhythmically and squeeze the two bamboo pieces to lower the note. There is a variation on this favored by the musicians we heard which dispenses with the bamboo neck altogether. The singer holds the gourd under one arm and the string with a metal or stone ball at the end is pulled taut with the hand of the same arm. The string is plucked with a pick made of water buffalo horn held in the free hand. Another common Baul instrument is a four-stringed lute with no frets played by pressing the fingers on the neck like a guitar or violin. They also use a two-headed drum, the khol, sort of like a set of tablas attached end to end and played on the lap. Bells attached to their ankles jangle in time to round out the sound. In indoor settings, harmonium is often used as a drone and melody instrument. The introduction of this latter instrument made it so Baul songs began to be in set keys rather than set to the singer’s voice.

The singing is ecstatic, reminding me of Sufi music. Our first encounter was at a market called the Haat and a Baul group led by singer Tarun Khyapa had set up shop and were singing and playing. As they were playing, another group of three Bauls, all dressed in orange like the first, arrived on a single motorcycle, instruments and all. This caused a moment of consternation among the first group, but they recovered and began a new piece, in which Khyapa declares he has not found the mad person he longs for. This is funny as his last name (which is an honorific) means “crazy” in the sense of divine frenzy. The desired one is left ambiguous so it could be a lover’s or the divine madness he wants. Toward the end, you can hear a sharp upward swing in the effusiveness and energy. That was right after I dropped a tip in the hat and bought their CD. The iPhone recording quality was accidentally set to low for this one so it is not so good sound. In addition, the crickets in this and the next piece are overbearingly loud even after I equalized them out as best I could.

Tarun and company had reason for concern. The second group of Bauls, led by singer Lakshman Das Baul really got the instruments and singing rocking. Just watch out for that ambassador car that nearly drove through them while leaving. Lakshman’s voice gets tangled up with the instruments as the whole ball of music got worked into a multilayered frenzy with voice, string, and percussion all beautifully interleaved. Give it a listen. I bought CDs from both musicians, but the CDs are much more polished and less ecstatic than the live recordings.

I had an encounter with another Baul a few days later which I’ll write about in its own post, as I have to sort through over an hour’s worth of recordings.

Next episode in my Kolkata musical quest.

I kind of dissed the Kolkata Telegraph‘s T2 section for not telling about anything interesting until after it was over but it is way better this year than it was last. They had good coverage before the Battle of the bands sponsored by Indian telco Vodaphone. Six or seven bands played at the Dalhousie Institute, a private club which opened its doors for the evening. The judges were all Kolkata music scene luminaries ranging from scene-setting DJ Austin to film score music producer Neel Dutt to chanteuse Anjun Patel. The event got moved indoors due to the early onset of monsoon season set off by Cyclone Aila the day before (which is turning out to be Bengal’s Hurricane Katrina, incompetency, red tape, politics, and all).

Let me get the annoying out of the way up front. The mc was a middle-aged bald pot-bellied radio type trying to act hip by making all sorts of vaguely lewd and definitely sexist remarks to contestants, judges, and audience alike, none of whom were into it. OK, so on to the bands. Evidently, all the bands were required to do a version of the Vodaphone jingle in order to participate. Unfortunately all but death metal rockers Purgatory took the task a little seriously, producing a series of jingles merciful only in their brevity. OK so then? Last complaint coming here–they ran all the instruments direct to PA with no amps which must have been a challenge for the guitarists as we often get much of our sound from the amp. But anyway this had the result of placing the guitarist and the bass player always in the same spot unfortunately for the guitarists, their spot was right in front of a really loud and way overused dry ice machine which completely obliterated the guitarist of the moment in a wall of fog about once every five minutes. I expected them to emerge coughing and staggering with hands on throats yelling “enough already!” So enough already, what about the music?

The first band was called Ashes in Flames and were how can I put it? Adorable. They were four sixteen year old guys, dead earnest, and quite good. The bass player was still growing into the instrument. They did a bunch of songs I did not know–I hope they were originals. They had nice jangly guitars with good vocals and hooks. Very enjoyable alt rock sound. They made a misstep closing with Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” played — unfortunately this time — dead earnest. They should have left that one in the shed or given it some twist or camp appeal.

Next up were Black Rose who played accessible hard rock with two lead guitars. They had the only woman in any of the lineups, Mekhola Bose, playing drums. The one guitarist had the sort of shred metal over the top too much technical proficiency all melodrama no emotion Brian May Yngwe Malmsteem style. The other guitarist was pegged as the rhythm guitarist by whoever was running the PA so he couldn’t really be heard well at first. They got their act together best for a truly rocking sixtiesish double guitar funky rock thing as their closer. The third band, Blowing Blues, sarcastically claimed to be doing soft rock. They had cool makeup and had put thought into the concept but unfortunately the guitarist was out of tune and down in the mix and they never quite got it going.

Eternity were next, playing a very slick style of psychedelic rock. The bass player was quite good and a good singer as well. The guitarist had the psychedelic thing going great with lots of well used and controlled effects over solid playing. They should start write more of their own stuff, as the one original they did was very good. Their other notable song was a long psychedelic cover of an obscure Pink Floyd song, which was also quite good. Although we did not stick around for the judging, I heard later that these guys won.

Next came my favorite band of the night, Five Little Indians. Give them a listen! It turns out they were not actually competing, but were one of the headlining bands. They featured two singers, Neel Adhikari being a sensitive singer songwriter type and the Sayak Banerjee drifting into Indian classical stylings and maybe even some ecstatic sufi type singing a la Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The whole was held together by the best rhythm section of the night, with Arka Das on drums and Sanket Bhattacharya playing bass playing as a unit, with Allan Ao’s heavy guitar chugging along when not riffing. While Ao wasn’t playing technically better than the other guitarists of the night, he owned the music, playing on, around, before, under, or right on top of the beat and pulling stuff out of the instrument rather than thrashing it into it. As a whole these guys played most like a balanced unit that enjoyed listening to each other as much as playing their own parts. Clear winner for me, but it turns out they were not competing as they are already a pro band. It showed. I also got to hang with them a few nights ago, and they are pretty cool in person too. They all make their livings playing music, which if any of you have tried it, you know is a tough racket. Ao and Battacharya both play in Bangla rock outfit Cactus. Apparently there are hundreds of bands playing rock with Bengali lyrics and stylings that are hugely popular in west Bengal. You can listen to some here if you poke around a bit. Cactus even managed a quick tour of the Bengali ex-pat communities in the States a while back. Maybe I’ll be able to find out more about it later. Where do they all play? Kolkata really needs an underground web page/paper to let people know what’s happening. Hey Arka, you’re a journalist…why not start it up?

The next band gave the Indians a run for the money though. Kolkata death metal outfit Purgatory had the concept as well as the execution down. The lead guitarist played absolutely diabolically in both looks and sound. The rhythm guitarist, with his pompadour, pencil mustache, and head banging did a suitable job of channeling in the undead. The singer had the usual death metal growl, sounding like a broken cappuccino steamer on steroids [I mean that in the best possible sense). They really put the show on. My only suggestion is that they stretch out a little, maybe listen to some hardcore so they can learn how to doubletime their way up a notch here and there as the songs all seemed to be at roughly the same medium tempo. They might want to dig into some other undead stuff like psychobilly masters the Cramps (with singer Lux Interior joining, alas, the un-undead). I can hear a double time death metal version of Human Fly– working pretty well for them, no?

Next up were Realignment 2 Reality, who I hope were having an off night. The guitarist was tuned about a semitone off from the bass player and the singer caught neither’s key. Perhaps the most telltale sign was the three young women who were obvious fans. They were all clapping along but to different beats, looking a bit confused. Refinement are also are part of an unfortunate-seeming Kolkata rock band fetish with the truly awful and pretentious crypto-Christian rockers Creed. What’s with that anyway?

We caught the last band’s soundcheck earlier in the evening and weren’t tickled so we skipped out on the classic rock closers the Tube Screamers and went home. We also missed Bertie Da Silva’s band. All in all it was a fun night in spite of the corporate trappings. Not quite alt/underground/edgy but it had its moments of innovation and even spectacle. It was only rock n roll.

One last thing I want to remark on is the fact that all these bands came from private clubs. It seems the only ones able to afford amps and instruments of playable quality are those who can (or whose parents can) afford to be in an exclusive private club. I wonder if there is some street version of Kolkata hip hop brewing up somewhere, or improvised junkyard electronica bands like Congolese trance distorion thumb piano masters Konono no 1. What with the recycle culture here in Kol, it seems somebody would figure out how to make a homemade mic and PA and fight the power. Still looking.

Yesterday, in my post laying out my musical quest in Kolkata this year, I mentioned the difficulties I was having with IndiaMike.com’s censorship policy, (finally resolved, rr, 12/16/09) which seems to be if you point out mistakes and stereotypes in one of the board sahib’s posts, you will get censored. Ok, so here are my specific beefs with the guy from Indiamike.com, RPG, with a bonus for your patience in hearing me out. First he complains that Bhangra and sitar are not Bengali because I gave as a possible example of what I was looking for as “sitar dub over electronic bhangra beats,” and thus I am being inauthentic and clueless in my query. Inauthenticity is kind of the point here however. Bhangra is also not usually electronic either. I am precisely not looking for the “authentic” or “pure.” As far as sitar not being Bengali, perhaps so, but the instrument is ubiquitous in Kolkata concerts and some of the masters of the instrument, such as Ravi Shankar, are

indeed Bengali. Finally there are dozens of sitar makers in the city making everything from tourist models to delicate works of fine art craftsmanship used by the masters. So really, this complaint, which I am not being allowed to answer on the board (and my original response was way more polite, because I did not realize what a jerk I was unfortunately encountering), is nonsense. And actually I can even think of an example of something close to dub sitar from someone whose roots are in Kolkata, though she no longer lives there, namely Shankar’s daughter Anoushka‘s hybrid trip hop sitar music.

Then he said it would be like going to Hawai’i and “demanding the locals to play the blues.” First off, I’m not demanding anything, just looking and listening with some curiosity. I pointed out that there is a small blues scene Hawaii should you wish to hear it and that you could also find reggae played on ukuleles, neither of which is authentic but both of which are interesting to hear. Interestingly slide guitar used in blues originated around the same time as slide guitar in Hawaiian music, perhaps passed one way or the other by touring Hawaiian musicians or African American paniolos in Hawai’i. In 1929 or so a Hawaiian slide guitar player, Tau Moe, visited Kolkata and demonstrated the slide guitar there. This set off a craze for the instrument, bolstered when Moe and his wife lived in Kolkata during the 1940s. Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra became a well known master of mixing the western instrument with Indian classical music. One of his students, Debashish Battacharya

, had gotten a guitar as a gift from his father, who had received it in payment of a debt. Battacharya took his training in vocal music from his guru Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty and worked it into the guitar music he was learning and combined it with other forms of Indian music to create his own style, and ultimately his own instruments designed specifically with Indian rather than Hawaiian music in mind. Battacharya came to the Islands a couple of years ago to hang out with some Hawaiian slide players and they put on a concert of Hawaiian slide guitar music and Indian classical music that culminated in a big jam among them all. Interestingly, Tau Moe was still alive, so part of Battacharya’s trip was to visit his master’s old teacher.

I won’t get too much into the guy’s stereotypes about Bengalis being conservative based on how the women dress except to say I am partners with one of those Bengali women for the past two decades and regardless of how she dresses she’s anything but conservative. He also says there is “very little in the way of musical innovation. Bengali songs are about the words; musically they are dull and unoriginal (the songs all sound the same).” I don’t suppose he listens to much of what Bengali musicians are playing, which as I’ll demonstrate over the next fews days, is as innovative as anywhere else on the planet where humans play music. Generalizations about a culture of millions seldom hold any water. The thing that really annoys me is that by allowing me to participate except when I disagree with “RPG” it looks on the board as if I am endorsing these arrogant, stereotyping generalizations about Bengalis.

I recently posted a challenge of sorts over at a site we just found, IndiaMike. It went along these lines: In any city I have ever visited, I can find the underground arts and music scene right away but Kolkata has me stumped. I can find several Tagore song recitals per week (Actually they are setting up a weekend-long Tagore song festival outside my window right now!) and lots of Indian classical, all of which is great, mind you, but where is the dub sitar electronic bhangra beat trip hop music? Where is the mixed up, alternative, edgy, inauthentic stuff?

I got some good responses pointing me inexorably toward the downtown clubs catering to the well to do and tourists, as well as a pile of neo-colonial stereotypes and misinformation packaged as wisdom from one of the list “elders,” RPG, whom I suspect is also a moderator of the list because my response, which politely pointed out the misinformation and general missing of the point, was somehow never posted and when I pointed this out and said I’d move the discussion over here, they rejected that too. (turns out RPG was not a moderator, and the site owner finally agreed to remove the thread -rr, 12/16/09) It seems some sahib over there doesn’t like anyone to point out when he’s wrong. Come on guy, its arrogance combined with cluelessness like that that gave colonialism such a bad rap.  So enough with IndiaMike for now and on with the quest over here, where at least if I write something I know it won’t disappear. I’ve found more interesting music than I can keep up with on a daily basis, and I’ll try to tell you about it as we go along. Metalish hard rock with Sufi ecstatic singing, Kolkata death metal, Bauls, Sitar Dub and Slide guitar, marching bands that sound like the Contortions, Monsoon music, and and and….