Making Us Wonder: Interviewing Lily Holbrook

3 Mar

A couple of months ago, I checked out a show by the alternative rock musician Lily Holbrook. She killed it there, absoulutely blowing away every other act of that day. After the show, she agreed to be interviewed by Top Five Records, and the result is below.

Top 5 Records: Thank you for such a great show. That was a lot of fun. Did you enjoy it?

I did yeah

T5: Do you feel there is a large difference between a concert setting and busking?

Well that was a really cool experience because that was a great venue and I don’t play venues that nice all the time, so that was really fun. Busking has its advantages too. It is really connected to the people, very intimate, there’s a lot of interaction because people, especially when I do it right around here in the Castro there’s a lot of really unique people, and they’ll say funny things and they get very emotional sometimes because there are a lot of music fans in this neighborhood and people who connect with things that happened in their lives, so there’s some really interesting experiences that happened around here, just people get very involved with it and they’re walking right by you and they can stop and talk to you, and so it is really interactive. So that part is really cool. It is sometimes overwhelming, but it is really cool and a really unique experience.

Concerts are fun because of almost the opposite reason. Sometimes you want to just not have to interact as much. Even though actually I love interacting, sometimes there are times when I want to just perform and they be able to go backstage and just decompress. So it is kind of interesting because they are very different and I like both for their differences.

T5: You still busk, don’t you?

I do, I do. I probably will tonight, right around there.

T5: So, how does it feel performing with a band. That’s a newer thing for you.

It is. I have had bands in the past, usually for various reasons, it didn’t last very long. In this one, we seem to have a great connection so I’m hoping we last a long time and I love playing with them. There’s a lot of awesome things that come with playing with a band, but we are still working through technical stuff, because it’s harder for me to hear myself and so it’s a little harder for me to sing, because we get pretty loud and it’s different having to keep in time with them because I’m playing alone I really vary my timing which sometimes work really well because my vocals can then get really slow at times and speed up at times and I can do whatever I want. So with them, I can’t do that as much so there’s just some compromises that have to be made.

T5: Do you feel it’s less improvisational?

It is less improvisational, Yeah that’s true. I think that the more we practice, because we are a pretty new band, I think over time that we will be able to capture that improvisational feel, but right now we are still getting to know each other musically and figuring it all out but ultimately I enjoy it more, playing with a band.

T5: What about the name though? The Shivering Lilies, do you want to talk about that?

*Laughs a little* Sure, we had trouble coming up with a name no one could really agree on anything. I’m not sure why, but they really wanted to keep Lily in the name and I really didn’t care about it. It was really them, that wanted to and we kept just coming up with name and somebody said The Shivers, but there was a band already called that, and then I forget who, but one of the other band members said The Shivering Lilies, and we all really liked it, we thought it had a good ring, so we said Hey, we’ll go with that.

T5: Speaking of that, how does it feel to lead a band rather than just being yourself? Is there a difference?

There’s a big difference. It’s really cool to have a group of people to share things with. It takes a little bit of the pressure off, because it’s not just you. If you make a mistake, it’s all of you and not just me, but at the same time, it does take effort and working through differences and I really wanted to be like a band, and more than a backing band I like to think of us as equals, so at the same time, I have a strong personality when it comes to my music, I have strong opinions, so it takes a little letting go on my part and on their’s too. It’s just a lot of compromise. I think for any band, there’s a lot of compromise, so getting used to that is challenging, but it’s good.

T5: Do you view this as an evolution of your musical style. When I compare your first album to your later two, there’s a large difference over there. Is this part of that evolution, or is this it’s own separate offshoot?

This is. I always wanted to play with a band, but for various reasons I could never keep one together. I moved around a lot and I had record deals that fell through and all these crazy things were happening that made all of the bands that I was with dissolve quickly, but when I write music, most of the time I’m envisioning it with other instrumentation like on those later two albums. I never really wanted to be an acoustic artist although I still love acoustic music and I still want to do that to a degree, but I think that this was always a part of wanted to do.

T5: Coming back to your first album, I’ve read that you created that album after your brother died. Would you like to talk about that a little bit?

I can, yeah sure. It was a few years after my brother died. Some of the songs were written not long after he died, but it wasn’t recorded until four or five years later, but that was a very impactful event in my life, so five years wasn’t much time at all, even now it is the most critical event in my life really. Those songs really came from an interesting place, I don’t think I could ever recapture that. There was a lot of pain, but also a lot of beauty and kind of fairy-tale imagery that is somewhat connected to him because he had a big influence on me in that I have loved mythology and fantasy and he did as well, he was seven years older than me, so I got a lot of my appreciation for that from him. So, I connected those into the songs and used those as metaphors for how I was feeling and most of the album is about his passing and also the pains of letting go of childhood.

T5: Was it cathartic?

Yeah, definitely it was.

T5: You must have heard of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven, did you know that he doesn’t perform that song anymore? He sang that about his son dying and feels that he has come to terms with his son’s passing and so he can’t summon the emotions needed to sing that anymore. Do you see a parallel?

Wow, that’s interesting. Well, some of those songs I don’t do anymore but actually, that’s more because they don’t translate as well without the strings and some of the other stuff that goes on. I still do some of the stuff though, but honestly I don’t know that I will ever fully come to terms. I have improved over time, but I don’t know if I ever see a time in my life when I couldn’t summon the emotion because it’s always going to be just something very painful. A lot of learning came out of it, I can live with it, but I think the emotion will always be there. But I understand that, and I think that’s good. I mean, closure is good.

T5: And to be fair, he’s had a lot more time to come to terms. But this brings us to an interesting point, you said that both your brother and you really enjoy mythology, and of course much of your music has a dark fantasy element running through it. Would you like to that about that?

It started when I was very young and I don’t really know why. It’s very common in little girls to like fairies and mermaids, so that’s pretty standard, I think I just took it to a higher level. I had a really vivid imagination, I was a really shy child and I wasn’t good at sports and things like that and that was very important in my school and sports were a big thing, so I kind of became very introverted and turned to art and music and my imagination. So, in my imagination, I was always creating these fantasies with dragons and princesses and castles and then I would also read literature and also my brother would play D&D, and so I would read the manuals and I was really fascinated by all the creatures. So, it just stuck with me, I never lost it and as I got older, I just continued my interest. I always loved the lighter side, but I also got interested in the darker side, like vampires and pretty much everything in fantasy I have an appreciation for. I think a lot of it just has to do with having that strong imagination and just being shy, so turning to that for some sort of comfort.

T5: So which is your favorite? Creature, setting or whatever.

I have a lot. I definitely really love the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table, and I love kind of that British huge castles and Celtic kind of feel, so that is one of my favorites.

T5: On that topic, did you like The Holy Grail?

Yeah, it’s really funny.

T5: It’s a very light-hearted take though and when I hear your music, it all seems much darker than you do in person. Do you feel that there is a separate part of you that is the creator?

Well, I do kind of have dual personalities going on and it’s a little bit sad. Before my brother died, I was always a dramatic person, who felt things very deeply but I also did have a very light-hearted, very silly side, which I still have, but it became somewhat diminished after that. Before he died, I used to listen to a lot of music that was dark, but I also listened to a lot of music that was more silly and playful, but it changed after that. For some reason my connection to music became a more serious, darker thing. So, I guess that event just changed a lot, but I still have that lighter side to me and I guess that I just project that to people. And also I don’t want to be all dark and brooding and bringing people down. I try not to. *laughs*

T5: So, what are you listening to these days?

Well, I listen to a whole bunch of different stuff and I listen to a lot of the stuff I’ve always loved like classic rock. Some of my favorites are the cure and Tori Amos, but some of the stuff that I’ve been listening to more recently . Over the past few years, I’ve started really liking this band called the Birthday Massacre. They’re kind of like a dark fairy tale kind of band. They’re a lot heavier than my music, but they still have some quite pretty, beautiful parts and the words are really kind of like a dark fairy tale. I love that and I really like a singer that a lot of people hate, Lana Del Ray.

T5: I think people love to hate her. I think the reason a lot of people hate her,is that they feel she is manufactured. I think people don’t complain as much about the music as about the fear that they’re being taken in.

I think if you listen to her body of music, it becomes really obvious that it couldn’t be manufactured. But you really have to listen to a lot of it. I think that if you just listen to one song here or there, some of the songs are not as good as others. I think that it’s just something you need to invest a little more time in to get what she’s trying to say Once you listen to a lot of her songs, you hear these similar things happening over and over that you can tell could only come from her, they couldn’t come from some guy in a suit somewhere in a record label. I think she really is an artist, but people don’t want to believe that for some reason. I know she can’t sing live very well, but I do think she is a great writer and writes great lyrics and melodies, Some people are just really great at one or two facets, and just don’t have the whole thing and I think that’s okay.

T5: I enjoy her music very much, but I can understand why people feel that she is manufactured because she is one image, and a very stereotypical image, one which has been done before and which has been known to sell. Do you feel that there is any image you embody? Because your music always seems to be very personal, but when you create is there someone you visualize saying these things.

I do just try to be very real and authentic and just say whatever is trying to come out. I think some people would say that is a strength and other people would say that it’s a weakness, because I really don’t have that instinct to brand myself and think “Oh, I’m going to dress like this and be this” because I really like a whole bunch of different fashions and imagery and different types of music and I’ve had problems with people on the business side of music because they do want you to kind of narrow yourself to one thing and that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth because that’s not me. So, I don’t really, I just kind of let it come out whoever it comes out, or I try to.

T5: So, as an extension of all of this, what are the next steps for you as an artist. We all love seeing you in these small halls, but everyone expects more from you because you have the talent to be on the same stage as say Tori Amos or Fiona Apple. Especially considering how weak Fiona Apple’s last album felt. So, this is still a small area, and we would like to see more and more people grow, so what are your plans over the next five or ten years.

So, I’m really hoping that the band’s going to get stronger and I’m hoping that we’re going to stay together for a long time and start creating new music together. We’re starting with that a little bit, but I’m hoping we’re going to start doing that a lot. I’m really hoping to put out a new album this year. My plan is that we’re going to do a Kickstarter because I wouldn’t be able to finance it on my own and also I never really actively pursued record deals, I kind of fell into then, but at this point, I think that I’d like to keep a record company out of it because I don’t really feel they help all that much. Especially my experience, because both my record deals ended because the companies went out of business and they didn’t treat me that decently.

So, to do the Kickstarter and could do well independently, I think that could be really awesome. That would be my first album since my first album that would be completely without any interference from record label people. So, it would be interesting to see what would happen with that.

T5: Do you have a name for that album?

I don’t have a name yet, but I do want to get it done before the year is over. We’ll see what the name ends up being.

T5: Can’t blame a guy for trying

And I’d love playing bigger venues like Great American and developing a bigger audience. My problem has always been that I’m kind of shy and I’m not a very aggressive person when it comes to the business side of things. I like to think I’m a friendly, nice person and I like to connect with the fans but I’m not really someone who aggressively pursues things maybe the way I should, but it doesn’t quite come natural to me and I think it’s kind of something about me that’s actually a good thing, but it’s kind of also a bad thing at the same time. Maybe with my band I can balance that out somehow.

T5: That’s where Kickstarter works very well for you, right? Because it gives you direct contact with your fans.

Definitely, yeah. So hopefully, maybe by Spring we’d like to start going through Kickstarter.

T5: Musically, are you aiming anywhere new with this album?

The band, all the members are going to bring their own feel to it. That will definitely color some of it. I want to bring some more electronic elements, but I still want it to be rooted in rock and roll and keep the organicness about it, but I would definitely like to add some more electronic influence on some of the tracks. Probably not all of it, but I’m not sure of a specific direction or theme. I think it would be leaning towards the same direction as Wicked Ways but maybe just a little bit more dynamic with some really big rocking parts and some really quiet pretty parts and maybe some more electronic mixed into it.

T5: Do you have any covers planned? You’ve had some really fun covers in the past, like It’s A Sin and interestingly Mama I’m Coming Home. How does it feel performing a cover as compared to your own song?

I love doing covers, I always have really loved doing covers. I think I’m a lot more relaxed with covers because I guess I have some deep-rooted insecurities, so with a cover I have all the faith that it’s a great song because someone else wrote it. So that frees me up a little maybe in the performance when it’s someone else’s song and I’m 100% sure it’s awesome.

T5: Over the past couple of days I’ve been addicted to a Freelance Whales cover of the Devo song Girl U Love. So, when Devo does it, it’s got a very inhuman feel, sort of as if it were robots laughing at human emotions and when The Freelance Whales do it, it’s very soppy and emotional. Do you feel when you take a song and cover it, do you feel that you add a lot of your own flavor to it?

A lot of times, yeah. I try to do that with most of my covers. Some of them are not that different from the original, but some of them, yeah. It’s A Sin, which is on Wicked Ways is an 80s dance song and its very uptempo and my version is very slow and dark. So, yeah I do like to do that, especially if I’m actually going to record it. I like to make it as different as possible and maybe bring out different qualities which are there, but not as obvious to the listener.

T5: Is there anything you would like to tell your audience here?

Well, my audience has kept me going. I’ve had a rough road and there have been times when I was really discouraged and felt really beaten up and didn’t think I could keep doing music, at least not as a full-time profession, because it is so hard. Even though I don’t have the biggest audience, they are very loyal and have given me constant positive feedback and kind, kind comments and really personal things that are amazing, things that I still can’t believe, “This song changed my life” or “This song helped me through my mother’s death”. Things like that. Those kinds of comments keep me going.

T5: Do you have a story like that that you would like to share?

Well, just the other day someone told me that the song Mermaids, their mom passed away and they said that song helped me get through her death and every time I hear it I think of her flying with the fairies and dancing with the mermaids. So, that really touched me, especially since that album is about my own brother’s death.

T5: I’m sure that felt very satisfying. That’s awesome.

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Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP

24 Feb

Only once in a while do we come across greatness, whether it is in the form of movies, art, literature or music. Greatness which doesn’t present itself to us in the form of a fluke, but sheer talent. Greatness which can be spoken about, even a hundred years after the particular event/form of art has been created. I’m going to talk about one such masterpiece that I was lucky enough to observe at its inception.

This particular art is none other than Eminem’s 2nd major label album- The Marshall Mathers LP. The album is one of the most aggressive and important music albums to release during a time when the frustrated, directionless and angry youth was trying desperately to find someone they could relate themselves to. A time when hypocrites and fakes were rampant in the music industry. This time was during the late 90’s & the year 2000.

Just when people got used to calling Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys as the greatest artists of all time, Marshall Mathers aka Eminem aka Slim Shady stepped onto the scene.

Eminem changed the face of hip-hop & rap, particularly with his album, The Marshall Mathers LP, which came out on May 23, 2000. This album, apart from being extremely controversial, it eventually sold 10,598,000 copies, becoming one of the most commercially successful rap albums of all time. It has been ranked as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time by Rolling Stone, Time, and XXL. It is also one of the only albums to be acclaimed by critics, as well as the mainstream-pop loving- audience. It influenced us all.

Every song on the album was a classic; even the skits were worth listening to. The album starts off with the satirical “Public Service Announcement 2000” where Eminem reminds us in under a minute that he doesn’t mind being sued over what he raps about. It smoothly merges into one of the most shocking diss songs – “Kill You”. Eminem aggressively takes shots at his ex-wife, Kim, the mainstream radio shows and yes, his own mother.

The next song on the album is the famous “Stan”, where Em talks about obsession from a deranged fan’s point of view. It is a brilliant song- right from Eminem’s solid storyline verses, to Dido’s haunting hook. After this song, we have a skit called “Paul”, where Eminem’s attorney, Paul Rosenberg seems dejected after listening to this album.

The next song is “Who Knew”. This is an extremely raw song, which reminds me of the songs on the Slim Shady LP, Eminem’s first mainstream album. Eminem is at his most honest and straightforward self in this song, where he questions parent’s upbringing of their children. For instance, pay close attention to the lines- “Told them that my tape taught them, to swear/ What about the makeup you allow your 12 year old daughter to wear?”

The end of this song marks the beginning of a skit called “Steve Berman”, where Steve gives Eminem a piece of his mind because he hates the album’s themes and he compares his album to Dr. Dre’s Chronic 2001 explaining why the latter was so successful. Next on the list is “The Way I Am” where Eminem reminds the world why he doesn’t give a f*** and warns us to leave him alone in peace. This is followed by “The Real Slim Shady” where Em tells us how despite millions of people imitating him, there will be only one Eminem.

The next song is “Remember Me” featuring RBX and Sticky Fingaz. All 3 rappers produce solid verses which soothe as much as they sting. This song has one of the best Dr. Dre beats in it. After this, “I’m Back” commences, which is one of the most aggressive songs Eminem has done, even without his trademark screaming. He reminds us that he is back with a vengeance and is here to stay. This sparks the next song which is “Marshall Mathers” where Em tells us that he’s just a normal human being like the rest of us, and how his fame & fortune paved way for even the most hostile people to embrace him.

Now, the next song is a skit called “Ken Kaniff”. I’d rather not give a description of what exactly happens in the skit, but it’s basically where Em makes fun of Shaggy 2 Dope & Violent Jay, two other artists who Em had a beef going on with for many years even after the album was out. The next song is “Drug Ballad”, where Em talks about the ill effects of drugs, in his own twisted, satirical way.

This is followed by “Amityville” which features ex-D-12 member, Bizarre. Eminem raps about how he’ll kill you if he’s pushed too far, especially in Detroit. Bizarre gives us one of the craziest verses in rap history. You better hear it to believe it. The next song is “Bitch Please” which has a star studded guest feature- Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Xzibit. All the artists show off their rapping skills, where as usual, Eminem outshines the rest.

The next song is the brutal “Kim” where Eminem kills his wife after catching her cheating with him. After this, Eminem gives us another hard hitting, vulgar song “Under The Influence” which features his group D-12, of which he’s a part.

The final song is “Criminal”, which, personally is one of my all time favourite Eminem songs. He is crazy, funny, brutal and serious at the same time. The song also includes a funny skit where he and Dr. Dre pull off a bank heist without getting caught.

So there you have it. I actually reviewed the entire album tracklist in the correct order without even looking at the album back-cover. Yes, such fans do exist, and there is a REASON why such fans exist. I hope whoever reads this gives this album a listen. Especially those who think rap & hip-hop is comprised of only people like Nicki Minaj, Soulja Boy etc.

– Faisal

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The Strokes: “All the Time”

22 Feb

All the Time

In 2011, an impeccable ensemble of talented musicians contributed to a Strokes tribute album, entitled Stroked, to commemorate the ten year anniversary of Is This It?. Also in 2011, the Strokes released their fourth studio album. Wrap your head around that for a second: the Strokes elicited this voluntary, collective homage despite being a band that is young enough to add fresh material to its own discography. There are very few bands as iconic, as beloved, and as representative of a time and place in music history – while being fully functional – as the Strokes are. So how do you react when a vintage-yet-active band releases new music? Well, it depends on what kind of Strokes fan you are.

Type 1: The Uber Fan

Cooler than you'll ever be.

Cooler than you’ll ever be.

In 2001, the Strokes released an album that changed the face of music. Is This It? was and continues to be a flawless record, pushing thousands of kids into their garages to create bands that would never be as cool as Julian and the boys. But in a way, the very kids that played the Strokes’ debut all day every day made it rather difficult for the Strokes to move on as a band. Any deviation from ‘the quintessential Strokes sound’ was denounced; any song with more effort than ‘effortless’ was deplored.  Synths? Forget about it. (I’m looking at you, Angles.) “All the Time” is definitely no “Hard to Explain”, “Reptilia” or even “You Only Live Once”, but it has that undeniable, wholly inimitable Strokes vibe that’s sure to satisfy the most ardent of fans. In fact, it almost sounds like it could be wedged right into Is This It?, and that’s always a good thing.

Type 2: The Casual Fan

The Strokes perform on Ellen

If you didn’t spend the better part of your musically formative years analyzing every trough and peak of the Strokes’ debut, then you are going to like this song. Why? Because even if you’ve only heard a few of their songs, even on a bad day, even on a weak track, the Strokes are effortlessly cooler than anything you’re going to hear all day. On “All the Time” , the uber fan might think that the outro is too long, or that Julian’s voice isn’t crisp enough, or that the guitar solo lacks the sheen of the old days. All you’re going to notice, though, is how great this song is. Enjoy!

Type 3: The Non-Fan

Watch the following videos, and please let us know if you don’t convert to Type 2 or even Type 1.

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… we could go on.

Five long years passed between their third and fourth albums; just over two years will transpire between the fourth and the fifth. “All the time that I need is never quite enough/ All the time that I have is all that’s necessary,” sings Julian on “All the Time”, and we couldn’t be happier about that. Long story short, drop whatever you’re doing and listen, because the Strokes have released a new track. “All the Time” is the first single from the Strokes’ fifth studio album Comedown Machine, releasing on March 26th, 2013. You can listen to the song (with lyrics!) here.

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Top Class: The Best Music of the Year

29 Dec

Seasons’ greetings to our readers! As Year Twenty-Twelve winds down, there are a few inevitable questions that arise. Why did the Mayans provide such an anticlimax? Will there ever be peace in the Middle East? What were the best albums of the year?

Unfortunately, prophecies and politics are not our forte, but we proudly share with you our take on the year’s best in music.  From R&B superstars to British indie rock, Top Five Records covers the top five records (duh) from the year that was.

5. Jake Bugg, by Jake Bugg

Young 19 year old singer-songwriter from Clifton, Nottinghamshire

Young 19 year old singer-songwriter from Clifton, Nottinghamshire

Chiming in at number five is one of England’s finest singer-songwriters – and certainly the youngest. 1994-born Jake Bugg (né Jacob Edwin Kennedy of Nottinghamshire) impressively channels artists from at least thirty years before his birth in his eponymous debut album Jake Bugg. Yes, the overarching obvious influence is Bob Dylan, but there’s a healthy bit of Lonnie Donegan and Graham Nash in there too. The entire concoction is astounding for several reasons: he strums and finger-picks like he could be pals with Nick Cave; he writes and phrases like he could be a contemporary of 2005-06 era Alex Turner; and he looks like Britain’s answer to Justin Bieber.

Raucous skiffle/country stomp “Lightning Bolt” starts the album off on a rather good note, and sets the tone too. “Two Fingers” is a tribute to his life in Clifton: fat joints, too much alcohol, and an unnamed man in the house flinging curses at Jake’s mother, while “Seen It All” deals with pills, gangster crews, and the kind of parties where everyone carries a knife. Surely, it is enough to send a young man into spirals –Jake admits that he’s “run down some dark alleys” in his head. The lad’s appeal shines through in “Two Fingers”, though: his “Hey, it’s fine/I left it behind” closer adds that subtle touch of having ‘seen it all’ and being all the wiser because of it. “Ballad of Mr Jones” is a slow-burning epic about a powerless man who drunkenly takes things into his own hands; we guarantee that you spend the song thinking, How the hell is this guy just nineteen? The best song on the album, however, is still our old favorite. Jake Bugg’s album is an hourglass, with one bulb set in yesteryear’s bluesy tarnish and other set in today’s grisly reality – the best part is that you don’t even notice the sand flowing between the two.

Must check out: “Someone Told Me”, “Ballad of Mr Jones”, “Lightning Bolt”

4. Channel ORANGE, by Frank Ocean

Christopher Francis Ocean.

Christopher Francis Ocean.

Clocking in at our number four is R&B critical darling Frank Ocean. Last year, Mr. Ocean’s mixtape Nostalgia.ULTRA topped many a critic’s list. The current member of oddball rap troupe Odd Future was an erstwhile songwriter for artists as varied and well-known as Beyonce, Justin Bieber and John Legend. But with his debut mixtape, Frank has decided to step out of the background, and has since then come into his own as perhaps the best R&B artist recording today.

Channel ORANGE was cleverly released in the very week that normally girl-lusting Frank Ocean confessed (on Tumblr!) to being in unrequited love with a man for many years. The shock surrounding the news, coupled with a series of shrewdly-timed interviews, meant that Frank was the biggest thing in music at that point. Happily, the album lives up to the hype.

Frank Ocean's tell-all Tumblr post

Frank Ocean’s tell-all Tumblr post

“Forrest Gump” is about that same man, who ran Frank’s mind for a few years (Run, Forrest, Run. Get it?). On “Bad Religion”, he sings/confesses in earnest (“I could never make him love me/ Never make him love me”) to a taxi driver/shrink for the hour, and you’re left wondering if ‘he’ is the man in “Forrest Gump”, or God, who historically tends to frown upon homosexuality. Prostitute/Queen of Egypt mash-up “Cleopatra” is equally rich in religious motifs. (We wrote about it earlier this year.) But we felt that the best songs on the album arise when Frank pairs his emotional revelations with an R&B foil of sorts: such as Outkast’s Andre 3000 on “Pink Matter”, or our personal album pick “Super Rich Kids” featuring fellow Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt.

What really strikes you about Frank Ocean is his ability to turn the hedonistic ideal on its head: that a life of drugs, alcohol and sex can rebound into a very acute sense of loneliness and defeat. Flip over to Channel ORANGE, asap.

Must listen: “Bad Religion”, “Super Rich Kids”, “Cleopatra”

3. Django Django, by Django Django

Art school kids from Edinburgh

Art school kids from Edinburgh

Imagine that you live in a space station in year 2250 with the rest of the humans, decades after the Earth has proved uninhabitable. Imagine that you then decide to zap yourself back to ancient Cairo, find yourself a bodacious desert caravan, zap yourself forward to the Californian desert of the 1850s right into a spaghetti Western, and finally go on a caravan journey to the Pacific Ocean where you decide to go surfing. If you can imagine all this, then you’re prepared to listen to Django Django, the eponymous debut album by four of the finest specimens of Edinburgh’s art-school scene.

Even if you can’t imagine what we describe above, start listening. Django Django have made it easy for you to picture with the aptly entitled album opener “Introduction”, where synths from the future meet rugged outlaw whistles of Old West, while “Hail Bop” transitions seamlessly from this seething drama into almost a Beta Band-like classic, echo-y pop rock. (Interesting trivia: Django Django’s David Maclean is in fact the little brother of the Beta Band’s keyboardist John Maclean!)

Django Django album cover

Django Django album cover

“Skies over Cairo” is a mind-blowing instrumental piece that could soundtrack a revamped version of the video game Prince of Persia if it were rewritten as a mystery-thriller, while “Zumm Zumm” heads south right into the sub-Sahara.

The album’s centerpieces, though, are the two singles that the band has released. “Default” jangles with unrelenting percussion, chant-chorus lyrics and synths straight from hyperspace, and is overall one of the catchiest songs you will hear in your life. MGMT only wishes they were this good. “Waveforms” is the other crowning glory in this overall glorious album. Starting off exactly like a Major Lazer song, the synth-drama slowly unfolds in a cerebral haze that is more organized that it seems on surface. The song ends with the entire band chanting a hypnotic mantra:“Touch it, break it, shake it yeah/ Take it apart and break it yeah/ Try to rearrange it yeah/ Couldn’t recreate it yeah”.

And that’s what the band essentially does. They take noises from various locations and time periods of world history, and rebuild it into a colorful kaleidoscopic juggernaut that is wholly organic and fully fantastic.

Must listen: “Default”, “Waveforms”, “Skies Over Cairo”

2. good kid, m.A.A.d. city, by Kendrick Lamar

good kid, m.A.A.d. city: A Short Film by Kendrick Lamar

good kid, m.A.A.d. city: A Short Film by Kendrick Lamar

Straight-out-of-Compton Kendrick Lamar’s debut album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, is a meditation on what makes a classic, near-perfect hip-hop album. The album cover features a young Kendrick in the background and a tall bottle of booze in the foreground; Kendrick sets the familiar atmosphere that has consumed many a rapper: that of the over-arching influences of a mad city’s harsh realities, especially for a young black man. The difference between Kendrick and all those other rappers is the other element pictured on the album cover – family – because of which Kendrick managed to stay a ‘good kid’ despite Compton’s gang culture.

But that doesn’t make a classic hip-hop album: not quite. Kendrick is also an excellent rapper, an adept storyteller, and an intelligent young man, and is able to convey his thoughts in a killer flow over some seriously slick beats. Kendrick has correctly subtitled the album ‘a short film by Kendrick Lamar’. It’s a flipbook of glimpses into Kendrick’s life – from teenage lust and gang temptations to the maturity of young adulthood – and it’s so well-articulated that you could actually be watching a movie.

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth

On “Sherane”, a teenaged Kendrick drives out to his girlfriend’s house, mad with lust: only to stop short at her driveway at the sight of two hooded gang members; a voice mail from his mother, asking him to come back home, ends the song. The story continues in a skit on “Poetic Justice”, where he eventually gets jumped by the two gangsters on account of being on their turf. This event catalyses his thought process on “good kid”, where he realizes that he’s stuck between the ‘red and blue’ of Compton’s gangs and the ‘red and blue’ [police lights] of the bigoted cops. “I’ve never been violent, unless I’m with the homies,” explains ‘good kid’ Kendrick on “The Art of Peer Pressure”, and these are the same influences that he tries to overthrow on “m.A.A.d city”.

The album’s story arc – and Kendrick’s process of transition – finds its end on “Real”, in a heartbreaking skit with Kendrick’s parents. “Any nigga can kill a man, that don’t make you a real nigga,” his father tells him, “Real is responsibility, real is taking care of your motherfucking family, real is God, nigga,” while his mother chimes in with, “I love you, Kendrick.”  Kendrick Lamar has created more than an album: he has actually written a poignant and all-too-real script of gang culture’s harrowing influence. We strongly urge you to listen to good kid, m.A.A.d. city. It’s a masterpiece.

Must listen: “The Art of Peer Pressure”, “good kid”, “Real”

1. Lonerism, by Tame Impala

Album cover

Lonerism.

Over the course of the year, we have already sung numerous praises for Perth’s retro-psychedelic sensation Tame Impala. Over the course of the year, we also realized another thing: nothing else we’ve heard in 2012 has been able to match up to their album. The conclusion? Tame Impala’s sophomore album Lonerism is, in our honest opinion, the best album of 2012.

Yes, it is true, Tame Impala sounds like they might’ve fit in well in the late 1960s. Yes, it is true, lead singer Kevin Parker sounds eerily like Jim Morrison and John Lennon. But either one of those facts wouldn’t make them brilliant, or even that notable: psychedelic rock revivalists are a dime a dozen. Lonerism is special because Tame Impala’s band members have swathed themselves in the spirit of that bygone era so meticulously that they know no other way of making music; so that when the digital-age sheathes of synths (or any other elements) are inevitably added in, they seem perfectly organic even against the retro backdrop.

The umbrella theme on Lonerism stems from Kevin Parker’s acute introversion and subsequent loneliness. This manifests itself in songs that are at different stages of his thought process: from the suppliant “Why Won’t They Talk To Me?” to the resigned “Keep On Lying” to the wonderfully nihilist and expressly titled “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”.

Perth boys

Perth boys

The whole album is a giant trip; and each of the songs is, individually, a mini-trip that swirls and floats around in your head, with enough small quirks and strokes of genius embedded in the album to leave you spell-bound. There’s that moment on “Mind Mischief” when the strobe vocals and atmospherics wind down by a fraction to surface a guitar riff. There’s that moment on “Sun’s Coming Up” where the mournful piano ballad unexpectedly switches into hopeful, reverb-heavy wah-wahs: like musical sublimation. There’s that moment on “Keep On Lying” when the guitars, drums and non-diegetic laughter suddenly sync up, and a new phase of the song begins. These magical moments can and will vary for each listener and listen, which means that Lonerism is that rare, ever-replenishing goldmine: a classic.

“Elephant”(music video!) is an unrelenting, mind-blowing animal of a track that overtakes your entire mind for a few minutes; Tame Impala hypnotize you into their world with cymbal crashes, drum rolls and that bassline, dear God. Fluffy white clouds float lazily by in an azure sky on “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” (music video!), and you’re too headily high to notice what Parker’s really saying (“But I got my hopes up again, oh no, not again/ Feels like we only go backwards darling.”). “She Just Won’t Believe Me” is a snatch of four-sentence brilliance, like a mistakenly-tuned radio station.

We tried, but we just couldn’t stop ourselves from describing nearly every song on this album.

Tame Impala’s Lonerism sounds like that one unforgettable stoned reverie (we’ve all had one) that you had in college when you were tripping on weed and listening to ‘60s psychedelia. If you like The Doors, post-Revolver Beatles, early Pink Floyd or getting high, you will love this album. Even if you don’t really like any of these things, you’ll still like Lonerism. We guarantee it.

Must listen: “Elephant”, “Keep On Lying”, “Mind Mischief”

Agree with our top five? Disagree? Let us know in the comment section below!

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The Long Blondes: Someone To Drive You Home

26 Dec

Someone To Drive You Home, the debut album by the Long Blondes is a deep cut into a certain type of mind and age and proves fascinatingly unique for being so. It may be first world problems, but so was writing the words for a sermon that no one will hear. It is about being smart enough to understand your problems, but too smart to do anything about them. It is an album about knowing that the better world that you have been promised is a lie, but wanting it more than anything anyway. It is an album that is about being a person. It is glorious.

Or it would be glorious, were it only better music. For all that the Long Blondes are fresh and interesting, their music is merely passable, not great. While the backing is solid, and the singer’s voice is quite good, the music lacks the spark of inspiration. The music serves, Giddy Stratospheres is quite good, the guitar framing of You Could Have Both helps the song no end and there are plenty of strong moments through the album. Taken as a whole however, the album is at best merely good if considered musically.

All told, this is quite a good album, and one that given the right listener will strike all the right chords. The music is an integral part of the album, and is far from shabby, but at the end of the day, this feels like an album more intended for quoting than listening to.

-Nikhil

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Top Five Jazz Records For Beginners

25 Nov

So, let’s imagine you have a friend who loves jazz, and just to make this vision a little more believable, let us make said friend 6’2″ and a little bit on the thin side. Now, you want to impress this fascinating young man with your knowledge of his loved genre of music, but you do not know where to start. I mean, you know what an untamed jungle jazz is when compared to your safe pop and rock, and yet, you know that you want to explore a little. You dream of running your fingers up and down a long, brass saxophone, or possibly putting your lips to a trumpet and giving it a blow and suddenly your guitar feels awfully small compared to the double bass next to it. Well, then my friend, you need help. Instead, because the world is not fair, what you will get is the Top Five Music Top Five Jazz Records For Beginners.

These five records are all not only jazz classics, but are also extremely accessible. These ones have been picked so that no matter what your background is, you can pick them up and most likely enjoy them. Jazz is an extremely rewarding genre of music if often a little challenging and getting a good start is essentially to enjoying it.

Ella and Louis – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong is undoubtedly the biggest star jazz has ever produced. He alone is the most responsible for bringing jazz to the public ear and pretty much every jazz musician after him has been directly influenced by his music. He is to jazz what The Beatles is to rock. Not content with mastery of the trumpet, he went on to invent the art of scat from which we have his best known hit, What A Wonderful World.

Ella Fitzgerald is the greatest singer there has ever been. You may prop up people like Aretha Franklin and Billy Holiday, or even modern day singers like Janelle Monae, and undoubtedly all their voices are certainly outstanding, but there has never been anyone to touch Ella Fitzgerald.

Together, the two of them make an excellent team in this album. There are touches of Satchmo’s trumpet, but the centerpiece is the two of them singing jazz standards. All in all, this is deservedly a jazz classic.

Try Moonlight in Vermont and They Can’t Take That Away From Me to get a feel of this album. Of the two, I prefer Moonlight in Vermont, even without the lyrics being entirely in haiku.

Takin’ Off – Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock is one of the more interesting people in jazz. Despite groundings in hard bop and a long stint under Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock has been about as much funk as jazz and a little bit of everything else on the side. He’s ranged all the way from the proto-industrial rockit to the Grammy award winning jazz take on Joni Mitchell River: The Joni Letters. Takin’ Off is his debut as a bandleader and contains what is possibly his signature tune, Watermelon Man. Try Three Bags Full and see if you like it.

Getz/Gilberto – Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto

This is one of only two jazz albums ever to win the Grammy for best album, one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time and nothing at all like any of the other albums on this list. This album brought together guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim with American Saxophonist Stan Getz to result in the finest moment Bossa Nova, the Brazilian mixture of jazz and samba, has ever seen. This is the rare album that is not only critically acclaimed but is popular enough to spark its own craze. Doralice alone is of the class of music that will never leave your head, but The Girl From Ipanema is just perfect.

Time Out – Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck took a trip through Eurasia, and decided to make this album as an experiment in the musical style he saw there. His publisher gave it the green light on the condition that he would first record a more conventional album, Gone With The Wind. While the latter is now considered one of his lesser efforts, Time Out is one of the definitive Cool Jazz albums. Blue Rondo a La Turk‘s shifting time signatures are amusing enough to carry an entire album, but the top forty hit Take Five is very hard to beat.

Kind of Blue – Miles Davis

Miles Davis is one of the giants of music, one of those people who stand so tall over an art form that no one who follows can help but be influenced in some way by his work. For Kind of Blue, he had with him his ensemble sextet of Bill Evans on piano, Jimmy Cobb on drums, Paul Chambers on bass and both Cannonball Adderley and the incomparable John Coltrane on saxophone. This is the kind of album you define music by.

-Nikhil

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A Shakey Picture

8 Nov

The Shakey Rays are a three piece rock and roll band from Chennai that have been creating waves of awed adoration wherever they bring their unique tunesmithery. Coming off of a brilliant show at BITS Pilani’s cultural fest Oasis, the boys are now gigging their way through Delhi, winning the hearts of hundreds of fans (and women) wherever they go. Top Five Records caught up with Dhruva, Vikram (Vicky), Niranjan (Ninju), guest bassist Abhinav (of fellow Chennai artists Adam and the Fish-Eyed Poets) and band manager Jolene for a quick fifteen minutes in between their hectic calendar.

Top Five Records: Congrats on the excellent show, guys! Those of us that weren’t lucky enough to be there to see you guys opening for TAAQ got regular, ecstatic updates from people that WERE there.

Pilani, as you guys know now, is in the middle of nowhere, which is quite a change for most bands gigging around India in the same five or six cities. Tell us a bit about what you were thinking when the cab driver was taking you through the seemingly endless rustic hinterlands of dust and Haryanvis.

Ninju: We saw our lives flash before our eyes.
Dhruva: Lord have mercy on our poor souls!
Abhinav: It was dusty.
Vicky: I was praying dude!
Abhinav: He (Vicky) was seeking divine intervention.
Jolene: It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. The drivers were racing each other, driving on the opposite side of the road and missing oncoming vehicles by mere feet of distance … we tried to alleviate the fact that our lives were on the line by alternatively trying to sleep, talking to each other and analysing the 90’s Bollywood love songs being played on the stereo. But all’s when that ends well, we got to campus alive and were later told that the sort of ride we had to campus was an important part of the BITS experience.

TFR: BITSians pride themselves on being, well, chilled out (sometimes a bit too much, actually). Tell us a little bit about your Oasis experience.

Dhruva: Brilliant!
Abhinav and Ninju: Special mention to Jashid and Champu (Vineet Chaudhury) for taking us around and being generally awesome.
Vicky: We didn’t steal any towels, though I hope I didn’t put one in my bag by mistake.
Jolene: I’m super glad we got to play this gig (thanks Neeharika, Karthik and the organizers). Playing in front of such a large audience, so different from the pub goers we’ve usually played to was an important step in itself, never mind the somewhat mixed reactions.

TFR: BITS was the first college gig that you’ve played as a band. How was that experience different from your usual gigs?

The whole band: More crowd! More people! Much better!
Vicky: We heard a horn from somewhere in the crowd during our set. That was sort of cool since we’ve been looking for a horn section since a while now and we randomly heard one; wonder where it came from?

TFR: One of the main concerns for most non-metal bands playing college gigs is that college kids expect metal and only metal bands. Did you feel that that was a concern at BITS? Did you get the crowd bobbing to the Diddley beat?

Dhruva: No, it seems like people only wanted to dance and we gave them that.
Jolene: I heard we were picked to play ahead of Scribe. That’s pretty cool, considering the band’s massive popularity.

TFR: Did you walk around campus a bit? Did anyone take you to Sarla, tell you what ‘putting’ is, or introduce you to the beauty of a Thunderbolt?

The band: Yes to all. Every item on the checklist, tick.

TFR: Tell us a bit about TAAQ. Did you meet/hang out with them?

The band: We met them, didn’t hang out with them. They seemed like nice people.
Ninju and Dhruva: Their drummer is awesome.

TFR: You guys have completed a country-wide tour recently. Do you have another such tour in the works? Tell us about some upcoming gigs.

Jolene: We’ll do another tour only after releasing an EP or album. We’re playing a lot around Delhi this month and charting out gigs for December/January as well. Details come up on our Facebook page as gigs are finalized.

TFR: If we still lived in a world of vinyl records rather than mp3s, then Shakey fans all over the country would have scratched their copy of Tunes from the Big Belly out of sheer over-use. We need new material! Is that happening?

Dhruva + Vikram: We are in the process of writing songs, most of them are still in the demo stage.
Jolene: 16th of this month is when we’ll digitally release a new single, hopefully with a B Side.

TFR: One of the biggest questions we’ve had about you guys, and one that shames us for not knowing despite being huge fans, is the origin of your name. Please tell us it doesn’t actually derive from “Shakira”.

 Vikram: No real history behind the band name. We were looking for something particularly interesting and Dhruva, being the most interesting member in the group, came up with “The Shakey Rays”.

Dhruva: I suppose there’s a degree of truth to that. It’s a question that often comes up, and I wish I remember how it sprung up- I think we we’d had a drink or ten when THE SHAKEY RAYS presented itself in bold letters.

TFR: A lot of BITSians read this blog. Is there anything you’d like to say, as a closing note of sorts?

Vikram: No, not really… Thanks for the chicken!
Dhruva: Thank you for dancing, BITS!
Abhinav: Thanks for Neeraj Shridar.

So there you have it. You can listen to each of the Shakey Rays’ pop gems of perfection here. Happy listening!

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Marina and the Diamonds: Electra Heart

4 Nov

Marina dropped her second album and debuted all the way at number one on the UK chart with it. However far she may be from the sophomore slump commercially though, Electra Heart fails to live up to standard of intelligence The Family Jewels set down. To mitigate that though, this is undoubtedly better pop than her previous album. It is not surprising that her mental swings would take her to a place like this, but it does make it hard to form a set opinion.

My first thought is that she sounds a lot happier on this album. There are still glimpses of her suicidal tendencies, but nowhere near the bleak acceptance of depression that was The Family Jewels. Good for her. I will admit to not caring how Thom Yorke feels when he gets up in the morning and that much of my appreciation for The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go is due to Richey’s killing himself, but the Family Jewels painted such an intensely personal picture of Marina that her beginning to feel better about herself is something that even I can be happy about. Once again, good for her.

This leads us though to the major problem of this album, that it barely manages to hit the same personal notes that made The Family Jewels as interesting as it still is. Teen Idle is the only piece in this that actually holds her voice. While many of her other songs, like Power and Control and Primadonna speak about her, they are so caught up in a single, slightly shallow statement that they seem as though they could have been sung by any mildly intelligent female pop singer. The fact that there are so few mildly intelligent female pop singers does not excuse her aiming lower than she is capable of. Where her first album had moments of Elvis Costello lyricism, this plays far too close to pseudo-intellectualism.

This is an album that embraces pop much more wholeheartedly than its predecessor. You can feel the touch of its all-star production team all over the album. It is still a Marina album, and her voice is always at the center, but it is certainly helped by the beats behind it. It sounds better than its predecessor for it as well. When fully three quarters of the songs on the album have catchier choruses than anything else out there, something is going very right. The more popstar songs, like Bubblegum Bitch, Sex Yeah, Homewrecker, How To Be A Heartbreaker and Radioactive all work out to great pop and even the darker songs, like Power and Control or Teen Idle all sound great.

Where The Family Jewels felt fresh, Electra Heart takes maybe half a step backward intellectually but pushes a little better pop in return. While this may not be The Family Jewels, this is still Marina, and worth picking up for all its flaws.

Nikhil

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Music So Fresh It’s Still in the Bubble Wrap: A List

29 Oct

How fresh are these five artists? So fresh that they make ‘90s Will Smith jealous. So fresh that your organic farm lettuce wilts in defeated dismay. So fresh that they’re still in the bubble wrap. So fresh that… you get the point. On this latest offering from Top Five Records, a sensitive young lad from Nottingham competes for space with a Japanese Britpop band and a Copenhagen soul-pop star. Sound interesting? Read on.

My Kind of Woman, by Mac DeMarco

On first look, Mac DeMarco looks far too ordinary. Dressed down in an old-fashioned plaid shirt and flashing a stoned, buck-toothed grin, he looks like the sort of guy who’d rather chill, relax and have a good time rather than embark on an ambitious road to musical success. And surprisingly, this assessment is not too far off the mark. Mac DeMarco is a laid-back, down-to-earth and ordinary guy who makes laid-back, down-to-earth and extraordinary music, directly because of the way he wields his sincerity as a musical Midas Touch of sorts. On “My Kind of Woman”, Mac writes a beautiful, simple, timeless song about being in love with a woman even though she drives you crazy, sounding a bit like Wilco featuring (non-melancholic) Broken Social Scene in the process. Mac DeMarco (and his music) is old-school, charming and easy-going; a more prolix description of his talent is unbefitting.

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Day and Night, by Diamond Rings

Canadian-born artist and frequent fire-setter of the hipster blogosphere Diamond Rings (aka John O’Regan) first came to prominence with the manically catchy “All Yr Songs” way back in September 2009. In the subsequent music video, O’Regan sparkled like his moniker suggests – because of his infectious energy as well as because of, well, the glitter that might’ve been embedded in his make-up. Banter aside, “Day & Night” is a track from his upcoming sophomore album, Free Dimensional, with beats and synths so happy that you can almost see the rainbows. It’s a bit like Passion Pit with a marked Ok Go verve, but you can just call it dance-pop. “1, 2, let me love you/ 3, 4, love you more/ 5, 6, 7, 8, 9/ 10, 11, 12 all day and night,” goes the glittery, memorable chorus. You can’t not love this song.

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Dude can dance.

Someone Told Me, by Jake Bugg

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On the YouTube page for a song by Nottingham native Jake Bugg, VEVO tried to shove us into watching the latest video by Justin Bieber. We recount to you this dubious anecdote of VEVO-based irony because that was the moment that provided us a perfect perspective on Jake’s genius. Unlike his Canadian counterpart, this eighteen-year-old JB from across the pond does not collaborate with Nicki Minaj in cocky songs meant for teenage girls. Instead, Jake Bugg writes lovelorn songs about girls in a time-honored vibe that’s older than both him and Nicki. On the delicate and poignant “Someone Told Me”, the most obvious approximation of young Jake’s music would be a youthful Bob Dylan, but Nick Cave and Elliott Smith figure in the formula, too. Listen closer, though, and through the endearing Nottingham accent and naïve, well-penned lyrics, one cannot help but think of Submarine-era Alex Turner.  “Someone loved me, but not today/ Will you show me a way how to love?” he asks, a teenager who grew up a little too fast. Don’t be fooled by his Facebook-profile-picture-esque album cover: this one’s a keeper.

Pilgrim, by MØ

MØ (“virgin”) is the stage name of young Danish singer Karen Marie Ørsted. Recently, she’s released a couple of brilliant tracks, “Pilgrim” and “Maiden”, which are as clever and minimalist as her choice of stage name. “Pilgrim” is the more confident and restrained of the two, and that’s why we have decided to cover it.

Slick, sparse hand-claps provide the backbone for this off-beat soul-pop gem; a riveting, lean brass section provides the meat; and MØ’s sinuous vocals the lifeline-blood. The best thing about her is the way she sounds a little like a three-way Battle of the Artists between Santigold, the xx and, say, Brandy. Another awesome thing about her is the way she pulls off the aesthetically-troubled hipster singer shtick; it’s usually impossible to do without arousing scoffs and derision. On the chorus of “Pilgrim”, MØ wails, “All the time I just want to let go, and go/ All the time I just want to fuck it up,” and somehow, you’re intrigued. Even if her troubles are for aesthetic purposes only, she sure as hell knows how to make it work. Oh, and “Pilgrim” comes with a nice visual accompaniment: not since Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” has a music video brimmed with so much quirk, genius and synchronicity. It’s worth a watch almost as much as the song is worth a listen. Check out both below!

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Flower Chain, by Taffy

We were piqued from the moment that the hectic bass-and-drums affair on “Flower Chain” set our feet tapping. We were hooked almost immediately after the cool-as-hell guitars kicked in. And by the time vocalist Iris started wordplaying between ‘deny’ and ‘don’t I’, we were giddily in love. Taffy is a band from Tokyo that sounds a little bit like Blur, Pulp, Suede and all that, while dutifully reflecting a bit of the concurrent Seattle grunge scene that those bands themselves were influenced by.

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The funny thing, though, is that Taffy has actually gone on record saying that they’ve never really listened to Britpop at all! Peculiar. However, we certainly aren’t the only ones that see the resemblance. Taffy has been signed on to London label Club AC30, and is embarking on a UK tour this very month. As an added bonus to this brilliant song, the effortlessly- blasé video features the band rocking out both in their human and anime avatars. Taffy is delicious; please do listen to them.

Agree with our top five? Disagree? Let us know in the comments section. 

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NH7 Weekender: Delhi edition

24 Oct

By Anjishnu Kumar (Photographer Siddharth Shah)

As soon as I got out of the car on the Saturday of the Delhi Weekender, I was struck by the scale and sheer ambition of the event that was unfolding.  Buddh International Circuit’s gargantuan Grand Stand stood tall beside the curtained enclosures housing six stages that were to host around sixty bands over the next two days.

This is NH7 Weekender, the biggest music event to ever happen near the national capital.

The last biggest-music-event-ever-to-happen-in-the-capital I’d gone to in the NCR was the Metallica concert in Gurgaon. That day ended with me standing in the sun for four hours without water, with a rather obese gentleman vomiting next to me in regular intervals and having to run away from the venue before the police arrived.

As you can imagine, I was going into this event with a perfectly justified sort of cynicism.

The event was already showing signs of better management than the Metallica affair. The parking lot was a small ocean of grass. I was handed a complimentary glass of water at the entrance, and led through the security check. Things looked good.

We followed the music and ended up at the largest stage, the Black Rock Arena, where a perfectly mediocre whiny alt-rockish band was just finishing up. I didn’t bother finding out who they were.

Next up was Vir Das’s Alien Chutney, boasting of the comedian plus two stalwarts of Indian rock- Warren Mendonsa and Sidd Coutto.

Alien Chutney was half rock-band and half stand up comedy act in which Vir Das regularly walked the thin line between acerbic wit and vulgarity. Alien Chutney started with the surprisingly addictive ‘Villageman’, a ballad about having sex with Haryanvis.

He followed with some more originals, such as his rendition of the Delhi Belly classic Bhag Bhag D K Bose (“Bhag Bhag Madarchod”) and the Heavy Metal Song (“Iron! Iron! Aluminum!”), before finally ending with his attempt at wizard rock, a piece entitled “Harry Is a Randi!”

One band down and nobody had puked near me: already better than Metallica. A pretty good start to the fest.

Up next was Indus Creed, which is apparently one of India’s best alt rock groups.

Stripped of the Alien Chutney’s novelty factor, it was clear that Indus Creed was lacking in a lot of ways. At their peak they came up with decent but somewhat generic alternative rock riffs, with lyrics reminiscent of Linkin Park.

Their seminal song “Fireflies” had an almost Porcupine Tree sensibility: a breath of fresh air in the middle of a rain of angsty power chords.

I found myself wandering to the Other Stage, a small set up next to the much larger Dewarists stage, where we found Barefaced Liar: a trio consisting of a vocalist, flute player and a guitarist that specialized in Spanish inspired music. However, the band relied heavily on lead vocals, and the other musicians did basically nothing but provide backup.

We moved on to the Dewarists stage where Advaita was playing. While their music was technically quite sound, I’m sorry to report that it did not get the blood running. This was a fest that was supposed to be headlined by Megadeth, and I did not feel excited.

Back to the Black Rock Arena, where Zero was just going up on stage. Zero is one of the most critically acclaimed Indian bands, performing an average of only one gig per year.

But damn do they make it count.

Frontman Rajeev Talwar adopted the persona of a hedonistic but rather likable British opera singer on stage. His overblown antics and Warren Mendonsa’s guitar set the tone for the performance from the outset, leading the audience through quirky lyrics, solid rock riffs and tastefully constructed solos. Finally some REAL rock at the Black Rock Arena!

Zero finished with their cult rock classic “PSP 12”, topped off by another blistering solo by Mendonsa.

Still a little dizzy after Zero, we wandered into the Bindass Fully Fantastic Stage into a performance by Gandu Circus. Now, Gandu Circus is the band that composed the furious Bengali-Rap soundtrack for subversive Bengali movie Gandu. Sadly, however, performing the movie soundtrack was only notable highlight of their show.

Following them was Menwhopause, a witty alternative rock ensemble from Delhi. Menwhopause brought to the table impeccable instrumentality and original melodies that combined both Indian and western elements. Menwhopause played a solid repertoire of soft rock songs, such as “Circles”, “Can’t we be Dreaming?” and “Downtown”. Meanwhile, there was a steady drift of people (from Pentagram which was playing in the Black Rock Arena), saying they wanted to hear a band in which people “could actually play the guitar and sing”.

But compared to the other solid act of the day (Zero), Menwhopause seemed rather subdued… until their final song, that is.

This song took the ‘soft rock’ label, smashed it to bits, and then proceeded to jump up and down on it repeatedly.

“Katil Sardar” is zany, irreverent, and possibly the product of fundamental deranged mind, but all in a good way, of course. This hard rock song has a soft rock song built into it: its lyrics jump from describing a hearty Punjabi meal, advising horny old men to move to New Delhi and ascribing the attacks on World Trade Centre to a malfunctioning bong. Besides, they had an entire verse is made up of terrible Punjabi puns.

Katil Sardar’s National Anthem is Bande-Marte-HUM! (“We Kill People!” -for everyone not from the North)

Is it genius? Or merely the the first step of a progression towards dementia? I cannot say. It probably doesn’t matter.

Following Menwhopause on the Fully Fantastic stage was Shaa’ir and Func , an experimental electronic duo consisting of vocalist Monica Dogra and guitarist Randolph Correia.

While S+F had a few interesting moments (“Shine” was one), I honestly lost interest in the electronica quickly, and spent the majority of their performance staring at Monica Dogra gyrating on stage.

So did the rest of the audience.

We decided to leave Shaa’ir and Func early and head over to Anoushka Shankar on the Dewarists stage, but soon decided that we really had not come here to appreciate Hindustani classical music. Thus ended day one, which definitely offered its moments but had several disappointments as well.

The second day had its work cut out.

Day 2:

I was late to arrive on Day 2 and jumped quickly into the fray.

The Black Rock Arena was hosting Indian metal band Scribe, whose frontman urged the audience to “tickle his balls” as the band passed out beach-balls into the crowd.

Scribe performed reasonable metalcore if you weren’t particularly bothered about things like lyrics, melody, rhythm or originality of any sort.

Their songs apparently had names, but I was not able discern any through the growling.

Sadly, I had to make a hasty egress when the lead singer of Scribe announced that his favourite ‘metal’ band was, in fact, Limp Bizkit.

Next up were Them Clones at the Fully Fantastic stage. Barring atrocious work from the sound technicians that kept the volume far too high for a normal human being, the performance was excellent.

Them Clones as a band seemed transformed from the last time I saw them (in 2010). They seemed much more professional and progressive, and much less like a college band. They played one of the best renditions of “Long Live The Dead” that I’ve ever heard, and introduced us to some of their new music, before ending with the perennial hit “My Life” and a version of the hit “Zephyretta” (accompanied by saxophone).

Them Clones were followed by Shillong-based blues-rock band Soulmate. I hadn’t heard this band before and they turned out to be quite a find. Slick, stylish, original, and supremely confident, Soulmate delivered a performance that would shame most of the more established bands.  Besides, vocalist Tipriti Kharbangar gets my vote for being both the sexiest and most talented woman on stage during this fest.

Soulmate’s cornerstone tracks “Set Me Free” and “Voodoo Woman” transpose effortless, free-flowing blues melodies onto Tipriti’s vocals as they shift between silky smoothness and surprising force. The result is a musical tour de force.

The Bindass stage was already starting to dominate the concert, and next up was Blackstratblues, Warren Mendonsa’s instrumental guitar project with Sid Coutto on the drums.

Mendonsa had already delivered brilliant performances as part of Alien Chutney and Zero, and he did not disappoint here.

Most of his songs were from his new albums, the only two exceptions being “Ode to a Sunny Day” and “Ode to a Rainy Day”. For the majority he didn’t even bother naming them, letting the music speak for itself.

Since I can’t simply tell you to listen to song X on Youtube, I must tell you that Mendonsa painted sonic landscapes with his black Stratocaster and guided the crowd through a gamut of emotions that blues music rarely takes one to: sheer bliss, hope, and childish wonder.

However, it cannot be described in words so perhaps it is futile to even try. Blackstratblues was my favourite performance of the event and for me, Mendonsa was the star of NH7 Weekender, not Megadeth.

Mendonsa was joined by Vishal Dadlani of Pentagram and Prithwish of Them Clones as Blackstratblues ended with a reinvention of Zephyretta.

With some reluctance I left the Fully Fantastic Stage to return to the Black Rock Arena.

It was Time.

The crowd that gathered in front of the stage was immense but it was already tired after the fierce moshing that took place during the last concert.

(One source maintains that Bhayanak Maut’s Mosh Pits involved people punching each other with buckets.)

But as Dave Mustaine walked up on stage, all the injuries and tiredness were forgotten. And the crowd went up in a deafening roar.

I honestly have no idea what Megadeth played for the first fifteen minutes. I found myself headbanging even as a mosh pit opened up and I was pushed in. The next few minutes are a haze of bodies slamming into each other until Megadeth paused playing to tell us that they were touring to commemorate the tenth anniversary of their studio album Countdown to Extinction.

Megadeth played the entire tracklist of Countdown to Extinction.

Debris rained from the sky.

Clothes were torn.

People were sent sprawling onto the ground.

Girlfriends were hurriedly evacuated from the front rows by their boyfriends.

At one point I was the only guy with a shirt on in a five-metre radius.

As the Countdown album ended, Megadeth receded from the stage.

It was ten pm. Time for the concert to end.

The crowd roared, demanding Megadeth come out and play “Tornado of Souls”.  Mustaine walked out onto the stage, exhorting the crowd to cheer, playing one half of the audience against the other.

He told the crowd that he considered people in America spoilt, compared to the hardships his fans have to face in a country like India, shedding a lone tear at the end of the monologue.

The irony of that statement was not lost on me. After all, he was addressing possibly the most pretentious, privileged and generally spoilt group of individuals in this nation today.

And suddenly the rest of the band was back and Megadeth’s trademark riffs filled the air. The hitherto sobered crowd went wild, and for one last time, I found myself in the eye of a tornado.

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