VazquezSounds: Rolling In The Deep

Have you heard this cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the deep”?

No? Then watch now: http://youtu.be/a7UFm6ErMPU

 

If you’re one of those complaining about how her English is not that great or that the arrangement is too simple, then it’s a case of sour grapes, and you’re a horrible horrible person, shame on you. The niña is all of ten, and her brothers are 13 and 15. Such a stunner! Her charisma more than makes up for their adolescent gawkiness. She has that odd sense of pure laid-back confidence that you hope teenage, and subsequently, adulthood, don’t drain out of her. She looks like a diva in the making.

I waded through some of the interviews (in Spanish, no less. That’s my superpower, btw) and they make their talent sound very obvious, like they just woke up one morning and started playing like this, and the girl just started singing like this, and that Abelard, the guy playing  the guitar, the bass and the piano just did it naturally. Angie just casually says, “I’ve had no professional training. My mom sings, I guess that’s where I get it from” and “Oh, it was just recorded in the study”. Can’t possibly be that easy, when the production quality of the video looks so professional (I counted 5 cameras, and if not, there are definitely multiple takes. Even the editing looks so professional.) A little more digging revealed that their dad is an established producer (which explains the above average production).

Anyway, it’s quite interesting how much people are willing to fuel the interest of their kids these days.  You see quite a few precocious kids  on youtube and a few Rebecca Blacks, and people seem to be more willing to chance their kids’ hobbies just in case they make it big. A far cry from what used to happen back then. You know the “Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab, kheloge koodoge hoge kharab” ?

In any case, these kids are awesome. I love them, and am waiting to see what they do next. Hopefully, some originals.

Garfunkel and Oates: My apartment’s very clean without you

Nursing a big crush on this comedy-duo “GARFUNKEL AND OATES“.  It’s quite difficult to find women in comedy anyway, to find a duo with this amount of talent? Wow, just wow.  Named after two famous rock-and-roll “second bananas”,  I am sure they’ve battled comparisons with ‘Flight of the conchords’. They’re hilarious, been cracking me up all morning and have improved my Monday by leaps and bounds.

I am sure this song invited a lot of wrath from pregnant women and of course, moms across the world, but it’s just so damn funny, can’t help but laugh out loud. PREGNANT WOMEN ARE SMUG:

Then there’s this poignantly funny “MY APARTMENT’S VERY CLEAN WITHOUT YOU”

More awesomeness comes in the form of  songs called Sex with ducks ( about the Pat Robertson quote), and the very recent “Save the Rich“, about the Occupy protests & the 99%. There are some videos where just the two of them are playing, and singing, I find those the best as their camaraderie, and nervous energy is infectious. The professional videos, somehow miss out on the warmth.

Also, if the blonde lady on the right, ‘Garfunkel’ looks very familiar, it’s because she played Sheldon Cooper’s ‘groupie’ Ramona Nowitzki.

On Loop: Beautiful Dreamer – Carolyn Malachi

Found this beautiful track by Carolyn Malachi a while back, called “Beautiful Dreamer” [Not that long back also.]   She was nominated for a Grammy last year for her song  ”Orion”  (no, not a cover) in the now-defunct Best Urban/Alternative Performance category.

“Beautiful Dreamer” features her way-beyond powerful vocals. I almost always wait for the part where she screams “StrrrrrrroooooOOooOooOOng”. It has such a punch in it that you want to get out of your seat and  do something, anything. Go for a long run, or solve some complex problem, or draw or paint or doodle, or even write 10 lines — at least have the willingness to  get out of this self-imposed exile from the world of activity.

Also, I love the way it begins:

Somewhere there's a nothing
Waiting to become something
Fighting all the writing
Hiding from the lightning

We are in the suburbs
Racing to red lights
Having close encounters
Far away from home

Edited to add: If you’re in the mood for it, listen to the (10 min) Extended Jazz Mix . The flutes are quite fascinating on this track. [http://snd.sc/pAoB7C]

 

On Loop: Time – Rogerio Jardim

I like this track by Rogerio Jardim a lot.  Beautiful production and very beautiful and simple lyrics. Been looping for a while, and will probably loop the rest of the day. (Edited to add: Soundcloud won’t show up in feed readers. Link here: http://snd.sc/uAas4h)

I transcribed the lyrics the really old fashioned way of listening and pausing and playing again and typing it down. How long since you did that? Not since school, isn’t it? Try it, it can be quite fun

TIME

Time, last time I tracked you were my friend
We were young and alive
I never thought how fast you'd go
Not that I'm not happy where I am
Or who that I've become

Time, remember when I said to myself,
"Do this another day"
You know the day would into years
That was not because you didn't care
You didn't have the time to spare

I say hold on, Time, you're running out
There's so much I need to say to you
There's too much around for me to do.
Hey time, not ready for another day
There's so much I want to understand
That I live my life like dust and wind
Dust and wind. 

Friend, I never asked you for anything
But I want you to slow down
And let me live this day again
And I promise you
That I'll show you how I would
That I'll do the world some good

I say hold on, Time, you're running out
there's so much I need to say to you
there's too much around for me to do.
Hey time, not ready for another day
There's so much I want to understand
that I live my life like dust and wind

You're the one who lives forever
I know that, 
and you know I'm not against you
But I only ask one thing
This one you have to bring,
Oh, please
Let me live this day again.

I say hold on, Time, you're running out
There's so much I need to say to you,
There's too much around for me to do.
Hey Time, not ready for another day
There's so much I want to understand
That I live my life like dust and wind

This is the other track by the same artist, that is worth a listen . The pianos are beautiful on this one. It will improve your wednesday.

SAIL TO NOWHERE

(Edited to add: Soundcloud won’t show up in feed readers. Link here: http://snd.sc/sMUQTv)

Of pouts and Rockstars..

When I was in school, we had that much celebrated event called annual function (you did too!). Dressing up for it critical for us, since it was the only chance you’d get through the year to wear lipstick. The teacher in charge would ask us open our mouth wide and then carefully apply lipstick. Further, she’d ask us to smile wide and put two little circles of bright pink rouge on the apples of cheeks.

That lipstick ritual was tricky and important, because it was a once a year event, and we didn’t want it to get smudged before we went on to the stage, and of course there was no way we could fix it ourselves. Ergo, a lot of effort went in holding our mouth in a way so as to ensure the lips don’t touch each other or our teeth, even while we spoke. It oas serious oisiness, and it oas oery tough.

When I first saw Nargis Fakhri walk onto the screen, her pout reminded me of exactly those lipsticked school events. Collagened or otherwise, her uncomfortable pout, though mildly reminiscent of Julia Roberts, is extremely distracting for anyone who’s willing to give her a chance as an actor.  She’s pretty, but you can’t help but notice how her pout stays stiff, almost as if she has oodles of lipstick which shouldn’t get smudged.  To add to it, her eyebrows move up and down with every word. As I said, very distracting.

–

Rockstar is not a bad movie. But for anyone looking for a story about music and rock and destruction that goes thereof, you wouldn’t find it here. When you read the synopsis and stuff, you imagine watching the journey of a talented but troubled artist, someone of humble origins, who gets progressively destructive as he gets progressively famous – a Bollywood-ized Kurt Cobain, or Jim Morrison, perhaps? Self-destructiveness, which is oddly sexualized, and hence makes him  attractive to the masses. You have a sense of envy for their talent, and regret for the way the fame got the better of their personal life.

The premise is quite nice if you think about it. A person who doesn’t have any of personal traumas to begin with, his journey into intentional self-destruction, should make for wonderful cinema especially since his life is set ablaze by the one thing which seem to be an easy commodity for rock stars, women.

It’s a pity that there is not much screenplay/dialogue to back up that brilliant idea. The story gets completely lost in the songs/score and related montages. The snippets of dialogues which go with it are so little that they don’t invoke the feelings, and hence empathy. So when, JJ, the protected child, is thrown out of his house because of some 5-lakh accusation, we don’t quite witness the trauma, instead we get: song, montage. We don’t quite witness his transformation from a person who’s always a slave of the woman’s wishes, to one who tries to force a hug or a kiss out of her. More song, more montage. He is upset when thrown off her premises, and gets into a scuffle with the police. Obviously: song, montage. So it’s not that the movie stops being believable, after a while it just stops invoking empathy out of anyone. With nothing but song and montages to back us up with, nobody is quite invested in the guy or understood his turmoil.

Having said that, Ranbir Kapoor has done a fantastic job both as the bungling JJ and as  Jordan. He has the old school charm of a Kapoor, but none of the airs of a star that you normally see. He is very good in this role, and I quite liked all the effort he’s put in to embody the rock star.

The other half of the screen, ah well, she can’t act to save her life. She can pout  though. Also she keeps prancing around in Kashmiri thread-work suits and shawls so as to emphasize her very Kashmiri Kashmiriness. While watching the movie, I  constantly kept thinking of who would’ve suited the role better, and after going through a full list of incompetent pretty faces that Bollywood has to offer, I thought Kareena Kapoor would’ve suited it best, but she possibly couldn’t have been cast. Who else is there?

Songs. Umm, they’re good, but personally, none worth the mention except “Sadda Haq”. I don’t know why people are raving about the soundtrack. Also the “Free Tibet” thing is quite hilarious, because it became an Anna-fied “Free”, almost like they were waiting for the masses to come up with the word “Tibet”.

Tsk.

On Loop: Khoya Khoya Chand

Hastily written post, but I’ve found an earworm after such a long time. This song, I think will be my death.

Found this thanks to @aalaap, and has been on loop since. The album’s called “Classic Bollywood – Shaken not Stirred” Much trippage is happening on the “Khoya Khoya Chand“, such a stunning voice, such a stunningly dark arrangement, mystery just drips from this song. Death only.

The incredible voice is that of Suman Sridhar, wonder where she was hiding all this while? If her voice sounds familiar, it’s because she was the one who was the voice on the Kalki-Imran coke ad ( That track, Tum Jo mil gaye ho also features on this album, and is on loop)

This Tehelka article speaks about the brains behind this album:

 ”Ironically, it took an outsider to show us how a vintage gem is refreshingly burnished without stamping out its glow. The brains behind Khoya Khoya Chand is Mike McCleary, an Indian-born, Kiwi-origin and London-trained musician and composer. For someone who has had industry stalwarts for collaborators, it’s odd that he isn’t a household name by now.”

We were thinking back as to which were the other tolerable old hindi song cover, and I could only think of Bally Sagoo, who did some wonderful stuff remixing old Bollywood melodies, and made it cool. Like @aalaap pointed out, he made a bunch of cool stuff, and then when everyone jumped on the remix bandwagon, he just vanished. ‘Remixes’ that don’t mutilate the original beyond recognition are indeed hard to find.

That being said, this is not remix, this is a legit covers album, something which I feel was missing all this while.

Anyway, for the rest of the songs on the album, I haven’t got around to listening to much of it because of this song. It will be my death, I tell you. I heard Mauli Dave’s voice on “Yeh samaa“, and hated it. She just sounded too shrill for the jazz infused numbers. Monica Dogra (Shai from Dhobi Ghat), however, sounded quite alright on the “Ajeeb Dastaan hai yeh” . I quite like the way she hastens the first part of the sentence, and stretches the second part, and that strange accent seems to be gone.

Otherwise, it’s Suman Sridhar all the way. I am in love with that woman’s voice.

PS: The video is incredibly corny. Boy meets girl, they walk in slo-mo, while everyone stares at them, and then ends abruptly. I think she’ll turn out to be a vampire or zombie or such. What is interesting is that I’ve seen an indipop video after a long time. Not quite sure if it will start a trend.

Shammi Kapoor.

That he’s most of our dads’ favourite actor is a given. While our mothers’ picked between Dharmendra  and Rajesh Khanna,  and were vocal about it (depending on whether they perceived themselves as the thinking women or not), Dads, I have come to discover, have often favoured Shammi Kapoor, for some inexplicable reason.

Either way, I will tell you my earliest memory of Shammi Kapoor, because it might just be one of my earliest conscious memories of analysis, and recorded things need to be recorded some more. And this is from the time I was 5, and I know and clearly remember the exact place it happened, and when and how it did.

I saw the Pan Parag ad, right before the sunday movie, the one with Ashok Kumar, and then someone told me that the other guy in the ad was Shammi Kapoor. A young five year old me spent at least five days in denial that the guy I knew as Shammi Kapoor –  young, suave, active, jumping like a monkey, and who is my dad’s favourite, was the same weird, long-haired guy in the Pan Parag ad.

Since then, I’ve wondered (not often) about if someone as accomplished as him had any regrets about doing a ‘gutka’ ad (think Amitabh Bachchan & Navratan Oil), till I found this  very recently.  Here’s he talking about the ad, and why he agreed to doing it.

Delhi Belly

Immensely watchable, and funny as hell. I was laughing all evening about some of the dialogues in the movie, and I will for a long time to come.

–

Much has been said about Delhi Belly, and how it is the new coming of age-cinema because a) It is in english and they all speak like normal people. b) because they curse and cuss like normal people c) because it has no point, no exaggerated message, no real love story, it’s just irreverent fart/potty jokes.

I don’t entirely agree with that.

For me it is the coming-of-age cinema, our cinema, because –and I don’t know how else to explain it — people don’t take themselves too seriously. It has nothing to do with the actors themselves, it’s in the way this movie, and some recent movies, have been made. To give you an example, ‘Wake up Sid’ despite apparent pointlessness, takes itself seriously, as opposed to ‘Rocket Singh’, where despite there being a message et al, everyone just seems, umm, normal. It’s the same with a movie like ‘Dabanngg’ and ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’, which despite falling into the prone-to-exaggeration masala and rom-com genre respectively, work very well, because no one – the screenplay writer, the actors, the lyricist, the music director – is taking themselves seriously. The moment that stops, it looks more like a collective effort, the pieces just hold together. It’s not like there’s no effort, but moment the effort starts showing, the whole thing just falls flat on its face [To some extent, despite liking the movie a lot, that was precisely my problem with 'Stanley'. Also, Aamir Khan in 'Dhobi Ghat'. ]

Then there is the attention to detail, which made me giddy. I like the detail of the Russian dolls being used by a Vladimir. Never quite figured why anyone would think of creating nested dolls, but to think of it, it would be awesome to smuggle stuff in. Then there is the breakup haircut by Vir Das, which women are normally prone to do. Baradwaj Rangan writes about these details, in great detail, here.

–
As for the cast itself:

- The trio, what awesomeness. I love how they all bounce off each other. Vir Das’s voice reminds me of Farhan Akhtar, for some reason.
- The Rajeev fellow (husband of Menaka) was last seen as the school principal in ‘Stanley ka dabba’. He seemed extremely fake and out of place in that movie for the same reason, of his excruciating Delhi Amitness. Here, he seems like a natural fit. [There may be other movies, but I seemed to remember him only in this one!]
- If it’s bothering you, the 7% happy banana boss is the English teacher from Taare Zameen Par.
- Vijay Raaz, last seen being this stunning as ‘Dubey’ in Monsoon Wedding. Oh lord, that deadpan expression.
- Two thumbs up for the sidekick for delivering the words ‘Sir, louuundry‘ to perfection. Every single person cracked up on the line, and that’s the first dialogue everyone seems to quote.
- Hasn’t Shenaaz Treasurywala been around forever? Like forever. It seems rather odd that she’s cast opposite a much younger actor, still having retained some sort of ‘youth’-ful bimbetteness. The only other person I can think of is Tara Sharma. Who else?
- That Anusha Dandekar chick was sitting next to me on a flight once. I thought that she looked familiar, but refused to ask or acknowledge. Then she took out her immigration form and wrote her name in big letters ensuring I notice. It didn’t ring a bell. Then, seemingly offended, she changed her seat.
- And there is Aamir Khan and that song in the end ‘ I love you like I hate you in brackets’. Not since Dil Chahta hai, have I found Aamir Khan loosening up and having fun. One could argue that he was funny in 3 idiots, but he still was taking himself too seriously. He had fun in DCH, and that’s why it clicked. He can’t really move very gracefully and fluidly, and the efforted movements that jarred in ‘Koi Kahe…” have been used to an awesome effect here. It cracked me up.

 

Of Himess bhai and improbable missions.

People are often curious about my Himesh obsession. And here’s the story: many many years back, when I was down and out, and gloomy and depressed and suicidal and all those things that naiveté of youth brings upon you, I thought I needed to get away. So I was put on an airplane on this side, and picked up on the other side by a friend. The friend tried and tried, and despite all the efforts, like the princess in that story, I didn’t smile. Lists were made, jokes were told, anecdotes related to, food fed, tea had — still, I didn’t smile. It was an impossible mission to get me out of my gloomy mood.

Then the miracle happened. Waking up on that grey gloomy potentially smile-less day, I switched on the TV, and there He was, in all his bearded + capped glory, to my shock, stretching the limits of his nasal chords, singing in english, “Love you unconditionally…”, punching it with a very punjabi “..Soniye.” It cracked me up, and crack me up it did.  I laughed till I cried, by which time, the song was playing again, and I laughed again. And didn’t cry any more.

So in an odd way, I owe Himess Bhai my life.

–

A little while back, I had the chance to watch ‘Aap Kaa Surroor – The Moviee – The Real Luv Story’. I watched all of 15 minutes, but it cracked me up. The climax itself is one of those improbable missions straight from WLiiA. It’s almost like a sketch comedy, which takes all of two minutes. Picture this:

“I found this card in the killer’s pocket.”
“Ruby-Khurana combine?”
“You know what that means? It means the killer is either Ruby or Khurana” [#noshitsherlock!]
“Yes, the fact that you were meeting Nadia (deceased) only two people knew – Ruby and Khurana”
“Yes, but my gut feeling says, it can’t be Ruby.”

Talks to self “Ruby, I need your help”

Random shuffling of papers.

“See these loan papers. He needed a loan. Now we know he had a motive.”

Ruby enters with more papers proving motive. Obviously it proves nothing but motive, hence she never reported it to anyone.

“Ruby, we need the murder weapon. Only that will prove my innocence.”
“I saw him putting it inside the safe. But I don’t have the code to the safe”

Himess goes ahead and opens the safe by remembering the tune from somewhere (?) and punching the touchtone of the same.

“Oh look, murder weapon”

That’s how my friends, you solve a case.
Do me a favour and watch the scene where Mallika Aunty, all fishlips and accent, both bangkok originals, peels the scarf from her neck, hands it over to Himess, and says “Wait Himess, don’t touch the evidence.” [Whole thing starts around the 2:00 minute mark]

No, leave it, do yourself a favour and watch the WLiiA I linked above.

What do you want?…

… not quite the same as saying ‘Aap chahti kya hain?”

Saying something in an alien language never quite sounds the same as saying something in your mother tongue, or in any language that you revere as yours. And in a way, for me, despite years of practice, English seems alien. For instance, any abuse in English just passes by, but each Hindi gaali pinches and punches and punctures the eardrums, even if the two words/phrases in both the languages might mean the same thing.

–
I had this conversation a while back on the phone where the protagonist (no, not me), delivered an impassioned monologue to the bad person (obviously, me), where they invoked the cliches and the fact that it would be silly to expect me, of all people, to be able to judge between right and wrong. (Fair enough!) The content itself is not worth the mention, but what was intriguing was before they started, they asked if they could talk to me in Hindi. I agreed.

I remember quite a lot the conversation, but the one thing that stuck by with a vengeance, was the question, “Aap chahti kya hain?”.  It was said with an air of condescension,  with judgement hidden behind the layers of politeness (of the address ‘aap‘), something Hindi allows more than English. As it went on, the condescension, the judgment, the misogyny, the dismissal and as I winced at each one of the words told and simultaneously furiously attempted to drift off, I realized why I don’t communicate in Hindi anymore and why I don’t want to either.  It’s too personal, hits too close to home, and breaches the carefully constructed facade.

–

So yeah, to let you know, while I adore the hook, I do tend to whisper a little gently when the hum the chorus of the D.K Bose song comes about. Much more than Alice.