Ever since those floppy Beatles and hip-wiggling Stones stormed our Atlantic coast, American music mags lurve warbling on about the newest “Brit Invasion!” like retarded canaries in a perfectly oxygenated coal mine. Remember Blur? Pulp? The Verve? Ah, ’twas a Bittersweet Symphony indeed, Richard.

Coldplay is doing its best to launch a one-man (you know it’s true) full-frontal assault…but Mr. Martin sounds too intent on supporting Gwyneth and the Appletini to make anything really fresh these days.

So it’s with much interest that I’ve noticed that Brit-based Bhangra seems to be stealthily making unheralded inroads in the US. “Get ur Freak On” seemed to trigger something cuz soon after we had that Jay-Z rapping on Panjabi MC’s “Mundian to Bach Ke,” and no less than three (3) dancehall tracks with the Diwali Riddim. Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” being the best known.

Now, I’m pretty clueless about the Sardaar-scene, and know I’m a bit out of my depth here, so please refrain from tugging your beards and whipping your karas at me. please? I can’t do any worse than this Popmatters review that describes bhangra as:

dance music with the tabla beat at its base, sounding very much like drum’n’bass, sometimes with rapping but usually with Indian pop as its melodic focus.

Well, I hope.

At any rate, (and thanks Punjabi Boy) the previous post illustrates viral marketing at its finest:

The Xbox game, which is expected to hit the streets in November 2005, will feature two tracks by Achanak…taken from their forthcoming album, Bhangra-ology, which is due for release on 19th September 2005. Tigerstyle will have three tracks…lifted off their forthcoming, yet to be titled album, which is scheduled for a November 2005 release.[link]

May I draw your attention to the timing? Brilliant, I think. Besides, I hear there was a call for more turban-ed hotties…….Way to work it boys 😉

Related posts: 1, 2, 3. Continue reading →

Ever since Cicatrix made herself at home here in our North Dakota HQ there has been a plethora of attractive men featured on our website.  Consider this a push back.

Meet Canadian rocker Priya Thomas– “Hot body-check”

PRIYA THOMAS may well be one of Canada’s best-kept secrets. Long considered bold and innovative, Canadian songstress, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist PRIYA THOMAS has built a solid reputation for her work by bucking trends and never underestimating her audience. And hers is a rabid audience that just keeps growing.

On a recent tour of the UK, Thomas was hailed by the BBC for her jaw-droppingly intense live show and highly original songwriting. A suicide blonde with an adrenalin-charged stage presence and unusual lyrical complexity, she’s been likened to an odd cross between Debbie Harry and Neil Young, not to mention countless other artists such as Tom Waits, Pj Harvey, Madonna and even Mick Jagger. Originally trained as a dancer, Priya Thomas’ live show is a force of nature to be reckoned with; as Priya steers the audience through her uniquely kamikaze performance energy. And with The blast of 7, a kicking 5 piece band behind her, the live presentation of the new record is a sonic assault of blazing rock riffs, post-punk trash drum loops, crafted melodies and Priya Thomas’ charismatic performance.

Priya Thomas grew up the daughter of a Syrian Orthodox minister and a phycisist mother who gave up working as a professor after moving to Montreal, Canada from the Southwestern state of Kerala in India.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing cooler than a lady rocker.  Best of all her website features videos of her live performances as well as audio clips.  There is none of that hopping in place.  She appears to rock the stage.  You can check out her old CDs here.  There is also an article about her in August’s issue of Elle Magazine Canada.  She has a parrot named Magnus who keeps her company while she writes her songs.  Sigh…

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London calling and speak the
slang now, boys say wha,
go on girls say wha wha

66 hours until MIA destroys the 9:30 club, kiddies. That picture was taken at her last concert in DC; without a doubt, it was one of the greatest shows I’ve EVER been to, and I saw the Pixies final gig at Hammerstein Ballroom last year, so I don’t sling such words sans souci.

People who are new to the Mutiny often out themselves by leaving a comment like, “I don’t get it…why is she successful?” when that subject has been debated and dissected every time we post about her. I’d like to add another dimension to the discussion.

I firmly believe that groups who give good show should be recognized– and that it’s possible that a band you normally dislike can impress you live. Case in point: Smashmouth at the 9:30 club, 1999. I do NOT like Smashmouth, but I was surprised at how their concert didn’t blow. So, even if you can’t stand exoticized, objectified, overexposed Mathangi and you think her music is beyond lame, you should know that she is AWESOME on stage.

I’m thrilled she’s playing the 9:30 club again; it’s such a wonderful, intimate venue, easily my fave place for a concert in swamp city. When MIA opened there for LCD Soundsystem, I was four feet away from her, wishing I had remembered earplugs because the screams were even louder than what was spilling out of the speakers. Oh, and speaking of LCD Soundsystem…I totally dig them, but after the party Miss Arulpragasam threw on stage, they bored me to the point that I left early. I never leave concerts early, yo.

Anyway, unbelievably (and unlike sold-out, Craig’s list-desperate last time) tickets are STILL available, not to mention affordable. The next time she plays DC, it may be a different, bigger venue; she’s blowing up. Anyone catch the advertisement for the newest Civic Si? Sick animation, executed flawlessly to the unmistakable thrum of “Galang”. You love it. And even if you hate it? I’m not trying to hear that, see. 😉

:+:

I’m watching VH1’s “Best Week Ever” as I type this and what are they playing in the background of one of their segments? Yup. “Galang”. That song is tighter than a hoochie ‘fit at a Bhangra party. 😀

Ah, I love synchronicity. 🙂 Continue reading →

The WaPo harps on our favorite word here at Sepia Mutiny: not M.I.A., ‘exotic.’ Ain’t nothing unusual about Maya’s phenotype (thanks, Turbanhead):

… that hasn’t stopped some critics from dismissing her as “the love child” of Neneh Cherry and Che Guevara and harping on her exotic runway model looks… [Link]

But her aesthetic was also intimately familiar: her small-faced, tousle-haired cutenesss resembles my female Berkeley classmates; the South Indian hip-hop fans at Berkeley are legion. [Link]

Arular is to Maya what Ravi Shankar is to Norah, more or less:

After reading about M.I.A. in the Sri Lankan Times, Arulpragasam sent her a note saying, “I’m very proud of you, but you have to change the name of the album. Dad.” She didn’t. “What can you do?” she asks pointedly. “There’s many things I’m not pleased about that he’s done, so hey. . . . ” [Link]

MTV turns out to be prudish. Who knew? (And uninformed in Sri Lankan cuisine.)

MTV also questioned the subtext of “salt and pepper my mango,” which turned out to be culinary rather than sexual… [Link]

This, from the channel that put ‘Freak-a-Leak’ on heavy rotation:

I need a girl I can freak with, and wanna try shit, and ain’t scared of a big d–
And love to get her p– licked, by another bitch, cuz I ain’t drunk enough ta do dat.
[and so on… Link]

Journalism is going to the dogs. First they quote Nirali, next thing you know they’ll be quoting blogs  (Congrats…)

M.I.A. told the South Asian online magazine Nirali that she “wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing.” [Link]

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The Washington Post features (thanks Maisnon) the hottest new band from straight out of my ‘hood.  The H1Bees have earned plenty of street cred in their Gaithersburg, MD area.  Now it’s time to go national:

The computer programmers arrived in the United States unknown to each other but united in their quest to rock.

On the surface, they were not unlike many others who have left India over the past decade on the H-1B visa, a guest worker program for highly skilled professionals. They wore glasses and mustaches and collared shirts. They could exterminate Y2K bugs and code Java and link Unix.

But as they toiled in cubicles, they dreamed of banging on keyboards of a different sort, of a world where C-sharp is just a musical note, not computer code.

And then their worlds became one.

“H1Bees,” an album recorded in a Gaithersburg basement-turned-studio, will be released today, its music a mix of Indian and Western beats with lyrics exploring the high-tech immigrant’s experience in the United States.

I wonder if they have a manager yet.  I know the area well and have been looking for the right horse to back.  They got a funky throwback type of sound.  To be quite honest I like them better than M.I.A., whose stuff is just noise to me. 

The languages differed: Tamil, Hindi, COBAL, BASIC. The journeys seemed parallel: Young man leaves India to earn U.S. dollars, works hard, buys car, returns home to marry, gets green card, buys townhouse, has kid, decides to stay.

“H1Bees,” Devarajan said. The album, which will be sold via South Asian Web sites and stores for $6, boasts songs in English, Hindi and Tamil. By setting their sagas to music, they hope to duplicate the success of other immigrant artists catering to diasporas, much of it via the Internet.

Listen to a sample track here. For those about to rock, we salute you.

Continue reading →