I’m changing it up a bit for this week’s post, Mutineers, and setting aside the wax gems for flesh-and-blood. I think auntie netta is getting to my head-a, cuz I’ve got Jaffna on my mind. I’d like to focus on a certain young, hot, and hip Tamil artist with politically charged lyrics, plenty of street cred, and an original and inimitable sound. If you are expecting to see gaudy glasses, gold tights, or…whatever this is, well, you are wrong. This Sri Lankan sensation unpretentiously rocks wire frames, loose jeans, and a 5 o’ clock shadow that magically morphs into an uncle-ji stache. I’d like to introduce to the Mutiny my favorite discovery of 2010 and your new folk hero, Bhi Bhiman.

Behind that deceptively handsome mug is a booming voice backed by a powerful wit, perhaps the deadliest combination since butter met scotch. You don’t have to take my word for it: he’s already garnering critical praise after only doing the coffee-house circuit for a short while. Here’s probably the best assessment of Bhi and his music I’ve come across yet:

“It only makes good sense that the next great American folk hero/political voice is a very un-white, first-generation Sri-Lankan American. Bhi Bhiman (bee-bee-man) is arguably the wittiest and angriest person to pick up a guitar in the last 30 years and wield it like an aural hatchet aimed at chopping the head off all that’s wrong in the world.”

–Local IQ (Albuquerque)

Aside from the questionably colorist “very un-white” comment, I could not have said it better myself. Bhi is a star in the making. He’s the closest we have to a brown Randy Newman (except topical and funny) and/or a brown Bob Dylan (except modest and intelligible). Just like Abhi made the bold prediction that Das Racist would be the hottest, brownest thing of 2009, I’m sayin’ that Bhi is going to do to wannabe fakers just like the release of Nevermind did to 80’s butt-rock: render them irrelevant with the strumming of a single chord. Continue reading →

This week’s nugget is a soon-to-be-legendary gem of a track that I’ve spent over 3 years trying to dig up before finally tracking down a copy in a warehouse in Delhi. It was mine (and mine alone!) to enjoy until I foolishly informed Manish of this magical slice of audio heaven at a party last March. I guess if I’m going to have to share it with him, I might as well introduce you guys to your new favorite summer jam.

What was that insufferable science-fiction movie that came out a few years ago, set in an improbable parallel universe where a wisecracking 16 year-old could simultaneously make superfluous references to Soupy Sales and nonchalantly decide the future of her unplanned fetus all in the same hamburger-phone call? It doesn’t matter, as the only interesting part of that unbearable film was the unearthing, for the masses, of Sonic Youth’s cover of Superstar. Eerie, with equal parts irony and insanity, the Thurston Moore-led reworking revived interest in the track that helped define the careers of both Bette Midler and The Carpenters and introduced his art-rock band for another generation of smarmy hipsters. Now, imagine the inevitable Bollywood remake and that scene, where little Jaanu slow dances with the Uncleji vying for the child inside her womb- what uberhip, obscure cover song by a brown artist could match Superstar’s cool cred and lilt ominously from the record player? Glad you asked. Continue reading →