Music Biopics
Danny Leigh from The Guardian weighs in on the new crop of music biofilms coming through:
Among the foremost "buzz films" (sorry) delighting Park City has, for instance, been The Runaways. A biopic of Joan Jett, Cherie Currie and their legendary posse of 70s proto-riot grrrls ....... Witness in recent weeks alone the excitement around Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Mat Whitecross's excellent portrait of Ian Dury, and the less justifiable fuss about Sam Taylor-Wood's sudsy young Lennon saga, Nowhere Boy. After the visionary Hunger, meanwhile, Steve McQueen is to turn next to the fascinating life of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. By the time that makes it on screen, there will surely have been any number of others coming down the pipe, if not from here then Hollywood.
He concludes with a wishlist of musicians he'd like to see on film:
But the prize catches for me lie elsewhere – in the diverse forms of Afrika Bambaataa and Syd Barrett. The first could follow its hero from gang leadership in the South Bronx to spiritual epiphanies in Africa and the introduction of the world to hip-hop (Warriors meets Malcolm X meets 8 Mile, in the parlance of the studio executive); the second, in all its fractured melancholy, would surely be the last word (finally) in the 40-year celebration of 60s rock gods.
This set me thinking - what would my preference be for musicians I'd like to see on film. Obviously, it has to be cinematic, a life staid lived wouldn't translate well onto screen. Here are some candidates:
- Marvin Gaye: There's been numerous rumors through the years about some kind of project taking off (here's an example) but the music rights have always proved too painful to surmount. Regardless, the man's life would make a helluva film. Starting off as a doowop singer, then Motown session drummer, rising all the way to the top on his own terms then getting sidelined by drugs and his own inner demons, mounting a comeback only to be shot by his own Minister father? Are you kidding me?
- Fleetwood Mac: The recording of Rumours alone had enough illegal substances, dalliances and breakups for an entire book, never mind the entire history of the band. Should be fascinating.
- Ravi Shankar: If you read his autobiography, the talent and the prickly nature of the man comes through. He also loosely touches on his own private life and his "a woman in every port" approach. Given the amazing arc of his career, this one is a no-brainer as well. I have no idea how commercially viable this is but I do worry about how sanitized it would be if an official version ever comes out.
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- January 31, 2010 7:02 PM // Permalink // Film , Music
Marketing To Asians
From Pineapple Express:
The San Francisco Giants are one organization that seems to understand that Asians aren't a monolithic group. Or that Asians automatically imply only those hailing from the Pacific Rim countries. Part of the GIants' 2009 marketing campaign targeting Asian Americans in the Bay Area involved organizing separate theme nights for each community complete with "exclusive" tchotchkes.
All events apparently featured pre and in-game "cultural entertainment." Not sure exactly what those were. However, I thought it would be interesting to list all the promos on offer and see how they differed.
"Come be a part of the Second Annual Indian Heritage Night Celebration! The San Francisco Giants have partnered with the National Federation of Indian American Associations and the Hindu American Foundation and are thrilled to be hosting this event during the 2009 season, kicking off Asian Heritage Week!"
"Your package will also include a very special Indian / Hindi themed Giants t-shirt"
With the purchase of this special ticket package at only $20.00, you will not only get to sit in the Chinese Heritage Night section but will receive a unique gift to commemorate your trip to the park - a Lou Seal themed Lion Dancing bobblehead!"
"When you purchase your ticket for a special price of $20.00, you will get to experience the pre-game AND in-game cultural entertainment, special seating in the Korean Heritage Night section as well as a Giants/Korean headband and thundersticks."
"When you buy the $20.00 ticket package you will receive a limited edition Giants themed Sake Set, a Sake Tasting Punch-Card which allows you five free tastings AND a seat in the Japanese Heritage Night section. Further details on pre-game party to posted shortly."
"For only $20 you will get a seat in the Filipino Heritage Night section, cultural entertainment prior to and throughout the game, and a special edition Filipino-themed Giants T-shirt (right)"
Some Impressions
- Sake sets, headbands, bobbleheads .. but only T shirts for Desi Night, no mini Taj replicas? Meh.
- All the themed nights save for the Indian one sold out. The Filipino event was extended to two nights due to heavy demand.
- No Middle Eastern events then?
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- January 17, 2010 10:16 AM // Permalink // Bay Area
Crocs Fail
Here is a snapshot of the Crocs store in South City mall in Kolkata.
In this picture, we have two salespeople inside the store. They are idle.
We have one salesperson stepping outside the store. He is not idle.
He is rushing to prevent us from taking a picture of the store.
Why? Fear of terrorists reccing the target? Copycats stealing storefront designs? Paranoia? Irrational camera hatred? All we know is we've seen this before - it is very difficult to publicly take images of any kind in a Kolkata mall (you can always sneak the pictures, nothing stopping you from doing that!). In Croc's case though, you think they'd make an exception:
Reports about the company's future look bleak -- it lost $185.1 million last year, shed 2,000 jobs, and revenue in the first quarter of 2009 declined by 32 percent. And yes, you read that right -- they had grown so big so quickly that they laid off 2,000 people. Just three years ago, Crocs went public in a splashy stock offering, raising $200 million; now it trades at about three bucks a share, down from a high of nearly $70 in October 2007.
Come on fellas, you need all the viral love you can get.
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- January 2, 2010 7:41 PM // Permalink // India
Soundcloud
Recently, courtesy Kaushik M, I've discovered Soundcloud, a thriving community of musicians and DJs. The site takes a somewhat Yelp-like approach to music, making it very easy to share, comment on, find and download tracks. Manna from heaven, particularly if you're into DJ sets, electronica and various types of dance styles. I am sure there are more genres but these, at first glance, seem to dominate.
Here's Kaushik's latest on Soundcloud, a remix of Jazzanova's I Can See (source material derived from a contest held by SoundCloud a while back:
Jazzanova - I Can See - Kaushik M. Edit by KaushikMThe funny thing is, as Kaushik himself will tell you, he added no new instrumentation - it's all derived from the original track. Yet, it's amazing how rearranging and new effects can make such a dramatic difference. In my ears, this version sounds much groovier than the original.
Ending with a track from Peter Kruder of G-Stone and Kruder & Dorfmeister
fame:
The Law Of Return by peterkruderdigg it
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- December 24, 2009 11:31 PM // Permalink // Music
Decompressing ..
From:
In America, when you get pissed off, you buy a gun and shoot someone. In Canada, you go back to your parents’ house and smoke pot.
In India, you probably would either:
a) approach your friendly neighborhood goonda.
b) lead a bandh
c) call in to the Radio Mirchi hotline to complain.
d) commiserate with the lads over strong cups of sweet tea at your local chaishop.The answer really depends on what part of India you're from - my guess is Kolkata residents would mostly opt for (d) or (b). In Bihar on the other hand ... suffice it say, someone I met at a gathering recently compared Alabama as being the Bihar of the USA.
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- December 19, 2009 7:50 PM // Permalink // Humour
Godard In Gorakhpur
From the Times of India:
Bollywood, with its tiresome stream of brain-dead movies, might just need to watch out-world cinema via film festivals and clubs is creeping up in the unlikeliest of places, giving hitherto clueless audiences a few lessons in cinema literacy. Apart from Gorakhpur, there's Gaya, Bhilai, Yamunanagar, Jaipur, Surat and Adipur in Gujarat and many more small towns where audiences are responding to something more than the antics of Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. Admittedly it's a small wave but cineastes see no reason why it shouldn't lead to bigger things.
Very cool. I remember hearing about Kolkata film clubs being very popular in the days before the Internet and DVD availability, but perhaps that was more due to the opportunity for discerning punters to get in their quota of skin as well as Antonioni. That may well be part of the reason here, but hey, as long as it opens the doors of perception wider, it's all gravy. Plus, there's an emphasis on local non masala fare too:
Joshi, who takes his festivals to different parts of north India, picks and chooses films to suit the place and the taste of the people there. His resistance cinema fest, for instance (which he prefers to call pro-people rather than anti-establishment), comprises films and documentaries that portray the plight of a particular area. "We screen Indian documentaries by directors like Anand Patwardhan and the cinema of film-makers like M S Sathyu and Girish Kasaravalli,'' he says. "We have foreign documentaries too, like we just showed a Brazilian documentary on land reforms. This year, we chose films with the theme Freedom From American Imperialism.'' Joshi says that Cinema Of Resistance is getting a tremendous response.
Sanjay Sahay, another cinema enthusiast, screens films for the people of Gaya from his enviable collection of DVDs, which are often borrowed by other film festival organisers. His festivals showcase the best of world cinema but there's also a special focus on films related to, and made in, Bihar. "We have a cultural centre where we conduct regular theatre and film workshops, he says. "At times, we have live performances as well. We want to generate interest in world cinema so that people are exposed to it and are able to understand, for instance, why Lagaan missed out and No Man's Land won the Oscar.
I found the following particularly heartwarming:
In Surat, a town that's as far removed from film culture as David Dhawan from Federico Fellini, a group of three youngsters has started a film festival. Says Rajarishi Smart, one of the organisers, "It was begun to expose the people of Surat to a certain film culture, as no international film is released here nor are the DVDs available. We booked a hall with a capacity of 250, unsure of how many people would turn up. But to our utter surprise, the entire hall was jam-packed and we had to send people back.''
I am actually wondering whether doing something like this for the SF Bay Area makes sense. While I am fairly sure the cinema savvy public in Palo Alto or Burlingame are sufficiently familiar with Tarkovsky, there's a whole bunch of smart, well made films starting to emerge from India and the diaspora that deserve to be seen. Local film festivals (such as the one organized by Third I) definitely highlight a great selection but it only occurs once a year and worthy multiplex films often miss out due to falling in between the extremes of Bollywood on one end and alternative films on the other. At any rate, it isn't hard to see why there might be thirst for more intelligent fare when crap like this passes for controversy:
If you thought that Vidya Balan has become “shameless in front of the camera”, as she recently admitted in a TV interview, after hearing her bold dialogue in Paa and the expletives she has used in Ishqiya (as is evident in the promos), this one is for you.
ZOMG - bad language! Bring on the soap, forsooth!
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- December 8, 2009 7:13 PM // Permalink // Bollywood , Film
Jetlag Is ..
- being 180 degrees out of phase with your skin.
- that perpetual dryness at the back of your throat.
- seeing your ashtrail plume over half a hemisphere
- your guts waking you at 3am.
- having to find your way to Dwaraka all over again.
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- December 5, 2009 4:48 PM // Permalink // Travel
Yoga On The High Seas
Avast maties, yoga is no longer for land lubbers. Arrr.
What I really want to know though is how best to maintain the tree posture during choppy seas? Might be a tad hard, methinks ....
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- November 14, 2009 8:56 PM // Permalink // Sports
Raccoons vs MUNI
Raccoons awaiting their turn at the MUNI stop, Legion of Honor, San Francisco:
Hat tip.
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- November 6, 2009 8:22 AM // Permalink // Bay Area
Indians Can't Write For Indians?
Caught this comment from a Sendhil Ramamurthy (who plays Mohinder on Heroes
) interview with The Onion's AVClub from 2007:
AVC: One thing they should be happy about is you've helped break stereotypes for Indian actors on TV. Do you think there's still an ingrained racism in the way Hollywood writes and casts for Indian actors?
SR: I think so. There isn't any question about that. I've managed to luck out that they've given me a fully rounded character on the show, but in general, yeah. And you know, now more than ever I get everything "Indian" that's ever written. It all comes across my desk. Since Heroes started I've probably had about 15 or 16 film scripts sent to me with Indian characters, and out of those maybe one was good. And the depressing thing is, they're all being written by Indians! Like, how many more scripts can there be about an arranged marriage or an abusive husband? It's the same thing over and over again. I think that Indian writers think this is the kind of thing that people want to see, and it's kind of sad. I literally fling those scripts across the room as soon as I start reading them. [Laughs.]
Fascinating, if somewhat downbeat, observation.
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- October 25, 2009 6:38 PM // Permalink // Film , TV
Michael Jackson - HIStory (J Dilla/Ummah Mix)
Despite being the title track of one of his comeback sets, Michael Jackson's "History" is one of the lesser entries in his oeuvre, not meriting a place in most of his best-of collections out there. The actual track has a Beatlesque feel, reminiscent in its opening fanfare and continuing tempo of "All You Need Is Love" with the actual melody sounding like Michael had "Come Together" on repeat rotation while composing. The lyrics are uplifting though with the chorus exhorting us to:
Every day create your history
Every path you take you're leaving your legacyHere's the original:
A nice enough track even though portentously announcing some big dates on human history is laying it on a little thick, I feel.
Moving on to mixes, I've never listened to very many remixes of Michael's songs and whatever little I came across were not particularly impressive. The Tony Moran remix of History (from "Blood On The Dancefloor") is a case in point. This, apparently, was the single release:
I have to disagree with the YouTube poster's title. Whatever the track has by way of uniqueness is drowned out beneath layers of heavy house beats and organs - it's the sonic equivalent of slathering ketchup on jafrani pulao. No wonder this song never received its due. It took a producer of the calibre of J Dilla and the rest of the Ummah (Q Tip and Ali Shaheed Mohammed) to actually perform an excavation/reclamation and give us something far surpassing the original. Gone are the opening bombast and the voice overs. Instead, we have something loping and sinuous and, in true J Dilla style, highly understated. Listen to it yourself:
There's another version, also by the Ummah, the Urban Radio Edit, which I don't think is as good, although again far superior to the first two versions:
RIP Michael and J-Dilla.
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- October 24, 2009 11:44 AM // Permalink // Music
Baby Names IV
Rant from friend, edited:
A couple of us expectant parents were talking about baby names last night and the balancing act Indian parents-to-be in the US have to perform in picking a name that retains some sense of Indianness while at the same time is pronounceable and doesn't condemn the child to a lifetime of ridicule.
Apropos of that, I just ran into a sweet indian lady at work who recently had a baby boy. She named him .... (drum roll) ... Sripadh. Now that's what I call muchos cojones! Naming your child Sripadh is basically raising the middle finger to any future trauma that name might inflict on the child.But I don't mock her decision. Maybe that's another way to go about it -- if the name speaks to you, don't give a damn how it would play in this country (or in India, for that matter).
You want to name your child after his dada Sukhdeep? No other name but Hardik suits your cutie pie? Don't worry, just go for it!
With apologies to Russell Peters.
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- October 24, 2009 10:53 AM // Permalink // Diaspora , Humour
Some Portland Pix
We had a whole bunch of pictures languishing in Flickr when we were reminded, yes, there are viewers out there. This picture from Shari was shortlisted by Schmap for inclusion in their Portland Guide:
Japanese Garden
Emboldened by this, I am including some more.
Sk8er Boi Street Sign
Pioneer Courthouse Square Sign
Bonus Virj picture. This was taken on the steps of the Rose Garden amphitheater:
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- October 13, 2009 9:46 AM // Permalink // Travel
The Office - Indian Remake?
#tv #india
From The Guardian, Ricky Gervais: 'Before The Office I never tried hard at anything':
It is about to be remade for India and his eyes light up at the prospect of another billion potential viewers – "I'm going to take executive producer on that one!" he says with his maniacal laugh.
Please please don't:
- set it in a call center. Paper products thrive in India. Just step out into the streets and you'll see what I mean.
- situate it in a major metropolitan area. How about Kanpur?
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- September 27, 2009 6:00 PM // Permalink // TV
The Tune That (Almost) Got Away
#music #reggae
Being a music addict has its disadvantages - and as long as I can remember, I've been one - with a big one being the songs that elude identification. The one you hear on the radio and it starts squatting in your brain. But all you have left by way of tangible clues are a stray vocal shout here, a guitar lick there, perhaps a drum roll or maybe a synth squiggle. Small pickings to start a quest.
The task, however, is much easier these days, given that a) so much information is online (most radio stations and sites publish their playlists) and b) there are sites and systems designed to help you find your music. For example, I recall coming across query by humming search engines (in fact, our research group back in grad school published a paper on this in 1995) and I know there are systems which allow you to hold up your cellphone to the music as it is playing and will identify it for you. All well and good if you hear your anonymous earworm in the immediate present. But what about those from twenty years ago when all this nifty technical stuff didn't exist? What about the track you heard on a small transistor, faintly tuned to some station in the desert? Or perhaps piped through the headphones plugged to the seat socket in an airplane, sandwitched in between endless replays of REO Speedwagon and Wham?
The task is made even more difficult by the intervening years. Was that really the lyric in the song? How fast was the tempo? Slowly but surely, though, I've been tracking down some of those lost tunes from my adolescent years. What I've found to be the most useful is a like minded group of people searching for the same exact little clues and remembering the same little hooks that stayed with them all those years and posting to bulletin boards. Courtesy search engine thoroughness, the right combination of terms finally yields up the treasure. This is one of them. A bouncy, sunny pop reggae track from 1980 by Black Slate, a UK group. I give you "Amigo":
More on Black Slate:
Black Slate formed in 1974 in London, with members hailing from multiple countries. Keyboardist George Brightly and bassist Elroy Bailey were originally from London. Vocalist Keith Drummond, guitarist Chris Hanson, and drummer Desmond Mahoney came from Jamaica, and rhythm guitarist Cledwyn Rogers hailed from Anguilla. The group received their earliest work backing touring Jamaican acts, such as Delroy Wilson. In 1976, they hit the U.K. reggae charts with Sticks Man and landed a pair of hits in 1980, "Boom Boom" and "Amigo."
All these years, I'd heard the lyrics of the song in my head as "I know/I know/I know who..." Searching yielded nothing. Yesterday, somehow, I thought, why not try "amigo"? I don't know why I'd made that leap. The last time I physically heard the song was in Ithaca in the mid '90s, on the Ithaca College radio's weekly reggae program. I ran to the nearest phone and called up. But between the time I tracked down the station number, that DJ's shift had already ended and I was left to wander around in the wilderness for fifteen more years. Until now. Trying "amigo" on Rhapsody yielded a plethora of Spanish songs, as you'd expect. Nothing reggae. So, knowing many people are using YouTube to store their music, I tried "Amigo Reggae" and boom! There it was. A small personal victory and all it took was for me to retry with a different term and for the people of the world to get organized and upload terabytes of data. One more track crossed of my list. Thanks YouTube!
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- September 26, 2009 9:51 AM // Permalink // Music
Fair's Unfair
The obsession with white skin in India is probably one of the most insidious and persistent legacies of colonialism. Anyone recalling Doordarshan programming prior to the heady days of oodles of satellite channels, will also remember the plethora of fairness creams ads at that time. Marriage classifieds have forever been littered with ads with various euphemisms desirous of that whiter shade of pale for women. Any middle class Indian growing up can tell you about that cousin or sister who is very attractive but sadly, not "fair" and hence probably doomed to a life of spinsterhood. Certainly, a doctor or IAS officer or NRI is out of reach in the bridegroom sweepstakes!
Given that skin whitening treatments in India are rather in the same league as teeth whitening here, I suppose it was only a matter of time before companies began targeting men as well. Biraj forwarded this CNN story making the rounds regarding companies marketing "fairness" creams for men:
Now there's no need to sneak into your sister's Fair & Lovely cream stash. Or rub talcom powder on your face (it doesn't work unless your goal is to look like Bozo the Clown). Simply walk to your nearest paanwaala's shop and apply away. Then proceed to walk, no, zoom up the corporate and social ladders.
Perhaps Bollywood can make a social issue out of all this - brown skin pride and all that? It would seem to be a tailor made subject, no? Sadly, what's happened instead is quite the opposite: masala dance numbers now prominently feature white chicks grabbed fresh from the Mumbai Airport. Home grown lovelies are no longer bleached enough. Aspirational trophy wallpaper, here we come!
I should probably add that this phenomenon is not limited to India - it's quite common in many post colonial countries. And no rant would be complete without pointing out the reverse irony in the West: the paler folks want to get tans and look darker. So it goes.
Update:
I was asked whether there could be other reasons for this phenomenon as well. Religion, perhaps? Caste? Well, I have no doubt my discussion above is way too simplistic. Regardless, if you look across:
- religions - skin color preference in India is not limited to Hindus by any stretch of the imagination.
- countries - many countries, typically ex-colonies, experience the same issue.
- races - skin bleach for African Americans, anyone?
To me, there seemed to be the one predominant factor stretching across all, hence the focus.
Also, here's a nice article on how the issue affects the South Asian diaspora. A quote:
The mother of all fairness creams on the subcontinent, Fair & Lovely, was developed and launched by consumer goods giant Hindustan Lever in 1976. Fair & Lovely's reach has extended beyond India. Today it is marketed in over 38 countries and has become the largest-selling skin lightening cream in the world, but its biggest customer concentration remains in South Asia itself.
and
Rahman argues that the politics and implications of skin color in Indian community and among black Americans are extraordinarily similar, and the strict juxtaposition of black and white works well in understanding the implications of skin color and the definition of beauty among black Americans, Indians in India, and Indians living in the U.S.
and
As another informant, Sultana, says: “Well, in [South] Asian communities, because there are so many shades, most everyone prefers light skin. And if they are dark, they have to at least be charming and pleasant looking. If they are not, then they are in big trouble. And it is much, much worse here than in India and Pakistan because over there if you are ugly . . . if you have any kind of deficiency than at least you can make it up with money. “O.K. my daughter’s not beautiful, but I can give you a house.” But here no one needs money. They all have money and so they can’t compensate deficiency with money. See, we parents are afraid [of our children marrying dark skinned mates] because, if not for this generation, then the next generation, our grandchildren. Because dark color is dominant over light color . . . and the children will carry the dark color [because it] is a dominating feature . . . and it stays over the generations.”
Twenty three year old Asma, expresses her frustration: “I know people see me as dark, and I know people don’t ask me [for marriage] because of that. And I want to marry a professional person, so it’s hard.”
Twenty-one- year-old Zainab feels discriminated against because she is Indian American: “Everyone thinks Pakistanis are light and Indians are dark. For instance, I had a [doctor-suitor] once and he actually said to me, “Pakistani women are more beautiful than Indian women.” I was like, “You jack-ass, I’m Indian.”. . . Some people only propose to me because I’m light. Once someone asked me if I bleached [my skin] because how could I be so light naturally, being Indian.”
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- September 11, 2009 10:06 PM // Permalink // India
Why Ask Why?
Google's Search Autocomplete feature at it's not-so finest:
PS - Hat tip to Rob McCool.
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- September 3, 2009 8:40 PM // Permalink // Technology
My Son The Sweeper
In this day and age, some skills just can't be outsourced, so it's best to start early.
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