Monday, June 09, 2008

Music

…I suffer from this insane psychological condition... I need to listen to music when I’m doing something that needs concentration and sitting still at one place (hardly happens) I initially noticed this trait when I was in the 10th grade and used to study for my math paper, one of the subjects that I hated in those days…

That year, my cousin had gifted me a set of little box speakers to keep in my room and listen to music whenever I want. He also had happily handed me down his used cassette player to setup a pseudo music system in my room. Whenever I studied for math, I’d pop in a cassette into the tape, keep the speakers on each corner of my study table and start solving problems. A very simple rule that I had laid was to take a break only once I listen to the entire cassette.

I kept listening to more and more music and thankfully I managed to pass out of my 10th grade with exceptionally good grades for my math paper…. Since then I decided that I’m gonna listen to music whenever I need to sit in a place for a longer time and to concentrate… I finally realized that I was a music fan, not only a fan but a complete music buff! There’d be some music playing either when I’m at home, while I commute and even when I’m at work (not many people know this) I got myself a very inconspicuous pair of headsets that I connect to my computer and then listen to online music over and over and over… then I got introduced to the online radio phenomenon and I just got hooked to it!

As of now, I listen to all sorts of music. Starting from Indian classical to heavy metal, jazz to hip-hop and even the occasional filmy tunes...

Okay coming onto track.

I recently discovered a very wonderful online music presence handled by a fellow Indian who has carved a niche on the international online music scene! The station is called IndiaBeat01. it is handled by a someone called Samiran Gupta. Know where they plays music from? Saddi Dilli!!!! And here is the best news yet I got today; EMI (the music giant) are going to exclusively distribute boutique music label IndiaBeat

Here is the press release I got on it today…

5th June 2008, Mumbai: EMI Virgin announced today their exclusive distribution agreement with boutique music label, IndiaBeat.

IndiaBeat, which has had a popular presence on the Internet as an online radio station and music-related social networking site since 2006, covers the genres of Indian classical, jazz, progressive rock and fusion music. Slated for its debut in the latter part of June 2008, IndiaBeat is planning releases by critically-acclaimed artistes including, Sanjay Mishra, Pete Lockett, Amit Chatterjee, Broto Roy, Amit Heri, Henrik Andersen, Shashank and several others. A marketing kickoff with a sampler is expected later this month.

From the time when Yehudhi Menuhin, Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha collaborated in the mid sixties, Indian music has held great interest and has enjoyed widespread popularity particularly in Europe, UK and North America. Indian musicians are regularly seen and heard performing across the world. Equally, it is not uncommon to find musicians from the west spending long periods of time in India, sharing, exchanging and honing their skills, side by side with their counterparts here. With the passage of time, Indian classical music and its musical instruments have influenced global sounds at different points to create new audiences.

“India is a vast nation with diverse musical tastes. Classical, jazz and fusion music performances, while very well attended have a poor co-relation to CDs sold. Thus it is IndiaBeat’s clear objective to help popularize and sustain niche genres for the discerning music lover in India,” says IndiaBeat co-founder Samiran Gupta.

“We are looking forward to infusing the IndiaBeat catalogue in to our repertoire in India. Like all EMI products, our customers can look forward to taking home a rich musical experience each time they purchase from the IndiaBeat catalogue,” said EMI Senior Manager Anand Srinivasan

For more information please contact, Samiran Gupta at
indiabeat01@gmail.com

Well, I hope they make some really great music in the coming future and music lovers like me can listen to all of it over and over :D

BTW, if you do have a musical ear and are able to appreciate the Indian Jazz, Fusion, classical or any other genre I’d very strongly suggest that you give this station a good listen… you might actually like it! you can also find it on http://www.live365.com/

Movie Marathon

In the last 2 weeks I saw so many old, new movies seen at the PVR Cinemas Gold class and so many on my home theater system…

I’ll make a list of all the movies I saw…

An Inconvenient truth – an amazing and hard hitting documentary narrated and presented by Al Gore on the status of our planet now and how it will deteriorate in the coming years (read ‘years’ not ‘decades’ or ‘centuries’ I’m sure we’ll manage to finally screw-up our planet in a very short time)

Friday – a relatively old ‘hood movie’ made by Ice Cube completely brainless fun
Next Friday – the sequel to the original movie
Friday after the next – a sequel to the sequel (was okayish guess after the first 2 movies they lost the charm along with most of the original cast)
Barber Shop – another Ice Cube movie that was fun to watch (I’m a big fan of a lot of the black artists)

Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull – a very amazingly made yet another Indy movie with a bit boring end… I loved the movie till they all went into the antechamber and then lost it after the aliens appeared, not that I am not a fan of aliens (in fact I do believe they are out there and I’d love to meet them once) but them coming into the movie and taking all the credit was a bit let downing .

The Rambo collection – if you still don’t know, I’m a big fan of the overly macho action movies; my personal movie collection has a lot of those and was missing on the RAMBO collection, got it and watched all the four movies when the wifey was out on work and I was lying at home mending my sprained neck (don’t ask me what happened to the neck, its mighty embarrassing).

Pirates of the Caribbean at world’s end – just had to watch Captain Jack Sparrow to get back some attitude in life, savvy?

Sarkar Raj – yet another nicely made Sarkar movie from the RGV labs, I saw the review of the movie on one of those shows where a guy called Rajiv Masand gives out very entertaining, blunt and almost accurate reviews of the newly released moves on the box office… when I saw RM’s review on Sarkar Raj, I was actually disappointed coz I had already bought the tickets for the gold class and here this gent said that the movie is a worthless boring long and dragging RGV disaster. But honestly I was very strangely surprised when the movie turned out really impressive and much better than what I thought it would be.

DDLJ – the evergreen SRK and Kajol move that released over a decade ago but still impresses both the wifey and I equally :D

Maine Pyar Kiya – what a funnily made movie with loads of ham-acting and yet it managed to be a super duper block buster in its days… fun to watch something like this after so many years.

World’s fastest Indian – a movie dedicated to the legendary Burt Munroe who broke the land speed record on his Indian motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats, worth watching this move not because it is a motorcycle related movie but it shows a very impressive way of approach to life by Sir. Anthony Hopkins who has played the character of Burt Munroe and has reflected that life is all about being optimistic and living in the moment… a very touching story.

Fools rush in – the perfect mush filled movie with my favorite Salma Hayek and Mathew Perry. How people of different ethnicities fall for each other and face so much ‘music’ together.

There were a couple more movies but I strangely am not able to recall the names for them… oh, by the way I’m also reading the funny Dilbert books the latest being ‘Welcome to Cubicleville’ which is as hilarious as the other books. Darn I can relate to so many of the instances in these books!

Well, that has been me since a while…
Okay then, cheerio, ta ra and all that :D