Author Archives: Joy Chakraborty
The latest addition to the roster of yearly events in Kolkata is The Calcutta Drum Festival. Organized by Bickram Ghosh and the SIDDHA group, the festival is a pleasant surprise to those who have an interest in the rhythm section of any musical genre. This music festival took place at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) on the 18th and 19th of July 2014, where legendary artistes enchanted audiences with their performances. The first day included a powerful jam of the Bangla dhak and the Punjabi dhol, an innovative drums mash-up between Gaurab Gaboo Chatterjee and Sambit Chatterjee, a brilliant performance by Clave Mantra, a Latin band fronted by the renowned Monojit Kochu Datta who wowed the…
Cactus has been the forerunner of the Bengali rock scene since the early 90s. Unlike many other such Bengali bands that have come and gone during this period, Cactus is one of the few bands which has firmly stood the test of time. Blah Blah Blah is their fourth studio album, after the release of Tucho in 2008. Blah BlahBlah is more of an experimental album for Cactus, they have deviated a little from their usual classic rock genre and gone into Alternative/Modern Rock and this album contains new renditions of three of their older songs. The album opens with the title track Blah Blah Blah which talks about how politicians build up hopes with…
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Subhodip Banerjee is a well-known guitarist in the Kolkata music circuit. Ive had the chance to see him perform live a few times with his former band Safire and his current band Ifs n Buts, and being a quiet and peaceful person, his persona generally tends to show during his on-stage performances. His music is a reflection of this calmness. The last few months have seen him busy on a nifty solo project named July,named after the month it was released this year. As with most EPs coming from a guitarist, Subhodips July is also an instrumental piece of work, sailing through the boundaries of Blues, Country, Ambient and a bit of Alternative Rock. Fans of the Mumbai…
This was my second time at an Indus Creed gig. I was equally stoked as the last time I had seen them as a kid. When I went into the grand and beautiful courtyard after my ritualistic cigarette at five past 8 in the oddly chilly Calcutta evening, Indus Creed were already on stage and ready to rock the place. They sparked the fire on the stage with Dissolve from their latest album. This was followed by The Money, which is a jumpy track in itself and to top that, Uday Benegal was displaying some brilliant stage performance with his signature Monkey Dance. From this point onwards it was evident that the crowd was having a ball…
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Outlaw’d 2012, the annual fest of the National Institute of Juridical Sciences saw German rock band Fire on Dawson headlining the second day of the three-day-festival on the 7th of February, 2012. No stranger to our shores, this was the bands second tour in India after having performed at Mood Indigo and IIM Bangalore in 2011. Fire on Dawson has Ankur Batra on vocals and occasional acoustic guitars, Markus Sticker on guitars, Martin Sonnbag on bass and Max Seigmund on drums. The band took to the stage at precisely 8:00 p.m. on a not-so-chilly Kolkata evening. They broke into the intro to the set with a groovy bass line that sounded almost like a tribal war-call! Marcus…
