Author Archives: Sharath Krishnaswami
In an interview with Arul Kale in astray.in Aditi Ramesh says, “I was amazed; I didn’t believe the kind of stuff I was writing, the kind of stuff I was playing live, the way I was able to articulate things. Now, with building a larger ensemble, you need to be able to communicate how you’re feeling, what your ideas are to a lot more musicians and they need to be on the same page and everything needs to be cohesive.” In pursuit of this cohesiveness, Aditi embarks on her second EP Leftovers after Autocorrect which released last year. Leftovers begins with ‘Origin’, a possible ode to the evolution of her style of music. Fusion would be…
Man Goes Human is a Delhi-based Indie rock band that has performed at various venues in Delhi, toured Singapore and performed at the South Asian Bands Festival. Their self-titled debut album consists of Paul on vocals and guitar, Noni on leads, Kaprila on vocals and Shitij on Bass. Shitij also lends the lyrics to the album. Owing to how distinctively they chose to name themselves, I was curious as to what they would offer. The title track ‘No See’ is reminiscent of the ambient sounds and vocals of Jefferson Airplane. A head-nodding rhythm forms the signature sound, and I was glad this fell smoothly into the genre that I could be comfortable with, no matter what mood…
Sharath KrishnaswamiSharath Krishnaswami
The Raghu Dixit Project stands out from other bands because of the absolute ease with which they connect with the crowd. Christmas Eve saw Opus Bangalore packed to the hilt with no space to take a step and the undeniable warmth of the Christmas spirit made its presence felt immediately. The densely packed tables placed close to the stage seemed awfully inappropriate for such an energetic show, but given the guest artists who graced the stage the past 7 days – Opus was definitely the place to be this Christmas. Raghu Dixit – almost a household name now, took to the stage at half past nine, with a considerably changed lined up – Wilfred D’moz on…
Music for the sake of music. If this seemed to be the motto of the annually held Freedom Jam, its intention was lost to the growing needs of a city which desired to please everything else but to favour music. “The Freedom Jam, is a non-stop pulsating musical explosion reverberating by over 40 bands of various hues vying to play over multiple stages to commemorate the freedom of music, now a Mecca for the rock and contemporary music scene in India. The annual Freedom Jam, free music festival is Bangalore’s own Woodstock. With thousands of music lovers and over a hundred musicians from all over gathering to perform at the annual jam celebrating freedom at midnight with…
Thursday evening saw me riding over the Koramangala-Indiranagar Ring road, braving the biting Bangalore cold to lay to rest a busy week and reach out to some good ol rock and roll. After reading a recent write up that christened our friendly band next door Solder as performing Bangalore Rock, I was eager to see what they had to offer that evening. I reached at half past eight and walked up the stairs of the building to find Mad Orange Fireworks halfway into their song Black Hole – a song about a break up. I was partly glad at having caught an interesting song, and partly disappointed at having to listen to the sound in the first place, which…
See, Touch, Listen, Talk, and Feel. Strike out one of the above, say sight, from the list of senses, and you’ll find that the other senses clamour to catch hold of what passes through our consciousness. On the afternoon of Saturday, October 22, 2011, Swarathma played to almost 200 kids who were partially or wholly blind at the National Association for the Blind. NAB is the only organization in Karnataka that preaches and practices an inclusive model of education. In this model, blind children are encouraged go to normal schools instead of blind schools which would help them to pursue higher education after schooling. Swarathma’s performance on that day marked the end of a four…
Bangalore Bistro is located on the roof of the towers that are adjacent to Eva Mall in Brigade Road – a nondescript restaurant that has seen live artistes play tunes to customers that reminds them of the years gone by. Prof. Srinivas, a well-known musician since the 70s, was dressed in a black blazer and a red tie, with hair swept back into a pony tail, he cheerfully welcomed a crowd that consisted mostly of musicians of the yesteryears. I was told there’d be close to forty artistes who’d perform for Srinivas’ 60th Birthday. Forty seemed a staggering number, and I wondered how he’d pull of an event with all of them performing. He ushered…
Sunday the 7th of August was a cloudy, drizzly evening that had me trudging up the road leading to Legends of Rock, Koramangala. I entered to find the place packed and was told that I might have to stand to listen to the band playing. Legends of Rock seemed like THE place to unwind after a week of hard work at the office; it was also the place to be to share space with a smoking hot band, rather literally considering its cramped and smoke-filled interiors. I somehow found a seat just in front of the bar and settled down to enjoy an evening of music with Bourbon Street. I was looking…
When Thursday evening drew to a close, it bore the brunt of the summer, and closed down to a cloudy evening just on the verge of a downpour. I hadn’t expected the erstwhile Higginbothams to become a stoned structure with Rock memorabilia studded on its walls when I entered Hard Rock Café to watch Oliver Sean’s show. We were ushered in and made to stand in front of a raised stage about five feet off the ground. People who knew of him, and didn’t, trickled in to a crowd of about thirty, and stood lounging about for his show to start. The place has a scarce seating capacity in a room which…
