- Date / Time: 04/11/2014 : 10:30 PM
- Location: The Blue Frog
- Address: The Blue Frog, Mathuradas Mills compound,Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel West,Mumbai,Maharashtra,India
Nanok
Jai “Nanok” Vaswani (Black Flower Music) started DJing in Mumbai at the age of 15 at almost every club in south Mumbai as a guest DJ playing mainly commercial sets.
He moved to London for two years to study music production and then released his first english electronic album – “Bitter”. “Bitter” is an entirely home produced electronic album aiming to show off the local, undiscovered talent existing in Mumbai. This album acts as a portfolio for the producer and the artists featured in it, it is not limited to any specific genre.
After that he went on to produce an album for “the Yellow Pages” also released by Black Flower Music. Nanok is well known for his single “Friday” featuring vocalist Reisa Nongrum.
Blackstratblues
Blackstratblues is a solo project of Warren Mendonsa, who is a guitarist, songwriter, producer and recording engineer. Warren got his formal start in music in 1998, forming Zero with childhood friends Sidd Coutto and Girish and Rajeev Talwar.
Besides his work in Zero, Warren recorded and released numerous instrumentals which enjoyed some fame on online music forums like Gigpad and Harmony Central. In late 2004, Warren moved to Auckland, New Zealand, playing his last full-?edged gig with Zero at Independence Rock 2004, a festival they had headlined a few times by now.
After moving to Auckland, Warren began work on solo instrumental material. This resulted in his debut solo album, Nights In Shining Karma which was released on 18th April 2007 as a free digital-only download.
From 2005-2010, Warren worked as a guitarist/producer/recording engineer in Auckland, working with local artists such as Emma Walter, Johnny Barker, Renee-Louise Cara?ce, Lisa Crawley, Black Sand Diva, Lorina Harding, The Aristocrats, Ghosts of Motat, and produced singer/songwriter Donna Dean, whose album “What Am I Gonna Do” won dual national awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Album of the year.
On 15th December 2009, Blackstratblues released The New Album to hugely positive critical and fan response. The album was made available for free download for some time on the Blackstratblues website, and till date more than 6000 downloads have been recorded.
Since October 2010, Warren has been based largely in India and has worked as a guitarist and producer with Ankur Tewari, Nikhil D’Souza, Shazneen Arethna, Ashutosh Pathak, Karsh Kale, Vir Das’ Alien Chutney, Vishal/Shekhar and Oscar winner A.R Rahman. He appeared on Coke Studio Season 2 with Karsh and Ehsaan-Loy, and on Season 3 with Amit Trivedi, Salim-Suleiman, Hitesh Sonik and Clinton Cerejo.
The current Blackstratblues line up includes Jai Row Kavi (Indus Creed, Tough On Tobacco, Karsh Kale) on Drums, Beven Fonseca (Clinton Cerejo) on Keyboards and Adi Mistry (Shankar Ehsaan Loy) on Bass. The band has played some prestigious gigs such as NH7 (2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013), Sulafest 2012, Indigo & Blues 2012 and Mahindra Blues Fest 2012. Their third album is expected for release later this year. Collaborators include Karsh Kale and Nikhil D’Souza.
