At The Edge

Audio: Ending part of Raga Mishra Piloo in Thumbri Style by Ravi Shankar (Sitar) & Chatur Lal (Tabla). Record: Ravi Shankar ‎-- Indias Master Musician (1963) [ here ] Video: Little guy getting ready for the night. -0-

A few pages from ' The music of India by Herbert A. Popley '. Published 1921 by Oxford University Press. -0-

from Basu Bhattacharya's Tumhara Kalloo (1975) A folk song used in a bunch of Hindi songs but right now online I could find only one: Shabbir kumar song Jawani Ki Rail Kahin from Coolie (1983). Can't recall others. As for the original, online the Chutney version is the closest one can get.

Unidentified Indian model on cover of Jimmy Smith's Any Number Can Win (1963). -0-

The exact chronology of events isn't clear. What is known  is that by the end of October 1972, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of British rock band Led Zeppelin, who were not yet the legends that they were eventually going to be, along with their manager Richard Cole had one night walked into a small pub named  'Slip Disc' in Bombay  and before a dazed Indian audience gave an impromptu performance with support from local musicians. The re-telling by these local rock musicians was going to become the primary source of  this lesser known, lesser documented story involving one of the greatest rock band ever. [Check ' One Muggy Night in Mumbai ... '( Published in Times of India Pune, on 7th July, 2001 ) by Nandu Bhende, one of the musicians who performed with the band.] All evidence suggests that this was in fact their third visit to the city. But for Indian fans of the band, it proved to be the most memorab...

.Hame toh apno Ne Loota, Gairo Mei kahan Dum Tha.  Hahahah. Hame toh apno Ne Loota, Gairo Mei kahan Dum Tha Meri Kashti Thi Dubi Wahan, Jaha Pani Kam Tha. AHahahah. (Monologue ends. Hero starts beating the Piano. Everybody starts giving a constipated look - hamming various expressions of distress. Song starts.) Hohohoooooaaahahha. Jeeta Tha Jiske Liye Jiske liye marta tha Jeeta Tha Jiske Liye Jiske liye marta tha   ek aisi ladki thi jise main pyar karta tha The song (rather the entire album) from1994 film Dilwale ought to be in record books of some-kind for a feat unparalleled. It remains the No.1 song on play-it-out-loud playlist of 8 out of 10 drivers of autos, six-seaters and buses. Any driver worth his salt carries the cassette in his command center. And it has been like that since  1994. Any hint of melancholy, pangs of love, catching Kareena's brash light eyes looking him up, reading the lines glued in sparkling lett...

video link Bela Bose burning the dance floor with Chandra Shekhar in Street Singer (1966) Wah! Wah!

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t...

video link 'A Beautiful baby of Broadway' sung and performed by Iqbal Singh in 1960 Hindi film 'Ek Phool Char Kaante'.

 The man had among many other things a great ear for music, this one is from one of his most underrated movie. video link A later night viewing of an old Satyajit Ray interview on DD Bangla lead me to this wonderful film.

The courtier is perturbed by what he hears. What type of a song is this. Vulgar. He asks the girl singing the song to explain. It a good kind of song. It's a love song of Radha-Krishan. Listen. Radha says to her friend: More angana mein aye aali, main chaal chalun matwali angana mein aye aali Jab aanchal hamra pakday, Hum has has unsay Jhagday Choli pay nazariya jaye, mori chunari lipat mosay jaye ' Bas! Bas! You will destroy the truth of daughter-in-laws and daughters of Mithila. Choli pay...uff!' Courtier walks away fuming. Mocking him, the girl continues singing. Courtier listens some more. Woh aur Bhay, morey paihya paray, Kahay mano baat hamari Woh aur Bhay, morey paihya paray, Kahay mano baat hamari Main aah baro mukh pher kahu, Main aah baro mukh pher kahu Nahi manugi baat tihari, Nahi manugi baat tihari Nahi manugi baat tihari Nahi manugi baat tihari Courtier walks out saying, 'Now I know. Now I know. Now I know why our women sing this s...

nanhee nanhee boondaniyo ki khanan khanan'khan khang'ree bajatee aayee, bajatee aayee dekho bhayee barkha dulhaniya barkha dulhaniya chhuk chhuk chhuk chhuk chaiyya, aaja daru toray gal bhainya aaj daru toray gal bhainya, chhuk chaiyya mai toh nachu tere sang sang sainya, ho sainya, ho sainya savan ka sandesa lekar niklee apnay ghar se jo koyee iskay pyar ko tarsay vahee navelee barse kare kare kare kare badarva kee jhanan jhanan jhan jhanjharee bajatee aayee hai dekho bhayee barkha dulhaniya barkha dulhaniya - rain song ' Umad ghumad kar ' from Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957). And then there is saiyan jhoothon ka bada sartaj nikla . Her bow runs on single string of a sarangi. My lover turned out to be the king of liars . She  sings. A little toy drum follows her. Tied to her trailing pallu . All her movements are playful exaggerations - nakhra . Thugs, louts watch. She is a toy seller. When I was a kid, I actually had that toy fiddle and the drum.

video link Video: Television series "Vikram Aur Betaal" (1988) from Ramanand Sagar  Music: "Under Pressure" (1981) by Queen and David Bowie

Found this at Youtube. Think it's great! video link Reminds me of a Public Service short film that they used to show on Doordarshan in which a paint brush would draw a figure while 'Vaishnav jan to' played in the background. The film ends with an image something like this:

While reading G.T. Vigne's ' Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo ' (1844) I came across a sheet of music in which the English traveler had a recorded a tune which he called 'Kashmirian Dancing Girl's Song'.[ More about the song at my Kashmir Blog ] Here's a rough rendition (a mix of two variations) of the old song recreated using a software called SharpEye2 that reads sheet music from images and then converts it to Midi form.The output in not entirely perfect (needs lot of manual editing) but the result is really interesting specially the opening tune that does in fact sound Kashmiri: Video link And it was the opening note that G.T. Vigne found really intriguing as it reminded him of "Liston's Kitty Clover". I tried searching for this Kitty Clover song but the result didn't show up much.

Rajshree in song ' Ooi Amma ' from Dil Ne Pukara (1967) The song had a Tamil sound, that may explain the pose. Kinda cute. [ Youtube link ]

video link A beautiful short video by Jeff Scher . More of his awesome stuff at scherfilms.  The music (by Shay Lynch ) reminds me of background score from some of those old B&W Hindi movies with  'Happy princess enjoying royal fountains' kind of scene.

Video link Beautiful video of three man Swedish band Miike Snow's awesome single 'Burial' directed by Daniel Wirtberg and Jonas Rudström, capturing the sights of incredible Benares Varanasi.  -0- Miike Snow My Space Link

In 1969,  14-year-old Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto for a chat. And convinced him to do an interview. In 2007, we got 'I Met The Walrus', an animated short film by Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite, that used the interview to tell a story in brilliant visuals. video link Official Website: I met the Walrus

Jee Haan Bhaiyo aur Behno. Beat, man, beat ... The young at heart and the alive are in India, too. But they are drifting...in their own, wild ways.In sporadic burst of enthusiasm all over the country...till 1968 when the oldest cigarette company with a young heart came along. India Tobacco Company Limited with their annual 'All-India Simla Beat Contest.' -  'Does that make sense' words printed on the album sleeve of 'Simla Beat 70', an album that promised  a song each by The Confusions from Madras and The Dinosaurs from Bangalore. For two years, 1970 and 1971, a cigarette company in India sponsored some kind of battle-of-the-bands competition, with the winners going to Calcutta to record for compilations called Simla Beat. Each year an lp was released with no info about the bands other than their hometown. Discovered Simla Beat at Garagehangover.com . Do check it out to read the story of this first of its kind Indian Rock contest and to listen the awesome s...