Month: November 2005

I love/hate the current direction of filmi songs.

I love Sunidhi Chauhan. Such a full, throaty voice in a field of high-pitched warblers.

The prevalence of techno oriented numbers makes me think that this is early 80’s Bollywood all over again with a rave edge. Anu Malik and other (now) old-timers are like “oh yeah, I remember how this goes” and it’s all of a sudden it’s Disco Deewani with 130bpm kick drums. As a DJ I appreciate this up-tempo rhythm-accented style but the English lyrics/rapping/fakey Dancehall-stylee have got to go. I so wish there were remixes of the current hits without the cheeseball English sections. Now of course my entire perspective comes from the fact that my Hindi is limited to bits and pieces and I only “hear” melodies and textures and not words in filmi singing. No doubt it might be the corny Hindi verses or choruses that would make a Hindi-speaker cringe and not the English interjections. I can’t stand “Just Chill” but there are a million worse bilingual songs coming out all the time. I appreciate bilingualism as a concept and practice, but Bollywood can’t fake American-style urban cool. It just sounds wack.

IK

I am so excited about the Andaz New Year’s party. Andaz has always been a successful party but things have really kicked up a notch lately. I’m hoping all of the energy and excitement from the last few months will send this night into the stratosphere on New Year’s Eve. A special thank you to Joti Singh for leading such a spirited dance lesson at our three year anniversary. There were a lot of people crowding the ballroom EARLY trying to get their moves down. Thank you to everyone for coming out and supporting all these years.

Thank you to everyone for coming out to support us at our Atlas anniversary. It can be a tricky proposition bringing a guest DJ from afar and making sure that all the expenses can be covered. We have you all to thank for the night’s success. Thank you to DJ Suppoz for the assist in getting the word out. Thank you to Tracy and Ezra for being gracious hosts. Thank you so much to State of Bengal for being willing to work with us and make this show happen for Portland. Thank you, Sam!

You can read the article *here*.