The Incredible Blog

2/25/07

Last night’s Andaz was quite a different party than the month before. As I watched the rain pour down early in the afternoon I worried about how many people were going to brave the weather to come out and dance. As we arrived at the club the club manager warned us that the month had been marked by low attendance and that February is the worst month for nightclubs. “Oh well, let’s see how it goes,” I thought. Only this week did Anjali decide she wanted to give an early bhangra dance lesson. After two separate attempts at teaching the few early attendees some moves, and not having much luck getting people to stay with it, we moved on to the DJ portion of the evening.

As I was preparing for the gig over the week I was listening to a lot of new Bollywood soundtracks that had me really excited. There were quite a few requests for newer Bollywood songs at the last Andaz so I decided to research some of the very latest soundtracks that have come out. I especially love tracks off of “I See You,” ” Nehle Pe Dehla,” “Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.,” and “Barso Re” from the “Guru” soundtrack. I had really hoped to play a lot of these but realized that most would probably be too new for people to be very excited about them. I also know that the tracks I get really excited about are not often the same as the ones that end up being really popular. I started my set with some of the newer bhangra songs from the Panjab that I’ve been in to lately. Eventually I moved on to filmi and dropped the Sunidhi Chauhan-sung Gwen Stefani rip from “Bhagam Bhag,” as well as “Chakna Chakna (Remix)” from “Namaste London,” and “Afsana” from “Aap Ki Khatir.” At this point one of our regulars requested the new Himesh Reshamiya track “Afreen” from “Red” and despite my fears of overkill I obliged her for a Reshamiya-threefer before getting all chutney with “Signal,” also from the “Bhagam Bhag” soundtrack. This was a lot of filmi for this time of the night. Early on the night is usually filled with goras and we will play all bhangra since that is mostly what they want to hear (Yes, I know some of the goras come to hear Bollywood as well.) We usually only start playing more filmi when the Hindi-speakers start showing up a little later. I felt like I really pushed the filmi at this point, and little did I know that this was the most filmi that would be played all night, since the Panjabis turned out in force.

Anjali went on and played an all-bhangra set except for a mini filmi set of “Say Na, Say Na,” “Sabse Bada Rupaiyya,” and “Kaja Re.” I was shocked when she went into B21 next and one of our Hindi-speaking friends said, “Good, I’m glad you’re moving on to bhangra.” Not the typical attitude I’ve encountered from Hindi-speakers. The night was dominated by a large number of Panjabis who gathered from all over the state (and Washington too!). They packed the stage and did their thing throughout the whole night. Other than a few filmi requests from a gori (I finally played “Chaiya Chaiya” really late and I don’t know if she was still around by then.) I got nothing but Panjabi requests all night. This is unprecedented. Where did all the Hindi-speakers go? Finally fed up with all the bhangra? I hope it is not a permanent state of affairs as I am now so deep into filmi appreciation that I would be bummed if no one came to Andaz looking to hear filmi any more. I didn’t even get a chance to drop any of the latest Bollywood songs I was most excited to play. When I started my second set there had been a Jazzy B request and since Anjali hadn’t played any yet I knew that was an ideal place to start to please a stage full of Panjabis. I started out with “Yaari” and then went for a twofer with “Ral Kushian Manaiye,” both to rapturous receptions.

At this point came what I feel was the nadir of my evening. I got a hip-hop request. Previous posts attest to how tricky incorporating hip-hop into Andaz can be. Many “desi” parties around the US feature more mainstream hip-hop and R&B than they do Indian music. A lot of young Indian-Americans don’t feel “cool” unless they are listening to overplayed top 40 African-American music. Many parties dedicated to helping Indian-Americans “network” or “get drunk” feature only a sprinkling of Indian songs amidst the Nelly and 50 Cent. That is why Andaz has always been such a different party. Andaz has always been dedicated to Indian music, not necessarily the music that Indian-Americans want to hear.

When Andaz started in 2002 I had been to several “desi” parties that featured a lot of (if not entirely) bad mainstream hip-hop. Since bhangra and Bollywood remixes feature so many hip-hop samples I saw the need to incorporate some of the root material at our party, but I wanted to go about it in a different way. It was easy to tell from listening to Bollywood remixes that many Indian-Americans’ knowledge of hip-hop didn’t go back before Puff Daddy. There was a real desire to appropriate African-American cool by Anerican desis without any knowledge of or appreciation for the real history of hip-hop. I thought our party could be different because it would feature classic and underground hip-hop alongside bhangra and filmi instead of the lame top 40 crap featured at the other Indian parties. What I soon learned was that the large gora audience that would come to our parties were only interested in listening to Indian music. They would only stand around and look confused on the dance floor if a hip-hop song came on, as if they had never heard anything like it in their life. I remember playing the Coup and Missy at our first party at Lola’s Room and those songs being responsible for the least active dance floor of the evening. Over time I would try playing things like De La Soul, the Roots, and Nas and nothing ever worked except to inspire a few break dancers in an otherwise motionless dance floor. Over time I started to realize that the hip-hop songs that worked best were always the most pop and the most over-played. Eventually if I bothered to play any hip-hop at the night it would always be closer to the type of stuff I wanted to avoid playing rather than the stuff I was really excited about. This really upsets me as I am a huge follower and collector of quality hip-hop and I don’t like just playing the same old crap. Since contemporary bhangra (and more and more Bollywood) are so influenced by hip-hop I really feel a need to incorporate some of the real deal while somehow maintaining interest on the dance floor as well.

So like I said, I got a hip-hop request. From an Indian boy. I thought, “alright, I’m gonna do this my way.” I adore dead prez and decided that since “Hip Hop” was featured in the Dave Chappelle movie I could simultaneously play a righteous track and one that people would probably know. So I lined the record up and went into it after Jazzy B. Playing vinyl can be highly problematic at the Fez. 99% of contemporary bhangra and 100% of contemporary filmi is not pressed on vinyl. In fact, along with my interest in meren-rap and reggaeton, it was my introduction to Indian music that necessitated my ceasing to be a vinyl-only DJ. What this means is that at the Fez we will be playing almost entirely CDs unless we decide to throw in some hip-hop. We keep the bass loud with no frequency roll-off at the club. This doesn’t pose a problem when playing CDs. It just means there is huge, loud bass. However, turntable needles will pick up these bass frequencies and often start feeding back. So, if we are playing bhangra on CD, and then switch to hip-hop on vinyl, there will often be a loud rumble and a very muddy sound, necessitating turning down the volume, so that the hip-hop track sounds like a quiet, muddy rumbling. That is exactly what happened when I put on dead prez. (This is really sad, because when dead prez played the Fez year’s ago the track sounded incredible live.)

I felt an aura of confusion and dissatisfaction emanating from the dance floor. Often at this point I give up and go into a bhangra or fimi smash. This time I didn’t want to give up so easily. I have the new Roots on both CD and vinyl so I loaded up “Here I Come” on CD. I knew that just about no one would know the song but I wanted to play at least one loud, kicking, quality hip-hop song before going back into Indian music. I don’t think anyone appreciated it. Oh welll, it was for me.

So after going back into Indian music the hip-hop requester comes back to me. Well, of course he did, did you think he wanted to hear dead prez and the Roots? He asks for some R&B song I’ve never heard of. I’m sure it’s a current top 40 smash. I tell him we don’t really play R&B at Andaz. Then he asks for 50 cent. Arrrrgh. This is totally what I’m up against at this night. I didn’t give him any assurances and sure enough I didn’t go anywhere near 50 cent for the rest of the night.

I did however get a chance to go wild with Preet Brar, who was requested numerous times. At one point it felt like the bulk of my set was spent going back and forth between Jazzy B, Lehmber’s “Chalakian,” and Preet Brar to satisfy a flurry of requests. I did throw in the new Diljit “Revolver” track and the stage exploded. I figured they’d appreciate it. I even attempted some classics throughout the night such as old school Babbu Maan and even older school Gurdas Maan. I also played some ’70s Hindi classics which was about all the filmi I played in my later sets. We had so many Panjabis up until the very end. As well as a showing from our friend Sonu, we were also surprised late in the night when our friends Deep and Cheema dropped by, straight from driving back from a trip to California.

Now Deep is more a hip-hop guy than anything, so Anjali suggested I drop “Boys in the Hood” by another Deep: Deep da 1 from Houston, Texas. I looped the “This is your boy Deep” vocal intro as a shout-out and then went into the track. Despite how poorly my hip-hop songs had gone over earlier I decided to play some more rap, but take a different approach. Our Deep is a West Coast hip-hop fan (reppin’ Tupac the most) which inspired me to play the Game “One Blood” (on CD, no more muddy feedback for me, thank you) track next. I did. Did it work? Yeah, more or less. It wasn’t the biggest hit of the night, but it didn’t clear the club either. At one point I also got a chance to play more of the Roots. I didn’t appreciate how unfamiliar people seemed with the Roots when I played them because Jazzy B’s “Romeo,”a hugely popular Panjabi Hip-hop crossoever tune, uses the beat from the Roots “Don’t Say Nothin’.” When I got a “Romeo” request I made sure to play a big chunk of the Roots original first before going into the Jazzy B song. The dance floor got super-excited from the moment the beat came in but I doubt that many people knew I was slipping some more of the Roots in at first.

Andaz has never been the same party twice. As much as Anjali and I think we know what to expect, it is always a little (if not a lot) different. Sometimes it feels like an entirely new crowd that doesn’t know any of our songs. Sometimes the club is filled with Hindi-speakers requesting filmi hits. Sometimes it is a stage full of Panjabis directing the musical course of the evening. I am really curious to see how much Saturday’s party is a new status quo, or if the filmi lovers will come back in force. Stay tuned true believers.

IK

2/23/07

I used to watch a lot of films. In fact, I had a friend who worked as a janitor at the old Movie House theater downtown. This was just after the theater had been bought by Regal Cinemas. What this meant was that he could see not only every Regal movie for free with a guest, but also every movie at every art house and independent cinema in town, due to Movie House’s long existence as an independent theater. He only worked this job a few hours a week, but in return we would watch movies for free all week. We might see as many as five in a day or ten in a week. However, in Spring of 2000 I basically stopped watching movies cold. At the time I was heavily involved in fighting with my fellow Powell’s Books workers for a first contract between Powell’s Books and our union, ILWU Local 5. (Don’t sleep! Our second contract expires this year and we will no doubt be out in the streets to secure a fair third contract in the Fall.) This took up all of my time and energy and I was so involved in a real struggle that I had no interest in spending two hours watching a simulated reality on a screen. This lasted for years where I would only enter the theaters on one of the few occasions that they would be showing a Hong Kong film. I also never rent DVDs. (I have only made exceptions for Sacha Baron Cohen and Dave Chappelle since I don’t watch TV and I wanted to see their work.) I also don’t like watching things on a small screen. I like the immersive experience of a big screen. Even today’s megaplexes with their barely-larger-than-big-screen-TV screens hardly do it for me. These days I may go a month without seeing a movie, or maybe Anjali and I will see a few. It is a rarer-than-not experience.

I happen to have seen quite a few films lately. In addition to “Crossing the Bridge” I’ve also seen “Perhaps Love,” “Invisible Waves,” “Curse of the Golden Flower” and “Henry Fool.” “Perhaps Love” is a Hong Kong musical starring a variety of Asian stars in an attempt to draw in every Asian market. I like Jackie Cheung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Xun Zhou who I don’t think I’ve seen before. A Cantonese friend of mine told me Jackie Cheung had the best voice of all the Cantopop stars and without any actual knowledge I attributed the deep mock-Western operatic singing of his character in the film to be his own voice. I liked the yearning romance (or is that hatred?) but Anjali and her friend were less impressed than I. “Invisible Waves” is the second film by “Last Life in the Universe” director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. I liked it more than his first film. Dark, shocking, comic, slow, odd, and mostly quiet (except for some awful karaoke). Very unusual atmosphere. A cruise ship where you never see the sky or any expanse of water. Just a malfunctioning, dingy and oppressive cabin and vomiting. I like the movie on a number of levels. Who deserves to die more, a happy man or a homeless ghost?

I loved “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers” (the first time through) and was looking forward to seeing “Curse of the Golden Flower.” Took us forever to find time to see it and I was afraid it would leave town before we would get a chance to see it. Fortunately we were able to catch it for cheap at the Laurelhurst. Gong Li is awesome. I’m glad to know she can still look beautiful after Wong Kar Wai somehow made her look so ugly in “2046.” Chow Yun-Fat with a beard as a mean-ass patriarch and ruler is awesome. The siege scene is killer. I love all the super-saturated psychedelic colors of the palace. I love the costumes and Gong Li’s golden finger jewellry. Loved the rope-riding ninja assassins with sickles on chains. Very disappointed by what felt like a cop-out ending. Will need to see it again.

I love Hal Hartley and his dense, non-naturalistic dialogue. Anjali had yet to see any of his films. “Henry Fool” was one of my least favorites. All his other movies I would see twice in the theater in their first week, because I knew they probably weren’t going to get a second. “Henry Fool” was so popular compared to his other movies that it scared me off. I heard some disappointing reports and it actually took me months to finally go see it. None of Hal Hartley’s films had ever lasted months in the theaters. I remember not thinking it was horrible, but I had seen several of his others five to ten times and until last week I had never seen “Henry Fool” a second time. The reason I was watching it with Anjali and The Nick this week is because the sequel “Fay Grim” is coming out, and I wanted Anjali to see the first film first. I even rented a DVD! This is some rare and shocking shit. I had to set up an account at DVD Delerium. They even have a special box for Hal Hartley films, which I had to ask about, since he wasn’t alphabetical on the shelf. It was better than I remembered. Still some great patented Hal Hartley dialogue and offbeat moments. When my friend Syra Blu introduced me to “Trust” back in 1993 I could only think to compare it to David Lynch. Not that the tone was anything like Lynch, I just didn’t know of any other director who was taking icons of American popular culture and twisting them in such subversive ways. Poor dead, murdered Adrienne Shelly.

I’m looking forward to the sequel. Now everyone will know which way Henry Fool was running at the sudden ending.

Just watched a preview of the adapted-from-Frank-Miller’s-graphic-novel “300” and now I have at least one more movie I will be seeing in the future.
Ik

1/22/07

Thanks to the newly opened Living Room Theaters across from Powells Books downtown I managed to catch the documentary “Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul” on the (relatively) big screen. In fact I got an entire screening room to myself. I had missed it when it showed in Portland in the past. The film takes its name from a quote featured early in the film claiming that Istanbul was a bridge used by 72 different nations. The film follows Einstürzende Neubauten bassist Alexander Hacke as he records a variety of Turkish (and Roma, and Kurdish) musicians in Istanbul and some outlying regions in some attempt to get to the heart of the music of Istanbul. Even though he finally manages to make an intimate recording with Sezen Aksu he still feels like he only scratched the surface by the end of the movie, and I agree.

Other than the impressive Istanbul Style Breakers b-boy crew, the only hip-hop moments in the film are with Ceza and his sister Ayben. Ceza is a truly impressive rapper, both for his technique, and his insistence on rapping about things that matter, and not the stereotypical subjects. I was familiar with his work through a few compilations, and had been putting off importing his own CDs, but seeing him in the movie has changed that, and I will definitely be pursuing more of his music in the future. The movie didn’t feature the female Turkish rapper Sultana, but instead featured a brief rap by Ceza’s sister Ayben dissing Turkish-Germn female rapper Aziza-A.

The rock bands in the film were OK, but I was most interested in the Roma jam session in Kesan with Selim Sesler, an absolutely sick clarinet player. The men in the bar were so drunkenly happy with his playing that they took time to rub his bald head or kiss him as he played. He has a CD out called “Road to Kesan: Turkish Rom & Regional Music of Thrace” which I am eager to hear. At one point he was tapping his clarinet to bring out unusual tones that reminded me of a free jazz player. Awesome. Selim Sesler was featured in three different combos in the film. I also loved the Kurdish singer Aynur. Beautiful dirges of suffering. I learned that from 1980 to 1990 singing in native languages of minorities in Turkey was forbidden. There were some great street musicians, an incredibly rare office performance by Orhan Gencebay playing his saz (along with some of his campy vintage film clips), and the aforementioned intimate session with Sezen Aksu, the Queen. (She gets her own early film clip showing her as a seriously smoking young babe.)  The movie is by no means comprehensive in its approach, but it manages to gather up quite a few unique moments amongst its footage. I have read some criticism by Turks that blast the film for what they see as a tired “East meets West” approach to viewing Istanbul. You’d have to lay the blame for that at the feet of Turkish-German director Fatih Akin.

IK

2/22/07

The Atlas crew went down to Bend, Oregon and played at the Grove last Saturday. This is the second time we’ve done this. The Bend Bulletin and the Source were kind enough to write us up AND print color photos of the crew! Ben Salmon at the Bulletin worked particularly hard on a two page article introducing Bendites to the crew and some of the styles of music that we play. The last time we played at the Grove there had been a huge show at the club the night before and all the regulars didn’t come back out for our Saturday night show. This time the restaurant side of the club was full when E3 started at 9:30pm and people started dancing right away. People responded especially well to the Balkan tracks E3 played, and the way people spontaneously broke into folk dancing and clapping made me think the music was causing them to access ancestral genetic memory. The dancing continued throughout the night with the dance floor growing and growing. E3, Anjali and I took turns, rotating every 45 minutes or so. The crowd was very enthusiastic and supportive throughout the night with many spontaneous bouts of screaming and shouting. Many people told us how happy they were that we had made the trip down and that they hope we come back. Chris and Erica at the Grove explained that our music was entirely new for their crowd, although local DJ Lacuna told me he will sometimes drop some Funk Carioca. I played a mix of Kuduro, Arabic squelch, reggaeton, Funk Carioca (lots of the metal variety), Bhangra, and Bhangra hip-hop mashups. Both Anjali and E3 were very complimentary about my second set so I can simultaneously feel good about that set, and wonder just how bad my last few months of sets have been in comparison. It was great to have so many people appreciate us for coming down to play our music. The Grove is hoping to have us come down every few months and we are looking forward to that as well. Thanks to my brother Dan and his wife Elizabeth for putting us up, and my sister Rebekah for driving me there and back. I even got to hike up Smith Rocks with my brother. I haven’t hiked there since the ’80s.   

IK

Started 2/11 finished 2/15.

Atlas was last night. Anjali and I were super-tired on Saturday and took a nap before the show. I got up and started getting ready well before Anjali who had a very difficult time waking up and getting motivated. We were running late and didn’t even leave the house until Anjali was supposed to be on stage. We were even later because we had to pick up our friend Jennifer who was kind enough to help us gather email addresses for our mailing list at the show. There was some sort of private architects’ masquerade at Holocene in the early part of the evening so there was already a dance floor when we arrived during E3’s first set.Anjali started DJing almost immediately upon our arrival. I was going to spend some time getting mentally prepared for going on after her, when she tells me me it was already time for me to go on. Since we were so late she decided to give up most of her first set so that we could remain on schedule. We had guest DJ JOHNJOHN up from SF and we didn’t want his set to be pushed back any later than it was. I was not prepared to go on but I did anyway.

In the days leading up to the gig I had been focusing a lot of my listening on a deluge on new reggaeton releases. As I was listening to stuff at home the week before I thought about how easy it would be to play an all-reggaeton set. As I started my first set I felt like I should hold some of the hotter tracks back for my second set. Some times reggaeton goes over great, some times not so much. Since I had a dance floor, and people were dancing to reggaeton, and I didn’t know what kind of response I would get during my later set, I decided not to worry too much about holding back tracks. I didn’t play an all-reggaeton set. I played some Funk Carioca, some French Hip-hop, M.I.A.’s “XR2,” and even a Panjabi diwali rhythm mashup. I went up and down in tempo and hopped back and forth from genre to genre while trying to be somewhat thoughtful about the flow my set. I ended with several tracks featuring Baltimore club-styled breaks which ended my set at quite a fast tempo.

E3 was up next and with the degree to which I was socialzing with friends at the time I’m afraid I can’t relate any of it to you at this point. I know that I was sitting in the back room when I heard Rishi Rich’s “Push It Up” and realized that Anjali had already gone on. So my timing continued to be off, because I thought she wasn’t going to go back on for quite a while at that point. She stuck to desiton/Hinditon/bhangraton almost exclusively for her entire set (give or take a Nina Sky/Ivy Queen track and a Sean Paul song). She threw in a new Bollywood number and then at the very end of her set a Specialist & Tru-skool track. At the sound of the Panjabi vocals the crowd went crazy. She looked to me to ask if she could play a few more. I said “sure” and when she put on “Mele Wich Jatt” the crowd EXLPODED and I was left with a dilemma. Anjali had already played several songs in to my set. The crowd was freaking out. Because we had a guest the resident DJs were only playing short forty minute sets. Anjali had not played any bhangra until the end of her set and now she was dancing on stage and the crowd was going crazy and what were we supposed to do next? The crowd didn’t know how short our sets had to be. Since many people were waiting for bhangra and they had just started to get their fix, they might not appreciate my booting Anjali from the stage, even if I was going to play some bhangra. Since some Indians in the house who had been pacing the perimeter all night were just starting to dance to what they had came to hear, they might not appreciate the white boy getting on stage after Anjali had just started to give them what they want. Because I get the opportunity at Andaz to play all the Panjabi and Hindi music that I want I often focus on other genres when I am playing at Atlas. Some of our fans come to Atlas without a clear sense of how it differs from Andaz and they come only wanting to hear Indian music. Inevitably our sets will come back around to Indian music if only because so much of the crowd wants this sound. I really wanted to play reggaeton and give people some Funk Carioca as well. How would this go over since the crowd was clearly so hyped to be listening to bhangra?

After Anjali’s Zeus/Lehmber track I threw in two more Lehmber tracks (with production by PJD and Sangra Vibes respectively) for a Lehmber trifecta, and then a bhangra/hip-hop fusion from the new ADH. Looking out at the crowd I sensed I could easily have played a hard bhangra set for the less-than-a-half-hour that I had left in my set. I really wanted to do something different than that, but I questioned the extent to which I was going to lose the crowd by moving in a different direction. I decided to stay true to the around-the-world ethic of Atlas and move on to other sounds. I steeled myself and transitioned into some metallic Funk Carioca. I know, “What was he thinking?”

There are times when a DJ does exactly what the crowd wants, either through playing requests, or simply gauging exactly what the crowd will want to hear next. Then there are times when the DJ has their own idea of what they want to do and they attempt to drag the crowd along with them. Or the DJ tries to do some combination of the two. I was worried about how people might respond to my new direction but I didn’t let it stop me.

I am now finishing up this report many days later. I am trying to recall what I played. I know I played some Funk Carioca and some reggaeton. I also know I didn’t return to Indian music. Other than that it is vague. I played a fast one from New Flesh’s last album. I know I finished my set with an absolutely crazy Fulanito meren-house track. It was so nutso and deleriously fast (just like I like my merengue) that I realized only after putting it on how perverse it must have seemed to JOHNJOHN who was going on next. I’m sure he must have felt like, “Fuck you very much, you asshole.” I was worried that I was going to clear the entire club with my last song as JOHNJOHN was getting ready to go on, but fortunately that didn’t happen. People were confused and standing around awkwardly on the dance floor, but I didn’t notice a mass exodus. JOHNJOHN played a mix of dubstep, Afro-latin house and the like. I retreated to the back room to socialize with friends so I am not going to be a very good commentator on his set. E3 ended up going on after him and played until the lights went on.

Thank you to everyone who came out and kept the dance floor packed all night. We could never do it without you. If you wanted to hear more Bhangra or Bollywood come to Andaz on the 24th. See you then.

IK

2/01/07

I am in some amount of pain. I was a hardcore skater all through high school and it was around the time that I was thirteen or fourteen that I started hearing about snowboarding. I never had any money back then, so no matter how much it sounded like fun, I never went. As an adult I had friends who snowboarded, but no one was ever aggresive about getting me to go, so it just never happened. Until this week.

My friends Ryan and Ken and I decided to go snowboarding at night and the only place that was open was Ski Bowl. We saw an amazing orange and red sunset on our way there, but it was all dark once we were on the slopes. My friends asked if I wanted to do the little practice hill at all but I figured we should head to the top and I would learn on my way down. Anjali was not thrilled about my going because she knows how “risky” and “reckless” I like to be in my physical activities. She figured I’d be jumping off cliffs and stuff. My friend Ken proved a patient instructor and despite telling me that everyone falls off the lift and causes a pile-up when they first start, I never fell off, and it was he in fact who caused a pile-up. The most challenging thing for me was going from laying on my back to standing up on the board. Probably because my “core” is in such poor shape. I had to grunt and wheeze and strain to pull myself upright. There had been no fresh snow in a week and the snow was hard and packed. It was by far the most treacherous at the bottom where the patterns left by the Snow Cat were hardened into icy ridges. I was told that I did incredibly well for my first time, and I certainly got the feel of it, carving my way down, but the fall would always come eventually. And usually once I fell, I would keep falling. Working my legs to carve used otherwise neglected muscles and my legs got tired on the way down. The lower I got the more fatigued I was and the more I would crash. And as I said, the ice was hardest and most painful at the bottom.

I broke my wrist the last time I did some hard skateboarding and despite being told not to fall on my hands when I was snowboarding, that was my instinctual response. Every time I landed on my hand I felt that familiar pain and expected a break to occur at any time. No matter how many times I fell I learned that there were always new ways to land, new things to hurt, and new levels of pain that I could experience. Falling on my ass, flipping over my head, face-planting on the ice and going down the mountain on my cheek. After three runs I was so battered and bruised I thought that there is no way I can do two more hours of this without really getting hurt. At the bottom of the third run I found my friend Ryan. He was kneeling on the ground and said he really hurt himself. He was very calm and controlled, but he told me he was in so much pain that he had almost passed out. His wrist really hurt and the resting was not making it feel any better. “Sounds like a break,” I said from experience. We took him to the first aid station where they put him in a splint. Despite his being willing to sit out while we continued, both me and my friend Ken told him we were stopping so I could drive Ryan back to town, and get him to an emergency room. Even though I would have gone up for more punishment I was secretly glad that we were stopping for the night. I was already so battered and weary after just a few runs. In fact my second run was better than my third, because the fatigue was really getting to me. I have been in so much pain all week.  I can’t imagine what I would feel like if I had kept it up for another few hours, even if I didn’t manage to break something.

I told Ryan I didn’t mind spending the night waiting in the emergency room as long as I had something to read. Ryan never sees doctors or goes to the hospital so he thought the fact that he was insured would mean he would get some sort of expedited service. I however, knew I wanted a book. Sure enough we got to Providence around 11pm and didn’t get out until after 2am. Mostly we were just sitting around talking together, so the fact that I didn’t manage to get any reading material didn’t result in as much misery as I thought it might. My bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons did hurt. The achiness and pain got worse as the hours at the hospital dragged on. All the cords in my fingers have felt tight and painful ever since. At times they feel crippled like I have some sort of nerve damage. As I go days with aches and soreness up and down my arms and in my lower back I think about going back to the mountain to snowboard and also about getting back into skateboarding. Ryan’s bummed because he wanted to go back to the mountain as soon as his cast comes off but we realized the season will probably be over by then. I just want there to be some fresh snow the next time I spend a few hours falling down a mountain. Meanwhile I need to check out some of these new skateparks . . .

IK

1/28/07

Andaz is tough. I probably say the exact same things in every post I make the day after this party. So if I have written all of these things a hundred times before you will understand what central fixations these are for me in regards to the particular challenges of this night.

You can’t please everyone. 85 bpm bhangra and 130 bpm filmi do not mix. And its not just a matter of tempo, the tone and mood and texture of these different genres are drastically different. It is really difficult to effectively (and gracefully) span both in an evening. When we started the night over 4 years ago we were much more focused on playing Panjabi music all night. I remember one party where I kept track of how many filmi songs we played. That night we only played 5 filmi songs in 6 hours. Back in those days we would have large groups of angry Hindi-speakers in attendance who would sometimes loudly express their displeasure for every bhangra song that was played. I remember one “gentleman” who would make loud hacking sounds in front of the DJ every time the next song was a Panjabi one.

Some Hindi-speakers have an incredlibly narcissistic view of “Indian music.” They think that only music sung in Hindi is “Indian music.” These people (there are more than one of them unfortunately) will come up to us and ask why don’t we play more “Indian music” when we are in the middle of a long bhangra set. Uh, hello narcissistic Hindi-speakers, for your information, the Panjab is IN India. Yes, that means Panjabi music is “Indian” music. Just like music sung in Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Telegu, you name it, is “Indian music.” These Hindi-supremacists have got to learn to respect their fellow Indians, and their linguistic and cultural differences. These are the same people who try to make Hindi the official language of India while South India says, “Fuck you, we’d rather speak to you in English than Hindi.” These Hindi speakers probably don’t even recognize how much of their beautiful Hindi language is actually borrowed Urdu vocabulary.

Anyway, the Panjabi community in the Portland metro area is a tiny one, and after alienating all the Hindi speakers with long nights of bhangra Andaz went through a phase where other than a few Panjabis the night was almost all non-Indian. I realized that if we wanted more Indians at our night we would have to play more Hindi music. And over the years I started very consciously doing just this. Always buying the latest Bollywood soundtracks, trying to keep up with the latest hits. Anjali would continue to play mostly bhangra, while my sets would be half Bollywood or more. The joke is that I read an article about us once where they thought that was my “sound.” As if left to my own devices, I would play a more house-y, electronic set than Anjali, since that is the vibe of most danceable Bollywood songs. I play plenty of all-bhangra sets for a variety of different audiences all the time. It is when I am attempting to please Hindi-speakers that my sets veer Bollywood, and thus house-y and electronic. That is not my usual sound.

For a while the night at Andaz seemed to have a fairly standard rhythm. There would be a big crowd of non-Indians who would show up early and want to dance to bhangra. There would be a late arrival of Panjabis who would show up eager to hear bhangra, not realizing that they already missed hours of bhangra sets. They would have to put up with a mixture of bhangra and Bollywood as the Hindi-speakers and a large desi crowd of Tibetans and Nepalis would show up last. So during the course of the evening the night would progress from a bhangra night to a filmi night. The last hour would be solid filmi.

That has changed lately, because more Panjabis are dancing until 3am. The final hour of the night is now a flip-flop filmi/bhangra hour. There are still the people that want to dance to filmi until 3am, but there are also people requesting Jazzy B up until the last song. Trying to please one of these crowds is more than doable, trying to please both of them is a fool’s errand. Call me a fool, because I try anyway. There are songs that do work for both Hindi and Panjabi speakers, but you can’t play for hours without having to alternately please one group or another. I don’t want anyone to leave, which puts pressure on me to change up the groove very frequently. That keeps people from getting into a groove and riding it. I can please one group or another for a longer time, and then simultaneously displease the other group for just as long a time, or I keep each group happy for brief alternating moments.

In my experience no matter how much filmi I play, the second I play a bhangra song there are people at the DJ booth asking me to play more filmi. Of course if I am playing filmi there is someone in front of me with a Jazzy B request. Meanwhile there are the people who don’t know Hindi from Panjabi, they mostly just want to hear some wicked dhol beats. The songs that work best for them are not the same as the slower-than-slow Panjabi songs with meaningful lyrics that are favored by the Panjabis. That is one of many jokes. Anjali and I love bhangra and collect it like fiends. We love all sorts of bhangra that is simply not on most Oregon-residing Panjabis’ radar at all. We could play hours of bhangra that we think is the hottest stuff on the planet and the Panjabis in the house would be bored and shiftless wondering why we are not playing Jazzy B. Don’t get me wrong, we love Jazzy B, but there is a whole world of bhangra out there. A lot of which does not appeal to many local Panjabis. Funny how the goreh love it though.

The non-Indians at our night who love the dhol beats probably wonder why I get on the decks and suddenly they are hearing a silly-sounding trance or house song. “Where’s the Party Tonight” yaar? Meanwhile there are people asking why we aren’t playing the latest filmi songs, often while we are playing the latest filmi songs. I buy nearly all of the soundtracks and know most of the songs. If I’m not playing it it’s usually because I don’t like it. (Or I still find the supreme cheeziness of a new track utterly repellent and it hasn’t melted my brain through repetition to the point where I’m willing to play it.) There might be a few Hindi-speakers in the crowd who think we are behind the times because we might not be playing the absolute-most-up-to-the-minute filmi hits, but I have learned over the years that very few people in our audience are that up-to-the-minute. We usually start getting filmi requests for popular songs after they have been out six months to a year. When I play sets of all the latest filmi songs Anjali will comment that out on the dance floor she could tell that no one knows the songs yet. I have put a lot of effort into being ahead of the curve just to learn that people want to hear songs they already know. When people complain about us not playing the latest songs while a brand new song is playing, it makes it clear to me that what people want are new songs they already know, not ones they haven’t heard yet. One woman was complaining that we weren’t playing the most current songs while repeatedly requesting a song from 1998. I had a guy ask me if I kept up with UK Bhangra?!?!?!?!? He asked if I knew Bally Sagoo. -Bally Sagoo started in the early ’90s, last solo release was an underwhelmer called “Hanji” in 2003 and the last project he did was under Gunjan’s name in 2004. (This material been repackaged in different forms in different markets.) Yeah, I keep up with Bally Sagoo.- What about the killer stuff that’s been coming out in the last 3 months? Most of the requests we get are for songs 1 to 5 years old. Unless we get an older Indian crowd in which case it’s “Amitabh, Amitabh Amitabh.” I love playing only the latest-latest, but it rarely stokes the dance floor the way familiar numbers do.

I want to aplogize for any resentful tone in this email. I love having the opportunity to play for hundreds of people every month. It’s just frustrating to have 300 people dancing up a storm while someone complains at the DJ booth that you are not playing what they want to hear. Well, if everyone is dancing, and you are unhappy at the DJ booth, your dancing tastes are out of synch with everyone else’s. If I try and play something you like there is no guarantee that anyone else is going to enjoy it, since they clearly enjoy dancing to things you don’t. These are people who are oblivious to everyone dancing around them. They only want to hear what they want to hear even if they are the only person in the club who wants to hear it. I remember a woman who kept requesting salsa at a house party years ago. Every time I’d play a Cuban song the dance floor would clear. I’d shift into house party mode, everyone would go back to dancing, and then she wanted to hear more salsa. Finally I pointed to the dance floor. I asked if she saw all the people dancing. I asked her if there were that many people dancing when I played the last salsa song. She left me alone.

There will usually be some random guy asking for an out-of-date overplayed mainstream hip-hop song. Why? Aura is right downstairs. Go there, or Barracuda, or Ringler’s Pub, or a million other places playing that schlock. I can assure you that you are one of the only people at our night that wants to hear that sort of thing. Actually, I wish there were more people that wanted to listen to Hip-hop at our night. But I’m excited to play the new Roots and the new Nas, and the requests are more along the lines of Lil Jon and Yung Joc. I don’t think my choices would appeal at all to these people. I bring a crate of Hip-hop records to every Andaz. I will play a few of them at most. The majority of the crowd that comes to Andaz does not come to hear Hip-hop. Certainly not the kind of stuff I groove to. So why do we put “Hip-hop” on the flyers? Because modern bhangra and (to a lesser extent) Bollywood wouldn’t exist without hip-hop. When bhangra songs aren’t directly sampling hip-hop songs they are either remaking them, or using the same sort of beats mixed in with dhol and tumbi. Bollywood has never left disco behind, but more and more filmi songs are remaking hip-hop songs, or are just really lame attempts at aping a hip-hop vibe. Hip-hop (and in some cases, its child D’n’B) defines the state of mind of many of the producers of urban music from the Indian diaspora and we want to reflect that in terms of how we describe the party. You may not hear a lot of songs you recognize from the radio, but more and more bhangra and Bollywood songs incorporate “raps,” and reflect the post-hip-hop sonic landscape of global pop and dance music. We try to incorporate the very best in Asian Hip-hop and R&B into our night, despite the efforts of many of the infant genre’s creators. I dropped the single best Panjabi hip-hop song ever, JNas and Deep doing “Boys in the Hood” last night. Anjali and I both have been playing that track a lot recently. Except for Anjali and DJ Blackmarks everyone just stood around and looked confused for the duration of the song. “Why is he playing Dirty South hip-hop?” Uh, nevermind.

So, why all this verbiage? After feeling relatively good about my performance at the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration, I am back to feeling awful about my DJing after my performance at Andaz this month. As much as I describe how difficult it is to DJ to the different factions as Andaz, I still expect perfection from myself. I want everyone to go wild to every song all night. I hate looking up from the booth and seeing a lot of mild shifting in place or motionless bodies. I want to please everyone all night, and I already explained what a fool’s errand that is. Sometimes I ignore requests, and sometimes I’ll play them all night. It is much easier to perform without aggresive requesters. Sometimes a person with a request has a much better idea than the DJ about what people want to hear. Often they are just a control freak who thinks the cost of admission guarantees that the DJ will serve as their personal jukebox for them and their friends all night. It don’t work that way, Honey. There are hundreds of people who paid just as much as you, and they all want to have a good time. If they thought you knew what they wanted to dance to then why aren’t they paying admission at your night? Sometimes I get so flummoxed trying to satisfy all the clashing requests, that my set seems like one long train wreck, with little joy and excitement for anyone. Maybe the trick is ignoring everything except my own feelings. Anjali is much better about performing that way. As much as I like to fuck with people I want them to get at least some of what they want. After all, without the dancers a DJ’s just an awkward figure holding records.

IK

PS: The Nick epilogue

I was utterly surprised and overjoyed to see The Nick. He came late in the night, straight from his first experience DJing a corporate party. He fell into me declaiming “I have a new respect for what you do. I had people mobbing me for requests all night. People were grabbing me and shouting their drunken requests. They never stop. They never leave you alone.” Yeah, welcome to the glamorous world of DJing. Just don’t rip your pants.

1/28/07

Since we first started collecting bhangra Anjali and I have been focused on the bhangra music being made by producers in the UK. The fact that these producers grew up multi-soniculturally with desi music and Afro-diasporic modern urban dance musics made them the best at creating slamming dance tracks with a desi feel. Most of the producers from India have sounded hopelesly dated and lame, with lots of cheezy keyboards and tinny beats. Over the last year I have encountered more and more Panjabis grumbling online about how washed-up and formulaic the British bhangra scene has become. Many of these same critics are now turning their attention to the highly prolific Indian bhangra scene. While British releases are hampered by endless delays and promises of “coming soon” it feels like India is releasing dozens of bhangra albums a week. As expensive as they are, UK Bhangra releases are easy to find online. (We recommend www.punjab2000.co.uk. Tell Tony we sent you.) I have had zero luck finding any listed source for Indian bhangra online. (Tony says he can get you anything even if it’s not listed on his website.)

Outside of Desi Spices in Vancouver, Washington I have not found a single Indian store in the Portland metro area that regularly stocks new Panjabi releases. My only chances to see what is out there are my trips to Indian stores in NYC and Vancouver, BC. Last Spring I stocked up on mounds of releases in Jackson Heights, but since then I have been assembling a massive list of even-more-current Indian releases I find recommended on various message boards. Anjali and I just got back from BC and I have already been playing out some of many finds. Now Anjali is in NYC and I gave her a massive list of everything I couldn’t find in BC.

However, unlike some, I have not given up on British bhangra (too much good stuff scheduled to drop, and the new young producers are revelations) but I am now equally focused on getting all the best stuff straight from the Panjab. Maybe you will be able to hear the difference in my sets. I loved dropping Preet Brar and Miss Pooja’s “Boliyan” at Andaz, even if Anjali thought the CD was speeding up and sounded awful. I love how the bulk of many of the CDs feature duets with female voices whether they are credited primarily to a male or female singer. British bhangra seems so exclusively dedicated to the male voice except for a few exceptions. I am excited that although the cheezy keyboards still taint many a track, the dhols just keep hitting harder and harder. At least that is something we can all agree on.

IK

1/22/07

One year ago Anjali and I attended the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration in Vancouver, BC. I wrote quite a bit about it earlier in this blog. We’re always looking for opportunities to play in Vancouver and thanks to Lady Ra and the Beats Without Borders crew we got a chance to headline the opening night party of the Celebration for 2007. I had really been looking forward to DJing this party even while I have been in my rut. I love DJing bhangra for an appreciative and knowledgeable audience. Since the night was called “Bhangra Love” and it was the opening night of the celebration, my intentions were focused on a hardcore bhangra set and nothing else. That kind of focus really channels my energy, especially when it is something I am as devoted to as Panjabi bhangra. Vancouver has more Panjabis than anywhere else in North America, going back to waves of immigration in the early 1900s. It’s the best place I’ve found in North America to buy Indian music other than NYC. Also the best place to get Indian sweets, which we always stock up on. And you can see the latest Bollywood films in the theaters, which is always cool. Anyway, the Indian population is centered in Surrey, and not downtown Vancouver, so we weren’t sure how many Panjabis were going to be in the house, but it ended up being a really good, packed turnout all the way around.

Anjali and I arrived with our wonderful host Sarah around 10pm. There was a line out the door and who should be wandering around but the inimitable Nomadic Noize. He said it was already packed inside. We ventured in to see DJ Reminisce rocking Sanj’s “Nain Tere” to an empty dance floor. There were plenty of people packed around the perimeter of the club, but it didn’t look like anyone had been brave enough to start dancing. Lady Ra then went on and got people to the front with some Zeus and Lehmber action. She only played briefly and then Reminisce went back on. The schedule got really messed up from what we were told. Apparently Juggy D and members of DCS who were performing at the bhangra competition and the closing party later in the week were supposed to show up to the club. The band Signia did not want to perform until these bhangra stars showed up. Juggy D and some members of DCS did show up and grooved along to Anjali and my sets, which was cool. Juggy D should be dropping a new album at some point, which I am looking forward to, especially if it moves in a more desi direction, as he’s been hinting at in interviews. Our friend Sharon from Vancouver, who we were reunited with that night after years, introduced Anjali to Juggy D, and they got a picture together, so maybe Anjali will be dropping that in her blog at some point. Here’s a photo Lady Ra posted on the Beats Without Borders site to give you an idea of what the night looked like:

I had been so focused on a hardcore bhangra set that I found myself really surprised by the stuff DJ Reminisce played in his set. I had left behind all my Indian pop and more electronic stuff in favor of straight dhol-bangers. Reminisce was playing stuff like JNas “So Into You,” Raghav, and Jay Sean. I was a little paranoid, thinking, he is the hometown DJ, he knows what they like, and I didn’t bring anything like that. I was surprised by his selections because the year before I remember him playing a lot of Shinda, Jazzy B, and Jassi Sidhu, as well as some of the pop stuff. Eventually he played some more electronic-styled bhangra like B21’s “Jawani (Remix)” and RDB’s “Balle Balle” which also threw me for a loop, because I didn’t bring any of that sound, nor thought that is what people would want to hear in 2007.

I met DJ Reminisce after his set. He told me he DJs all the desi parties in Vancouver put on by A-Town Productions. They were the ones behind the VIBC after-party this year and last. He has also started a second-Friday monthly in Vancouver that has been around for a couple months now. He was also hyping desiorb.com, a new desi myspace-type site put together by a friend of his.
After Reminisce, Signia finally went on, well off schedule. They started with some a cappella Panjabi vocals from their two singers before the full band came in. Along with the two singers the band included a dhol player, drummer, keyboardist, bassist and DJ Reminisce on scratches. They seemed much improved from last year, and a lot tighter. They certainly did their thing to get the crowd hyped. They seemed to me to be what an 80’s British bhangra band might have been like. I just wanted more dhol in their sound. They had the crowd really going right before Anjali went on.

Anjali took a complete left-turn from the uptempo bhangra that had preceded her and dropped Deep’s Panjabi-crunk anthem “Dirty South.” “I needed to rep the United States,” she told me. Which is funny, because I had been spending weeks researching all the bhangra singers and musicians originally from Vancouver/Surrey so I could pay tribute to their community. We think different like that. Probably why we’re such a great partnership. “Dirty South” sounded amazing at our last Atlas, rattling everything in the space, but this time it came out quiet and muffled. The audience seemed confused, not sure what to make of the slow hip-hop after all the jump-in-the-air bhangra. No one seemed to know the song, although I sensed what might have been faint ripples of recognition in parts of the crowd during the chorus. Then, after that song, complete silence.

There had been all sorts of technical issues all night, with faulty equipment belonging to the club. The club’s regular soundperson wasn’t working the night and he wouldn’t let the Beats Without Borders crew use any of his equipment. That meant we got the club’s second-tier gear and a bunch of rental equipment. Turns out one of the connections on the mixer was bad so sound would only come out of one of the CD players. This went on for a while, where Anjali could only play one song, and then silence. Various technical people were swarming the DJ setup so I didn’t feel any need to get up on stage and be another dude trying to figure out what was not working. At points it would seem like it was fixed and then the sound would be all crackly and distorted. What a nightmare. Horrible way for a DJ to begin her set, especially in another city. Eventually the sound got fixed and by the time Anjali dropped Specialist and Tru-Skool’s “Nach Ke” the place was fully rocking and the sound was all good. It was only when I went up to relieve her that I learned that the solution (which was Anjali’s) was to move the left player into the far right channel (the only other one working), so the channels were reversed. The left player was in the right channel, and the right player was in the left channel. This kind of simple reverse, as I know from past experience, can really mess me up. I knew it was going to take a great deal of concentration to not forget this reversal, and sure enough, there were several times where I adjusted the wrong EQs or the wrong volume. Minor problems according to all the feedback I got from my friends on the dance floor.

I haven’t been feeling like DJing much these days, but I really did at this night. I was as prepared as I have been for a gig in a long time, and I was ready to let go. From the stage everyone looked motionless, but all the reports I got from the floor was that the place was going crazy, it was just so packed there wasn’t much room for moving. I received nothing but compliments and praises about how the place was “blowing up,” “going off,” you name it. It felt good to drop nothing but the best Panjabi stuff and know that people were loving it. After all the schedule jumbling Anjali and I ended up with one hour set to split and one half hour set, which is hardly ideal for two DJs, but understandable with such a full bill. I really had to narrow down what I wanted to play to just a few songs, given how little time we had. I started out with “Oh Na Kuri Labdi” and DJ Sunny’s dhol-heavy remix of Sarbjit Cheema’s “Dhol Vajda” to represent the Vancouver/Surrey crowd. Anjali said that Sarbjit Cheema’s vocals were really low in the mix, but that everyone was singing along, which was my purpose all along. I had been obsessed with playing Lehmber’s “Boliyan” track from PJD’s “Rumours” album but Anjali beat me to it, so I settled for “Aaja Nach Le” from the same album instead. Before I knew it my half hour was over and Pardesi took the stage. I had avoided hip-hop mashups in my set, but I played the original “Hypnotize” sampling “Ishq Brandy” to finish off my set.

On the night of the show I was wearing a black suit I had hand-tailored in New Delhi. Getting ready for the show I stepped on one of the pants’ cuffs and ripped it. Our host Sarah was kind enough to provide me with a safety pin that would hold the cuff together for the evening. After my first set I left the stage and Anjali and I retired for a breather in the hospitality room. I went to sit down on a chair not realizing that the arm of the chair was pulled apart and some jagged dovetails were sticking up in the air. In sliding into the chair I managed to shred a large L-shaped hole in the butt of my pants.

Now I hate being cold. I tend to wear long underwear underneath my clothes from October to March. I usually wear black thermals but on the night of the show I was actually wearing white thermals underneath my pants. So now I had a big peek-a-boo L-flap with white underwear sticking out beneath my black suit. We took the pin from my cuff and Anjali was sussing up the hole, trying to pin it closed with the safety pin. As she was assessing the damage two giggly British girls entered the hospitality room. They were very friendly and curious and were soon unofficial members of the how-do-we-get-the-Kid-stage-ready committee. Anjali determined that she would need to fasten my pants from the inside, thus necesitating my pulling down my pants. Not being the particularly modest type I looked to the British girls who said they would block the view and I dropped my drawers. Anjali fastened the tear and I began pulling up my pants. At this point several members of the band Signia enter the hospitality room to see me with my pants undone and three girls in the back room. “Whoa, sorry, didn’t mean to intrude,” they said as they began awkwardly backing up. We tried to assure them that there was nothing going on but they beat a hasty exit. Rockstar, huh? It was amusing. Fortunately my pants held up the rest of the evening.

Lady Ra and Timothy Wisdom performed as Pardesi, essentially a bhangra-mashup project with lots of live scratching. They even played a D’n’B remix of “Zingy.” Anjali felt I had done such a good job in my first set that she decided I should play the last half hour of the night. I followed Pardesi with another short Panjabi set beginning with “Soorma” and ending the night with the classic “Dupputa Tera Sat Rang Da.” It was great to see people putting arms around each others’ shoulders and singing along. The song ended two minutes before the local shut-off time and someone jumped on stage begging me to play one more. I thought we had ended on the perfect note. I felt a need to shout out the local Panjabis but everyone just stared blankly and silently at the stage when I got on the mic and yelled “Vancouver Panjabis we love you,” so maybe I should just learn to shut up. I felt such a need to show respect to the community but apparently I came off like an ass. The LBC bhangra team were pointing to their shirts and trying to get me to shout them out, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses and didn’t know what team they were until later.

The next night of VIBC featured a performance called bhangra:authentic at the Orpheum Theatre. Anjali and I were really looking forward to this because it was put on by the Surrey India Arts Club whose performance at last year’s VIBC was one of the highlights for us. bhangra:authentic was a narrated stage production choreographed and scripted by Tejinder Singh from Surrey India Arts Club that introduced bhangra instruments, rhythms, dances and history with lots of performances. Raymond Bhuller, the founder of Dhol Nation Academy, was onstage along with one of his students for most of the production. He was an amazing dhol player, and if we could afford him, we would certainly bring him down to Andaz for a performance. We learned that the sarangi is the only instrument that can play every Indian raag. We learned that there used to be many different folk dances from Punjab that have all disappeared. The only traces of these dances that survive are elements from these dances that have been incorporated into bhangra. The production included folk singers, several performances by a full band led by Gogi Bains, choreographed dances and a rousing giddha performance with some very spirited young girls. I was so glad that a production like this was part of the celebration but unfortunately it was very sparsely attended. There was a couple from Portland in attendance who introduced themselves to us. They had come up for the competition and recognized us from our parties in Portland. We did not stay for Saturday’s competition or after-party because we needed to return to Portland to surprise my father at his retirement party. I heard the UBC Girlz team won. They are definitely good. Anjali and I have been fans of theirs since we witnessed them perform years ago.

IK

Sorry it has been so long since the last installment of this fabulous series. Since the last party at Holocene was such an overwhelming success I thought I might take us on a stroll down memory lane to another Atlas night several years ago. This particular night of Atlas was the only time I am aware of where I lost a potential gig due to my errr. . . experimental ways. It was the middle of the night and I was doing my thing on stage. I was playing a couple no-brainer bhangra mashups. I had the crowd in a frothy frenzy playing a quick bhangra house take on Billie Jean. Now the thing about absolute dance floor slayers is you have to be able to follow them up. Some songs create such insane dance floors that I almost don’t want to play to them because it is difficult to find another song that can match that level of insanity. As I was watching the pandemonium below me I wondered exactly how I wanted to follow this particular song. Sometimes a DJ has the crowd going so crazy that the DJ can do whatever s/he wants. Sometimes the DJ only thinks s/he can do whatever s/he wants. Sometimes the DJ doesn’t care, the DJ’s gonna do what the DJ wants.  And me, I wanna experiment.
Well, a little side story first. In the Spring of 2001 I played a crazy art studio party in a big lot overlooking the Willamette River in North Portland. All sorts of random people were there and my set was appropriately random as well. I can vividly remember the tribal rush of a Pixies-twofer. At one point I was playing a brutal Drum’n’Bass tune that was more about the thrill of the noise than it being a good dance number. A concerned friend came over to inform me, in case I hadn’t noticed, that it was not an easy song to dance to. After having said this, she then paused, had a moment of realization and said, “Oh yeah, you like to fuck with people, don’t you?” Uh, yeah, guilty as charged. Its not that I don’t want people to dance and have a good time, its just that I would rather challenge a crowd than play it safe.

So, I’m on stage at Holocene, the crowd is raging as a double-time Billie Jean beat has the majority of the club packed on the floor. And then . . .I decide to take a radical left turn (sound familiar?). I go right from a galloping house beat into . . .the slow syrupy strains of the beginng of the Kelly Roland and Nelly ballad “Dilemma.” “IK, did you really play “Dilemma” to a packed dance floor?” No, I fucking hate that song. No, the melodic intro then turns into Spanish singing, and then gears up into a merengue-house version of the song in Spanish. Uh, yeah. It’s silly, but I thought it might be fun. Instead every single person cleared the dance floor. Hmmm, not as much fun as I thought. Not one person entered the perimeter of the dance floor for the entire song. What, you thought I was gonna cut it early? Instead I thought “an empty dance floor, what a magical opportunity,” and played a completely wacky electro bhangra tune from the Notorious Jatt’s first album with chirpy sped-up Panjabi vocals. That song actually brought a few dancers back to the floor and by the next song, whatever that was, things were back to dance party central. However, I found out after the show that there were several promoters in the audience who were looking to hire Anjali and I for a gig. After my perverse set they commented to Anjali that they were not interested in hiring me because my set was inconsistent and I “couldn’t hold a dance floor.” Uhhh, what dumbass promoter thinks I was trying to “hold a dance floor” by going from a Billie Jean rip to a fucking Kelly Rowland ballad cover in Spanish? Did they really think I was doing the best I knew how to “hold a dance floor” and that I somehow thought that juxtaposition was the trick? It’s called fucking with people, or experimentation, if you prefer. Any idiot with a knowledge of popular songs can hold a dance floor. The trick is to see how far you can push it and still show people a good time. That time I slammed up against those limits big time. Ah well, I’ve never had an opportunity to play that Notorious Jatt song since, so its all good.

IK