Thanks to Lady Connie and Stylus 503 Anjali and I will have to spend the day digging through the crates for loveless/heartbreak records for Valentine’s Day at the Gotham Tavern. Unfortunately I don’t have some of my adolescent favorites at the moment, but there will be plenty of sadness to go around regardless. The trick will be to see how many lonely records I can find for the dance floor. We shall see.
IK
We just had a great night at Atlas with our special guest DJ Collage. Nice to bring some futuristic dancehall style down to Portland. Collage has so much great energy and it was nice to bring him down to share the love with Portland. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making it such a slamming night. Look for a DJ Collage CD to hit some time in June.
IK
PS Here’s the poster for posterity.
So, after writing last that I hoped the series would end satisfyingly Mr. Pena confided that he thought it went downhill with the fourth book. Well, fortunately I don’t agree with him. It kept the suspense up throughout and I kept thinking “When is it going to get bad?” Well, the ending may not have had a sledgehammer impact but it was appropriate and clever in playing on the many different meanings of “sleeper.” I’ll probably go back and read the whole thing again at some point. I ended up very sympathetic to Holden Carver even though he is a man who can feel nothing. Maybe that’s where the sympathy comes from. Good work Ed and Sean. Looking forward to your future projects.
IK
So, thanks to an Amazon.com customer review I learned that Sleeper actually follows Brubaker’s overlapping book, Point Blank. Fortunately Powell’s had a used copy so I plowed through that one. Very drunk, very violent “superhero” with memory problems. I’m glad I read it after reading so much of the Sleeper story because a lot of things were surprises to me in that storyline that would have had much less impact if I had already read Point Blank. I’m curious if Sleeper will be the end of Lynch, Tao and Carver or if some version of at least Tao and Lynch’s struggle will continue. Man, Brubaker has come a long way from slacker stories. Who says the mainstream is all bad for people?
So, thank you to Mr. Pena I am three trades into the Sleeper series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. I remember Ed from back in his “Lowlife” days and actually met him in Seattle way back when through the esteemed Mr. Pinkham. Back then he was all anti-superhero/mainstream comics so it’s funny to see him writing just such comics for Marvel and DC these days. He’s even next up on Daredevil. I’m curious to see where he takes DD post-Bendis.
I didn’t like the superhero elements in Sleeper when I first started it. I thought they were distracting from what could have been a good straight forward double agent/black OPs story. Three trades in things seem more integrated and part of a whole. I’m hoping the payoff at the end will do it for me. The ending of the Bendis DD run didn’t really do much for me. It didn’t seem like an ending or a new beginning but just a continuing story now handed off to someone else. I’ll go back and read a long chunk of it again at some point. I find that it is much easier for a writer to keep me interested and reading than it is to really blow my mind with a satisfying ending. Here’s hoping Mr. Brubaker has something quality in store for me.
Okay, so I wrote the following post when I first got back from the gig and I was PISSED. I want to say right here that I don’t intend for this to reflect negatively on the sponsors or the many fabulous people who worked the event. The sponsors were very cool in hiring us for the event, it is just unfortunate that so many of the attendees strictly wanted over-heated swill for their dancing pleasure. Blanca was a very professional soundperson. Michael and the staff of Typhoon were very friendly and helpful in securing the few available vegetarian options for the beleagured DJs. Thank you to our friends and fans for softening the blows of the ungrateful crowd.
Now I am fully capable of playing nothing but easily recognizable, 70’s, 80’s, and top 40 hits, but that is not what we were hired to do. We were supposed to play our usual Indian sound with perhaps some other international music thrown in as well. I expected the crowd to mostly request disco, 80’s, Kanye West and 50 Cent and I called that one 100% (Actually 50 Cent was never specifically requested but Luda and Ying Yang Twins were). DJs have the special opportunity to deal with the most aggressive and the most aggressively unhappy people in the room. Despite a full dance floor a DJ can always count on some unhappy person telling them to do something completely different. At this charity event we were fortunate enough to deal with a constant stream of them. PS all of my digs at Ronald McDonald are at his namesake chain of “restaurants” and not his “houses” of which I am admittedly ignorant. If you want some information direct from the houses go to their website: www.rmhc.com
******Pissed off post-gig venting follows******
Anjali and I just got back from DJing a charity event. It was a benefit for Ronald McDonald Houses of Oregon and Southern Washington. I’m totally ignorant as to what Ronald McDonald does for kids other than feed them poisoned beef. And hoodwinking Hindus into eating beef tallow. Where’s Mangal Pandey when you need him? Anyway, the crowd was mostly as bad as I could possibly imagine. A night full of ignorant shits making lowest common denominator requests for songs of which they are overly familiar. Bunch of fuckin’ sheep. Well, a lot of them now know how much they hate Indian music, if they could even figure out that that’s what Anjali was playing. I have a word for these events. I call them shitfests. No offense to the sponsors who were hip enough to hire us and thought that maybe their crowd was hip enough to dig us. Don’t get me wrong, there were people there excited to see us and very complimentary. Unfortunately they were drowned out by the many insistent requesters of top 40. Anjali was playing the DJ Aqueel remix of Kaja Re and some old white dude came up and asked for something more modern. Modern? Anjali had to explain that the song was from 2005. What a shitfest. A lot of money was raised, so hopefully it won’t go to feeding sick children cattle forced into bovine cannibalism by agri-business. Much respect to Anil and Prasenjit for representing. Thanks to Shayla and Connie for reminding me that it was a fabulous view and pointing out the carved melon flower centerpiece. Respect to the Latina who requested Reggaeton. Reggae-reggae-tony. Oh yeah, the last song (Sangra Vibes “Darshan Kuriya De”) was for me. And just to prove it I completey cleared the dance floor with it. So yeah, it was for me. Fuck all ya’ll.
IK out
Here is another post I made on www.punjabisongs.com about Lehmber’s appearance in BC.
I spent last weekend in Vancouver, BC for the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration. Lehmber Hussainpuri was the star attraction of both the Bhangra competition and the after party. His accapella opening at the competition was thrilling and showed what a powerful voice he has. Unfortunately he was only accompanied by two local dhol players and pre-recorded backing tracks. Even his backing vocals were pre-recorded. It was very disappointing although I highly doubted that anyone involved with the production was going to be paying for him to play with a full band. Lehmber hardly even sang along with the chorus of “Das Ja’ preferring to let the pre-recorded vocals carry the tune. He did get into the spirit and busted some lively Bhangra moves. He only performed three songs. Throughout the competition the song that got the crowd clapping and excited the most was “Sadi Gali” which he did not perform at the competition. The crowd seemed way more excited by the house beat than the several times “Balle Balle Hogay Mitro” was played. Lehmber did try to build a groove with one of the Dhol players at times but it just made me that much sadder that he wasn’t performing with an entirely live band.
At the after party Lehmber went on quite late after both “RDB” (Manj “DJing”) and Hard-E (For more info see my blog at: www.theincrediblekid.com ). His set started exactly the same (this time he had three dholis in Canadian hockey jerseys) and I worried that this was the second time I was spending $40 to see the same three songs in one night. The sound at the venue was horrible. His set did change after a bit. He performed tracks that were especially loved by the locals like “Sadi Gali” and “Aa Ni Kuriyeh.” I get the impression he was talked into it by the promoters. He couldn’t remember the lyrics and a handler had to bring them out on tablets. The dominance of the pre-recorded backing vocals was quite off-putting. He seemed really lazy or forgetful at points and just let the canned vocals play on. I ended up being so frustrated by the sound and the “performance” that I left even before he left the stage. It was 1:47am and allegedly the venue was going to shut down at 2am. It might be impossible to imagine leaving a Lehmber performance early but that is just how sad and compromised the whole thing was. I would love to see him again under different circumstances.
IK
Finally a moment to rest. Anjali and I spent yesterday driving back from Vancouver, BC, rushing to make it to the official first “Anjali and the Kid” show on KBOO. There was a solid 45 minute or so wait at the border, but no hassles. We even managed to throw down a quick Indian buffet in Seattle. Still, the day was one long rush. We made it to KBOO minutes before we were supposed to be on the air. We had no time to go home and pick out music so we had no choice but to play the CDs we purchased over the weekend in Panjabi Town. We played a lot of Lehmber Hussainpuri which was fine since he was both the star attraction of the Vancouver International Bhangra Competition and the after party. I had no idea what level of professionalism and organization to expect from the VIBC but I knew the worst was certainly a possibility.
There was an opening party at Vancouver’s Beats without Borders night. There were two days of free demonstrations in a covered area in downtown Vancouver and then the actual Bhangra competition and the after party. We attended the Beats without Borders party and they were gracious enough to put Portland’s visiting Bhangra DJs on the guest list. Their headliner was allegedly Vancouver’s “biggest Bhangra DJ” DJ Reminisce. He shouted “UNNH” or “1,2” on the mic every few seconds. He pulled every song early and left plenty of awkward silences. He was also the main DJ at the after party so I can only assume he really is Vancouver’s “biggest.” He did have his own Bhangra remix of “Yeah” which had some nice dhol portions.
The first day of free demonstrations got started quite late (of course). There were major sound difficulties. There was a LOUD sound like a snow shovel scraping a driveway every few minutes amplified over the sound system. There were three separate dance performances to Lehmber’s “Das Ja,” each one using the same frequently skipping CD. The MCs were better than at most Indian functions, but the amateurish dancing and frequent mic explosions eventually caused us to leave even though I was hoping for some live singing and dhol performances. We didn’t go back for the second day of free stuff because it seemed like both days were going to be a repeat of the same lineup. We saw some of the local band Signia’s set at Beats Without Borders and they were scheduled to play the second day. They seemed enthusiastic and fun but the singing was sub-par and they were very sloppy.
The day of the actual competition we were running very late. We got there an hour and a half late and missed the first four competing teams. Apparently they weren’t all that good because none of them placed, but we did miss Khalsa Junction who apparently took first place last year. We also missed a cross-cultural battalion of dholis and bagpipers performing together that both Anjali and I would have been stoked to see. The highlight of the night was a Surrey-based group of Bhangra performers. They were older and not a part of the official competition. They had a live dhol player and singer. Very “folk” feel. They were the real deal. The other teams mostly didn’t feature squats or only barely. This group performed for three times as long as the competing teams and they were going from incredible squats to leaps throughout their entire performance. Unfortunately the crowd seemed more excited with the canned hip-hop beats of the teams than the hardcore desi feel of this cultural group. We thought Vancouver’s VIBE were the best team but they actually came in second. The Vancouver UBC Girls team came in first. We had been really impressed the time we had seen them in the past. They were still really good, hard-dancing and energetic, but we felt VIBE was just a notch better. People’s Bhangra from Irvine were very impressive as well, and they placed third. We’d love to have some of these groups perform in Portland but they would need a MUCH bigger stage than is available at any of our venues.
I was curious to see if Lehmber Hussainpuri was going to be playing with a live band or canned backing tracks. I figured he would charge so much to sing that he would be the only live performer. I was half right. He did sing to backing tracks but he had two local live dhol players accompany the backing tracks as well as some of the VIBE dancers. An accapella opening was a real treat and a testament to the power of his voice. The pre-recorded backing tracks were distracting, especially since he often let them carry the tune and only chimed in occasionally. He performed three songs.
After the competition we went to eat a a restaurant that used to be called something along the lines of “Rubina’s Original Tandoori House” but is now called the Red Fort. We had always meant to eat at Rubina’s and had never made it on any of our previous trips. The Red Fort was empty on a Saturday night which was a definite warning sign. The host tried very hard and the aloo gobi was quite good with actual emphasis on the gobi which was an appreciated difference. I regret that we never made it to Rubina’s while they were around. There was a packed Indian Chinese place across the street which we only noticed after dinner. That makes three Indian Chinese places in Vancouver of which I am now aware. Have to check them out on future visits.
The after party was way out of the way down on the water practically on its own pier. The parking lot was gargantuan, and of course they were charging for parking on top of forty some dollar tickets. There was an absolutely enormous line at 11pm that didn’t move very quickly because large groups kept merging ahead of us. Fortunately a benevolent door guy let us in in front of the whole line in order to get our will call tickets. That was probably an hour saved at least. The sound was incredibly muddy and who was on the decks but DJ Reminisce. That guy needs to put down the mic or get a real MC. There were a thousand? or so Panjabis and I was one of a handful of goras. I was also the only guy in a tie. The night was mostly bhangra with a handful of hip-hop songs and absolutely no filmi. Our parties might have ended up very similar except that most Indians in Portland are not Panjabi and they want to hear FILMI, FILMI, FILMI. The sound was so bad it was hard to enjoy even the songs we liked.
We were treated to a cheesy, flashy performance by Vancouver’s own Panjabi singer “Hard-E.” He was cheesy years ago and now his music and shtick are incredibly out of step in an Indian R&B world that now boasts such talents as Raghav and Jay Sean. Amusing nonetheless. “RDB” otherwise known as just Manj since he is the only one living in North America were up next. It was more or less the same show he put on at Berbati’s years ago when he opened for Bally Sagoo. He just DJs. He stops each track and talks for a while. Nothing flows together. The vibe is always stopped cold. He sings over the tracks, which can sound OK, but the weakness of his voice was made quite clear when he attempted to lead a sing-along of “Gur Nalon Ishq Mithai” at the end of his set. The live dholis gave the song its only power. Stick to producing.
Lehmber began his set exactly like at the Competition so I expected a total repeat. He had three dholis this time, all in Canadian hockey jerseys. He actually performed much longer at the after-party but Anjali and I couldn’t even make it until the end of his set. The pre-recorded backing vocals were still really distracting. The sound was still bad. He couldn’t remember the lyrics. I think the promoters asked him to do fusion tracks he probably never remembered recording that happened to be big in Vancouver. There was one house-y one they kept playing at the competition that got the crowd going more than anything else. The house beat has surely infected Vancouver’s Panjabi population as well as everyone else. Eventually someone came out with a tablet with the lyrics to his songs so he could try to remember them. Even then he only partly sang along. It leaves me hungry to see a performer like Jazzy B with a full band. And we missed him by days in Chandigarh!! Arrggh.
So after years and years I finally make it to a Vancouver Bhangra party. Whenever I ask around I am always told that Bhangra parties never happen because everyone knifes each other. Well, they were definitely patting people down at the door and at least one Panjabi in line was happy to see it because he didn’t want any problems at the night. Everyone was chill. And young! The party was 19 and up. Well, watch out Vancouver Panjabis, one of these days you’ll get a chance to see Anjali and the Kid and that will be something else.
Thank you to Sarah (Happy Birthday!) and Wanli for the place to stay and it was nice to see Nomadic Noize, as always. Hopefully next time we’ll make it to your studio.
IK
PS Thank you to everyone who listened and called in to our KBOO show. You made it worth the race back to Portland.
So, I wrote a long post about the Vancouver International Bhangra Competition and then an accidental swipe of the hand and I erased it all.
Oh, well. Here’s their website.
I have to pack. I’ll be back in Portland for our new 4th Sunday KBOO show 7-9pm. You can even listen online.
KBOO
Here we go.
IK
So I just reread the first three trades of Supreme Power and I enjoyed it a lot more than the first read through. More there than I caught the first time around. Very interesting re-imagining of DC’s Justice League characters based on an old set of Marvel analogues. I’m curious to see where it’s going to go from here.