Ringtone Jam

I am a big fan of music. All kinds of music.

My day doesn't feel complete without it.

It helps me work better and always puts me in the right mood.

When people ask me about what kind of music I like listening to, I never really have an answer.

Because I like almost everything.

And can listen to just about anything depending on my mood.

But have you ever felt like the music at a certain point in time was so good that nothing could top it?

And then something does.

It's pretty amazing when you think about how there are an infinite number of sounds that can be created and that we will always have new music.

And how great is that?

I always wished I could contribute to that.

But I can't play any instrument besides the keyboard (and that too just happy birthday) and a harmonium (a keyboard with a fan) and I always wish I could learn to play a new instrument.

I've always wanted to learn the saxophone though while breathing during yoga I figured out that I probably don't have the lung capacity for it.

Or maybe I could play something random like a theremin.

No keys. Just pure luck is all I need.

Or how cool would it be if I got myself one of those finger drum pads (that is what they're called right?).

My neighbours would hate me but I would also be the coolest person I know.

Check out this guy, he just made the iPhone ringtone cool.

It will make you want to Move like Jagger.

Or maybe that's just me.

Video by Metrognome.

More music available on iTunes.

Magic

One of my all-time favourite bands, Coldplay just released their new single, Magic.

And if you were to ask me
After all that we've been through
Still believe in magic
Oh yes I do
Oh yes I do
Yes I do
Oh yes I do
Of course I do


Tangent: Did you notice the woman in the video is Sayuri from Memoirs of a Geisha.

Milktape

Remember when people made mixtapes?

When I was a child, my cousin would make mixtapes for me.
And he wouldn't bother to write the names of the songs on the back.
So my sister and I would play every song and guess the titles.
And how did we do that?
By listening to a song over and over again and writing whatever words we heard the most number of times.
And you'd be surprised - more than half our mixtape had the right song titles.
How brilliant were we?

After a point we graduated to making mixes on CDs.
I have a collection of CDs made by me and gifted by my exs.
And they were the best.

You could tell so much about a person from the kind of mix they made.

And now with everything on your iPod or even just a USB, mixtapes and even CDs have become a thing of the past.
Is it time to put it in the Vintage category already?

Kids these days don't know what a tape is.
And I love not explaining it to them and just keeping them guessing.
I'm a mean jellybean sometimes.

But how cool is this?

It's called Milktape.

It's Mac and PC compatible

128 MB (holds 15 songs average) because everything should be handpicked

You can drag and drop from any folder or iTunes

Personalize each tape. Write on the blank cover and stickers

$21 with shipping

A fun weekend(er)

Over the weekend, I travelled to Pune and finally went for NH7 Weekender after 3 years of planning and then just sitting in Bombay and watching TV instead.

Friends who had been before were comparing it to the previous weekenders and saying how they were better in some ways. But since I had nothing to compare it to [just how I don't read the book and just watch the movie], I had a great time.

I watched many bands play over the 2 days that I was there.
My favourites were Nucleya and Chase & Status.

But the stand out performance of the weekend for me was undoubtedly that of Nischay Parekh.
His music sort of reminded you of John Mayer's.
I could've listened to it all day [especially song #2, #3 & #10]

And the drummer in his band was cute.

Being there felt like I had floated off into a bubble for 2 days.

The music was great.

The weather wasn't.

I felt like a part of me was melting with every passing minute.

The vibe was good too.
And everyone was trying to be a hippie.
It was like the Indian version of Coachella.
I was amused.

I'd go again next year.

What does the fox say?

via

Have you ever wondered about what sound the fox makes?

Well, you don't need to anymore because Ylvis has figured it out for you.
And there seem to be a whole bunch of sounds,
Which vary probably due to the changing moods of the fox?

As ridiculous as this song is, it's just so catchy.
If I listen to it once I know I'm going to sing it all day.

This way I end up brushing up on all the animal sounds.
And also learn about how the fox communicates with the ho-o-o-o-orse in mo-o-o-o-orse.

I have to say - This is gold!

Twerk it out

Did you watch the VMA's yesterday?

Did you remember anything besides Miley Cyrus doing whatever it is that she was doing?

Well, she crawled out of a bear.
She stuck her tongue out and her tongue was unusually long. Which was just disturbing in itself.
She made the strangest hairstyle ever. Were they bear ears?
Because she danced with bears in a bear onesie.
And even the bear on the onesie was sticking his tongue out.
It was like Inception - but with tongues.

She then ripped the bear onesie and revealed her matching latex bra and panty outfit.
And the worst part hadn't even started.

She began twerking.

Her performance was pretty tongue in cheek.

While her face wasn't.

Jay Z and Miley via Laughing Squid

Wait, there's more.
She then wore a foam hand - the kind you see at sporting events like baseball/ basketball games.
Or in this case at the VMA's so Miley could touch herself and Robin Thicke.

It was stranger than strange.
But that sort of is what the VMA's is all about.

I'm not sure about whether everyone was disturbed by it because of her age or because of her actions.

I just found it funny.

It's one of those things people do for a quick 15 minutes of fame.
Which makes you wonder why Miley did it.
I suppose this was just Hannah Montana's coming out party.
Because if I called it her Debutante or Cotillion, it would just sound wrong.

It's time Miley does her version of Britney Spears' I'm not a girl, not yet a woman.
Because it seems like she's currently twerking in limbo.

Wah Gwaan

Wah Gwaan?

Well, nothing much.

I'm just having one of those days where I want to speak like a Jamaican all day.

Do you ever feel like that?

I can't really speak Patois but I do my own version of it.

And then I came across this song called Ragamuffin by Selah Sue.

She seems to be my sister from another blister.

Is she the Dawta of a Jamaican?

No maan.

She frah Belgium.

Who would've thought?

Anything Makers

I am a big fan of creative people - musicians, writers, artists.
I call them Anything Makers.

Those who see beauty in everything.
And those who create it.

Here's an amazing video that I came across while browsing yesterday.

What can I say?
It made my day.

If you love stop motion, papercrafts and happy music you'll love it too.

It's a music video for Katachi - a song by Shugo Tokumaru.
And if you love the song as much as I do, you can buy it here for just $0.99.

Beardy Men

I feel like I've been dreaming.

Or just been living in my dreams.

via Paris versus New York

I watched Karsh Kale live yet again at the Vero Moda party that they do every month. 

I may come across as a stalker/ groupie/ something else that sounds wrong but I am just a true fan of his music and ofcourse his beardy look that makes him ooze with handsomeness.

And speaking of beards, I also watched Beardyman at the Superdry store launch party.

Beardyman aka Darren Foreman is the beatboxing extraordinaire from the UK and I was lucky enough to win tickets to this party which happened to be in a mall parking lot converted into something like a nightclub.

How randomly awesome does that sound?

And our drinks were glowing. It almost felt like a scene from Life of Pi but the bioluminescence was actually just UV lights.

Almost stalker-like photography by me.

So, clearly I had more than a reason to be floating in a happy bubble that was being carried around by great weather all week.

Thank God for Beardy Men!

La la la la la

I was woken up this morning by my dear sister to confirm and fully understand the lyrics of a Bollywood item number while I was in pirate mode.*

My sister, Aku loves to sing and dance at any time of the day. She could be eating breakfast, watching TV or even at work and is completely oblivious to whatever's happening around her while she's performing.

She has done such things like pirouette into a room singing a tacky deodorant jingle.

But today she decided to wake me up to ask me why Katrina Kaif sings:

Aayi Chikni chameli

Something some-eli

Kawwa chadha ke aayi.

So that's what she's been singing for the past few months.

And all of a sudden today she decided to ask me why gyrating Katrina helped a crow climb up - which is what I'm guessing Kawwa chadha ke aayi means.

I burst out laughing and then this is how our conversation went:

Me: It's not Kawwa. It's Mahua.

Aku: Isn't Mahua a flower?

Me (with a lot of confidence): No silly, it's a honey flavoured alcohol (whatever that is).

Aku: Oh ok.

Me: How does Kawwa chadha ke aayi make any sense? Especially when she's making a drinking action.

Shes actually singing Pawwa (quarter) chadha ke aayi.

Clearly my Hindi isn't very good.

And neither are my listening skills.

After all I am known to sing my own lyrics all the time.

In the past I have confidently sung:

Don't Cry for me Argentina.

The truth is I never loved (left) you.

Then there were times when I was channeling my inner Columbus and sang:

I believe I've found America (a miracle) in you.

And then ofcourse there was Alane.
Here I just sang some crap through the entire song.

I'm sure Madonna, Michael Learns to Rock and Wes wouldn't be too happy about that.
I think i should just stick to singing la la la la la when I don't know the words.

* Every morning for about an hour after I wake up I only open one eye at a time because both eyes is just too hard. I check my emails and read the enwspaper in this half awake-half asleep state that makes me resemble a pirate.

Informer

Do you remember this song from the 90s called Informer?
It was the shizzle when I was 7.
I heard it in my dance class and obviously sang along very confidently.

And then recently I heard it again and almost sang along and then stopped myself and said Whaaaat?
What was I singing?
It was some sort of gibberish I was singing with a Jamaican accent for some reason besides the part that goes

Listen to me ya better listen for me now

Listen to me ya better listen for me now

And I even had a cool shoulder move to go with it.
It was awesome!

Was I the only one?

All these years I assumed I was making up lyrics because I was singing in another language.
And then I realised that it was a Canadian white guy singing in English.

Silence!

The hardest thing for me to do in life is be silent.

I am not the best listener and I always have too much to say.

So trying Vipassana is a plan I had to throw out of the window.

People say it helps with self growth so I always thought maybe I should give it a try.

Plus it may help if I ever get stranded on an island like Tom Hanks in Cast Away without a Wilson.

I just think it's not for me.

But, I've always wondered what some silence in my life would be like.

And last week, I experienced it twice.

Part 1

I went for the screening of an old French film.

All the French I know is from about 3 French songs and about 10 more words.

But, it didn't matter since this was a silent film.

I walked in about 10 minutes late which sort of added to the confusion.

The film was called Three Ages.

It was a comedy film about a man trying hard to win over the heart of a woman which is shown over 3 ages - the stone age, ancient Rome and the 20's which ended up looking like a mash up of the Flintstones, Ben Hur and the Artist.

What made it interesting was that a French jazz band called Ozma was playing the background score for the film. Live!

It was a bit strange but good strange.

It ended with the good guy finally winning the heart of the woman. 

Love. Good winning over evil. Music. 

What's not to like?

Everyone went home pleased with themselves and with life in general.

Movies like this make me believe in happy endings.

Part 2

[Don't laugh].

I went to a silent disco.

It was out of sheer curiosity.

I was more than excited to experience this but unfortunately it turned out to be a little disappointing.

Now you may wonder what kind of a nutjob goes for a silent disco. And what is a silent disco?

Well, a silent disco is one where the DJ streams the music straight to your wireless headphones.

The point of this is:

1. So there can be more than 1 DJ at a time and you can choose which one you want to tune into so everyone is dancing to different music at the same time.

2. To look like a complete moron to those who don't have headphones on.

To me all these reasons sounded good enough to go and give it a try.

I thought this could only be fun or funny so what have I got to lose?

The silent disco that I went to was in an open ground so anyone could walk in and enjoy it.

It was at an Indo-German event in the city. They had covered the ground with beautiful mini pavilions for their different events and you just didn't feel like you were in the middle of Bombay.

Unfortunately, in our case, 

- there was only one dj - Ada who took a while to start playing the fun music.

- and the reception on the headphones wasn't perfect so I'd keep reseting it and had moments where I was listening to cricket match commentary, Gotye, Coldplay and Munni badnaam hui on the radio.

We even got 3d glasses to enjoy the visuals created by B.L.O.T. 

Just to make sure we looked as ridiculous as possible if we didn't already look funny enough dancing with headphones on.

For some reason I felt like one of those people who were trying to contact aliens by using various devices.

EEE TTTT!

Not all who wander are lost

After a month of many short trips, I wasn't yet done.

Last weekend I took off with some friends for the Eristoff Invasion Festival in Pune to watch David Guetta.
This is how I packed my little bag:
Toothbrush  ✓
Extra tshirts ✓
Socks ✓
Torch that doubles as an eraser ✓
You never know when you'll need to erase in the dark. Better to always be prepared.

And this is how my trip was...
A lot happened. Everything that could've gone wrong went wrong but there was still a lot to be happy about. Everyone I went with wasn't too kicked about Guetta but I had a great time anyway. 

All the excitement had made me wake up every hour the previous night.

I had a quick fruity breakfast and left home sleepy.

Got some Peppy to pep me up on the way.

Saw many many hoardings for a wax museum in Lonavla. True story.

Had lunch right next to the Osho Ashram. 

(Quick question: Does anyone know why the Osho people wear Maroon?)

And then I saw a big monkey but missed the peacock.

My curiosity was making me want to jump over the fence but the barbed wire stopped me.

Had a big lunch.

Reached the concert venue late.

Missed watching the very goodlooking (and talented) Sahej Bakshi. See his Google image.

My friends realised they had tickets for the concert in Delhi.

They managed to sort it. They must have a lot of good karma.

We had Eristoff cocktails (since they were sponsoring the show).

I was surrounded by teenagers.

I got sick. It wasn't the Eristoff. Maybe it was the teenagers.

And then I was miraculously ok.

David Guetta performed.

At one point he took his jacket off and men started cheering.

I have yet to understand Indian men.

And then Akon came out of nowhere.

He had a beer and disappeared.

And then he was back for the last song.

This is when David Guetta said that he wanted to ask Akon a question. 

I forgot what it was now but it wasn't "Will you be my Chammak Challo" as predicted by one of my friends.

Next on the agenda: A Visit to the Celebrity Wax Museum in Lonavla. Because why visit London?

Follow your dreams

You know how our parents, teachers and other older people we're supposed to listen to always said follow your dreams. Well, last weekend I decided to finally take their advice and did just that.

I followed my dream all the way to Nasik.

And my dream was called Karsh Kale.

Now, I may sound like a stalker to you but I am just another ardent fan.

I somehow never made it to any of his gigs.

When I planned to go for the Ladakh Confluence in 2010, it got cancelled (and I still haven't got my refund).

And when I wanted to go for NH7 Weekender in 2011, my cousin decided to get married on the same weekend.

And even though he played at Blue Frog a million times, that didn't happen either.

So, I took some advice again and decided to try and try until I succeeded.

I wanted to test my luck and entered a lucky draw on Mumbaiboss.com. I thought if I won it would be a true sign that I was meant to be there. Since my life is not a movie, I didn't win. And since I was too desperate to go I decided to buy my ticket online and make the trip anyway.

I went with an equally enthusiastic group of people which made it even more fun.

That day, I woke up even before my alarm rang which is a true indication of my level of excitement.

We left Bombay at about 9 am and drove down to Nasik for the festival at York Vineyards.

I really dislike long drives and in the past have been drugged by friends (with anti-nausea tablets that also happen to put you to sleep) who want to avoid having to listen to me complain during the journey.

But this time no such thing happened. I enjoyed the drive and it didn't even feel like it was a long one.

My friend, Purva and I were already dreaming about Karsh who we fondly called Kersh (roll your r when you say it) since that's what some people call him. While we discussed what a special person he was with his musical talent coupled with his drop dead good looks, the boys in the car kept smiling and saying 'it's the beard'.

In the middle of this interesting discussion about what percentage of our love for Karsh had anything to do with his beard, we stopped at a Dhaba for lunch. The Dhaba was called Old Prabhu ka Dhaba and is about 20 minutes away from Nasik close to the Samsung factory that I don't remember ever seeing.

Now one of my pet peeves is people touching food with their hands while making it, especially cakes and other desserts which I like to believe come straight out a machine, virginal and pretty looking.

So when we were on our way to the dhaba, I began discussing how while I love watching shows like Ultimate Cake off and Fabulous Cakes on TV, this pet peeve of mine sort of makes it hard for me to watch such shows. This information only won me strange girl points and ten minutes later helped us decide where I'd be seated at the Dhaba i.e. not facing the open kitchen.

After a scrumptious meal, we headed towards York Vineyards which happens to be just a minute away from Sula Vineyards. We got lost a couple of times and everytime we asked a man for directions he either asked us "what are you doing here?" like we were going the wrong way on purpose or he'd point his hand to the right like our destination was just across the street. Clearly the people of Nasik think we're stupid.

We reached Nasik by the middle of the afternoon and began our tour of the vineyard. While the owner of the vineyard showed everyone around (nice touch) and explained how everything works, I decided to pose next to the wine barrels (what else can I call it?) and take some pictures.

We then headed to the Tasting Room which overlooked the lawn where the performances would be, beyond which was the vineyard bordered by the lake.

We tasted the White, Rosé and the Red wines which were fairly good but I decided to skip my wine appreciation shenanigans since I couldn't pretend to have the knowledge of a sommelier and was drinking out of a plastic cup.

After our wine tasting we headed down to the lawn and began watching the performances.

Nasik had great weather and the lawn had 0 insects and since not too many people had turned up, it was just perfect for everyone to sit out on the grass and enjoy the performances while sipping their wine.

Alisha Pais opened the show. She had a nice powerful voice but I don't remember her singing any original songs.

She was followed by Something Relevant - a very large band. They have individual musical talent but together end up singing slightly wannabe cool lyrics (about women and drugs) to a somewhat Jamaican tune. This was when Purva and I decided to hop into a wooden barrel and stomp on some grapes and kill time.

Here's a question: Do they ever serve the wine made by women stomping on grapes?

Getting back to the gig... then came Mr. Woodnote and Eva Lazarus. Their music was extremely catchy. Loved it. Mr. Woodnote seemed to have more music in him than the whole Something Relevant family.

By now Purva and I had enjoyed a bottle of Rosé that we thought was made in the machine (or however it's made) since according to us, it didn't smell like feet.

Then came 2 other acts - Ayush Shrestha and someone who called himself Tek.

They were followed by Shri of Shrilektric. Now that's what you call true musical talent.

Shri plays this instrument that he has made by himself. It looks like a guitar. He sometimes plays it like a violin/cello with a bow and sometimes he manages to get a drum-like sound out of it. It was original, catchy and entertaining and made going all the way to Nasik worth it. And when I made him take several pictures till we got a good one, he was just so kind about it. 100 points for Shri.

Being in such a good mood, I decided to treat myself to a Vadilal's Raspberry Dolly which is when for a short while I probably looked like Dita Von Teese or like I had just eaten paan.

And a pint of White wine later Karsh finally arrived.

He played the drums, tabla, some other instrument and even sang. He is a self taught musical genius and knows just how to create the perfect kind of fusion music. Now as obsessed as I may seem with him, he had much bigger male fans standing next to me ready to jump onto the stage.

To be honest I may have enjoyed Shri's music a little more that day. The Dholak just makes you want to dance.

But, I left Nasik lovestruck.

Karsh's music + voice + gentlemanly demeanor + dimples + the beard (Yes, it plays a major role) is something you just can't ignore. He makes your heart just drop to your feet.

Fact: He looks even better than his Google image.

So, here's something to sum up everything - even though I'm not quite sure about what exactly it means.

As one of the many male fans of Karsh said... "Karsh Bhai, You are within it".

If you're reading this post on your mobile phone, you've probably missed the first few paragraphs so read it on your computer.