Strictly Blues festival
Mumbai gets its first blues festival. Stage 1 presents The Strictly Blues festival, an annual festival of pure, unadulterated blues featuring Dana Gillespie & The London Blues Band and the Dino Baptista Trio from the UK, Julien Brunetaud and The JB Boogie Band from France and America Zach Prather.
Joss, Kalaghoda Rampart Row, 7pm, February 19, 2005.
-Time Out Mumbai
While there is an increased number of concerts and live music events happening across the city, this one in recent past tops my list.
An early affair, the music started by 7:45pm and went on till close to midnight. There was no seating (read people swinging and dancing), gorgeous starters doing the rounds, and a full bar. Mumbai’s hunger for nights like this was evident in the packed hall. People were stomping to the music till those a floor below feared the ceiling would come down. We want more events like this.
Is anyone listing?
Filed under: China, Fashion, Hong Kong, Transport, culture, popular culture
I love Hong Kong. The energy the city thrives on blew me apart. Everything works. Underground metro, walkway with escalators, trams, cars, ferries, mini busses and busses. It’s efficient, clean and really busy. Inhabitants speak of tales of fatigue and high-income growth.
Best travel time: First fortnight of the lunar New Year (only applies to singles). Meet all the married people you can and wish them ‘Gong xi fa cai’. You will be blessed with fat red pockets of money!
Strange local customs: Mink coats and thigh high boots in winter. Min temperature 15 degree Celsius.
There are numerous posts on Rang De Basanti doing the web sphere. This is not a synopsis/review of the movie. In my opinion the movie was mediocre at best.
I met someone from the production team of UTV and was stunned by what he had to say. The movie has been the highest grossing film in Bollywood history. It is competing with Hollywood Oscar nominators in its collection figures (INR 228 million in the first four days). The movie has stormed markets like Australia and UK. They have received emails from people all over the world recounting stories of how the movie changed them, they want to get involved in national movements and make the world a better place.
Melodramatic. But so was the movie. A bunch of overgrown 20 somethings leading a movement of anarchy: this getting validated by the conservative millions of the Indian population. I am sure Ronnie didn’t expect this, nor did Rakesh Omprakash Mehra.
Leads us to the million-dollar question. What makes people tic?
Planning an evening out on the town with friends invariably leads to countless arguments about where to go. My friends are a diverse lot, so forming a consensus is always hard.
One group loves going to upscale, mainstream venues like Insomnia. They like meeting the same people every weekend, and get down to ‘Kajra Re’ even if its played seven times a night. The point is simple: “They are tired after work and are looking to unwind, so want to go to a place where they know the people and the music is familiar.” Fair enough.
The other group has different, greater expectations from an evening out. No bar or club in Mumbai satisfies them fully, because the music they love consists of non-commercial music – something unavailable in Mumbai’s nightlife venues. This group loves to explore, want to feel new things, meet new people, and feel constricted by following the same routine every weekend.
Who is right? Or is anyone right? I love “Kajra Re”, but I love new sounds too. I like meeting my old mates but also love meeting new people while partying.
Walter Benjamin (a sociological and cultural critic), in The Arcades Project argues that the masses cannot be moved to a higher art. They can only understand or appreciate the one closest to them. The trouble lies in finding Art that strikes a balance: high, but not too high.
For simple commercial reasons, nightclubs in Mumbai cater to what he calls-the working class (Group A) who by virtue of their numbers crowd out the second, the bourgeoisie (Group B) who are only a niche. Nightclubs employ DJs who cater to the masses, by creating standard music, lifting ideas and sounds from an existing library and repackaging in familiar garb. DJs seem wary of experimenting and creating new, bold sounds.
As exciting as the second path is, Benjamin’s argument is simple: The artist needs to make his/her audience travel the path of “high art”. The artist needs to walk with them at every step.
The current reality in Mumbai has led to stagnation of society, and the second is a dream, which does not look likely to come true.
