Pentagram

Pentagram is a band that consists of Vishal, Randolph, Papal and Shiraz. It's a name that has faithfully stuck with the nation’s 90’s child. The Alternative act from Bombay began, like most others, as an Indian adaptation of bands like Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains, but managed to push through newer styles, while still managing to retain the energy and flavor that they started with. Energy, for one, has a lot to do with the reason why they’re such an effective live act to date.

“You can tell at the beginning of a show how it’s going to go from there,” says Vishal Dadlani, crowd-puller and singer of Pentagram as they wind down ‘Think Of Me,’ from their 2002 album, ‘Up.’ “This seems to be going well!” The crowd at CounterCulture is readily indicating just how well it’s going, screaming, singing louder and jumping higher- just the sort of treatment fit for legends. In our English indie music scene, they’ve earned that title.

Vishal is celebrating his birthday and the crowd sings for him. “Now get your motherfucking 

birthday hands in the air,” he says and the crowd gets into it. The band slips into ‘This Is For My People.’ The track from the 2007 album ‘It’s OK, Its All Good,’ seems to mark a period in Pentagram’s growth when, having found their optimal sound, they could focus on catchy material tailored for mass absorption.

On ‘Nocturne,’ from their fourth album 'Bloodywood,' some traits stick out to help understand the music: Dadlani’s melodies are clear and his lyrics audible, unlike most of his counterparts in the country; Randolph’s guitar riffs are powerful and concise with just the right amount of repetition. On the anthemic ‘Voice,’ the microphone is handed around the crowd and everyone gets a chance to voice their song. “There are words that must be said and there are words that must be heard and that they’re not is really quite absurd.”

While the samples and synthesizer keep the guitar-centric material from stagnating, a major aspect of the show is just Dadlani’s stage presence and tireless enthusiasm. Built like a viking, when he jumps on the stage the whole crowd seems to feel compelled to follow. With appealing melodies and the instrumental output of a tight, metal band, Pentagram is easy to listen to and heavy without sounding like rigid noise. “Am I still feeding on the ignorance of others? Am I better than a four legged animal or is it the other way around?” The industrial levels of distortion, the electronic garnishing and some of the images in the words often recreate an experience not too far from Nine Inch Nails. “What I’ve got inside me, you’ve got too.”

On ‘Mental Zero,’ the crowd starts to lose their footing due to the neo-gypsy dance beat staggering over a crunchy but minimal guitar riff, and pretty soon the whole room’s doing the mental zero dance.

“Was anyone in this room born in 1993?” 

A young man named Hari gets onstage 

“He was born on the same year that we started playing.” 

We pause a moment to take this in. The applause breaks in again with genuine appreciation. 

Pentagram have come such a long way that it actually shows.

Sharik Learned to Play Jazz

Sharik Hasan

What goes into the making of a world-class musician? Bangalorean-turned-New Yorker, Sharik Hasan’s far-flung journey gives us a glimpse at the answer.

Sharik was three when he moved to Bangalore from Germany. At the age of five he started learning western classical piano and by ten was also being trained in the sitar. By fifteen, he’d gotten fed up with classes and decided to give music a break, but while looking into Colleges to pursue his majors in Math and English, he made sure to pick one that had a good music conservatory.

One day, in his hostel in Ohio, Sharik heard someone playing an extraordinary piece on the piano. Eager to learn the name of the tune and find its sheet music, he was puzzled to hear that it had been an improvisation- “just messing around.” The mystery prophet would impart unto Sharik his first jazz lessons and nothing would be the same for him again. By his 3^rd year, confused, he decided to take a semester off to spend some time in Bangalore.

The year was 2005 and Sharik teamed up with Prakash on Bass and Tillu on Drums to form ‘SoundOkHorn.’ Meanwhile, a rejected Visa extended his stay in Bangalore, giving him a chance to play at all the new bars that were sprouting up in the city. The academic setback turned into an opportunity to perform in front of crowds. “Those were great times and brought me confidence,” Sharik reminisces. “I got paid too. Pretty cool!”

Though Sharik managed to go back and complete his course, the bite from the music bug was starting to take effect. Soon after, while holidaying in Paris, his mother hooked him up with an audition at Bill Evans’ Piano Academy, and he made the cut. “Paris was filled with countless intimate spaces to play at,” says Sharik. “It was a good intermediate point between India, where there was nobody and U.S., where I was nobody.”

The next step was to surround himself with a competitive community of aspiring youngsters. New York, saturated with great artists, was the ultimate goal. He managed to be accepted at the Manhattan School of Music towards an extremely rigorous program. He received training not just in theory and performance, but also got a chance at teaching undergrads. It was also here that he started tapping into his Indian roots and understanding the importance of an identity in producing something different.

A world away, on a balcony in Indira Nagar, a few hundred meters from Take-5, where he played his first gig, Sharik recalls when he and a friend broke into a Dave Brubeck concert by sneaking in through the vent. “It was a humbling experience to live in the sort of place where you could walk into a bar and rub shoulders with the giants. The more I played I could see the effect music has on people’s lives.”

Today, the Sharik Hasan New York Quartet travels the world as cultural ambassadors, entertaining every sort of crowd- “making the world a smaller place.”