Ode To The Blues Festival at Counter Culture

Warren Mendonsa of Blackstrat Blues

Arjun Chandran of The Hoodoo Gas

On June 8th, a month late, Counter Culture celebrated the 102nd birth anniversary of Robert Johnson. This year also marks seventy-five years since the devil and his hounds finally caught up with the 27-year-old Delta-Bluesman. The makeovers in the music and its culture since the 1930s had been emphasized with colored chalk in acid-swirl lettering, welcoming folks in to the Ode to the Blues Festival- an evening of contemporary Blues.

Overdrive Trio played as quartet and then quintet

First up was Overdrive Trio from Mumbai. “A very good evening to all of you. This first one’s called ‘You’ve Gotta be tripping.’” If Sunny Dsouza sounded heavily influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, he accomplished the tremendous feat of actually pulling that off, bleeding notes dry. The talented guest, 15-year-old Kush Upadhyay, provided contrast with his shriller guitar tone and raw, psychedelic feel. Stepping things up by a notch, they invited the wonderfully virtuoso Warren Mendonsa. The remainder of the set would assume a continuum of solos, each outdoing the last like an intoxicated debate. 

The Chronic Blues Circus: Peter Isaac on saxophone, Ayushi Karnik and Owen Bosen to Peter's right and Sudhakar behind the drums. 

Miriam plays the harp while Rev. Barker simulates Claptonesque riffs

Next up was Bangalore’s longstanding Chronic Blues Circus with a troupe large enough to fill up their tent- five on guitars and one each on drums and keyboard. The Ringmaster, who formed the band over 20 years ago, Peter Isaac, started things off with his harmonica as his extended lineup found bearing and harmony within the set of originals. On “Any Man,” Peter switched to the saxophone as Miriam sang: “We’re going to take you for a ride.” Between the youngest and the oldest member in the band was a gap of some 40 years. The styles and tricks the elders had learnt from Jimi Hendrix or Allman Brothers wound their way from the likes of B.B. King or Muddy Waters. The source lay further back in the age of Skip James and Robert Johnson.

The Hoodoo Gas

The Hoodoo Gas pressed the fast-forward with Taj Mahal’s groovy ‘Leaving Trunk.’ Ananth Menon sang and maintained a spirited lead as Vasudev Prabhu nailed the blues harp licks. 

On ‘Malted Milk,’ Arjun Chandran’s loaded slide guitar riffs cranked up the intensity of the song’s distress. Talking out of their heads and getting the dance out of the crowd with tight drums and bass, they struck out as a well-rounded act. Later, Bassist Snehal Pinto and Drummer Deepak Raghu lay down the landscape for Mendonsa as he swept through with the emotional ebbs and flows of his cinematic blues. When Ananth and Arjun rejoined the stage the three Guitarists looked like a relay team, taking turns to support with rhythm before unleashing into solos. 

Monica Heldal

A mellow Dan Auerbach (in style)

The last featured act before the loose jams began was Monica Heldal from Norway. For a fitting tribute to the mutation of a wooden box into a soul-rousing jukebox, it was about time for an acoustic set. A mellow adaptation of Dan Auerbach backed the 21-year-old with the ambient weeping of his electric guitar. However, it was Heldal’s spotless finger picking on a crystal clear acoustic guitar that provided most of the soundscape. 

On Big Bill Broonzy’s “Banker’s Blues,” Heldal sang sweetly, “If you’ve got money in the bank, don’t let your woman draw it out, ‘cause she’ll take all your money and then throw you out.” On Lightning Slim’s “Nothing but The Devil,” the tendency in the audience was to sit down in front of the stage and stare in amusement as gritty takes from a tormented mind came tumbling out of the nymph-like ‘Daughter of the Everglades.’

The Blues is still young 

Whether boastful or morose, the Blues continues to celebrate a passionate inner energy breaking out of an oppressive mood. 56-year-old Owen Bosen says he started playing the bass after a 20-year hiatus when the Circus revived the blues for him. 18-year-old Aayushi Karnik who featured as guest guitarist with the Circus says, “I used to watch a lot of Tom and Jerry when I was a kid and used to try following the trumpet parts on my guitar.”

The Night continued well past 1o'clock, which is a big thing for Bangalore. There were more exciting jams and mashups going on even as we left, so we had to miss all of that. 

Voodoo by the Blackstrat Hoodoo

Good music can make this happen.

All images (except the ones with the 'getlive') by Abhimanyu Ghoshal

the exceptions were appropriated from CounterCulture

SAM Faculty Band at Windmills Craftwork

Recently, a super group of exceptional musicians leading different bands were brought into the country by the Swarnabhoomi Academy as faculty and later to tour a few cities with a performance. In Bangalore, they found themselves entertaining the Jazz theatre at Windmills Craftworks.

The line up consists of Jake Hertzog on guitar, Dario Boente on keyboard, Andres Rormistrovsky on bass and Jovol “bam bam” Bell on drums. From the start, they each establish the highest mastery over their respective instruments. Even when they get unruly and loud, it’s a trained unruliness with a perfect coating of translucent noise such that it never intrudes. A keyboard solo leads to a guitar solo that’s followed by a drum solo. The claps halt when the drum solo picks up again from where it seemed to have ended.

“Wow, I see a full house. Thank you for having made it. We have a lot of surprises lined up for you,” says Boente. Everyone in the band except Bell have their eyes peeled on sheet music as they run through the theme melody. Bell, though confirmed to be human, is what you would imagine from a groove machine, switching styles and moods with amazing dexterity and ease. On ‘Suite No. 2,’ Hertzog stuns everyone with a show of remarkable virtuosity. The song ends with a swelling of sound and peaks with fanfare, but its lost on the crowd who are at this instant lost to their tables. Hertzog’s ‘Common Ground’ is a saccharine soft rock piece, withdrawn like a background score, which they carry through with such perfection that you couldn’t help but wonder at how powerful is elevator music.

It’s finally time to call the special guest on stage, Jordan’s musical Ambassadress, Farah Siraj. The band swiftly alters its style to support a Middle Eastern tune, electric guitar gets replaced by a Spanish guitar and drums turning minimal, while Farah sings with gesture and sway to complement her song. She now gets to work on the audience by splitting them down the middle into two groups and teaching each a variation of a flamenco clap. When both groups are ready she gets them clapping in sync and they love it. “In Spain, when we like something, we say ‘ole,’” and the crowd shouts in delight, “Ole!” With all attention focused on her, Farah sings ‘Laila,’ her popular revival of an old Arabic piece, accompanied by Andres on Bass. It’s an almost devotional love song whose words translate “If I had one night left on Earth, I’d spend it with you.”

The band steps back in with an instrumental piece to shake up the softened house, Hertzog’s “Gloria,” a bi-polar track that picks up with a rocky riff before it dissolves into a soft jazz reverie. Hertzog accompanies Farah on Ray Charles’ ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ before everyone steps in for another of Farah’s originals, a song about a gypsy. The great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins describes jazz as an improvisational umbrella sheltering all forms of music, an adaptable grammar worthy of a truly universal language. By the end of the night, time has slipped pleasantly away leaving the mind brimming with a world full of wordless ideas.

All Photos by Hari Adivarekar

Isaac Delusion, Opus

 

Isaac Delusion is a word play between gravity-defying music and the man who discovered why apples fall. This band of present day troubadours from Paris that play ultra-chill, indie electro-pop subtly infused into the woodland haunt of the folk song. “You could say it’s a mix between Loic’s folk-rock influences and my hip-hop and electronic influences,” says Jules Pacotte, who plays “the machines.” He and Loic Fleury (singer, guitarist) started off as a duo before recruiting Nicolas Bourrigan on bass and Bastien Dodard on keyboard and guitar. Brought in for a nationwide tour, courtesy of Alliance Francaise, the Bangalore stop landed them at Opus for an evening attended largely by French students and expats.

On ‘Transistors,’ a warm and spacey organ with diving pitch modulations and the chopped-up vocal loops of a soft-voiced woman continue over a laid-back drumbeat. The overwhelming quality is that of a harmony between the personal and the impersonal, where intimate impressions are molded into dance beats and pop refrains. “Just like our minds keep throwing signals, our heads like transistors, keep on receiving, yeah.”

Isaac Delusion is the latest in a new wave of French bands that prefer to write their lyrics in English. Cultural protection laws in France limit non-French content so locals find themselves competing for airtime with established International acts. Despite this, the Internet generation has gradually globalized its music to reach out to the expanding English-speaking realm. The band just completed a tour of Europe and America, which was received well. “We’ve come to India hoping to see a lot of colors and to experience spirituality,” says Fleury in his thick accent, none of which makes it through to his songs.

The draw between styles likens their music to hybrid acts such as MGMT and The Beta Band. However, what clearly gives them their uniqueness is Fleury’s impeccable, high register singing voice, influenced by Jeff Buckley and Patrick Watson. A synth loop runs a minor key on ‘Supernova.’ The moodiness seeps into the vocals, causing strains akin to the style of Thom Yorke, though with the inclusion of a funky bass line over an even beat, the song treads further than Radiohead would in balancing gloom with dance. “You look at me with your electric eyes and I see a supernova in the sky.”

‘Land of Gold,’ is a more intrepid piece exploring stronger images over soulful folk blues with echoing guitars and a snappy bass. "Begging for a drop of water when I saw this strange man in his fancy shoes… he’ll save you from a painful debt until you have to pay the bill… never shake the devil's hand." Their Midnight Sun and Early Morning E.P.s were released under the French label Cracki Records. A lot of the songs played at Opus were unreleased tracks from an upcoming album. The catchy tunes and friendly beats caught the crowd’s adoration. “In France everyone is dancing,” says Pacotte, when asked about the dining audience. When a strong chorus cheered for ‘one more/encore’ the band conceded to play the extra song, an up-tempo afro-beat piece that left the rest of the night with anticipation.  

Dualist Inquiry

Dualist Inquiry recently played at Counter Culture, as part of the recently released album Doppelganger’s promo tour. “The gigs in Chennai and Bombay were mad. There were long lines waiting to get in,” said the singular entity, Sahej Bakshi, standing by the counter where CDs and related merchandize were being sold. It soon appeared the buzz is just as hot here in Bangalore. More than the average number turned up who would travel to Whitefield and spend Rs.1,000 to support an indie act.

To begin with, the dark room lit by the visuals, had a third of the turn out accepting an invitation to stand around in front. They stood as though slightly stunned by the DJ in a penguin t—shirt who would leave his sequencer on autopilot whenever he felt like picking up his electric guitar to launch into rocky, ambient sections. An installation with a pair of clouds dangling between two stacks of white boxes filled up with a splashy, mapped projection. As though in accordance, a short but hopeful spell of rain decided to smother many months of dry heat, ushering the sizeable crowd in to cozy up with some soulful electronica that would follow. The set consisted elements of dub-step, disco, hip-hop, house and trance, though the core material always tended to fall back on guitar based refrains full of calming melody. The variety of sounds and styles sometimes compromised flow between tracks, but the strong groove in the beats was mostly glitched near to contemporary perfection.

By the time Sahej Bakshi started running through Doppelganger, everyone was standing before the stage, moving as they softened, so excluding dinner tables was a good call by the management. The album features the signature Dualist trait of swinging from an almost meditative, emotional optimism to something hip. The thick, bass wiggles run alongside pop-rock beats and riffs. The visual spectacle occupied the mind from the constant swaps from analog to digital and psychedelic to cyborg. If the lack of enduring allegiance to any specific form grants something for purists to complain about, it’s countered by never being intrusive or defiant. In short, the mood invites you to play it over.

“Dualism is a concept that anyone can understand and everyone can relate to,” says Bakshi. “I try to create the feeling of a rollercoaster,” he adds, regarding the thematic blend. Once the album was dealt with, the set got heavier, with a mount in bpm and breakier beats. There was even a possible drum and bass moment in there, when the evening’s tempo peaked. Coldplay and Skrillex covers were played along with originals, with something to please most pop demands of the day. Whether funky, energetic, happy or chilled out, Dualist Inquiry’s music borders on feel-good. By the time the two-hour list was finished, the rain cleared for departure, as the crew began to take apart the traveling set.