Milliblog!

1 | siddi

June 5th, 2007 at 12:33 am

If you look at what Pakistani bands did with rock, it was a totally different treatment. They took the typical rock band format - live drums, synth and lead guitars, bass guitar, added tabla and created a new innovative sound - they made it their own thing.

Indian bands stuck to the classic-rock, heavy metal sound, and they were good no doubt, but they only duplicated existing stuff, they didn’t bring much innovation into it.

2 | Karthik

June 5th, 2007 at 5:42 am

Good point. Explains why we like their ‘rock’ sound more than our own!

3 | tejas

June 5th, 2007 at 7:48 am

We have tried to stay somewhat more loyal to Rock than Indian audiences it seems. Indian popular rock scene contains Pentagram, Euphoria and Indian Ocean - all 3 are not rock bands at all. While true rock and metal bands remain only known within engineering school crowds.

Agnee was good once. I am looking forward to hearing their new sounds..

4 | Karthik

June 5th, 2007 at 7:52 am

Bingo! But Euphoria was clever enough to morph into something a lot more popular which is the reason why they’re better known than the other 2 you have mentioned. Indian Ocean does seem to have a lot more promise in this context.

This new album by Agnee is not bad at all - just that the kind of mix they achieve is a bit undernourished and gets slotted in a twilight zone between pure rock and its Indian variants.

5 | narasimman

June 5th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

I always wondered how nice it would be if instead of remixing the old songs if some one can come up with a Rock version of the Old songs. There are numerous songs in tamil and hindi that could be done in a Pop Rock style. This way the audiences can relate to the song through the new sound.

6 | Karthik

June 5th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

Maams…thats a super idea! Hope the likes of Pentagram read this!

7 | siddi

June 5th, 2007 at 11:44 pm

The remix is a different approach. It is done by a single person, usually a DJ, and is aimed at people wanting to dance on that song on a dance floor or rave.

The rock version of the song used to be popular in colleges, where you would have the rock band format - live drums, synth, rythm and bass guitars and create a version of that song. Personally I love such versions.

You do get to hear that format more often now - SEL used live drums in their Don soundtrack and it had Ehsaan’s guitar too in many of the songs.

Btw, I’ve read Ehsaan cribbing/griping about his guitar amplitude being reduced in the final mix by the engineers in the “Aaj Ki Raat” single

Kalyug songs also (I think) had live drums (with some synthesized beats and cymbals mixed in).

One of the Zinda songs had the “rock” format as well.

8 | Karthik

June 6th, 2007 at 5:41 am

I believe Strings’ Aakhri Alvida from Shootout at Lokhandwala is good, clean rock.

9 | Arun

June 7th, 2007 at 9:58 am

The rock version in Hattrick recently was very good as well.

Havn’t heard this album, but Sadho Re sounded good on TV. Heard that Chowta has done the programming..should be gud!

10 | Karthik

June 7th, 2007 at 11:26 am

Well, the CD says this, regarding Sandeep’s involvement…”Special thanks to Sandeep Chowta for his invaluable contribution to Sadho re and Kabira”.

Also, about that rock-remix idea, considering Vishal(Shekhar) and his involvement in Pentagram, that duo may be the best to pull this off, if need be!