Umang - an experience

Today's gig at Umang 2008 was a mixed experience for us. The eventful evening started off with our esteemed former President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam giving Umang a surprise visit. We were confused. The last time we had heard, he wasn't into too much of rock. He managed to leave the premises before the bands wreaked havoc (don't mistake the usage - musical havoc) on stage.

By the time we came up, the crowd were already enthralled to dizziness (or so it seemed) by Wehem and Prayaag. We didn't need to do too much really. And we didn't do much, either. We got about 30 odd minutes and during which we were requested by the young audience to abandon the more sombre numbers. For the songs that we did play though, we got a tremendous response from the crowd (despite de-tuned guitars, pretty ordinary mix and some other factors). We are very thankful for the same!

We would like to thank all of the organizers and volunteers of Umang who did a fantastic job of co-ordinating the event to perfection. It was simply amazing the way they handled us. We are honored. We would also like to thank those who attended the show and cheered for us. And lastly, thanks to all our friends and peers who gave us a wonderful critique which we are grateful for. We do look forward to performing on the NM stage in the future.

We'd like to leave you with a few amateurish images from the gig. Enjoy!

KD from Rock On! (Sumit Pillai) the movie was on Drums

Kirk Hammet... sorry, Joydeep Dasgupta on guitars

Jayajit Dash, wearing a Frank Zappa T-shirt on the microphone

The weird guy wearing the cool hat, on the bass

The masked axe-welder Robinman, on guitars

We could beat Pink Floyd, at least in photos - JD's psychedelia

The crowd really didn't get us. They tried dancing to pass the time

Live @ NM's Umang

For your convenience, we have added a widget at the side-bar on the right (at the top) called - Gig Calendar. And the first entry says that we are going to headlining at NM College's UMANG 2008. We are scheduled to play on the 16th of August from 8.30 pm. Those of you who can make it, please do. We promise, you won't regret it!

You can keep yourself updated about our gigs, visits to our barber and everything else which is important at our MySpace page and FaceBook pages as well.

-- Update (14th of August, 2008) --

This ad for Umang came on Mumbai Mirror's August 15th edition.


(PS: Our guest list included Paris Hilton and she had confirmed her attending the gig. But since then, she has decided to run for President of the U. S. A. Hence, we are not sure about her being there. But we'll rope someone in! ;))

The studio sessions update

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month since we entered the studio. Time did fly pass. We have had a wonderful time recording our album and we are happy to inform you that the mixes are getting ready and we are thankful to our wonderful engineer Chinmay Harshe who has managed to capture the essence of the band without totally going mad.

We are happy to announce a brand new Facebook group to supplement the Orkut community where you can keep a track on our whereabouts. Our MySpace page has also has undergone some changes recently.

Since we do not have anything else to muse about this moment, we decided to entertain you with some very shocking imagery from the studio. Enjoy them and do drop in your comments.

"We have a bad dress sense and this is one of the better outfits." - Robin on his Taylor

 

"Clowning around alleviates the pain; the Dhirubhai Ambani pose during the lean times." - Sumit

 

"A little self-possessed, and flamboyant but in the wrong way." - Dr. KK

 

"The battered and bruised guitar adds to the already overemphasized drama." - JD

 

"We are lazy and we like it this way. But not at the expense of... " - Joy

 

"He tried to control his frustration. But even his guitar gently wept." - Chinmay

 

"The marvellous Emprie Studio SSL console with the engineers at the helm" - Chinmay and Harshad

 

"This is as close as we could get to a band photo." - from L to R - Harshad (engineer), Nigel (Cellist), JD, Robin & Joy

 

Rolling Stone

We're happy to inform you that Rolling Stone (India) magazine has published an article about Shor Bazaar. The interview for this by their journalist Neha Sharma and can be found on the August edition of the magazine. We would like to thank them for the same.

In the same edition, we were surpised to find a review for one of the acoustic songs (Rasili Acoustic) on our MySpace page. We're flabbergasted at the 3.5 star rating (thank you!) and all the nice things, some of which even we weren't aware of, written there.

Thank you Rolling Stone India!

The snaps of the interview page is included here as well as the review page are given below.

The Shor-istory

People have often asked us how we came together and formed a band. No, our Dads weren't jazz pianists who inspired us to take music up as a career. Neither were we buddies from high school who dropped out after deciding to form a band. The fact is that we all are 'immigrants' to Mumbai and we are together thanks to a heavy dose of serendipity. Here's how.

The Shor-istory by The Doc

Sometime in 2006, JD, an IIT-Kharagpur Mechanical Engineering graduate who was working for ITC, he felt the urge to start writing music. He started on his own at first scribbling down lyrics over simple chord progressions on the guitar. His job led him all across India from Orissa to Gujarat to Chennai across cultures which gave him the inspiration to write more. Soon he felt the need to have company to expand his repertoire. Enter Joy.

He saw a ad posted on RSJ Online by Joy for musicians interested in forming a hindi band. At that time Joy was working for Mastek in Mumbai and JD was working at Silvasa. They decided to meet up at Joy's place in Mumbai. The next weekend saw Joy and JD jamming. Enter Robin.

Robin, the younger brother of Joy, a commerce student at NM College and a guitar-prodigy even at the young age of 17, joined them in their sessions. A couple of months of jamming over weekends led to nothing significant and they decided to call off their ambitious plans for building a band.

They took a year long hiatus and work led them further away than they already were. Thankfully, both of them got fed up with their lives and their mundane day jobs. Both got back in touch with each other and decide to take a sabbatical from their jobs to try and restart their original venture. This was sometime in September 2007. Both met again in our Alma Mater, the apartment of the Dasguptas in early December 2007. The name was also decided somewhere during this period. With lots of new songs added to their repertoire, they decided to look for bassists and drummers to complete the band. IIT-B’s Mood-I was around the corner and it seemed the perfect stage to start. Enter KK.

I, KK, was doing rather well in life whilst being in the final months of my surgical residency in Orthopaedics at KEM hospital in Mumbai. I already knew Robin via the acoustic band that we were part of called Cirkles. On the 9th of December, Robin called me over to his apartment to jam. I was introduced to JD and after pleasantries, JD and Robin jammed a couple of songs on the guitar. I was literally blown away by the music and JD’s vocals and I, despite my commitments, agreed to join the band as the bassist.

Together we streamlined a set-list of four songs for the competition. A couple of drummers were short-listed from the contacts that Robin had. We jammed with both of them. The result was nothing to write home about and a few days before Mood-I, we were still without a drummer. We were desperate. Enter Sumit.

Sumit, a gifted game designer working for India Games, is my childhood friend from Kerala where we started jamming a decade ago. Sumit was called in and just like me, he fell in love with JD’s beautiful songwriting and decided to try out as the drummer. A couple of jam sessions in the only operational Bajaao.com jam pad in Mumbai and we became the present version of Shor Bazaar.

Sorry, but we're back!

OK!
It's been 3 months since the last update on this blog, and that is a very long time! So, this is what we've been upto during the hiatus.

• Shor Bazaar signed on to Phat Phish Records, (a well known Indie label), sometime in May (yippee!) with an intent to release its debut album (double yippee!!). Allow us to whisper psst that the timeline for release looks like Oct’08 :)
  
• For most of May-June, the band took a break to wind up our jobs/courses etc. so as to get free for the impending recordings.
  
• At about the same time, we started looking for audio engineers and studios. We chose the wonderful Chinmay Harshe as the audio engineer and the famous Empire Studios for the tracking and mixing of the album.
  
• Late in June, ShorBazaar was invited to the studios of Radio One 94.3 for a live interview and acoustic session with the wonderful RJ Malini Agarwal. (The recordings of the show can be heard on our MySpace page. Go check them out and give your 2 cents!)
  
• And then finally on the 7th of July 2008, ShorBazaar started recording sessions for its first album, at Empire Studios, Mumbai.
  
• We must also mention Furtados Music who were very generous with their support our recording sessions. We are extremely thankful to Anthony, Sahil (The DemonStealer) and the entire Furtados team for this helping hand!
  
• Finally ladies and gentlemen, today, as we head into the last days of studiotime, we are very happy to announce that we are almost done :). That too despite a recalcitrant Lower Respiratory Tract Infection to JD and a tendinitis of KK’s left hand! We would like to attribute that to the wonderful atmosphere in the studios thanks to Chinmay and Harshad! We love you guys!

The tracks will be mixed and mastered in the coming weeks. If everything goes to plan, we will be able to respect that Oct’08 release that we talked about! Well that's about it for now.

We would love to hear from you!

MySpace page

Apparently, this blog is not being received well by the fans. It is seen as an unprofessional way of reaching out to fans. A few people think that we shouldn't be having a blog. For the reasons stated above, we have decided to do a MySpace page (without which no credible band could exist apparently). Here's the link to the Shor Bazaar MySpace page.It's been up for 2 days. Go check it out and give us feed back. Either here or there.

(PS: I would prefer here! Quite frankly, I don't like Myspace. It is too complicated. And too slow!)