The Big M is now available in another 40 Planet M stores (listed below) throughout the country in addition to Crossword, Landmark, Yodakin (Delhi) and Furtados stores.

Cover Page Aug 2010

So this is what The Big M has in store for you in this issue…

• The Big M COVER STORY: ROCK AT WORK – In this Big M exclusive, Aalok Padhye explores the bands, musicians and music communities that represent a vibrant sub culture prevailing in the country’s work force.
• The Big M MARVELS: THE AXEMEISTERS – Vignesh Iyer unravels the awesome Axe-tortion initiative!
• The Big M LIKES: THE EASTERN EXPRESS ARRIVES – Discover the entirely new trend of singers, musicians and budding rock talent from the unconventional North Eastern India with Dimapur, Furtados Music Showroom
• The Big M INFORMS: NEWEST ARRIVALS – Shikher Chaudhary provides as inside update on the bands and artists to watch out for.
• The Big M REVIEWS: MUSIC ALBUMS – Vikrant Dev & Mohit Kilam review the hottest music albums of the month.
• The Big M ATTENDS: THE BIG GIGS OF THE MONTH – Yolande D’Mello brings us a recap of the hottest events of the month gone by

All this along with our regular “The Big Mouth”, music charts for the month of July 2010 and other fun stuff.

Also, don’t forget to flip through our July issue online, which can be found in the Previous Issue section.

Shikher Chaudhary tracks the musical journey of this Canadian Band to find out what sets them apart

Triple Juno award recipient and prolific singer/songwriter Montreal native Sam Roberts is often described as the definitive voice in a collection of American and Canadian bands centered on 70’s classic rock nostalgia. But in reality, this former hockey player has so much more going for him. Through three albums of passionate and infectious folk-rock and power-pop tunes, many of them built around a percussively strummed acoustic guitar, Roberts has breathed new life into a very dry, dull Canadian music scene. By means of odd references to Canada in many of his songs (even singing in French for a few verses of ’No Sleep’) he maintains a staunch national identity but that certainly doesn’t limit his appeal to a strictly Canadian audience.

With tune crafting skills which have the ability to stand up well next to early Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney material, Sam Roberts’ first full length LP ‘We Were Born in a Flame’ presents a lush and enjoyable listening experience.  Along with compelling and inquiring lyrics, Sam Roberts is also an interesting musician who decides to play all the instruments except for percussion on this album. A risky move no doubt, he manages to pull it off with conviction with the record ending up sounding grander and richer than it ought to be.

The album is rich in instantly memorable hooks which will find you tapping your feet within the first 30 seconds of ‘Hard Road’ – the opening track. Along with the uber-catchy clap along ‘Brother Down’ and the gorgeous and seductive orchestral pop of Beatle-esque ‘Taj Mahal’ which makes the most of Roberts’ talents as a violinist, ‘Hard Road’ is a stand-out track and contains some gripping and intelligent lyrics, something of a rarity in today’s formulaic music world. Roberts writes with eloquence about the universal human effort of finding the easy life and avoiding the bumps of the real world. When he opines, “There’s no road that ain’t a hard road to travel on”, he is able to chronicle the troubles of life in this fallen world without offering therapeutic platitudes like “believe in yourself” or something similar. On this record, Roberts chooses to narrate the problems of humanity and creation rather than offer solutions and in doing so manages to escape falling into a moralistic outlook blatantly prevalent in popular media and music. ‘Paranoia’ finishes off this pervasive album, starting out as an acoustic piece before ending as an upbeat, driving instrumental. Overall, an impeccable combination of guitar, percussion, and piano makes this CD worth multiple listens.

Released in 2006, Roberts’ second release ‘Chemical City’, with its share of rockers, ballads, and artistic experimentations is a very well rounded album. Backed by a group that would continue onto the next album, Dave Nugent (guitar), Eric Fares (keyboards), James Hall (bass) and Josh Trager (drums) helped craft this album with its folky-1960’s rebellious feel whilst throwing all notions of a sophomore slump out the window. Starting off with the psychedelic rocker ‘The Gate’, the album’s mood soon shifts towards an alternative mode with tracks like ‘Mind Flood’ and ‘Mystified Heavy’. ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ with its sing along melody is an instant classic, while ‘The Bootleg Saint’ and ‘The Resistance’ call to mind mid era Rolling Stones. Chemical City also sports two folkier tunes, the lovely acoustic ‘Uprising Down Under’ along with the emotive keyboards, and the vocals-only heartbreak song ‘A Stone Would Cry Out’.  A much more rough-around-the-edges album, Roberts balances the strong melodies and anthemic choruses with some affecting subtle pieces. There is a strong sense of cohesion among these extremely well crafted songs with lyrics that see him wise beyond his years.

The latest offering from the Sam Roberts band ‘Love at the End of the World’, sees them at their most potent while delivering on the same bluesy hard rock formula, supplied with abundant pop hooks and mixed in with a little psychadelia when needed, as seen in beguiling ‘Lions of the Kalahari’. ‘Up Sister’, ‘End of the Empire’  and the forlorn ‘Waking the Dead’ stand out among other eclectic tracks of the album  ending with a piece featuring off the wall lyrics set to a piano driven tune in the captivating closer ‘Detroit ‘67’.

In retrospect, Sam Roberts represents the perfect example of the modern day singer/songwriter. With songs that range from bouncy, fun loving to a mellower sound, combining rock & roll fundamentals with folk influences, he is able to extract old influences and creatively rework them to create a unique original sound and deliver them with the vibrancy and honesty rarely seen in today’s rock n’ roll.

Juno Awards Report Card

• We Were Born in a Flame (2004): Album of the year, Rock album of the year, Artist of the year
• Bridge to Nowhere (2007): Video of the year
• Love at the End of the World (2009): Rock album of the year, Artist of the year

Article by Shikher Chaudhary
Images Courtesy: Cherie Marion, Dave Gillespie

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There’s a new entry in the list of music awards recognizing talent internationally. However, there’s something that makes these Asian awards truly ‘indie’. Shikher Chaudhary finds out.

“We’re not the Grammys, and not even close to the glamour of the MTV Asia Awards, but AVIMA (Asia Voice Independent Music Awards) is perhaps one of the biggest supported music awards in the world” says Siva Chandran, founder of AVIMA and managing editor of Voize.my, Malaysia’s leading lifestyle and entertainment portal.

Sanjeev T & The Rainbow Bridge

Plainly stated, no awards in the history of Asia have attracted as much hype and public interest in such a short span of time as Asia’s first independent music awards. Established in 2009, these awards exemplified the true indie spirit by doing away with major sponsorships and rather focusing on shining a spotlight on the largely ignored Asian music scene. When asked about the name, Siva explains that AVIMA has a cool unintended meaning. “When broken up, Avi is “my father” in Hebrew, and Ma means mother, so the awards hope to be the mother and the father of Indie awards this side of the Pacific.” In its bid to give a voice to Asia’s very large Indie community and its varied styles of music, AVIMA along with its standard categories of Best Rock Act, Best Hip-hop song, etc., also offers up awards like moody melancholic masterpiece, feel good song and mind blowing video of the year, being a few of its amusingly tagged categories.

Motherjane

Now in only its second year of inception, AVIMA 2010 promises to be the single most anticipated music event of the year with participation from over 20 countries including India, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan, to name a few. A truly global affair, music lovers from across the world are given the ability to simply log in to the online voting site, take a listen to the nominated tracks from each category and vote for their favorite acts with a single click. Although not necessarily a democratic event with public voting only accounting for 30% of the scores, founder and chief judge Siva Chandran assures that the remaining 70% will be based on the unbiased decisions of judges from Europe, Australia and the US.

Though Malaysia might have secured the highest hip hop nominations, India similar to last year, rules the roost in terms of rock nominations. Leading the pact with three nominations are winners of last year’s ‘Best Rock Act’ and the favorites to clinch the same title two years in a row, Motherjane. Without a question, the most prolific band toiling away in the scene today, gifted vocalist Suraj Mani is also up for ‘Best Vocalist’ while the whole band is the only Indian act selected for the ‘Most Mind blowing Video’ category for their understated yet extremely powerful imagery of the song ‘Broken’. When asked about how it felt to be nominated yet again for the highest award of the show, the band replied, “It is awesome that AVIMA is recognizing so many talented artists in India. Major Indie music awards bring international attention to indie artists & that’s great for music. We were honored as AVIMA Best Rock Band in 09 and 3 new nominations in 2010 means our music is reaching people globally.”

Bicycle Days

On par with Motherjane is another man who’s paid his dues and has been duly rewarded with success, Sanjeev Thomas of Sanjeev T & The Rainbow Bridge who commented on his ‘Best Vocalist’ nomination, “I’m glad I’m recognized outside India for the music I make and for the efforts I give into the music. It’s great to be recognized, apart from myself many indie bands from India have been nominated and this is a proud moment, a moment of growth, hope and more music coming from a younger generation who would be more happier in the future to take music seriously and make it a part of their living. With developments and organizations like AVIMA, Indie music has an avenue to be displayed and an avenue to understand expressions of artists, expression which strives for a difference in our existence here. I wish all the luck for everyone nominated and will always join the fight for recognition for our indie artists here. Support is important and from support comes support systems to take this forward.” The Rainbow Bridge also holds nominations for ‘Best Electro-Dance Song’, ‘Best Rock Group’ and ‘Best Rock Song’, a category which also includes the likes of fellow Chennai residents, the funk rock quartet Junkyard groove with their song ‘Imagine’ and Mumbai metal giants Demonic Resurrection with ‘A Tragedy Befallen’.

Finding themselves in the presence of these heavyweights are relative newcomers, Summerpint Junkie with their song ‘Forbidden Fruit-Flower’, featuring a rich blend of psychedelic rhythm and melody and a fair amount of progressive influences thrown in for good measure. A strong song by any standards, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Mumbai lads pull off a major upset, wining the category over some of the more experienced veterans. With vocals straight out of the alternative era, the song ‘Hallucination’, finds them with their second nomination in ‘Moody Melancholic Masterpiece’. “It feels awesome to be nominated; it sort of sprung up on us. There is no substitute to the high in knowing that our music is spreading and being appreciated. Summerpint Junkie puts in a lot of emotions in every song, so knowing that someone finds some connection in our music keeps us going, further in till our music, words and message become a part of their reflection. AVIMA is definitely giving us a brilliant opportunity to do just that and we just hope to realize all the faith that our fans have in us and keep spreading our music”, commented the band’s guitarist on its double nomination

Summerpint Junkie

“It is an honor to be elevated on a platform such as this and win or not, more ears are oriented towards the music which is what is important,” mentioned Karthik Basker, another nominee for ‘Best Rock Vocalist’ heading the widely acclaimed Bicycle Days, a band up for the ‘Best Rock Group’. A group with an opulent literary background and wide ranging influences, their songs prove nearly as epic as Albert Hofmann’s infamous 1943 tryst with that faithful drug, the one which inspired the band name.  Giving stiff competition to Summerpint Junkie in the category of ‘Moody Melancholic Masterpiece’ is the stellar ‘Circles’, an unwavering tour de force with deftly played drums and serene vocals amid chiming guitars.

In other nominations, Junkyard Groove’s low key, playful ‘Folk You’ and Zedde’s anthemic tribute to his city ‘Mumbai’ competes for ‘Feel Good Song of the Year’ while Prayag’s ‘Bas Karo’ finds itself as the only Hindi song in any of the categories.

Whatever be the result, the passion and determination of each band nominated undoubtedly boils down to the core of the awards itself, as optimistically stated by co founder M.Tevan, “We’re glad that the Asian indie scene is moving in the right direction. The indie scene is huge in Britain, Europe and in the United States, and some of the biggest brands in the world today are lining up to be affiliated with these exciting and bold new artistes. We’re confident with platforms like AVIMA; Asian indie acts will receive better global recognition.”

AVIMA 2010

Winners at AVIMA 2009

• Best Pop/R&B Song
  • Naino sey – Sanjay Divecha (India)
• Best Hip Hop Solo Act
  • Krishan (Sri Lanka)
• Genre Bending-Mindboggling-Out of this world Track!
  • Together again – Shaair and Func (India)
• Best Rock Vocalist
  • Dia Hassan-Juliana down, (UAE) – Gold

Some of the other nominees at AVIMA 2010

• Best Rock Group
  • The Standards(Thailand)
  • Nikotin (UAE)
  • Tarantist (Iran)

• Feelgood Song of The Year
  • Daybreak – I Like You (South Korea)
  • The Camerawalls – The Sight of Love (Philippines)
  • Breaking up – Nadhira feat king lhota (Malaysia)

Article by Shikher Chaudhary
Images Courtesy: Bicycle Days, Ahruti Marathe, Eva Dowd

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Genre: Indie Folk/Blues

Year: 2010

Label: Dead Oceans

Country of Origin: Sweden

Rating: 9.5/10

The term ‘Dylan-inspired’ is off-handily used by critics umpteen times to describe a particular folk singer’s songwriting capabilities, but in the case of

Kristian Matsson

Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson a.k.a. The Tallest Man on Earth, this term is dead on target. Not only does he have the raw, energetic and southern accented voice, he has the panache of writing earthy folk songs deeply indebted to 60’s roots music. His inspirations maybe antiquated but he is young blood; his spunkiness injects an extra dose of adrenalin into the songs he writes. This lineament drew the attention of listeners towards his critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Shallow Grave’ which ultimately landed him a touring opportunity with notable folk band Bon Iver for whom he was the opening act.

In the second record, Kristian shows an increased maturity in his approach towards writing songs and this new record, dare I say, has the catchiness of pop music. While his earlier record was melancholy tinged, this new record seems like Kristian has exorcised the ghosts of his past and has learnt a lot of lessons. Instead of dwelling on sadness he is embracing it as a part of life and being hopeful that things will improve and that he will set the trend of making changes himself. On this record Kristian seems like a man possessed; his voice commands presence on the record and the songs radiate so much brilliance that it sometimes can be blinding! It’s a perfect record to listen to when you think that your life has been smoked out like a cigarette and all that is left of you is the butt. The Yang of the record will overpower the Yin of your mind. Like the title suggests, Kristian pictures himself on a wild adventure not only to free himself from the chains of quotidian drudgery but also to find the love of his life and to trace his roots. The deft lyricism and the guitar strumming play stellar parts to sink this feeling deep into you. Sample the track ‘King Of Spain’ in which he metaphorically sends the message across that one should pursue our dreams however trivial they may seem to the others by singing “Well if you could reinvent my name, well if you could redirect my day, I wanna be the King of Spain” and by playing the chords on the guitar that sound like a galloping horse on which he is seated to conquer unknown lands. While he is busy being the king of Spain, he also has this eternal longing of being the king of his lover’s heart by singing of his heroics, “You know it’s a Lion’s heart that will tumble and tear apart, when he(himself) is coming down the hills for you” in the track ‘A Lion’s Heart’. This feeling is also echoed in the delicate and sentimental “Love Is All”.

The Tallest Man On Earth

He may be crafting such adorable and accessible songs about love, which will strike a chord with a lot of listeners; on this record he also displays that he is a master storyteller, like in the second track ‘Burden Of Tomorrow’ where he vividly describes his bizarre origins and the reason for his wild hunt by wording, “The rumour has it that I wasn’t born, I just walked in one frosty morn, In the vision of a vacant mind” and “I will find this stranger (himself) that you fear, so that I am not a burden tomorrow dear”. Even on the track ‘The Drying of the Lawns’ his words create a mental picture of the dingy wooden room it is inspired by. All along on these stories of adventure and rollicking in the nature’s bounty, the guitar is his faithful companion. On the subdued songs his guitar strings can be heard plucking and reverberating airily corresponding with the toned down and sometimes detached voice while on his poppy numbers, the guitar takes centre stage and help in creating an ecstatic atmosphere. Like all master craftsmen he saves the best for the last in the form of a ballad ‘Kids on the Run’ which sounds like Bruce Springsteen singing ‘Tears in The Rain’ accompanied by Sir Elton John on the piano. It is a beautiful track that encapsulates his mature understanding of emotions. He sings, “No we have not grown a day from the poison we share” and then laughing it off by singing “Will we ever confess what we’ve done? No, we’re still kids on the run”.

Like a wandering sage, Kristian Matsson crafts tales of his experiences and presents it to the listeners in the form of this phenomenal record that sends the message of bringing positive changes to life by breaking the fortress in which our mind is trapped. This record is lyrically adept and the production is spellbinding. Well, a lot of people may be put off by his raw voice (the same happens with Dylan’s voice too) but after listening to this record they will be reassured that Kristian Matsson’s voice is not gimmicky but has such infectious energy that it will definitely make them swap sides, in favour of The Tallest Man On Earth.

Article by Vikrant Dev

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