Category Archives: Reviews

Concert review: a night of Indian-American music, another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory!

Date: September 23, 2011
Venue: Baruch College’s Performance Space (NY)
Concert review by Jim Hoey

This recent night of Indian-American music at Baruch College’s performance space, on Sept. 23rd, is another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory, and simultaneously upholding the traditional apects of Hindi-inspired Bollywood soundtracks. Two bands,  Ravish Momin’s Tarana, and Sameer Gupta’s Namasker, took two different approaches, drawing from the same traditions.

It was incredible to hear Momin on drums in Tarana, with the exquisite accompaniment of Trina Basu on violin, mixing live percussion with trademark electronics. They slowly built up a loose framework for the extensive and soulful improvisations, playing most of the 4 new tracks on the new EP After the Disquiet. The achievement of Tarana is that with even the most traditional of folk-Hindi rhythms as a point of departure, their songs can take subtle turns down different paths to a more Middle-Eastern or Asian sound, then more modern, and can often switch mid-piece without any jarring or noticeable transition point.

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Occupy Wall Street: CNN iReporter Paul Richards reports from Time Square (NY) & Jello Biafra praises the OWS and gives the demonstrators some advice!

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

My friend and CNN iReporter Paul Richards aka Shaky Jones, on October 15, 2011 (Report 2) reporting from Times Square (NY) as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWC). The below two videos are telling things which I also observed last Saturday. There is one thing I would like to point out, is that the OWC is not only a protest movement, but also a movement which wants to confirm with a loud physical voice that wrong doing has been happening for a long time. It’s about enough is enough. Do they know how  to correct all the misdoings? At this time no, but I think if this movement gets bigger and spreads through the whole country, somebody will come out and become a spokesman and leader of this movement.

 

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Occupy Wall Street – again another victory!!!! And music was an important part of it!

Text and video by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Today, October 15th, was a special day for this movement: International Day of Action – Massive Global Uprising…here in NY city, in America and abroad (Italy, Japan, Canada, etc.). Read more about this unspoken revolution in http://www.occupywallstreet.com.

DooBeeDooBeeDoo was at Times Square in Manhattan when thousands of locals and tourists gathered to demonstrate their dissatisfaction about anything. Today our interest was to find out whether music was a positive force in this big rally. And YES it was! Music was everywhere. Either people were rapping slogans, singing folk songs, playing all kinds of instruments or even when discussing things, you could hear and feel music. – Personally I was very happy when I saw this sign (watch below video).

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The legendary Malian blues guitarist and singer Boubacar “Kar Kar” Traoré at The Bell House (NY)

Date: September 27, 2011
Venue: Bell House (Brooklyn, NY)

Concert review by Chris Arnold

This past Tuesday Brooklyn was blessed with a very special visitor: the legendary Malian guitarist and singer Boubacar “Kar Kar” Traoré. With long-time friends percussionist Madieye Niang playing a simple upturned gourd and French harmonica player Vincent Bucher, Traoré laid down a mellow yet infectious groove for about 90 minutes at the Gowanus club The Bell House.

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