Archive for March, 2008
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
the feathers will fly.
Monday, March 17th, 2008
koka kola, advertising, & cocaine
i guess the question is this: what do we want jumabazaar to be? it started out as a dedicated space for the on-line conversation we were already having, but now it’s something slightly different, although i think we’re still writing for ourselves, and not for an outside audience. and that’s a good thing - we should be our audience before anyone else.
at the same time, i think one reason we moved to JB is to have some sort of interaction with other people via comments, etc. so, we need to put links out there and hope that some of the people who follow those links share our interests. so, it would be nice to have more active readers, but it won’t kill JB if we don’t have more.
as for overload, i actually liked the two videos i’ve seen of them with pappu saeen and jhoora saeen - ‘cursed’ [from my last post] and ‘dhamaal‘. i think, for me, the absence of vocals is a plus. and i haven’t heard anything else about overload - are they still around?
Monday, March 17th, 2008
I want you to want me
Good to see a pappu saein has made its debut on youtube – I couldn’t find one earlier.. although, admittedly it does do a grave injustice to pappu saein and the whole bhang-infused pall that hangs over the thousands of mesmerised, perpetrating and incredibly stoned people I saw crammed into the mazaar, lounging under the throbbing overpowering beat of some incredibly primal percussion.
Oh, and how can I forget the searing pain of stepping barefoot on some charsi’s smouldering birdi..
That said, it still was a rather odd, and incredibly theatrical experience – if you ever do head down to
Overload’s atrociously insufferable noisemaking has given pappu a new stamp of legitimacy amongst the yuppies of
Pertinently (and you’ll know why) I guess it brings us, inevitably, to why places like JB do what they do. It seems to me that art for it own sake is just such an appealing, clean and somehow morally attractive proposition, an yet, art really seems to flourish when its motives are far baser – the rich history of court art in the sub-continent for instance.. do you think we should be running a more aggressive PR campaign for JB? Why? Why not?
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
crazy beat.
i remember seeing this video on television during a visit to pakistan, in 2005 i think. it came up during a late-night/early-morning IM session, and led to this performance by pappu saeen at shah jamal’s shrine in lahore.
besides the amazing dhol-playing , it reminds me of this article i read about, what the writer called, ‘all-male sonic gatherings’ in northern pakistan. i have to say it’s a part of pakistani culture that i’ve never experienced, and it seems pretty awesome to be a part of, although slightly scary to watch. almost as scary as this. fortunately, i don’t think shah jamal’s shrine won’t see that anytime soon.
while i’m on the subject of the dhol, do you know what dhamaal is all about?
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
ouch, there’s a paw in my face!
so, after that brief [yet still too long] hiatus, we’re back!
that article on radiohead was challenging, intriguing, and distressing. honestly, i’m not that familiar with radiohead’s music. i find most of it pretty inaccessible. listening to some of their stuff seems too much like work than recreation to me. i guess it makes sense to say that their music defines some aspects of the generation that came of age in the 90s. but i think poulos goes a bit too far, even if we assume he’s just talking about young people in western europe and north america. i mean, i’m guessing most people from that generation would name countless bands, songs, films, paintings, television programmes, etc. that defined the atmosphere of the 90s for them, politically or emotionally. to reduce it to one band is really sort of like me searching for a thesis the night before a deadline for a term paper.
one point from the response that i think is really valid is that the ‘indie’ scene is partially about elitism. it’s as if there’s some sort of honour in being among the first to hear a good band. i guess it’s just an attempt at creating some sense of community, but it’s definitely got an element of exclusion to it as well, and it seems to be the domain of rich kids trying to look like they’re poor. those ipods are a dead giveaway though.
that’s actually something that stands out from a few years of experience living in out here - for all their supposed individualism over the rest of the world, people are really keen to belong in their own cliques. it’s just the family bond is weaker, so people look for others outside the family, leading to a smörgåsbord of sub-cultures - punks, indie kids, hipsters, emo kids, gamers, etc.
i wonder if that partially explains why there are no established sub-cultures to speak of in pakistan.
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Can I borrow your punk?
Interesting point indeed. I suspect the direction of Pakistani pop music, especially in it’s infancy was probably influenced by the tastes of a very small group of individuals; hence the seemingly obvious next move to punk was never quite as inevitable.
As much as this may seem a viable explanation, I would it breach the Hippocratic oath I never took, if I were not to explain that this is a bit of a sophism; because, from what I recall VS (for whom, my retrospective appreciation only grows) were, as individuals big fans of early-punk like Black Sabbath et al. (they are proto-punk, right?) but I think that while early pop had an underpinning of rhythm which sort of fit into the Pakistani oriental sensitivity, punk probably doesn’t quite cut it like that?
What about Junoon’s Talaash though? Wasn’t that the ultimate angry-young-man bohemian rhapsody?
Shame, i was just getting on a roll, but a “silver BMW” is here. I’m off, with only cherry cola tangy candy to keep me company. More later.
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Punk-d
saw the three videos and rather improbably, the sajjad ali one wasn’t the worst of the lot. (good call on salman ahmad as borat btw). anyways, you raise a very good question on why punk never really took hold in Pakistan.
my guess is that by the time the ‘underground’ music scene became established in pakistan, punk rock had already morphed into pop-punk, which doesn’t really lend itself to protest music. green day’s dookie was released in 1993 - since then with bands like blink 182 the term punk has lost almost all meaning.
my guess is this might have resulted in a lot of people being drawn towards grunge and metal instead of punk.
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This long, long, long, piece on Radiohead is either brilliant or bs or both.
In any case, this rebuttal definitely takes it down a few notches.
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I chanced upon a John Lee Hooker concert on tv a couple of days ago. WOW! - absolutely stunning!!! There was a duet he did with Ry Cooder (who also collaborated with Ali Farka Toure and is an incredible guitarist), which was stunning. Unfortunately youtube has let me down on this occasion, so I’ve posted another video instead.
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
think of the musicians!
in the course of my weekly [okay, daily] youtube browsing [okay, okay, hourly], i came across these three by-products of a decade of corruption, political violence, and general unruliness.
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
consumption vs creation
al-tahafut, you’re analysis of tourism as a consumer industry is spot on. i think visiting historical sites is particularly overrated unless you use it as an excuse to actually read up on some history. i think nature sight seeing is ok as long as its not marketed as ‘eco-tourism’, which is just a horrible, horrible word.
first of all, cities are just as fascinating if you are trying to understand the human condition. secondly, pursuing a better understanding of nature is fine, but you should acknowledge that you are satisfying your curiosity in a way which might be harmful to the planet rather than spinning it to give yourself a sense of moral righteousness.
anyways, i think our discussions of music, films and tourism go the heart of what it means to be a consumer in the modern world. for instance, do we watch films because it is a shared cultural reference point with our friends, because it simply gives us pleasure or because we gain a deeper understanding of the human condition and thus lead more satisfying lives?
while i was pondering these questions, i fortuitously came across this brilliant lecture by Larry Lessig. definitely must-watch.
Also check out this interesting write up on Prof Lessig. I think it would be great if he made it Congress/Supreme Court.
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
the importance of being folk.
i’ve been checking out that dawn blog - seems promising.
the thing about tourism is, it’s an industry, a business. and tourists are consumers. so you take a place, you manufacture some attractions [like a 528798107890km tall tower], and you market it [exploiting any local peculiarities, like a legend/myth, or a giant hole in the ground]. i guess it’s not surprising that boring places are the best sellers, just like books, music records, films, etc.
what interests me about travelling is learning about lifestyles/cultures, etc. and i don’t think i can do that on a trip. so, i have some places in mind [one is iceland, many in the middle east] where hopefully, someday, i can afford to spend more than a few days or a couple of weeks.
haha, ostrich eggs certainly sound tempting. you could egg someone’s place with them, and see how that turns out. or, if you live high up, drop a couple on a passing car. there’s no way the coppers will buy the story that a giant egg hit someone’s windshield. =)