In Part 3, however...

...he manages to screw up all that good work with this gem

"You must understand that with directors like me and Adi [Chopra] and Sooraj [Barjatya], we were in a zone where we were new and there was an old zone, and we ventured into a zone where the new zone came in, and we had to come back to being who we were, but we'd adapted earlier to match that time. We're the only 3-4 people who were in that transition phase"

Johar fans/ interested parties/ the three odd people who read this blog can catch part 3 here...

Stop-start

Karan Johar, in an interview with Raja Sen of Rediff, making an admirable amount of sense while discussing the adverse effects of intervals on Bollywood's output. Personally, I see only two ways around this problem - either go the whole hog in preserving your conception of the story by refusing to pander to audiences who want something to discuss while racing to the loo or buying wallet-emptying popcorn, or, in what may prove to be an even tougher decision, make shorter films without breaks.

"So you start, you peak, you pitch, you stop. You build again, you peak, you pitch. So you have two peaks and two pitches and two finales in your film, which you don't realise, actually. Ninety percent of the problem with our scripting is that. On the global level, that's the problem we have.

Actually the half point of 'Khan', the film where one is trying to be careful, is not a peak-pitch point, it's just that something happens and we stop. It would have been seamless without it also, one has been conscious of that. But very rarely do you find that.

So then this writing around an interval means that we end up having to stick to the genres we know best, the ones suited to our mix and match masala genre...

In 90 percent of our films, you know when the interval is happening. You just know it. That means you've written it in a certain way, you've graphed it in a certain way. And that is our big problem, our big, big, big problem.

That's why we don't get most genres right. We don't get a thriller right, ever. Because we have to have that relationship running, that music coming. So we can't have a quintessential thriller, the way it's meant to be done. We can't get a drama right.

We can get comedy right because comedy can be a little sporadic in its narrative structure. And we always get family right, because we know that the best.

No Syd Field can tell you what to do with an interval. He might have a vague understanding of it, having viewed Indian films, but the three-act structure does not work for us. It just doesn't."

Fancast #2: This is what they don't pay me for...

Hello. We will be widening our purview this time. Not for the faint hearted is this, the second fancast from the murky depths of fandom. We will review a concert. We will make lists. We will speak freely and frankly about camels. And most importantly, we will do all of this together because togetherness is a many-splendoured thing.

To kick things off, let me just say that if there is a better live act in India than the Raghu Dixit Project, then I haven’t seen it. For one, they kick Indian Ocean’s ass, and work wonderfully well in both the rock and fusion contexts. Stupid word actually, ‘fusion music’; just like ‘world cinema’. Suffice to say they have a driving, multi-hued sound, and an unpretentious, talented lead man. Ragu Dixit’s voice soared the other evening at the Habitat centre, over the sounds of his own acoustic strumming, bass, drums, and electric guitar and violin. It’s a trememdous voice, resonant, soulful, capable of some serious thunder, and it may be fair to say that on their studio album it’s the only thing that really works. Which is a real pity, because their studio output is no indication of what they can do live. They look hilariously unfit as a rock ‘n roll band – they dress like folk dancers and perform barefoot – but they sure play like one. Their sound is a varition on Carnatic and other Indian folk idioms, filtered through a Phish/ DMB sensibility. The lead guitarist and drummer in particular impressed – both provided steady support in the background until the time came to jam, at which point they (and the rest of the band) morphed into their loud, headbanging avatar, a side to them that was as surprising to me as it was to anyone who had heard them on record first. All in all, a rare Indo-folk-rock experience that did not underwhelm.

Have been buying albums like crazy these past few months. Musicland, Saket makes it tough for me to avoid doing so - they've had the best collection in town for a while now, and I’ve got some rare stuff there lately – Captain Beefheart’s ‘Trout Mask Replica’, The Byrds’ ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’, the posthomously released ‘The Immortal Otis Redding’ and Uncle Tupelo’s ‘No Depression’. I spoke about Beefheart in the last edition, and am still hearing Redding, but I can tell you about the other two – no least because of the similarities I saw in them. The Byrds’ album I had heard of – it’s a critical darling – and my expectations were pretty high. Its tasteful enough, with the McGuinn & Co by now in full-blown country mode – but I found the extras more exciting. Included in the edition I bought were 6 tracks by the International Submarine Band, the group Gram Parsons was heading before he joined the Byrds on Sweetheart. It sounds like a more countrified Tom Petty, with a hint of Beatle influence and a rollicking pace that leaves the stately 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' behind.

I’m sure the members of Uncle Tupelo would have liked the International Submarine Band – their sound is an equally rolicking combiation of hardcore and country twang. I discovered this band through their single ‘Factory belt’, a start-stop country number which sounds like the Minutemen doing a version of ‘Sin City’, and it spurred me to read up on the band. I was stunned to learn that it had as one of its three members, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, current enjoying a critical holiday in the sun. It also had Jay Farrar – who went on to form Son Volt – who shares lead vocals and shows off some nifty guitar chops. It’s their first album, and has a world-weary attitude that seems at odds with the fact that they were barely out of their teens when this was released. For those for don’t realy care, this is country music that’s not only driving but also great for driving along to.

Any addition to my offic e who comes bearing Steely Dan albums in a pen drive is a welcome addition. Within the space of a few weeks she has managed to introduce me to some very diverse music, only asking in return that I do not torture her with lectures about rock chronology circa 1965-69. Laura Marling’s album, 'Alas, I cannot swim', was pleasant enough. Coffe shop folk for the most part, she has a nice husky voice, reminiscent of Norah Jones, but a little less intimate. The album is likely to grow on you, but on first listen, the standout track is the opening single, ‘Ghosts’.

The alt-coutry group Clem Snide channels Neil young for the most part on the album ‘The end of love’, but their leader, the overly-literate Eef Barzeley needs less thesaurus than he is being allowed to use at present. Only two numbers manage to circumvent pretensiousness – ‘Fill me with your light’ is considerable bollocks, but the early REM-channeling music is gorgeous, and 'Made for TV movie’ where a little girl duets with Barzelay on the chorus. You can amlmost see Barzelay lean down towards her to join in the ‘la la la’ chorus – making the least wordy moment on the album the most genuinely touching. The one album I liked unequivocally was ‘The Last Broadcast’ by The Doves. They’re a psychadelic brit band wit a penchant for long, extended jams, but in the Verve mould rather than the Pink Floyd one. Having suciently summed up their sound, dropped a nod to one of my favorites and dissed a famous band that I have never liked, my work here is done.

Now for the list. It’s that time of the decade (the end) when pretentious twits start making lists of the best-of-decade. With every intention of joining the bandwagon, I decided to start with my very own ‘top 10 singles of the decade’ list. But its tough to keep up with the newest and brightest in pop music if you’re in India and you don’t write for Roling Stone, and I found myself rejecting every option I came up with. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I got number one, and it made perfec t sense. It is obviously ‘Paper Planes’ by M.I.A, and I’ll tell you why –

- This has undeniably been hip-hop’s decade, and while I am not the greatest fan of this genre, it makes sense that the decade’s best song should be filtered through a hip-hop sensibility

- It doesn’t stop there though. Punk rock (the guitar sample is from ‘Straight to Hell’ by The Clash), raggae, dub, gangsta rap (“Bonafide hustler making my name”) and the cash registers from Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ all make their presence felt

- In a decade where wildly different cultural were thrown together in admixtures that were sometimes entertaining, sometimes violent, this was a polygot number that took boasts that could have come from dislocated urban youth in NYC ten years ago and transplanted them in the Third World. Turns out that “Some I murder, some I let go” is a universal sentiment

Its 5:30. I have to go. Where’s my costume? Where’s that telephone booth?

In my car stereo: Outkast, ‘Stankonia’

In my Discman: ‘The Immortal Otis Redding’

In my sights: The Supersonics, ‘Maby Baking’

From Chapter 7, Book 2...

Zaphod leaned forward, conspirationally.

"I just materialized out of thin air in one of your cafes," he said, "as a result of an argument with the ghost of my great grandfather. No sooner had I got there that my former self, the one that operated on my brain, popped into my head and said `Go see Zarniwoop'. I have never heard of the cat. That is all I know. That and the fact that I've got to find the man who rules the Universe."

He winked.

"Mr Beeblebrox, sir," said the insect in awed wonder, "you're so weird you should be in movies."

"Yeah," said Zaphod patting the thing on a glittering pink wing, "and you, baby, should be in real life."

Harishchandra’s Factory: A Not-review

In the past twenty years or so, India has sent distinguished films like Bandit Queen, Salaam Bombay and Lagaan as its official Oscar entries. It has also somehow managed to pick clunkers like Jeans and Eklavya. What is common amongst the films that get nominated is that, either through the dint of being big-budget releases or because they are path-breaking enough to generate a cult following, they usually get seen by a wide audience long before their actual selection. This year’s nominee may be unique in the way it actually needs the buzz its selection has generated, whatever little of it there may be.

Harishchandra’s Factory is a relatively modest production, in Marathi, with subtitles. It has no known faces acting in it. It’s set in the 1920s, and captures that period with the minimum of cinematic flourish. In telling us the story of how Dadasaheb Phalke made India’s first film, it takes potentially ponderous biopic material and handles it as lightly. There are some hilarious moments – the one where Phalke is convincing his actor to shave off a moustache was my favourite – but there are also hints about how difficult the journey must have been for Phalke and his family. These moments are handled much better here than they would be in movies with larger budgets and over-eager background scores. And though the comedy is at times broad, it never degenerates into farce.

There’s a lovely moment that occurs just before the first shot of the first scene of the first Indian film. The crew has gotten off from the train that has brought them to their location, Phalke is the last to alight. As he does, he says a line that may have been part of his movie script, but is beautifully apt for the task he is about to undertake. “Today I will tear the heavens apart” he says, and the camera cuts. It’s a tiny moment, and the only real bit of self-indulgence the director allows his character, but you can feel his fondness for Phalke come through. Biopics often get mired in reverence or cross-examination, this one floats along on the helium of its own good natured enthusiasm.

This is not really a review – I saw the movie at the Osian Cinefan yesterday, and I just wanted to give it a small shout-out. I am also afraid that this movie, one of the nicest, most cogent and least mannered films to come out in recent times may need other, more influential shout-outs if it is to reach the magnitude of audience it deserves. One hopes this is achieved - it would be a fitting way for the world’s largest film industry to pay back the man who started it all.

Rage Aginst the Machine

There are exactly three bands whose music consistently puts a great big smile on my face. The first two are the Beatles and R.E.M. The third, for reasons I am completely at a loss to explain, is Rage Against the Machine. I was reminded of this while hearing ‘The Battle of Los Angeles’ today in my car. It obviously makes little sense because a) RATM doesn’t sound remotely similar to either R.E.M or the Beatles and b) you’d be hard-pressed to describe RATM’s music as epiphanous. Yet I have experienced multiple epiphanies (men can get those) hearing their four studio albums, a legacy the same size as that of the Velvet Underground, and perhaps in years to come, as influential (for good bands too, not the thousands of horrendous rap-rock acts they inadvertently spawned).

Rage Against the Machine is great agit-prop, but I like them for other reasons I consider more pertinent. For starters, they’re a great band, unlike most of their unworthy predecessors. Zach De La Rocha is not just a great mc, he’s a great vocalist. He doesn’t just shout, he shouts in ways that are unique and varied. He yells, he screams, he hisses, he growls. He is in that select group of singers – Dylan is the best example I can think of offhand - who can convey the mood of a song through the tone of their voice. Sometimes it’s a stray word, like “Warning!” from ‘Born as ghosts’ or the “Hey’s” from ‘Sleep now in the fire’. How big a leap from John Lennon raggedly shouting "Well shake it up baaaby nooww” to De La Rocha screaming “Fuck you I won’t do as you tell me”? A lot closer than you think…

Chuck D is the obvious (and acknowledged) influence as far as his rapping style is concerned, but De La Rocha’s voice is more mobile. No singer in history has ever sounded so urgent, so convinced of his material. He sounds transported, and that becomes transporting for the listener. "This is the new sound, just like the old sound" I hear him say as I write these lines. Not exactly a new sentiment, even Billy Joel’s said something similar. But then he says it again. Then he goes “Look at the news now…over the over the over the BURNING GROUND” and I don’t know why, but I find myself shouting with him.

The sonic universe that RATM’s fiery words inhabit could best be described as apocalyptic - rather like the words themselves. Alternating between the weirdly haunting and the crunchingly loud, they are, to use their own wonderful phrase, calm like a bomb. The chief architect of this sound is the still underrated Tom Morrello. He’s a true futurist - his guitar approximates the sound of a turntable, a siren, a buzzsaw, a human voice. He’s also a throwback - to players like George Harrison and Robbie Robertson, who played as much and for as long as it served the purpose of the song, and not a second more. No matter how loud he gets, Morello is never messy and he never overplays. He creates textures with his guitar that would be the envy of entire bands. ‘Voice of the voiceless’ shimmers before it boils over, ‘Calm like a bomb’ sounds like police cars chasing you. By melding metal, grunge, scratchy hip-hop and various shades of noise, he created a sound that would come to be associated with him alone, because other guitarists didn’t have it in them to play it.

Morrello’s brilliance has a spill-over effect. RATM’s excellent rhythm section - Brad Wilk on drums and YKtim on bass - often gets overlooked. This makes them ripe for comparisons with another taleneted duo, Led Zepplin’s John Bonham and John Paul Jones, who faced similar charismatic-lead-singer-and-pathbreaking-guitarist-get-all-the-attention problems. But RATM would never have been quite the band it was if Wilk and YK were not up to the challenge. Rap-rock as a format was almost without precedent when they started out. By playing the way they did, supporting their idiosyncratic singer and their crazy scientist guitarist every step of the way, they helped create a template, the bedrock of the sound which would come to define rap-metal, nu-rock and alternative metal. But no one could play it quite like they did, in terms of both subtlety and swinging for the fence.

I could go on and on - I already may have - but I’ll stop here. Those of you who’ve already heard RATM know what I’m trying to convey and are probably praying that I stop talking so you can put on ‘Renegades of Funk’. Those of you reading this who haven’t heard them…well, if you’re a serious fan of rock music, you have no business not hearing them. Barring Radiohead, they are the most important post-grunge rock band. They credit themselves as ‘guilty parties’ on their album sleeves. They are uncompromising and fierce in everything they do. And, for some unfathomable reason, they make me smile.

Fancast #1: From small beginnings…

Since this is, when you get down to it, a blog, and I am, when you come around to digging it, a blogger, I will now do a bloggy (or bloggish) thing and tell you what I’ve been listening to this past month.

Starting with the most recent, I picked up Roxy Music’s second album ‘For Your Pleasure’ last week. This was the last one with Brian Eno and it is appropriately weird, dense and seductive. Bryan Ferry makes sounding like Dracula a virtue, or makes it work at any rate, and his lyrics are funny as hell. Also grabbed at fervently by me was the Clash live album ‘From Here to Eternity’; I’d already heard their cover of 'I fought the law' off this, but none of the others. As expected, it was a riot. No punk vocalist has ever sounded more urgent than Joe Strummer, and Mick Jones is a perfect foil. Fans of unusual liner notes (an admittedly small sub-section of the music buying public) may enjoy this one - instead of some critic attempting to place The Clash and their music in a sociological context, we get quotes from the actual fans who attended these incendiary shows. Read them, hear the songs, and it’ll be difficult to not wish you were there.

Courtesy of Penfold, was turned onto this amazing Danish band called The Ravonettes via their 2007 album ‘Lust Lust Lust’. They have apparently been making melodic buzzing noises in indie circles for some time now, and while their antecedents are clear, it’s somehow comforting to know that there are still bands out there willing to play the sort of dreamy fuzzy pop that seemingly died out in the mid ‘90s. My Bloody Valentine and Jesus & Mary Chain are likely influences, maybe the Vaselines too. Where The Ravonettes differ from these bands is their unwillingness to bury the melody beneath layers of guitar noise – their distortions are more pleasant than abrasive. Pedantic shoe-gaze purists notwithstanding, this is not a negative, and their album should work for those who like their rock buzzy and laid-back and melodic.

It’s been a slow month for new singles. I’ve grown very partial to a John Mellencamp song called ‘Worn out nervous condition’. I should warn you though - besides a lovely seductive vocal by the Artist Formerly Known As Cougar, it isn’t really what you’d call remarkable. Maybe that’s the secret to its listenability – no hook that becomes a focal point, no corker of a line that distracts from all the others. Also, for no particular reason besides the fact that I heard it recently, please get hold of Cat Power’s revelation of a Dylan cover, ‘Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again’. It’s on the ‘I’m Not There’ OST and she’s the only artiste on it who covers Dylan in a manner which could be called sexy (hear the way she says “…you’re just like me, I hope you’re satisfied”, it’ll make you smile out loud). The album is also top-drawer by the way.

What else…yes, finally bought ‘OK Computer’. Its absence was getting a bit too tough to explain to my conscience and besides, I love Radiohead’s second, ‘The Bends’. I’ve heard it only once till now, so it may be a bit premature to say this , but I felt that while ‘OK Computer’ hangs together better conceptually and has undeniable greatness and importance running through its veins, but lacks some of that verge-of-conquest freshness that characterised ‘The Bends’. Anyways, one hearing isn’t enough for this one. Ditto for ‘Trout Mask Replica’, Captain Beefheart’s 1969 cult classic. I don’t know whether I’ll ever know quite what to write about that one (Sample lyric: "Fast and bulbous...that's right, the mascara snake, fast and bulbous...also a tin teardrop...bulbous also tapered...that's right")

Finally, to round things off…

In my dashboard: Aerosmith, ‘Get Your Wings’
In my Discman: The Byrds, ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’
In my to-buy shortlist: Mark Knofler’s new one ‘Get Lucky’