An exclusive inside peek at 'The Raghu Dixit Project' on tour and otherwise. Full backstage access with candid pictures and stories that make this band a breath of fresh air in the Indian music scene!
The last set of concerts we did saw two new people join the gang. Here is a very brief ode to both of them ...
The Raghu Dixit Project has been looking for a guitarist for a long time as indicated by quite a few posts and mentions that Raghu himself had made in our communities and otherwise. After much fussing and auditioning and trying out people, we finally identified one guitarist who suited the bill!
Now Vijay was still trying to get around to playing the songs right when the rest of their band saw him as a brand new audience member to try all the old jokes on! and we did :D ... It was like entering the engineering college hostel in the first year! but Vijay did not wilt under pressure ... he kept smiling and holding on to the airplane seat like his life depended on it! (more about that in a post that will follow)
On stage, he was a tiger let loose in the jungle, gracefully and majestically devouring every solo! The appreciative audience and the pats on the back after the shows were proof enough of that!
Nitin Joshi joined us for the first time in Guwahati as the sound engineer for the show there and the show to follow. What we saw when he entered was a cool guy with a funkier goatee than me! who was crazier about photography than me! and whose sense of humor was in the same range as us .. we loved him already! before he had been let loose on the console ... The fact that he took
and
and did
and
to give us
was an accomplishment that we cannot describe in words! We will take a close look at the brilliant range of speakers on display very soon, but trust me, Nitin was ready to work even if there was an iPod dock and a creative 5.1 system put up there! That is the brilliance of the man .. I have a sneak suspicion that we will be seeing a lot more of him here!
So there we are .. put your hands together for the brand new members of the band!
We finally got to play at the much talked about 'Blue Frog' at Mumbai which in my humble opinion is one of the best clubs to play at in India. We had heard from everyone how it was a wonderful place to perform at and in many ways, it did live up to the hype!
After an uneventful journey to Bombay and being taken care of very well, we landed up at the Blue Frog for sound check in the afternoon and had to wait a bit for the sound engineer to arrive and start the check, but it was time well spent with Siva and me up to our standard stunts and in between all that trying to teach the lovely Neysa (from Only Much Louder - the band management company) some South Indian slang!
Sound check finally got underway and after some time, we managed to get somewhere with the sound and there were some interesting moments on stage like this where Raghu was completely lost in the music. Please do check the fantastic Gibson guitar that he was wielding! And do check out the cool hairdo I am sporting thanks to the lovely Shilpa :)
The show was fantastic! we had a super audience who were quite enthusiastic, thanks to everyone who came, our friends and fans who pushed up our enthu and energy on stage!
Among many other things, this gig will be remembered as Anirban's last gig for some time ... You will be missed :) .. Best of luck with your new adventure!
A lot of fun things happened during the last month for the band and one of the things we have promised ourselves to do is to keep in touch with everyone through this blog!
We will give you an exclusive sneak peek at the band coming together, the band on tour and a total access backstage pass for every show and the times in between shows. So sit back and enjoy the ride as we go through our first album release and watch the band shape up in front of your eyes!
Make a note of this page and make sure you check back often to keep up to speed with us ... fasten your seatbelts ... we are ready for takeoff!
We got the invitation from the organisers of this year's 'Kala Utsavam' over 6 months back and knew that we were on our way to Singapore which would be our first international gig ever! but then when the day actually came for us to fly out, it was a very surreal feeling. All of us were stuck in our own busy lives and the magnitude of the situation never hit us until we landed up in the airport that night. The delayed flight, the long immigration queues, not sure whether we should declare anything at customs, we were just like a dry sponge in a bowl of water trying to soak in everything that was happening. And we had not taken off yet!
The flight itself was quite uneventful except for the fact that it was our first time coming to terms with the concept of time difference. So after flying for 5 hours and leaving at 3 AM, we were in Singapore early in the morning! The Singapore airport itself was quite overwhelming for us; it is HUGE!! and is like a city in itself. You can just stay in the airport for days and not get bored! As we landed we got a rude shock with Anirban losing his wallet which after much searching we found had stayed back in India itself. Raghu and Ankur (one of the organisers who had come to pick us up) did their best to salvage the situation and a couple of forms were filled and complaints lodged. Anirban was doing his best to come to terms with it and all of us chipped in with our "let it go ... you can block the credit cards" and fundas about how money goes around and there is no point fretting over lost money etc ..
Now everyone had told us how clean and pretty the city is and how organized the traffic and the people are and I can definitely vouch for that fact. Infact for a first time visitor like me, the city takes you by complete surprise. Our van was ready and waiting for us to go to the hotel and infact, our luggage had been gathered and kept on trolleys ready for us to verify and load into our van so essentially, we just had to walk from the plane to the van!
The 'Allsons Hotel' on Victoria street which was our abode for the next 4 days is a really nice and comfortable place. We were shown our rooms, given our 'per diem' money for the 4 days and told that we had the entire day to ourselves to experience the city! This was like starting a game of monopoly or a scene out of 'The Amazing Race' :). Raghu had been to Singapore before and surprisingly had quite a vivid recollection of the place and gave us some pointers on stuff we could start out doing. But the musician in all of us took over completely and off we went hunting for the first "Music Shop" we could find!
Every musician in the world inevitably suffers from 'GAS' or the gadget acquisition syndrome and we were no different. Put us in a place where there is every possible type of guitar and a choice of brands for each type and every possible type of music equipment you could ever want, and only one thing will happen. We will go beserk! and we did! but better sense prevailed and we decided to check out other stores before actually buying, but our eyes were set on things we would get and I guess that was the most calculation we have done ever as a band! Converting the rates from Singapore dollars to Rupees, add VAT, more conversion, consider what happens if we are stopped at customs, each person had a different theory on how much we would have to shell out, and this calculation with every piece of equipment that we had our eyes on! Phew! and I thought being a musician was easy!
We then had to go over to the venue for a discussion with the sound engineer and the crew for the shows we had to play for the next 3 days and so we headed out after a quick lunch to the 'Esplanade'. We were definitely not prepared for what lay ahead for us when we reached the Esplanade. It is a performer's heaven, the most beautiful venue I have laid eyes on yet! The theatres there are complete with the best acoustics and state of the art technology driving them but they stil retain that old theatre feel with the galleries and the circular seating. The outdoor venue, where we played faces the bay and in the night, when you stand up on stage, the entire Singapore sykline in all its splendour unfolds in front of you. It is a brilliant setting and definitely put us in the right mood. We were later told that the stage we played at was a makeshift stage and the actual outdoor stage was under construction .. atleast, I would never have known that it was makeshift!
While looking around the Esplanade, Shiva saw that there was a performance of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in the evening and convinced the rest of us that we absolutely should watch it! And at the end of the performance, we couldn't thank him enough for it! The play was the best theatre production I have ever seen. It had live music and live singing and everything was note perfect, the props were mind blowing with a 1.5 Tonne car which actually flew all over stage and the first few rows of the audience. The scene changes were flawless and every little detail was taken care of!The amount of money and time spent on production had really paid off! all of us were clearly picking up our jaws from the floor as we walked out of the theatre that night.
The next day was our first performance and we were told to be ready by 10.30 because the sound check was at 11. Now we are used to the concept of sound check where everything starts getting set up when we arrive at the venue, the drummer in most cases goes and assembles the kit on stage, the wiring will be in the process of being laid out and it would be one big mess on stage and the band would just wait for everything to finish and get to squeeze in some 30-40 minutes on stage. But we were in for a BIG surprise! When we landed there at 11, everything on stage was in place, I mean EVERYTHING that we specified in our technical rider, including a microphone for Raghu's ankle bells. Each person's monitor was active and set up and for the first time, we played on stage with a seperate mixer on stage to just manage the onstage sound! We just needed a little tweaking and then we din't want to get off stage because it sounded so good on stage!
We went back to the hotel for sometime, freshened up and were back fresh and eager to play in the evening and it was a complete blast! we were initially worried if we had enough material rehearsed for the 3 sets that evening, but at the end of the first set, we realised we had tons of stuff we hadn't played yet, and the audience was loving us! After some refreshments and some relax time, we were back on and were relieved that most of the crowd from the first set had stayed on and there were more people this time round to watch us! we finished all three sets for the evening and had a few people from the audience who wanted to meet the band and take photographs and autographs! Now all this is still very new for the band and we din't really have much experience in this, we have always gone all out and jumped off stage after a gig and met people that we played for and chatted with them etc, so when there was someone stopping people from coming to meet the band and not allowing them to cross some barricades etc, it was all quite surprising! but we did meet everyone and chat with them and ask them to come back and get more friends for the shows on the next two days. All in all, it was a very satisfying first day but we still had a few glitches from our end that we had to iron out.
Day two went much the same as day one, but this is where I have to mention Mae, the band manager. She is one of the most prompt people I have ever met and is always on time and was always reprimanding us about one thing or another! it was like being in school all over again! The good part of it was, we never missed a single deadline, managed to get everywhere on time and had a HUGE burden lifted off our shoulders. She was like one big mamma taking care of 6 spoilt brats! If you are reading this, we love you Mae!!
Watch this space .. the next installment is on its way!
How often do you come across a situation that in a matter of a few hours you are a changed person! How often do you meet people who make you feel blessed about this life, broaden your mindset and make you realise that your heart is indeed bigger than you give credit for it! How often do you get to make music that uplifts your spirit higher than you could ever think of and for a blissful few hours make you feel one with yourself! Not very often, indeed! If I can describe the whole experience in one word - it would be 'liberating'. I felt I have broken down all the chains I had wound myself with all these years.
It was about a month back that I had got an email from owen from British Council asking if I would be interested to take part in The Rajasthan Internation Folk Festival in Jodhpur. I didnt even bat an eyelid. The whole idea of the festival was to bring together about 40 musicians from around the world and let them live, collaborate and finally perform with local folk musicians of Rajasthan. Though the festival was for a week, I could make it only the last two days because we had MTV Style Awards to perform for. Add to that a missed flight and we were left with one and a half days to meet the musicians, figure out what to do, compose, write, practice and then perform a 45 minute set!
As I embarked the flight to Jodhpur from Mumbai, I was filled with strong doubts of being able to make something out of 1 and 1/2 days. I tagged along Gaurav with me. We landed much later than we should have and were rpomptly escorted to our hotel where we just about managed to have dinner and sleep. In the morning we were 'given' the only two native rajasthani folk musicians left to 'work' with - who were not 'taken' by anyone else!
The first couple of hours went into trying to figure out what each one is saying....the language is far away from Hindi...but yet with a lot of effort and extreme miming by me and gaurav we kind of figured out a new language that could help communicate...but that was only till we pulled out our instruments and started playing music...we didnt need any other language.
The first musician is Kohinoor Langa, a man in his early 40s. He was given that name by the Queen of England after his performanace in London when he was just 10! Later we discover that the man has travelled more than 40 countries!!! Kohinoor Langa performs on Khartal - a pair of wooden pieces held in each palm of the hands and played like castenets. He is probably the best in the business and plays like God! He is proud of his achivements so far, his legacy, his homeland, his village, his camels, his wife and his son!
The second musician is Manphoolji...a man in late 40s performing on a very crudely hand constructed string instrument called 'ravan hatta' which is similar to the sarangi/violin. Manphool had never ventured out of his village before this trip to Jodhpur! It was his first trip without his wife and his first encounter with aliens like Gaurav and I! He is a soft speaking, gentle, ever smiling - dented with a constant hint of confusion in his face! manphool has always played the ravn hatta accompanying only his wife, who is a brilliant singer. Playing the Ravn hatta when someone else is singing - in this case me - was a little offending for him! And he didnt lose a single opportunity to let us know how much he was missing his wife's singing.
We barely got to know each other when were called for lunch. Half a day gone!
Post lunch we started to sing to each other what we know best and we realised that our music was so similar and it seemed that all the ongs had the same origin - the heart - and therefore they had similar feel. From then on we did not look back. In two hours we had nailed 5 songs. We did a brilliant version of Mysore Se Ayi with the ravn hatta backing my vocals and playing the solos ending in a utra-high-speed Khartal solo.
The second song was what made me completely change my perspective about singing songs in a language unknown. Manphoolji sang a song called 'banjaariye' (Gypsy Woman), in which the singer urges the gypsy woman to stop worrying about the material things and instead speak words of love and spread the message of love because in the end all that matters are good relationships with people who will remember you as a good person! It struck to me that the words were similar to those written by a 19th centure saint poet of Karnataka 'Saint Shishunala Shariff' in one of his songs 'Nishchintanaagabekanti'. But what was more amazing that the melody that I had composed for Nishchintanaagabekanti was in a similar scale to that of Banjaariye! I was blown with amazement at the coincidence!
We also did another song called 'Pani Haari' which was about a young woman walking miles everyday to fetch water for her home. She laments and wonders how different life would have been if only her dad or brother were rich enough to dig a well in their courtyard. In one of her dalily trips to the water source, she meets a man from a distant land who promises her a good life if she came along with him. But her proud soul refuses to go with him. The song ends in a beautiful verse saying 'No matter how difficult my life is - my land, my country and my loved ones are my wealth and nothing else can be richer than I! I inserted english verses in between the song compimenting the song. This seemed like the real 'Desert Rose'!!!
The other songs that we did were Lumma Jhumma and No man will ever love you, like I do. The second day morning, Khinoor brings a friend-musician along who played on Dholak, Bhutte Khan. Suddenly we had a complete sound! Bhutte Khan didnt need a second listening....he was grooving with us as if he has known these songs all his life!
The same night we performed at the midnight hour in the courtyard of the Mehrangarh Fort. The full moon lit night sky blessing every performer on stage and every listener. We were not perfect on stage...but its probably the best moment of my life so far. Kohinoorji, Manphoolji and Bhutte Khan Sab performed like Gods and we earthlings didnt have a chance to complain. Among the audience were the King of Jodhpur, Arundhati Roy and yes, not to forget, Mick Jagger.
Its an experience I know will never repeat but will always remain fresh in my memory and I know that some cosmic connection will bring us together again with Manphool, Kohinoor and Bhutte Khan. Someother place, someother time...under a moonlit sky, the space and souls filled with music of the gods.
Lycra MTV Style Awards – a dream that became a reality:
I would always wonder what it takes to be on TV and more so in one of those award shows where bands/artists would get to perform. Among the many many award shows that have infected the idiot box, the Immies and the Lycra-MTV Style Awards have been on the top of my list mainly because they were about music. I have watched these shows for the past many years and always dreamt of performing in one of them someday. I always thought that you would need an album out first, and then you would need to be very popular so that the TV channels won’t worry about TRP ratings and therefore would love to have you perform in one of those shows.
Its amazing how things just fall if the so called ‘time’ is right! I still have not got my album out - I am still not on TV with a video and the country is yet to know who the hell Ragu Dixit is. But here I am among the glitz, the glamour, the stars, the latest fashion and their gurus and not to forget the gorgeous models. For a small town guy from Mysore, this was all too much to take and frankly I was so numb that I didn’t realize when I got in there and when I got out of there! It all seemed like a dream and now on hindsight, a reality.
The truth is that the big guys at MTV were very, I mean very very, apprehensive to have an unknown artist called Raghu Dixit performing at the Style Awards and that too as the opening act. But then there were a few guys at MTV who had heard me live who kind of campaigned really hard for me….even asking me to go to their office with my guitar and give a live demonstration of my musical skills. I think that kind of wrapped it! But I knew that a lot of heads would roll at MTV if ‘the Raghu dixit project’ failed to deliver as the opening act! It was a lot of responsibility, but I was super confident that me and my band will pull it off and pull it off just fine!
Siva and I had to travel to Mumbai to shoot for the ‘Performer Profile’ two weeks before the style awards and that promo would serve as the dope for people to know that some Raghu Dixit will be performing at the style awards. Little did I know that the promo would help my band so much…people now recognize us in restaurants, streets and yes in the flights too. The promo also has helped in increasing our monthly website hits from about 60k to nearly 100k.
MTV decided that we should perform ‘Mysore se Ayee’ for our act. I agreed. The line up was Gaurav on Bass, Siva on Drums, Jithin on Violin, Bhavani, the latest entrant into the band, on percussions and myself on acoustic guitars and vocals. The idea was to send a recorded track much earlier so that the designer, dancers and the models know the song and choreograph the stage act accordingly. Just that the challenge was to perform exactly like the edit we sent…which for us as a live band was a new thing. We have always performed keeping the song structures free and open for spontaneous improvisations on stage and now we were required to stick to the edit we sent. It meant no chance for on stage mood swings, improvisations, free playing, deleted or extending parts of the songs which is so common when we perform live!
Enter Assistant Professor of Computer Science: I think the guy who found the entire experience overwhelming than any of us was Assistant Professor Bhavani Shankarji. When we were practicing in Bangalore, our man didn’t even have a clue how big a stage it was gonna be for him! He comes from a small town in Mangalore called Kundapura and is an assistant professor of Computer Science at the CanaraEngineeringCollege! We had met him a year back at a concert for NITK, Surathkal. He had joined us on stage with his tabla for an impromptu jam. I wanted him to play the Dholak and the Daffli for the style awards. He had never played in a band set up ever before till now. He had mainly been playing for classical and light classical concerts in his home town. He had to be literally hand held and taught the etiquettes of being in a band including that of taking lesser time in the bathroom ;). He was paranoid with the whole thought of traveling in a flight, the security check and if his Dholak will be safe and so on…..his famous line was ‘Raghu, please tell me the do’s and don’ts’ about everything - be it for the flight, or getting into a lift or staying at the hotel….everywhere I had to hold out a manual to him ;). But on stage the man gave his hundred percent. He has a long way to go to fit into the band but I know he will mould himself double quick time.
Me and the Assistant Professor at the Mumbai airport
We reached Mumbai on 23rd morning. We were received well at the airport and transported promptly to the Intercontinental Grand. Our rooms were all in a single service apartment which meant we got to be together and continue listening to non-stop nonsense from Siva and Gaurav as always. 23rd evening was for sound check and we did that promptly well within the time allotted for us. We were not convinced entirely with the sound check – there was just no thump on stage and the sound engineer Bruce somehow could not get out of his console for a few minutes on to the stage to listen to what he was mixing on stage. The enormity of the event overwhelmed us so much that we didn’t think of putting our foot down till we got the right sound. I could barely hear the dholak and the drum kit, the bass was flying in and out of my monitors and we all were terribly deprived of the energy that we usually feel on stage. I knew it was a wrong move to walk away from the stage unhappy, but we thought we will get it right the next day when we get to the tech run… which never happened since it was only a tech run and not a sound check! This fact was at the back of my mind till we got on to the stage for the performance next day on 25th.
We were stunned by the whole movement of activity happening around us……the stage was being painted, the setting was tried and tested, the cameras were practicing their movements, the models were smoking and walking their walk, the dancers were getting yelled at by the choreographer, the lighting engineer was positioning the lights, and then there was a battery of media people…
I was thrilled in anticipation of the experience of giving interviews to the various channels…they all asked the same questions with the same bored expressions…and I tried answering the same questions differently and singing different songs in each one of them…but still by the end of it, I was not as thrilled as I was at the start of it all! It was even more disappointing to know that none of those interviews I gave were eventually aired!!!
Singing to a Stadium - Even a sound check was a huge high!
But what was fun was the day of the show. We were escorted into the venue by 4.30 pm and were guided to our own trailer van!!!! We got our own bloody trailer van with ‘Raghu Dixit’ written on it!! We felt like real rock stars! Gaurav and I got into one half of the van while Bhavani, Siva and Jithin got into the other half. The white van actually was a green room with air conditioning, a toilet, a couch, a huge mirror with lights, 3 chairs, and to top it all, a TV! This felt bloody good. We felt ‘arrived’. A couple of vans next to ours stood another long trailer van on which was written ‘Shahrukh Khan’. Sigh!
Trailer Vans
We had an hour to spare to sink in the whole experience! Gaurav was trigger happy on his camera. I was still half worried about the incomplete sound check we had. But soon we had no mind space to worry. We were asked to get ready for the red carpet welcome. Well, in reality, it’s a ‘fake red carpet welcome’. What actually happens is that you are already inside the venue, then you get dressed up, and then they take you out from the gate behind, make you get into a swanky car, drive you all the way to the front gate where you get out and walk towards the red carpet leading to the main gate of the venue. At the entrance is a battery of cameramen hijacked our walk with their ‘bhai saab, this side please, bhai saab …smile here please…bhaiyya one more please….’. We didn’t have a clue where to look…I think all three of us (Siva, Gaurav and I) ended up looking at different directions as the cameras flashed mercilessly blinding us for a moment. But we held on to our baffled smiles. This was too much of an experience. The first time is always the best time! Here we come baby! Bring it on! Once done with the photographers, next were the TV channels in line…all shouting at the same time for some sound bytes…I just stopped somewhere in the middle…sang a line of my song loudly and everyone clapped! That’s it…move on baby…. Nikhil Chinnappa with a cameraman stops us in the walk for the official MTV Red Carpet chat. Obviously our lungis are drawing all the attention…and Nikhil wonders if we wear them for better ventilation! Oh yes, that’s just one of the reasons! Next year we should win the Most Stylish Artist of the Year award! Long live lungis!
Red Carpet - Looking Everywhere
As soon as we got into the venue, we were told that we had 12 minutes left to get on to the stage. We quickly tuned our instruments and were backstage where a production person, a sweet smiling lady by name Priyanka, lets us know that the show will be delayed by 20 minutes more since people were still trickling in. We sat on the chairs provided, clicked pictures with Priyanka, made jokes with the boys, huddled together and whispered a prayer, spunked each other and promised to stay together on stage, and then suddenly someone just screamed…. ‘guys you are on’!!! The voice over had already started and Priyanka hurried us on to the stage… the huge stage industrial looking set rumbled and roared to life…I was still fixing the plectrums to the mic stand when the lights flashed and the voice over ended with ‘ladies and gentlemen, The Raghu Dixit Project’. I was numb…I felt paralyzed for a moment. I felt as if I didn’t know why and what I was doing there! I have been on stage all my life but this time it felt different. It was not planned but I broke into a small speech…explaining who we are…don’t know if it was really necessarily, but I was doing it as if it was a ritual…and then came the blooper which even my band mates were baffled with… ‘we would like to dedicate this song to the gorgeous lady from Bangalore who is now making waves in bollywood, Deepika Padukone’ ….hell…where did that come from? I could feel the stares from Gaurav and Siva! As expected, thankfully, the whole blooper of a speech was cleverly edited by MTV when it was shown on TV. Before I caused any more bloopers, I did what I do best, break out my voice into the alaap that leads into ‘Mysore se ayee’….the crowd roared as the lights brightened and my voice grew louder…I don’t know if it was the song or the lungis and our attire, the crowd was cheering us throughout the song….and I felt in my elements again! As soon as I finished playing the first guitar intro, we were all in for a shock, none of us could hear the Dholak which was meant to enter at that point…I turned towards Bhavani, surprisingly I caught him furiously thumping it….but damn where as the sound? The mics were off? Or was the dholak not on our monitors? What happened for the next few seconds was completely on the basis of our hea movements…we couldn’t hear ourselves, but we could see everyone keeping the rhythm intact....till Siva entered, none of us could hear the tempo of the song. We were shocked, confused, but kept our smiles on and of course the head movement. The crowd roared. Siva entered with a huge thump, and we rocked on. Jithin looked as if he has just seen Godzilla but played extremely well and half way through the song, we all were finally comfortable…I even moved towards the crowd and shouted to get their hands up in the air and doing my usual high energy dance. While all this was happening, the models wearing Jathin Kocchar’s line of clothes entered the stage with their heavily practiced cat walk. The clothes were all mostly in black and white. But while we were performing, these models didn’t even seem to be there…we were so focused that we didn’t get distracted! Ha ha ha….
I think we held our fort amazingly well considering the fact that we couldn’t hear each other…and held it completely on the basis our body movement and language. Thanks to my ghungroos and the ever dependable Siva’s tight groove, we could keep the tempo intact and stuck together. And before even we realize, it was all over. Our 5 minutes of glory ended in a flash and when we reached the typical tihaayi ending of Mysore se Ayi, the crowd roared an approving applause. The voice over took over politely letting us know that it was finally over and it was an indication for us to exit. Once back stage, there were hugs and handshakes from everyone we knew and did not!
We had not expected such a big stage and expected nothing from it either but when the show was finally aired on MTV on Nov 3rd, the whole of country got to know that we kicked ass! :)
