Beer in your Ear

The two most annoying sounds from my youth had to be the alarm clock and Hotel California. Growing up in Bangalore pubs, you could almost set your watch by the good Hotel ... they played it every half hour.
It got to a point where we carried a placard to the pub: Hotel California closed for renovation. Luckily, the bloke who manned the DJ console, when he wasn't serving beers or drinking them, had a sense of humour. He just swapped HC for Bon Jovi. That's when we poured beer into our ears and turned deaf.

Morocco Memoirs - II

Essaouiran legend has it that Jimi Hendrix wrote Castles in the Sand on the beaches of this gorgeous town. Ignore the fact that Hendrix wrote the song a few years before he visited Morocco and it's a great story to tell your grandkids.
Essaouira considers Hendrix her own. And it's hard not to see why he fell in love with this Moroccan beauty. It breathes music and colour and there is an endless supply of weed. You can escape the steaming kettles in the souk but there is no running away from the pot.
In recent times, Essaouira has found a new love. The Moroccans can't get enough of Shah Rukh Khan. They sing his songs, they know his lines, they even know Kajol. It's quite unsettling to be in a strange land many moons away from your own and be serenaded with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It's so wrong, I tell you.

And I saw Him Standing There

Him and his acoustic guitar and Blackbird. Twentyfive thousand hearts beat noiselessly lest they intrude on the mesmeric voice soaring over the sweet twang of his guitar. He joked later that he may have missed a few chords.
He played the Ukulele in a moving tribute to George Harrison. He had played Something in George's house fifty years ago and he played it for us last night. It was moving, magical and humbling.
He sang for George, he sang for John, he sang for Linda, he even sang for Jimi Hendrix. The strong resonant voice is still there, so are the boyish good looks. I went to see Paul McCartney perform songs that my parents grew up with. It is a night I will never forget. I came away happy and inadequate.

I've got a ticket to ride

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you're gone ...

I have got a ticket to the Paul McCartney show on Dec 22. That is one big box ticked in the "100 things to do before the white coats get me" list. Tangerine trees and marmalade skies did you say?

Just call him Al

Let's just call him Al, shall we. Al tunes his weathered guitar with a pitch pipe and a smile. It's tough to smile with a pitch pipe claiming your lips but then Al has smiling eyes. So Al's stage is the subway and his box office collections are open to audit or theft, scattered in his guitar case. It's cold out there on the streets but Al's music warms the subway. His fingers dance on the strings, his blind eyes smile.

Wired for sound

I think convenience obscures passion.
I know what you are thinking but this is not about that really. It's about a time before MTV and Compact Discs (how weird that sounds) and iTunes came calling. I remember trawling through used issues of the Rolling Stone and being glued to late night radio seeking songs from beyond. I would make a wish list, buy a bunch of blank tapes, and head to a little hole in the wall recording shop that would source and record these songs for me. Shankar, or was it Raju, rarely failed me. If he couldn't get me the song, the only option was to pester friends or relatives who lived abroad. They usually forgot the music in suitcases crammed with cheap chocolates and perfumes.
If the LP records at home laid the foundation of my love for music, piracy cemented it.
Now, I am a stone's throw or a few Tube stops away from some of the biggest music stores in the world and I haven't done more than a cursory walkthrough. It's a shame because it is so easy.

How did they get to Woodstock?

How did they all get to Woodstock without mobile phones? Imagine thousands of unwashed, stoned flower children finding some obscure farm without Google maps and text messages. And the organizers never advertised. Brilliant.