Josy John – The Bass Superhero!

When I was first called to play for ‘The Raghu Dixit Project’, I knew I was playing where one of the best bassists in the country, Josy John had left a mark! On my best day, I am just about a fraction of what he does reguarly!

When Raghu called me today to let me know that he was in town and recording for Raghu’s upcoming movie, I had to clear out everything else I was up to and just sit and watch him record some of the most brilliant bass playing you will ever hear in a Kannada movie!

Sitting here for the past three hours watching him has taught me more than I have learnt in a long time. His bass playing reminds me of how at the end of the day, its not about technique, or the “right way” to play (he is as un-orthodox a bass player as you will find), its all about your groove and your choice of notes!

For the super star that he is, he is probably the most unassuming, down to earth musician you will ever find. I can guarantee you his humility will completely blow your mind!

Just to show you what I mean, take a look at the video here and when you’ve finally picked up your jaw that must have hit the floor by now, rewind and watch it again! *THAT* is what a bass guitar can do!

This is a video taken from Antaragni’s show at BITS Pilani, a couple of years back.

Our Cutest Fan?

The picture says it all! I have nothing to add .. This was in Jeonju, Korea!

PS: The note reads “You are MY Hero”

Tiranga!

The lovely folks at BabbleFish Studios put together a video as a tribute to the entire nation coming together after the Mumbai terror attacks and they used an old song that Raghu had written.

Check the video out and tell us what you think! Also, while you are at it, rate the video there and tell your friends about it

The “landmark” gig in Bangalore

It has been a long long time since we played in Bangalore and yesterday’s show at ‘Landmark’ in the Garuda Swagath mall was one of the most looked forward to! both by us and a few of the people who have been writing in.

But what it eventually turned out to be was just beyond all our expectations and when Raghu exclaimed that “The crowd in Bangalore is the best!” and that “This is one of the best shows we’ve played” .. it was completely true!

There was an air about the show even before it actually began, and there was a welling crowd filling up all the possible standing space around the stage area. I had honestly not expected so many people to turn up, but then it was brilliant to see all of you there!

The gig started with songs from the first album and each of them had a very vocal Bangalore crowd singing along and I guess video taping the concert like I have never seen before. Like someone right pointed out, this is a great example of social media at work and I hope everyone uploads all the photos and videos they have taken and shares it with others!

Raghu then moved on to some songs from ‘Psycho’, the latest Kannada movie sensation and those songs were like a wildfire through dried hay! the whole store seemed to sing along and at times even remind Raghu of the lyrics!

In all, it was a great gig! lots of people, nice place, good fun! Thanks all of you for coming along and making this special. Upload all your photos and videos and send us a link so we can check them out too! and keep coming back here to check about the next time we play where you are

You can check out and you can see the whole set on the Raghu Dixit Project Flickr Page.

Raghu Dixit in Pune / Chennai

Just got wind of some photos of Raghu that the wonderful Kushal Das took of the Landmark store shows. Anyone with reviews?

Check out this pic and the rest of the photo set here

Raghu plays along with Vijay Joseph at the Jayanagar Landmark store tomorrow. Make sure you get there!

Happy Birthday Raghu!

Its that time of the year again! so ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together, stand up while you are at it (because its not nice to play to an audience who is not having fun with us ) and lets sing along ..

“Happy Birthday Raghu”!

Its been one of the most eventful years as far as the band goes and its only going to get crazier! right from breaking his hand to a mini-world tour to a superhit movie score, its been stuff that dreams are made of .. and all of you have been with us on this journey! So here is to a great new year ahead for Raghu and some more crazy stories to tell!

I will leave you with a Raghu Dixit Classic .. this is a classic ‘Raghu-Dixit-Involved-In-The-Song-with-No-Care-For-The-World’ pose!

Do leave your wishes here!

The Landmark Show Details

As I mentioned earlier, Raghu is playing in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore at the Landmark stores in each city. He will be playing a solo acoustic set and will be accompanied in each city by a guest artiste.

Go there to catch a complete new twist on the songs from the debut album, buy the CD if you haven’t already and get your CD autographed by Raghu!

The details for the shows are -

Pune
Date: 14th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, 1B Moledina Rd, (Next to Dorabjee’s) Camp, Pune. Tel: 4006 8888

Chennai
Date: 15th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, Chennai Citi Centre, R.K Salai, Chennai. Tel: 2847 777

Bangalore
Date: 16th November 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Landmark, Garuda Swagat Mall, Jayanagar, Bangalore

I will put up links here to the posters for all 3 gigs, please feel free to take the right poster, print it out and put it up in your offices and schools and colleges! For now, just send this link out to everyone you think will be interested and come for the shows! Who knows you might get a cool t-shirt as well

And while you are at it, go for the gig, take some pics and send it to us or just upload it somewhere and send us a link and I will feature it on the blog

Raghu Dixit @ Landmark

Raghu is going to be playing a series of gigs in Landmark Stores across the country this weekend. There are shows planned in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November respectively. I will put up more details about the shows very soon, but if any of you are in these cities, keep those days free to catch Raghu unplugged at a Landmark Store near you!

‘Rock On’ for Humanity

It was a true splash and dash when we had to land up in the morning on Friday in Mumbai for the Rock On for Humanity gig. It was the same day that ‘Psycho’ was premiering and Raghu was torn between the two

The band made it earlier, and Raghu as a compromise managed to catch the first glimpses of the film and more importantly the crowd reaction to the music and the movie before he rushed to Mumbai for what would be a truly magical (or should I say ‘Magik’al) night!

The sound check went on quite well and Dwayne on the mixer did a fabulous job of helping us get things in order in under 30 minutes and Bobby and Nikhil of OML worked overtime to ensure that all glitches like the massive power cut in between our soundcheck were all sorted out and nothing repeated in the evening!

The gig started early and surprisingly for a show that had so many bands playing, was on time for the entire evening! The line up for the entire evening was easily among the best gig lineups I have seen in the country and there was no band that you could really skip .. it was 5 hours of pure entertainment!

We were up on stage after Avial (who I watched for the first time ever live and LOVED!) and we proceeded to completely rock the venue! The audience was just brilliant and seemed to be rooting for us from the word go! The set consisted of Hey Bhagwan, Mysore Se Aayi and Har Saans Mein as we had only 20 minutes or rather 3 songs to play because they needed to shut the show down at 10 PM. But like Siva says, it drains you more when you put 200% in a 3 song set than play a whole show and it was close to what happened

It was really nice to see the reaction we got on stage and was even better to meet with all the ‘Big Boys from Bollywood’. What warmed my heart the most was the fact that the organizing team raised *4 CRORES* for the cause and achieving that around a concert in India makes me happier than ever!

So a HUGE round of thanks and appreciation to the entire team that put this together and especially to Farhan Akthar, Arjun Rampal and Ritesh Sidhwani who came up with and drove this idea to such success!

If any of you was at the event and happened to catch us play, please do leave us a comment! let us know what you thought.

Review ‘Psycho’

The much awaited release of ‘Psycho’ happened over this weekend and it was quite an overwhelming affair! We’ve been hearing tons of reports of housefull shows and brilliant reactions from people who watched the movie.

I went and watched it yesterday and I can guarantee you the music completely kicks butt!

Now what I want to know is .. if you have seen the movie, tell us what you think of it. Did you like it? did you not? what did you like? anything at all .. say it!