Vijay Basrur

Dinner with Friends

Snehal & me went for a play a few weeks back. The play was Dinner with Friends with Tisca Chopra & Perizaad Zorabian in the lead. We enjoyed it immensely.

There is something great about watching a play. You can see the actors up so close and there is no room for mistakes. Its all in your face. The performances were stellar and they had a standing ovation at the end of it.

I was amazed at how they changes the setting on the stage in complete darkness and along with a change in wardrobe the actors transported us into a different phase of the story.

Here’s to hoping that we can get to catch more plays.

Music at the Oktoberfest

Music seems to bind the crowds at Oktoberfest. Ein Prosit (German for Cheers) is the standard filler along with something that goes Chiki Wiki Chiki Ho Ho Ho. There were a few popular numbers like Hey Jude, Oh Caroline, We are the champions to which the crowds glady joined in Chorus. I was quite surprised when at one of the tents the band belted out a cover version of Gypsy Kings Volare and then followed it up with CCR’s Proud Mary. After a few beers, even the cover versions sound pretty good. Another artist with mass appeal at the Oktoberfest was Robbie Williams. The chorus for ‘Angel’ was probably the loudest I heard in any of the tents.

Without music the tents are a totally different experience and totally not recommended

Richard Wright R.I.P

Richard Wright, pianist and keyboardist for Pink Floyd passed away on Monday.

So long and thanks for all the music!

TDK cassettes

I had a constant supply of TDK cassettes from the US to record my music. Other brands I had were Sony, Memorex I think. My Dad had a few BASF tapes. He used be a big time spool collector until they ran out of fashion.

Before the CD’s came in I had all my music on tapes and most of them were recorded. its only when Magnasound (whatever happened to those guys?) started releasing English music I started to buy original tapes. Infact i had a huge collection of tapes which had recorded FM music from the top US FM channels. My aunt used to religiously record the top twenty on weekends and send them across once in a while.

I bought my first CD in 1994, with my first pay. Its was Hell Freezes over by Eagles. And that was pretty much the decline in my purchase of cassettes. Today I don’t own any tapes. Its all CD’s and I think the future is digital (mp3/iTunes etc.)

So I was a nostalgic when I came across an old TDK advertisement on the All Music blog

Mime version of Torn

Spotted this on Facebook and hunted it down on You Tube

A mime performance of Torn by Johan Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia

A nice watch