Fell On Deaf Ears
By admin | June 4, 2009
Let me introduce you to my new band which is very different from the electronic desi sound of Swami that people know…There was a time a couple years back where I started introducing rock elements into Swami alongside the desi and electronica. People liked it but I didn’t want Swami to become something else… So, as a guitar player at heart, I decided to make a whole new rock band out of it called Fell On Deaf Ears or F^O^D^E for short. You could describe the sound as Kashmir Rock…going back to the roots of alternative rock and bringing in a few of my desi influences…Now you can check it out…F^O^D^E and Swami will be performing together at NXNE festival in Toronto on June 21st…Click the links on the right for more info…
Topics: Artists, Fell On Deaf Ears, Swami | No Comments »
Swami ‘Excellence In Music Award’ at ANOKHI 2009 Toronto
By admin | February 14, 2009
Just got back from Toronto after a week of TV and radio interviews, studio recording and a special guest appearance at the ANOKHI Magazine Annual Gala Awards 2009 where we picked up an award along with Freida Pinto and designers Priya and Chintan…interesting and talented bunch of people…It definitely looks like the Swami sound is entering a new phase in north America and we will be back to tour there in June and July…shame I left our award behind though…I have been assured it will be delivered to the UK real soon…
Topics: Artists, Swami | 1 Comment »
Back from Mumbai
By admin | January 30, 2009
So I am back after a crazy week of recording strings and percussion in the studio in Mumbai..all for projects currently in production including the new Swami album..more info to come soon…you just can’t beat the vibe in Mumbai! Slumdog Millionaire talk was everywhere…I even found time to check the latest happening club nights at Rockbottom, Blue Frog, Zenzi and did a special guest DJ set at The Ultimate in Andheri on Saturday night….let me know if you were there…!
Topics: Artists, Swami, Thoughts | No Comments »
DJing at Global Local
By admin | November 22, 2008
Great to see you all down at Cargo in London last Thursday for my Global Local DJ set…a real eclectic DJ mix of hip-hop, bhangra, electro, house and d n’ b..there were some cool live bands on too…What can I say other than a huge BIG UP to Continental Drifts…you guys certainly know how to throw a crazy party…!
Topics: Artists, Swami | 1 Comment »
DJing at the Electric Proms
By admin | November 1, 2008
For those of you that saw the interview, yes I did do a guest eclectic DJ set at The Barfly in Camden, London last Sunday as part of the BBC Electric Proms…There was some cool stuff happening that night in Camden with Lowkey also performing and Oasis playing across the street…Catch the interviews here
Topics: Artists, Interviews, Swami | No Comments »
Swami Sci-Fi Electro Jugni Video
By admin | October 22, 2008
SO…we decide to premiere the trailer for the new Electro Jugni video on the same day that India launched its first spacecraft to the moon…that is ironic isn’t it?
I have always had a fascination with the whole sci-fi thing….it has a sense of escapism yet unnerving reality at the same time..and people have always described Swami music as having some kind of futuristic feel to it….so we just had to launch it into space…!
I just knew we had to engage in something ‘beyond human’ with a track title like ‘Electro Jugni’ and discussed at length with Indi Hans from X1X Films about possible themes….We had a common interest in many sci-fi films and thought it would be great to do something totally different from all the other videos..it has been worth the wait… this is just the beginning of the new future for Swami…
See the trailer now:
Topics: Artists, Swami | 1 Comment »
Music Integration NOT Segregation
By admin | July 3, 2008
The first time I ever had a song that I wrote/produced played on mainstream radio was by the legendary John Peel back in 1991….and I just knew he was playing my song because he genuinely liked it and chose to play it without any necessary conformity or agenda. How times have changed..amazing how so many admire his ethos but so few aspire to apply it. I applaud those who try but I am concerned for the insecurities of those who choose only to stick to their own sense of familiarity…Are we living in a time of questionable musical integrity, where safe secular purist music trends have become an easy option of supposedly pioneering the way forward? Just think back to what diverse musical influences bands like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and The Specials were bringing into British music…However, it may not be the fault of true music lovers, perhaps corporate management is suffocating the freedom of integrating musical expression with a warped understanding of diversity…consequently segregating progressive hybrid music from mass appeal…I think you know where I am coming from…after all this is my blog…You the listener be the judge…I’m just preaching thoughts without a grudge…
Topics: Thoughts | 2 Comments »
Swami Unplugged in Canada
By admin | July 1, 2008
We recently did an unplugged acoustic performance for Canadian TV…an exclusive for DesiHits…now if we could only get the footage from the camera in the video…hmmm…click the pic to see…
Topics: Swami | 1 Comment »
Bruce Springsteen Saved My Life
By admin | July 1, 2008
Diamond Duggal enjoys Sarfraz Manzoor’s unpretentious story of a young British Muslim’s unlikely role model in Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock’n'Roll
Saturday June 9, 2007
The Guardian
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 Buy Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock’n’Roll at the Guardian bookshop |
by Sarfraz Manzoor
269pp, Bloomsbury, £12.99There is nothing unfamiliar about the lives of second-generation British immigrants. The tension between traditional and liberal values and the disconnection between first- and second-generation immigrants has been well documented; most notably in Hanif Kureishi’s books The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album, as well as Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer prize-winning short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. There is a timeless reality to diaspora, a sense of soul-searching that is, somehow, relevant to us all. However, since 7/7 there seems to be a greater urgency to comprehend the particular challenges for British Muslims, and the conflicts they face between traditional and western lifestyles. In this aptly-timed memoir, it is Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics that provide a route into that territory.
Sarfraz Manzoor arrived in Britain, aged three, in 1974 with his mother, brother and sister, to join his father in Bury Park, Luton, and it soon becomes clear that his struggle to balance being both a British and Pakistani Muslim was going to dominate his life. His father worked on the production line at Vauxhall along with the many other Asian immigrants who believed in hard work accompanied by strict traditional family values. Ironically, his father’s aspiration to move to a white neighbourhood – for the educational betterment of his children – plays a significant role in shaping Manzoor’s views on how to deal with life as a British Muslim. And, as so often, it is Springsteen who finds the words he needs: “Papa, now I know the things you wanted that you could not say, but won’t you just say goodbye, it’s independence day, I swear I never meant to take those things away.” The lyrics to “Independence Day” express the teenager’s yearning for progress and freedom. His subdued sense of rebellion appears, at this time, to spring from witnessing the pressures of arranged marriages on his elder sister Navela and brother Sohail.
Manzoor’s introduction to Springsteen’s music, courtesy of his Sikh friend Amolak, is the most endearing part of this book. Their obsessive fan behaviour is epitomised wonderfully in an incident when Manzoor, now working for Channel 4 and reporting on a court case involving Springsteen, ends up chatting to his idol for 20 minutes during a break in proceedings. Amolak’s envious reaction on hearing about the encounter illustrates both their competitiveness and their deeply valued bond of lifelong friendship.
However, the pressure to conform to his father’s expectations is a constant theme early in the book, and it is with a huge sigh of relief that we finally witness Manzoor indulging in a period of true rebellion after his graduation. But his father’s untimely death, when he is just about to get his first journalistic work published, prompts a poignant realisation of the deep commitment his father had to his family.
The looming prospect of an arranged marriage again sends Manzoor scurrying off to Bruce for guidance: “My ideal girl would be someone to whom I could play ‘Born to Run’.” And when the events of 9/11 and 7/7 intrude, we are reminded about the restrictive and ritualistic way in which he had been brought up as a Muslim. Though it seems strange, we find ourselves understanding how he could have come to feel that “Bruce Springsteen gave me more persuasive answers than Islam”.
Greetings from Bury Park takes time to address the economic issues that dominate the lives of immigrants, but it is the father’s obliviousness to the complexity of his son’s emotional life that gives this affectionate memoir its substance. The bizarre but compelling idea that Manzoor, feeling neither British nor Pakistani, and lacking Pakistani role models, finds some sort of solace in the American, working-class, sociopolitical lyrics of the Boss provides an intriguing backdrop to his life. Thankfully, he avoids travelling too far down the Nick Hornby road of setting a musical soundtrack to his past. Instead, he goes off at his own tangent, showing an almost disciple-like reverence for the lyrics of one artist, and taking us on an enticing journey of emotional anxiety through life’s challenges.
Interestingly, though, given Manzoor’s obsession with music, we are left wondering what sort of effect university life – and in particular the hedonistic 1990s “Madchester” scene – had on shaping his outlook on the world (perhaps, because he doesn’t drink, very little). Also, a passing reference to his passion for the Qawwali Sufi music of the Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is left frustratingly unexplored.
Ultimately, Manzoor is a true Springsteen devotee, and unashamedly a proud one. You may not share its perspective on the Boss, but Greetings from Bury Park vibrantly displays a modest and unpretentious sense of optimism, and offers the hope that by connecting with our own choices in music we can transcend cultural and generational differences to reach personal freedom without denying our need to belong.
· Diamond Duggal is a record producer, DJ and leader of the alternative bhangra band Swami
Topics: Journalism | 1 Comment »
Why I don’t trust David Cameron…
By admin | July 1, 2008
For those of you who don’t know my opinion on the Tory leader …here you go:
Excerpt from Hugh Muir’s Guardian Diary 28/9/07:
For this would be the same David Cameron who encountered DJ Swami, the British Asian music producer, on a flight to Berlin the other day. They chatted, amicably it seemed, before the Tory leader returned to his reading: a Wikipedia page profiling Angela Merkel. What happened next is disputed. The musician, whose band (also called Swami) top the BBC Asian Network chart, claims that, as he walked away from the plane, he heard the Tory leader joshing about the person he had just met. “He said ‘They’re called Swami, ha, ha’,” the DJ told us. “I felt pretty hurt.” Mr Cameron strongly denies making disrespectful remarks, and it’s just as well. There are a lot of folk out there with exotic-sounding names. So many wouldn’t get the joke…
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Topics: Interviews, Politics | No Comments »