My Bloglogue April 22nd 2005

Seattle weather gods are in DC area for a visit hence a dull gloomy rainy day in forecast. In my earlier blog, I had written about Rogers, few of my friends, [Balaji in the feed back] told me he would be booked on web squandering. Actually the case web of squandering takes shape only when you book the domain after the incident, here Rogers booked it well in advance, he has a better reason now, yes! He says he did not want this Domain to fall under unscrupulous hands. He has actually helped Vatican; today this popular domain redirects you to a charity website.

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What happened to the Thriuvasagam Symphony/ Oratorio by Ilayaraja wasn’t it supposed to be released on Tamil New years day?, check this , what is the status now? May be delayed due to 2 mega releases? What ever, at least what is the new time line? I tried going to this domain thiruvasakaminsymphony.com but gets redirected. It is about time to release this so that no one starts to speculate on this great attempt by IsaiGani Raja.

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Yesterday, I saw a great movie, yes, kAdal. Basically this is a story about 2 infatuated juveniles; they decide to run away on their own for their kiddy love. The Girl actually moots this idea because her parents force her to get married. We get see how a 10th grade kid and a hard working but an uneducated guy gets to face reality. While we also get see the trauma parents undergoes because of kids actions. But the highlight of the movie was that it showed both the sides of the coin without passing any judgment. It is for you to decide. Screen play was done well, still they could have made it little bit faster.
The trend of reality in Tamil movies is a welcome growth I wish more movies are made in this fashion. Music, like a weather man who never says “100%” rain , I am never convinced 100%, but Joshua Sridhar, has the talent and the freshness in his songs, I liked most of the songs , IMO, the song about Triplicane single life was the best, apart from well contained music, Lyrics added great value to this track. Weakest link for Joshua Sridhar - background scores, I found it really weak in many places, and background music is often a hard ball game to get it right in the first movie. I am sure he would improve in days to come.

I use to wonder why there are no female stars like Shoba these days, but this girl Sandya,[ICE] might go all the way, the expressions and her voice modulation everything falls in place. Best of all she talks using her own voice; Boys fame Bharath underplays the role quite well. So does this little guy in the work shop. Bharath seems to enjoy good breaks and doing better than other little heroes today. Like many of today’s heroes, I really don’t know if he has a producer father or brother to push him. The way he does the lunatic role was impressive. I never expected this end to the movie, may be this was the reason I liked the whole movie. This movie also had controversies, schools in Madurai tried to get a stay order on this movie, I don’t know about the status of these stay orders, but I feel this movie has both the sides and explains the evils of infatuation in a clear fashion. Over all, with perfect casting of characters and a lively story/screen play and good acting, kAdal impressed me for its originality. The director adds a caption saying this was a real story; yes it does look like one.

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Last week, I had an opportunity to watch SPB live on Raj Digital. This show was not the usual show we often go to, but really a rare one.
Few months ago, along with my friends, I had an opportunity to talk SPB when he was touring USA. I recorded this entire conversation in my studio and Dhool.com published it. Udhaya, [Studio1234 Inhouse Lyrics Expert!] placed a request to SPB. He asked him “ when on tour, why do you pick a standard set of songs ignoring many good songs by old composers?” And Udhaya went on to request SPB to sing 2 songs per composer at least so that world remember them. SPB replied that it was due various factors including the orchestra, they [they includes SPB also] need to know the songs well in order for them to perform. He apologized that he has been lazy to do this properly, but on the records he promised all of us that he would do it very soon.

This was left there, and but to my surprise, in this RajTV show SPB made sure he sang songs of all the composers ranging from MSV – KVM – Shanker Ganesh – V.Kumar –Ilayaraja - Rahman and till today’s Vidhya Sagar. He made sure Laxman Sruthi [Band] learnt the songs and played with him. This show had rare songs on stage like Ragangal 16, ilakanam marudho, Bharathi kannama and many more great songs from the 68, 70, 75, 80 time period. He did it as promised 100% . I am tying to get this DVD from Raj Video, hopefully will find it soon. Thanks to Udhaya for making the great request and thanks to SPB for making it happen. This show is must see for all Tamil music fans. SPB also promised us to create a full Carnatic album, since he made this happen I am sure we can expect this to happen soon.

Good weekend folks.