Music - Part 1

I was playing treasure hunt around my house looking for old cassettes that are stacked in various drawers and cupboards and came across a treasure trove of music tapes of the 80s & 90s.
As I stare at them, I'm suddenly taken in to the future where my gizmo-savvy, hip-hopping kid will take one look at those tapes and laugh his guts out. Actually, no need to go in to the future. I am that kid, laughing at myself. I can't believe I actually own a cassette which looks like this:

Please note: LOVE MAKES LIFE LIVE (Wonder how long it took the copywriter to come up with THAT)
Please also note: Aashiqui (Romantic Film).... yeah like we never would've guessed!

In the 90s we had cassettes like these, where soundtracks of two films were clubbed in to one cassette, making the buyer believe that he was getting more value for money...two soundtracks for Rs. 22, matlab gyarah rupay ka ek...that's a steal!

Btw, if you're wondering who those two lovers under the jacket are....they're Anu Agarwal and Rahul Roy. Yes, they actually existed once upon a time! After Aashiqui, Agarwal went on to act in Khalnayika (which had the infamous display-of-boob scene) and Rahul Roy acted in the big fat flop, Junoon.

And our very own RDB ka tapori turned NBA activist, Aamir Khan, was once a chocolate-hero who sang Khambe jaisi khadi hai, ladki hai ya chadi hai (Filmfare award for best rhyming lyrics?) to a very gussa Madhuri Dixit in Dil, the soundtrack of which is on side B of that tape.

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I also found this:

Sorry the image isn't to clear but for those of you have the cassette, check out the artowork! It's awesome for a '96 cover.

Yep, Bally Sagoo! The original remix king. He's still around, btw, creating pretty much the same kind of sound like he did when he remixed Chura Liya. The painfully boring Mistress of Spices has a token Bally Sagoo composition...an instrumental remix of Aapki Nazaron Ne Samjha. He was also the original bhangra-pop king. Much before Panjabi MC came up with Mundian To Bach Ke and spoilt the whole genre with that overplayed number, following which, Jay Sean entered the scene and made the once-cool bhangra-pop, totally gay.

So going back to Bally Sagoo's songs in the 90s, the videos too are memorable, unlike today's 'baby-doll' type formula-videos. There was
Chura Liya with that bold video of seductive man & woman in white chaddis
Aaja Nach Le with Meghna Reddy, the skinny chick who was among the first generation of Indian VJs
Dil Cheez Hai Kya with another 1st generation VJ, Suchitra Pillai
Mera Laung Gawacha with the very hot Jas Arora & very tall Deepti Bhatnagar, who went on to act in the most shitty B-grade films like Dulhan Banoo Mein Teri which I remember coz it had this horrible Ila-Arun type song to which Bhatnagar danced at some foreign locale, clad in some jazzy bridal clothes
The remix of Choli Ke Peeche which is clearly etched in my memory because it caused a big controversy when we were in school. For our 7th std annual day, these three guys from Shiamak Davar's classes were called to help us put up a performance. The innocent princi for some reason had total faith in them and didn't care to peek in at any of our practice sessions. Three weeks later when we put up a rehearsal for her, she nearly died of shock as we started gyrating to Choli Ke Peeche. Out went the kinda-hot Shiamak Davar-trained teachers & in came a short weird lady who tried to teach us a less 'sexy' dance, much less sexy...some hilarious traditional Koli dance (which literally was - step diagonally to the left, step diagonally to the right, go up on your toes. repeat)

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Talking about the first lot of VJs, I recall
Meghna Reddy and Anish Trivedi (who is now a columnist for Mid-day and also in to theatre) on Channel V Mangta Hai which was later hosted by Reddy only
Suchitra Pillai on Simply South
Danny McGill's Headbangers Ball
Nonie & Trey the cute chinky ones
Laila Rouss
Sophiya Haque to whom I am forever grateful for that show of hers which I think was called Sophie's choice or something, where I watched the Lucy in the Sky video for the first & last time
Malaika Arora and Tarun Shahani (who lived in my building) on that MTV show..MTV Grind, was it?... where a whole bunch of scantily-dressed ppl just danced on the beach for one whole hour. I can't believe a show like that even existed! We were a weird audience.
And these two came much later but were really funny.... Ranvir Shorey & Vinay
Oh and Uddham 'Meri bhais ko danda kyon maara' Singh!

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When, and how, did you first find out the full form of 'a.k.a'?
I found out in 1995.
How? Steven Kapur AKA Apache Indian.
I asked my cousin, "why does he have 'aka' (pronounced the way it is spelt) as his middle name?" and my cousin replied, "Idiot! It means 'also known as'!

The first time he came to Bombay to perform, all the older kids in my building got to go. I was too little to be going for a concert and that made me very sad. If only my parents realised what a big fan of Steven Kapur AKA Apache Indian I was!

Wine your body
Wriggle your belly
Dip and go down in a the new stylee
Wine and go up, wine and go down
Bubble and a rockca the new style around
You fe line it up, you fe wine it up
Do the boomshackalak till the dance hall full up

SK AKA AI redefined vocabulary. All the cool kids in the mid-90s greeted each other with a 'Boom-shak-a-laka' or a 'Chok There!'

P.S: Does anyone know how to upload mp3s on to the blog? I've got Boom-shaka-laka!

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Hey does any one remember the name of that Brit-Indian band....brother-sister duo....who sang the song I Am An Indian? (I am an Indian, from Bombay city, I am and Indian, so you bettah follow me, I am an Indian, from the bottom to the top, I am an Indian, something something stop)

Update: Noble Savages is the name of the band. Thanks Nithin

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