Dave Latchaw's Music Ezine

"The Zine" is a music ezine for independent musicians and fans of music. The ezine content is contributed by
Dave Latchaw and colleagues who use the Internet to promote their projects. You can check out back issues at "The Zine" Archives.

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In This Issue


Free Radio:
Top 10 Recommended Listens

Article:
"Getting Heard"
by Dave Latchaw

This Month's Guest Artist:
Satish from "Indofunk"
Wonderful groovy world vibe

Web Site of the Month:
hearnet.com

Web Video of the Month:
California Guitar Trio with Tony Levin

Music Pick of the Month:
Bill Bruford "Feels Good To Me"

The Zine Top 10
Recommended Listens

Our Top 10 radio station is a variety of music that we are listening to at the moment on MP3.com. No particular order. All great music. A new selection of tunes each month.

September 2001 #14

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Article
"Getting Heard"
by Dave Latchaw

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend an interesting lecture given by Michael Laskow, the president of the A&R service Taxi. He covered a wide range of topics including how Taxi works, and various other aspects of the music business. I am currently a member of Taxi, I first signed up in 1992. The way Taxi works is, they are in direct contact with record companies, publishers, and film and t.v. music supervisors, and know what they are looking for. Twice a month, via regular mail or email, Taxi members receive a current listing of music wanted in many different categories. Taxi give specifics on this list, and if a member feels they have something that fits a listing, they send it in. Taxi then carefully listens to all of the entries that they receive for a listing by the deadline given, and if they find a gem that is appropriate for the listing, they pass it on to the company that placed the listing. The people who do the screening are highly qualified in their specific genre. For some listings, you receive just a "yes" (it's been passed on) or "no" (it hasn't), for others, you get a "yes" or "no" and a critique. The critiques that I've gotten so far have seemed very objective and helpful. One of the best things about the service is that anything passed on by Taxi will get listened to, it becomes solicited material. That's next to impossible to do on your own. I think this is a brilliant idea! What a great resource for those in search of getting their music heard. It makes sense for the industry to use Taxi too, it saves them time to only have to listen to material that has been pre-screened by a knowledgeable A&R person.

In 1992 I was recovering from several years of banging my head into the walls of the U.K. and American record and management companies. (I was the keyboardist for the Scottish rock band "The Heat" from '86 to '90). "The Heat" had moderate success, but Taxi could have saved us many hours of frustrating schmoozing and networking. The amount of time wasted trying to get music to the music bizz underlings that might do something about advancing your career, is amazing! From my experience, the record business of the 80's was all about connections. Bands would pass a tape on to a person who's girlfriend's brother mows the lawn of the accountant of somebody connected, thinking that this could lead something. Connections do help, and you can still try to do that today, but you will try many of this type of "passing the demo on" scenarios before anything might happen. Then you're lucky if a person who can actually do something will even listen to it. Usually that person already has a mountain of music to check out. With Taxi, you can cut down the time of mass mailings, endless schmoozing and networking.

I was very surprised at the cast of characters at that Taxi lecture a few weeks ago (myself included). You could tell what kind of music people were into by the outfits they had on, which was pretty amusing. I was surprised by many of the questions in the open forum discussion about the music business. Ignorance is not bliss. With a bit of effort, one can educate themself about many aspects of music and the music business. You have to take responsibility. When Michael asked the room of people "Who reads Billboard?", very few responded. Billboard is one of those publications that you have to check out and be aware of if you are working in the commercial area of music. Besides the many books and magazines that have information about various aspects of the music business, one can use the Internet for gathering information. Billboard has a web site, and also sites like Music Business Solutions and artistpro can be useful as resources.

The music business is generally not a simple, logical process. In the music business you meet all types of people who give you plenty of reason to be skeptical, but I was impressed with the genuine sincerity of Michael Laskow and his company, Taxi. Even from the website, you can tell they want you to have great information on how to improve your abilities and have a chance for success, and Mr. Laskow was just like that in person. Taxi is very clear about what it is and what it is not. From my experience, Taxi does not guarantee you success, but your music will be listened to by someone knowledgeable in the industry, and will have a much better chance of being passed on to someone who can make something happen. Seems fair enough to me, and worth the cost of being a member of Taxi.

(Shameless plug...if you check out Taxi and think it's cool, and you join because this article led you there, please tell them Dave Latchaw referred you! Thank you.)

-Dave Latchaw/September, 2001

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This Month's Guest Artist:
Satish from "Indofunk"

#1 Where can one find more information about you and your group online?
Yay! Free shameless promotion! Go to www.IndofunkCity.com for all the information you can digest, gig listings, free mp3 music, how to order our CD, and many many witty stories! Don't leave without reading the story of how the band met (on the "Meet Indofunk" page)!

#2 Were you planning to start Indofunk when you moved from Boston to New York, and how has the band evolved since it started?
Well, after I left Boston (where, by the way, I played publicly only once, at Scullers, because I was focusing on school), I went to Wisconsin for 2 years. The only reason I stayed for the second year is because the extreme cold numbed my brain so I couldn’t think straight. But I made the stay worthwhile by stealing a Master’s degree in Molecular biology (if my school ever finds out, they’ll strip that degree from me faster than a New York hoodlum can strip a car!).

But when I finally wised up and moved to the greatest city in the world, I was still a straight-up bebop player. I did the whole bebop thing: went to all the jam sessions in town, played pickup gigs with every bass, guitar, piano player, and drummer I could hook up with, and even recorded a CD of jazz originals. Basically I convinced myself that I could be a contender on the straight jazz scene.

That’s when the second “wising up” came … I realized that I’m not a great technical player, and by that time I was in my early twenties and I was being blown away to the point of sheer embarrassment by 16-year-old kids! The public wants to see young men, young black men, playing jazz, nobody else. Maybe one or two white “prodigies” or a few sexy female singers, but everyone else is basically scrambling for a living. I know so many great great players who make your jaw hit the floor every time they play, but outside of musicians like me and a few connoisseurs, nobody knows about them! If they can’t do it, who the hell am I to try?

More importantly than the above, I decided I wasn’t really saying anything through bebop. In order to say what my soul was trying to get out, I needed a beat, and I needed to do something “Indian” so that my inner voice could speak the language better. I grew up in an Indian household, my parents listened to a lot of South Indian classical music (karnatik sangeetham), and my grandmother’s family has a couple of very talented musicians, so I had it in my blood, I just needed to get it out.

The way Indofunk started is that I wrote a couple of really simple melodies in raga (see below for an explanation of “raga”), and I had a couple of my friends come and record some of this stuff. Since it was really new to all of us, it came out pretty horribly, but it gave me something to develop off of. I called this trio (bass, drums, and me) “Satish and his Funkadelics”. It lasted maybe a week. Then my drummer friend got a little flaky and I hooked up with this other drummer who I’d auditioned for my bebop CD, but didn’t use because he pretty much sucked at jazz. He was a great groove player, though, and really brought the sound up. My bass buddy was always way too busy to play, so I got another heavy groover on bass, this Ethiopian funk player named Henock. Then through the original bass player’s German keyboard player, I found another German keyboard player (for some reason, I’ve always played with Germanic keyboard players since then … don’t know why) who was really into the raga concept. I named the band after that first, simple tune I wrote, “Indofunk”.

That was the core quartet. During this time I realized that in order to convince people that the name Indofunk was well-deserved, I’d need a “token” tabla player. Although the role of my tabla player today is much more integral and invaluable (he brings in elements like Indian rhythmic cycles, cadences, and compositions, as well as great musical and non-musical ideas and inspiration), I have to admit that my original reason for getting a tabla player was for the distinctive Indian sound. I wanted to find a mridhangam player, actually, since the mridhangam is traditional in karnatik sangeetham, but tabla players are much easier to come by, at least in NYC (there is a mridhangam player on our first CD, though). I went through quite a few of them, none of whom really fit in with the groove, being classically trained. A couple of American jazz percussionists did fit in well, but couldn’t do all the gigs. So we rolled as a quintet and occasional quartet for a while, playing at joints like the Izzy Bar and the Kavehaz, both real dead-end gigs, as well as other little joints here and there.

But unfortunately there was not enough work for the band, and I was still brand-new at leading an actual “band”. Also, these guys had other major commitments (the bass player played internationally with touring Ethiopian pop singers, the drummer had his own band, and the keyboard player was trying to get into hip-hop producing), so the band completely changed personnel almost at once. The keyboard player jumped ship first, which I still regret to this day, because of all the people I’ve played with (except Ravi Shankar’s student), he was the most into raga-playing. I replaced him with a Viennese keyboardist, Walter Fishbacher, who I honestly can’t remember how I met. I think it was through an Austrian drummer I played with in a funk band before. Anyways, the drummer dropped out soon afterwards and Walter immediately recommended his friend from Vienna, Harry Gangelberger. These two were completely into the band mentality, unlike the jazz players I’d been playing with until then, so they’ve been with me ever since.

Finding a bass player in New York is like finding the Holy Grail. And finding a good one is like finding Jesus himself. I think I found the father, the son, and the holy ghost all rolled into one. Bryon Hankins, who only joined the band at the end of last year, is an amazing bass player (with groove chops and solo chops, too), he’s not in any other bands, and loves to play with Indofunk! If any New Yorker is reading this, no you can’t have him!

I finally settled on a pretty steady tabla player through a guitar player I met right at the beginning of Indofunk, when we were playing at the Izzy Bar one night. Lee Boice, a rock ‘n’ roll guitarist, was just starting to get into Indian-flayvored sounds, so he came to one of our shows and introduced himself, later introduced me to Bill Buchen, a funk drummer-turned-classical tabla player, and eventually worked himself into the band, too (I was resisting making the band any bigger, but I realized that I needed another front man to share duties).

Since I suddenly had a bunch of amazing players in this lineup, I allowed the sound to develop with the band. After all, we were a true band now, so everyone has a right to their own equal share of artistic input. We all contribute to the sound of the band, so if any one of us were to drop out permanently, the band would sound completely different. It’s can be a nice refreshing change when one or another of the core players can’t make it to a gig and some new interaction happens; although if the sub is not really into the jamming mentality the gig can turn into a real drag...

The final addition to the band - a transient, if you will - is Steve James, a friend of Bill’s and a longtime student of Ravi Shankar’s (14 years on & off). He was in town from Europe for a few months this spring and summer and basically sat in on all of our gigs, and fortunately for us stayed long enough to record on our second album. His playing (on the violin and sarod) was so incredible, and his sound and technique so truly and distinctly Indian, that suddenly the band sounded like I’d always wanted it to … INDOfunk! At around the same time, I started playing slide trumpet (a little mini-trombone) so I could get more of an Indian classical sound, and I took some lessons from Steve, too. I’m looking for another teacher now that Steve’s back in Europe, and perhaps another Indian instrument frontman so I can recapture that sound until I become more adept at Indian classical playing…

#3 Who are some of the influences of the band, and how have they affected the over-all sound of Indofunk?
Well, we each have our own influences, and when we get together, it sometimes feels like we’re fighting each other, but what comes out is a great amalgamation of a whole bunch of different styles and influences! Myself, my original jazz influences of Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan still show through, and of course Miles Davis’ music has had a lot to say about the overall sound I’m going for. In fact, one of the greatest, most profound influences on my life (no, I’m not overdramatizing here) has been Miles Davis’ autobiography. I literally treat it like a Bible, I reread it every few months, and I never fail to find a new little gem of wisdom about music or the music business, or an answer to a little nagging question in my musical life.
[Hmm … note to myself … maybe I’ll add a page in the “personal” section of Indofunk City detailing some of the important lessons I’ve gotten from Miles’ autobio…]

As I mentioned, karnatik sangeetham has played a very important role in my musical development, and I still love the music and listen to it whenever I get a chance. I’m going to Madras this winter for the concert season, which is 2 weeks of nonstop karnatik music (can’t wait!). There’s also an on-again-off-again group lead by John McLaughlin called Shakti that’s a great fusion of karnatik music, hindustani music, and some wild jazz playing. As far as modern music, I’m heavily into drum & bass, especially the music produced by my South Asian brethren both in this country and in the UK.

My drummer, Harry, is also into drum & bass and other kinds of dance music, so many times our jams will weave in and out of an uptempo dancehall feel and back into a mellow R&B flayvored jam. He’s really open to a lot of different music, and when I started showing him about Indian rhythmic cycles and other world music, he absorbed it all like a thirsty sponge in the desert.

The acknowledged guru of Indian rhythm, though, is obviously my tabla player, Bill. He truly educates us all as much as he can. Since he started out as a funk/fusion drummer years ago, he can translate Indian music into terms that the rest of the band, which is not as Indian music-literate, can understand. He always likes to name his influences as James Brown, Miles Davis, and Tower of Power. His background and influences allow him to use the tablas as a supporting groove percussion instrument instead of sitting in his own world playing tabla “thekas” as if the drumset player didn’t exist.

The rest of the band brings in various jazz, funk, and groove influences, and even a bit of good old rock ‘n’ roll. The result, like I said, is a great big melting pot of influences that gives us our distinct collective voice.

#4 How does the band fuse the free improvisation of jazz music with the highly structured raga-based improvisation of Classical Indian music?
That’s a very complex question, mostly because we as a band are always in the process of figuring it out and modifying the way we approach that question. First, a quick description of a raga is in order … A raga can be loosely defined as a set of between 5 and 7 notes that can be different on the way up and the way down. The raga can include elements like a specific shake (gamakam) on a certain note, or a characteristic slide (meend) from one note to another. In strict Indian classical music, each song, and sometimes a whole evening’s performance, is based on a single raga, and notes outside of that raga are never used. Certainly, this is a very simplistic description, but it’ll do for our purposes here…

Originally, I’d write songs that were strictly raga-based. That means that there would be a certain specific raga that I would stick to, and nobody was allowed to use notes outside of that raga. But I found that that approach severely restricted my musicians’ creativity, so basically I said, “listen, these are the notes I’m going to use, play whatever you want behind it that sounds good.” Later, we started to get into “jamming”, sort of like Phish or Grateful Dead without the vocals. At this point, I just let the music fall where it may and through my playing, make it sound like a raga (Steve James was especially good at doing that). Our second CD, in production now and tentatively scheduled to come out in January 2002, is 100% jams and perfectly reflects this concept.

I’m thinking of developing my raga-based composing technique. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do now, since we’re doing just great with our jams, and I’m kind of “nudging” some of the jams by suggesting we start a jam in a specific Indian rhythmic cycle, for example, or start out saying that I’ll be playing in such-and-such a raga. But what I’m thinking as far as strict compositions is, instead of composing a song in a single raga, to use 2 or 3 (or more) ragas and switch between them, either by constructing different sections, each with a different raga, or by using each raga like a jazz chord and write a song using “raga changes” as I would chord changes. I’ve only just begun to get into that, so we’ll have to wait and see where that develops. Even if it never makes it into the band’s repertoire, it could produce some very cool sounds …

#5 How did the collaborations with Sandhya Sanjana, Sirk and Walk-Skip-Run-Glide develop?
After our first self-titled CD, I wanted to see what remixers could do with it to make it more clubby-sounding, since like I said I’m into dance music and mixes. So I put the word out that I was interested in people doing some remixes. Through a freaky coincidence, Sandhya was great friends with Steve James, the Ravi Shankar student I mentioned before. So I was introduced to Sandhya, and at about the same time, I heard back from Sirk and Chris of WSRG for remix offers. And in another freaky coincidence (in fact, these “freaky coincidences” have become so common that they’re not freaky anymore), both of these guys had previously remixed Sandhya’s stuff. So here we are, one big happy family, (and growing, too, now that you’re a part of it as well!) and Sandhya’s on our next CD, and I’m sure Sirk and Chris will have their hands at it, too … aint this world great?

#6 What new Indofunk projects should people be looking for?
Right now, there are 3 incarnations of Indofunk. That’s why I call my website “Indofunk City”. In this city, there are 3 different roads you can travel: the full band, which is what I’ve been talking about here; Indofunk Unplugged, which is composed of me, my tabla player, and one other randomly chosen musician from the full band (this trio always has a heavy North Indian classical flayva); and Digital Village, which is a duo with me (using heavy effects, delay, flange, samples, and feedback) and my tabla player (with his trusty drum machine pre-programmed with the weirdest beats you’ll ever hear).

New additions to Indofunk City? I’ve always daydreamt of being a full-fledged DJ, and now that there seems to be a rash of tabla-playing DJs, why not a slide-trumpet-playing DJ? But I’d go more along the lines of a Karsh Kale or Cheb-i Sabbah-type thing, mostly drum machine and samples along with live playing, and no records (I have no record collection, and it’s probably a bit late to get started! maybe CDs, though…). Sort of a Digital Village, but one step up. Maybe I’ll include Bill on live tablas, too.

#7 How has the Internet been useful for you and Indofunk?
Check out how I met Sandhya, Sirk, Chris, and you! All through the internet! I hooked up with a cousin from India who I hadn’t seen in 20 years because Indofunk is on the ‘net! I’ve sold CDs over the net, and at every show there are a few people who are there only because they saw my info on the net and decided to check out a live show. While Napster was up, I actively tried to get people to share my music, because my main goal in life is to have everyone in the world hear my music. From there, they can make their own decision. Like it? Hate it? At least you’ve been exposed to it! So I’ll take the fame, please, and none of the fortune. Don’t need it.

Some recommended links:
http://www.IndofunkCity.com
Indofunk City

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~boppe/MUSIC/music.html
Lots of information on North and South Indian classical music, written for beginners as well as more advanced students.

http://www.lutins.org/indyjazz
A very exhaustive guide to almost all of the Indian/fusion music that has been created in the past 50 years

Click here to see a photo of
Satish

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Web Site of the Month
hearnet.com

We all know how important hearing is to musicians and fans of music. hearnet.com is the web home of H.E.A.R., a non-profit hearing information source. Click here to find out why and how H.E.A.R. started. Musicians and fans can very easily get caught up in the musical moment and not even think about what they are actually doing to their ears. There is a decibel trivia page on this site that really made me think. You can read information about whether you are at risk for hearing damage and also read explanations of hearing loss. They have a listing of where there will be presentations, lectures and events regarding music-related hearing loss. They also make available hearing protection and educational materials for purchase. Don't let yourself do any more damage to your hearing! Educate yourself, sooner is better.........

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Web Video of the Month
California Guitar Trio
with Tony Levin

Guitarists Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya and Paul Richards are the California Guitar Trio. This is a fun chance to see them perform with special guest Tony Levin at
Lee's Palace in Toronto. The California Guitar Trio formed in 1991, after meeting at Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft Courses in 1987, and touring with Fripp's band, League of Crafty Guitarists. You can hear a wide range of influences, fusing elements of classical, rock, blues, jazz and country music into their performance. Besides doing their own music, they do great covers of King Crimson, Yes, Queen and more. Very entertaining show. It's a great chance to see fabulous musicians making wonderful music in an intimate setting. Check out the video here.

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Music Pick of the Month
Bill Bruford
"Feels Good To Me"

For this month's music pick I went back into my archives and listened again to a recording that was very important to me in my early development. Bill Bruford's "Feels Good To Me" is a great example of the fusion of rock with jazz. Very ground-breaking for 1977. It is one of those recordings that didn't get a lot of radio air play because it was too "jazz" for the rock stations and too "rock" for the jazz stations. There is an immense amount of great playing on this recording that is worth studying. The band is Bill Bruford on tuned and untuned percussion, Dave Stewart on keyboards, Allan Holdsworth on guitar, Jeff Berlin on bass, Annette Peacock on vocals and Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn. This collection of artists really created something special with this recording. Bill Bruford has played on many great recordings, all worth checking out.

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