This post is about the band from Bangalore. I'm not writing about a Japanese boy band. If you reached this link looking for the Japanese boy band, I'm sorry. Right, moving on, The News from Bangalore is a strange band to classify, so I won't. I'll just list the myriad of genres you can find in their music, and leave you to decide what works best for you: Rock, jazz, blues, funk, pop, country, acoustic and keyboard solo. Okay, that last part is only on request.
As a rule, I write only about bands I've seen live. And I hadn't seen any band that I could write about for a long long time. Thankfully SF came around eventually, and there was lots of material there. Always is. Fucking love SF. The reason why I chose The News to write about first is because they're the only band that I've seen again, since SF. And they only have one song, so it's easier to start. Baby steps.
Ankit Ranganathan : Vocals/All Guitars
Nithin Seshadri : Bass/Backing Vocals
Prasanna Akella : Drums
Raghav Sarathy : Keyboards
It was formed by Singer-songwriter Ankit, so you should know that all writing, composing, arranging and kurta-wearing is done by that guy.
They haven't found time to take a proper photo, so here's a photo of them playing live in Hyderabad. This is the best quality I could find. This doesn't have the keyboard dude, and the drummer is different, but it conveys the fact that Ankit only ever wears kurtas. And that's the important thing.
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| You may recognise the drummer as Aditya from Black Sun. (Please follow that link: shameless self-promotion attempt.) |
Their Facebook page informs me that they're currently in the process of recording their first album "Wrong Notes For Sale". But till then, there's only one song on Reverbnation, which makes it possible for me to write about them.
1.) Summertime:
The Jap band also has a song called Summertime, so don't be confused. Be vigilant. This song starts with a brilliant bassline, simple and effective chord progression. Joined soon by the keyboards, drums and acoustic guitar. This arrangement is abandoned after about twenty seconds, in favour of a funk-influenced verse structure, which introduces the guy's voice, which is admittedly brilliant. Pre-chorus, and then chorus. The chorus has the same bass chord progression thingy from the intro of the song, which is great, because I was hoping for that to come back. Acoustic guitar solo from 2:10. I haven't heard too many solos on acoustic guitars, so that shit is always cool to me. What I love about this song is that from arrangement to arrangement it's always fun to flesh out the various influences of the genres here. So for example the bass will often jump from jazz to rock to blues. The acoustic guitar will give these little flashes of country, before slipping back into acoustic, soft rock styles. I'll leave it for the listener/reader to carry the exercise out in its entirety.
I think it'll be fun if they could figure out and include a cover of Summertime by the Japanese band.
What drew me to the band first, when I saw them at SF, was that two members in that lineup were from Black Sun, which is one of my favourite bands from Bangalore. So you could see just a little bit of Black Sun in there, but not much though. Seeing as Black Sun have been rather inactive this past year, it was fun to see what two-thirds of the band was doing otherwise, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Little bit of a live review:
I recently saw The News playing at Italia. Great venue if you find place to sit in front of the stage, terrible venue if you don't. It's strange, but that's how it works. Great gig. They played some five-six originals. I remember Shell, Summertime, Ode to the Sun, Sunrise, and what they referred to as Sunrise II. They played what seemed like an impromptu cover of Roadhouse Blues by The Doors. And they absolutely nailed it. Nitin sang that instead of Ankit. Exceptionally good fun that.
Having had a taste of what their other originals sound like, I can confidently state that the album is going to be pretty awesome when it comes out.
Okay then, that's all from me. I'll leave you with some general links about where to find them:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenewsband
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/thenewsbands
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