|
|
Static
When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head?
Or on the trigger of your gun?
—The Clash, The Guns of Brixton
As the holy days disappear into some hard-to-reach, cavernous part of our collective cerebral cortex and life returns to the humdrum state of normal, satan (no, not George W. Bush) is back in demand. Replenished by a month of fasting, prayer and meditation, believers the world over will conveniently forget the lessons learnt during Ramazan and return to the rigmarole of lying, cheating and stealing.
But no use crying over the more deplorable aspects of human nature as man hasn’t changed his evil ways for millennia. What makes you think a miraculous return to being is going to happen now? So, in keeping with that cynical spirit, here’s a freshly- baked edition of Static at your service — for a price.
A new Static; a new set of lyrics. This week, we salute the Clash, honestly the only band that mattered. But before we continue with the pop history lesson, I must say that this column is making waves. Never one to blow my own horn, this writer was quite flattered when a colleague pointed out that in a sister publication, a writer had used our trademark introduction — lyrics from a pop song — to open their piece on something totally unrelated to pop music. I have to say, by no means did I invent the method of opening an article with lyrics; but I have been using rock lyrics and Sufi poetry to open my pieces as far back as 1999. Imitation, they say, is the best form of flattery.
We do get our deserved cut of criticism, though. And criticism is good. ’Tis always good to be on one’s heels. Actually, a reader, sympathetic to our cause, pointed out that Static’s focus has shifted from primarily being local pop’s pain in the behind to a sort of National Geographic documentary on alternative music the world over. I concede. I am totally bored of the local scene and am not interested in the gossip and petty nastiness that local popsters and scenesters love indulging in. I’ve had my fair share of abuse. Also, I think that music, art and all that good stuff, shouldn’t be bound by borders as maybe, yesterday’s legends from New York, London or Tokyo might eventually influence tomorrow’s artists in Karachi, Lahore or Peshawar. Vice versa even. But keeping the readers’ preferences in mind, here’s the dirt on the local scene by popular demand.
As I have more free time on my hands now (believe me, that can be a real burden as the devil always seems to find enticing offers for my idle hands), I have once more returned to the world of late-night channel surfing. In between the BBC, Cartoon Network and Live Surgery Channel, I dedicate a specific slot of my viewing time, painful as it is nowadays, to Indus Music and ARY’s The Musik — those brightly festooned bridesmaids of our pop industry, carrying the banner of Pakistani pop freedom across the seven seas.
The latest surprise that was sprung on my poor senses was Rahim Shah’s Ishq video, directed by Sohail Javed. Javed actually has some good videos under his belt and passes off as a decent video director in my book, but what is this? To put it in a nutshell, it is loaded with plenty of fleshy women, a shaky nod to club culture and a ‘young’ Rahim Shah. Please. Spare us. It has the look of a typical Indian masala video stamped all over it and I’m quite surprised Javed went for this concept. Rahim Shah is no 22-year-old spring chicken and thus the heavy make-up, trendy lounge suits and coiffed hair just don’t cut it.
In other news, while monitoring the ruckus created by the cabal of local FM stations, I heard Fakhir say that his new record, the curiously titled Mantra, should be out any day now. It seems the ex-Awaaz singer is quite taken by Indian spirituality, judging by the album title. But spiritual focus isn’t the only Indian influence on the record as if I’m correct, it was also mostly mixed and mastered in Bombay.
At this point, I shall digress. I’m all for amity and peaceful co-existence between this country and India, but I have to say, our musicians, actors and other artists seem to be overly influenced by our next-door neighbour. To be quite honest, as far as the pop sphere is concerned, India is a cultural wasteland. They might have achieved technical excellence, but their content is so hollow it makes EP sound like intellectuals. On top of that, they have decided to one-up the West when it comes to baring and daring, so much so that it seems that every other woman in India is a curvaceous vixen. Surely that can’t be true. Wither the images of starving, illiterate, trampled millions much closer to the true India. Who needs that when you have Bipasha Basu shaking her thing, right? Pathetic.
I have a sincere proposition for the Indians. If they stop beaming crappy videos with bare mid-riffs, I’ll personally ensure they’re supplied with Grade 1 Pakistani cotton to clothe those unadorned skimpy lasses. Call me a fundamentalist, even mass-produced commercial borderline ad-art, can be tasteful, subtle and doesn’t have to have a chorus-line of half-naked party people to communicate sensuality — if that’s what you’re indeed trying to do.
India isn’t the final frontier. Just look at another neighbour of ours (no, not Afghanistan. I’ve had plenty of drugs, Kalashnikovs and random violence, thank you very much) but Iran, which has a much more strict dispensation than ours. Their films win awards at prestigious festivals such as Cannes. Surely we can inflect a similar ethos in our art. Or we can be like India and shake our booty. Not a pretty sight.
|
|
|
