Another light-hearted essay, this one on a Musical journey with gear being secondary.

[essrand]

Dear All,

I published a counterpart: https://medium.com/stories-of-color/my-spiralling-musical-journey-part-one-india-b8deb4252e6a
(in some ways an inverse) of my previous essay.

In this essay music is in the foreground while music gear is in the background, unlike the previous one where audio gear was at the fore.

It turned out too long and had to be written in two parts (India, USA). This is the first part.

I am sure many of you had a similar journey.

Would love for you all to take a read, and comment. Would love to hear if yours was similar or different.

Cheers,
Bhaskar

P.S: My previous essay: https://medium.com/stories-of-color/my-audiophile-problem-1f24bd7fb48f

 

[Nikhil]

Hi Bhaskar,

Very entertaining read! Growing up in India in the 80s and 90s was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. Access to music from the West was instant cred in school and college. Someday you need to chronicle the Indian Engineering College Metal and Rock sub culture. And the leap from there to psychedelic abstract jazz and fusion for some. A very uniquely Indian back story.

Looking forward to Part 2 of your piece!

Regards


.

 

[Weathered]

Nice one! uncanny similarity...do I know you?
Starting off from Suprabhata, cassettes, Saajan, Philips powerhouse, folks deciding against CD for being expensive, MLTR/Bryan Adams/U2, Bon Jovi/Metallica, Floyd, GnR, Sabbath, Maiden with Engineering and Purple Haze in between
Oh, you missed mentioning MTV Grind!

 

[essrand]

Nice one! uncanny similarity...do I know you?
Starting off from Suprabhata, cassettes, Saajan, Philips powerhouse, folks deciding against CD for being expensive, MLTR/Bryan Adams/U2, Bon Jovi/Metallica, Floyd, GnR, Sabbath, Maiden with Engineering and Purple Haze in between
Oh, you missed mentioning MTV Grind!

Haha, Thank you!!

Yes, we probably bumped into each other in Purple Haze, but don't remember cause we were too drunk at the time

Yeah, I had a blurb about MTV as well, but the post was getting too long already .... sigh! Too many good times, too little space.

 

[surfatwork]

Very well written, Bhaskar. Flows nicely with little tidbits of humour. Well done.

 

[essrand]

Hi Bhaskar,

Very entertaining read! Growing up in India in the 80s and 90s was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. Access to music from the West was instant cred in school and college. Someday you need to chronicle the Indian Engineering College Metal and Rock sub culture. And the leap from there to psychedelic abstract jazz and fusion for some. A very uniquely Indian back story.

Looking forward to Part 2 of your piece!

Regards


.

Thank you! Yes, someday need to go deeper into Engineering college rock culture....
Working furiously on part two

 

[Barun7]

Nice read Bhaskar. The humour quotient is just right!
As someone growing up in the 90s, I can relate to you. Although I was not much into Western music, the Indipop of 90s exite me till date! And also agree to the point that 90s were the last generation of good Bollywood music(maybe the first part of the next decade too). As I am replying to your post, Tum Bin is playing in my system.
We got our Philips Cassette player in 1997. Soldier and Shraddhanjali(by Lata Mangeshkar) were the first two cassettes bought by me. With the kind of salary my father used to earn, we could only afford 7-8 cassettes an year. I still have all the cassettes we purchased over the next few years.
I will always continue to consider myself very lucky to have grown up in 90s for the wonderful memories. Maybe I sound crazy but I love revisiting the DD ads of 90s in YouTube!

 

[hemya]

Wonderful read!

The CD part really resonates among other things. I remember in 1993-94 we go out first BPL CD player and I was allowed to buy 1 CD a year. I would spend a week or more figuring out which one to get.

Now many many years later our mornings still begin with Subbulakshmi’s legendary voice as she recites Suprabhatam and Nama Ramayana on our morning playlist now streamed via HEOS and as the day progresses so do the playlists.

Hopefully, many years down the line my sons will have their own essay on their musical journey and how it started with MS Subbulakshmi and the primitive HEOS app.

 

[essrand]

Nice read Bhaskar. The humour quotient is just right!
As someone growing up in the 90s, I can relate to you. Although I was not much into Western music, the Indipop of 90s exite me till date! And also agree to the point that 90s were the last generation of good Bollywood music(maybe the first part of the next decade too). As I am replying to your post, Tum Bin is playing in my system.
We got our Philips Cassette player in 1997. Soldier and Shraddhanjali(by Lata Mangeshkar) were the first two cassettes bought by me. With the kind of salary my father used to earn, we could only afford 7-8 cassettes an year. I still have all the cassettes we purchased over the next few years.
I will always continue to consider myself very lucky to have grown up in 90s for the wonderful memories. Maybe I sound crazy but I love revisiting the DD ads of 90s in YouTube!

Yes! I wanted to add about the Indipop movement as well starting with Baba Sehgal and Apache Indian, then Lucky Ali, Alisha Chinai etc. But it was already getting too long of a post

I missed on the first part of the 2000s in some way cause of Hostel and then going to USA (subject of part two of the blog).

Oh! I totally am enjoying the DD old-school ads during this lockdown as well.

 

[Nagaraj S]

And don’t forget “CD-ing”- getting your blank audio tapes recorded with CD tracks. I used to pay 100 rupees to record one tape. A big deal in the late nineties. Graduating from normal position tapes to chrome ones was a big step for a budding audiophile And then came the personal computer and .mp3s on blank CDs. The mp3s were such a fallacy, but made digital music more accessible.