Hey peops,

Just a quick line to say that I'm here in Ealing (South-West London) and excited to bust some cuts at the London Mela tomorrow afty!  I'll be photo-blogging whilst here in ol'blighty so stay posted.

qas/

Ultramixer is yet another software solution for budding MP3 DJs looking to bust cuts on their laptops etc...

Now offering a free, basic and advanced option, they're all bundled into the same version when you download it but activation keys will unlock certain features (like real time effects and auto-mixing) depending on how much cash you fork out for it.

 Only the free version is currently available at the moment, and its worth checking out: http://ultramixer.com

Note, if you're just getting started with software DJing, you might also want to check out  Mixxx - an Open Source prog.  Ah, and for all you granola eating hippy types, check out this site, just for kicks yaar ;) : http://www.openjay.org/

...along with thousands and thousands of other people! :)

This year's mela is going to be super wicked (not that I've attended any in the past 4 years they've been running, ahem!) - for sooo many reasons (I've got an interview with the artistic director to post in the next couple of days and well, he can explain) - namely, this year [drum roll]... there's going to be an indo-electronica stage!!!

That's right kids, a full stage running from 12pm - 830pm with nothing but amazing South Asian flavoured beats... Mmmmm.

Sharing the stage with me (as 'Abdul Smooth' of course) we'll have Pathaan, the Infinate Scale, Nerm + the Shiva Soundsystem and some really crazy shell-shaped things (don't ask, just come check em out for yourself!) that supposedly pick up sound, reprocess it and spit it out, remixed! Nuts.

For all the juicy details, click into our special section detailing the whole shebang:

http://www.indianelectronica.com/londonmela 

See you there peops. 

We'll be making a more official statement about this sometime soon but I've just flipped the switch earlier this evening and (FINALLY!) we've got a 24hr, 7 day/week, 365 day per year Internet Radio Stream up and running at 96Kbps!!!!!

 Actually, I'm really really excited about this as we can now give you a true sampling of the music that's being written about on this website, plus showcased at our international music festivals! 

At the moment, I've got things setup so that you can click into the radio area of the site  and see what's playing, then launch the stream in the player of your choice (winamp, itunes etc) - easy as pie.

Like I said, a more in-depth announcement is to follow, for now - all you savvy types reading this, check it out and let me know what you think yeah?! 

Generally, you can use the following URL: http://indianelectronica.serverroom.us:7832/listen.pls 

q./ 

For a limited time, our friends at Bad Karma NYC are offering you a pretty cool 10% discount on any of their clothing - available right on their website (ah, isn't it great how shopping has become so easy these days?... :)

All you have to do is pop over to http://www.badkarmanyc.com and  then enter in our special discount code when you click through to the checkout: BKIE06 and you're good to go!

Bad Karma is a new clothing company based in New York that make some pretty groovy threads for both men and women - we love their new polo necks and subtle red elephant logo...

Check out their clothes - you might like them, and then (ahem) they might become your clothes :) 

Enjoy! 

Ladies and Gentlemen around the world,

It is with great pride and pleasure that I can write to you today announcing that [ie'06], the first-ever annual Indian Electronica Festival, is happening internationally this summer - with our first event reaching Toronto, on July 20th!!!

We are proud to announce that you can now buy tickets online for the first installment of our annual music festival, which is happening next week - June 20th in Toronto, Canada!

You'll be able to buy them at the door for $15 but we're discounting online purchases - get them now for only $10 + tax!! 

Find out all the juicy details and buy tickets right now by clicking into the festival website: http://www.indianelectronicafestival.com !! 

We've had a few requests from people eager to buy tickets for both the Toronto and London Festivals and thought to drop a quick mention....

...We're expecting tickets for London will be available online soon, however...

Tickets will go on sale here at indianelectronica.com this week for the Toronto Festival!

To stay abreast of all the festival news, please subscribe to our email newsletter! 

>> To volunteer, simply visit our brand new volunteer page and fill in the form!

>>To perform at the Indian Electronica Festival, either in Canada or the UK this summer, go to the 'perform at ie06' page and fill in the required info :)

Thanks guys, we hope that through working together as a team, this festival can really push our music to new hieghts!

q./ 

The event's name is Dishoom! and its basically a totally-free monthly party we throw to make the music we love talking/writing about  accessible.  We've just completed the first draft of our showreel and I thought to blog it here for all yall to check - hit play once you see the little player on the dishoom website and you're good.

Dishoom!'s going down again on the 30th of June and 20th of July (@ ie06) and you can find out more info at http://www.dishoom.info : 

Hey Guys,

Quick note: some of you might've been frustrated with the improvements we've been making to the site lately - namely, the comments feature constantly disappearing etc.  Well fear not - I've just souped up the commenting system and we're open for business...

...that's right: you can now (really easily) write comments on news/blog articles/reviews/interviews/etc... !

There, I've said my piece, now what do you think? :)

q./ 

We've got a wicked pre-party for ie'06 Toronto lined up - the shindig is gonna rock the t.dot on June 30th and will be held at the Midtown, right downtown on College Street West!

The event will feature Indian Electronica's own Abdul Smooth on the decks rippin up some wicked electronic beats with South Asian flavour, as well as Omnesia Soundsystem - a collective of musicians that perform live with english, yugoslavian and hindi vocalists plus tabla, sax, and other accompaniment.

Special performances will include live dhol by Toronto's own Dice'n'Dholi and DholiMP !

If you're like me, you never grew up speaking hindi at home - let alone school or even that little pakora shoppe at the corner where you still buy your long distance calling cards (ahem).  Nope, for us poor fellows distanced from our cultural lingua, Bollywood always held a little more kitsch value..

Part of that kitsch was the whole lack-of-subtitles thing... remember the badass old days before DVD?  Man its fun to shout silly words atop Amitabhs smooth bollymafia speeches!

I just discovered a site that lets you take those crafty narratives and throw them right onto video clips - check out Bombay TV at http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/ and bust some new  supergoonda words onto the Don himself!

Hey Guys,

The dates for our Toronto festival are now Set - we'll be busting loose some incredible music in the tdot from July 21-24!!!

Also, the dishoom crew are going to be hosting us for that Friday night (the 21st), so you know its going to be something fresh - expect live traditional indian instrumentation to mash up with DJed beats, visuals and vocalists from around the planet!

Ardent fans of indianelectronica.com might notice that we've gone and shifted things around again this past weekend -yup, once again the forums have been reincarnated and even further simplified.... and, only registered members of the site can drop comments to the end of articles.

Its all part of a larger scheme to make our site more kick ass - and trust me, once you signup, you'll be a big fan of the new system cause, get this, members can now fill our profiles - so, DJs, producers, singer/songwriters and so on - head into the members area and register on indianelectronica.com today!

Soon to come - a multimedia gallery for the whole community - imagine logging in and posting your latest track for people to check out - exciting innit?

:)

q./ 

Hey Guys and Gals,

This is just a quick note to say that we've had overwhelming response to the announcement we sent out in last week's newsletter-ette.  For all of you who aren't subscribers - you can stay in touch with us regarding the festival and everything ese going on at IE by subscribing to our email-newsletter!

Lots is happening this week and I'll be keeping you posted here - by the end of the week we hope to have some volunteer registration forms online; the festival's going to take a lot of work and we'll need all the help we can get!

q./

No, not "airwaves" the chewing gum - Nerm from the Shiva Soundsystem is gonna rock the FM dial this monday!  Here’s what he wrote to his mailing list today:

Presented by Nerm, it features a wide range of music from Karsh Kale to Ian Brown, from Rock ID to rare Talvin Singh not to mention a few surprises.

There are also exclusive tracks and interviews with upcoming British Rock band Temple, guitar ledged Aziz Ibrahim and Drum & Bass don D-Code (including the first play of Shiva Soundsystem’s Tubla Ethics and Mumbai Cells - VIP Lockdown Mix)

You can check the show out on BBC Radio One this monday, that's Monday 29th May 1am - 3am GMT - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/oneworld/

Also, if you dig it, or dig him, or dig it and him (ahem), hop on over to http://shivauk.com/ and  get yourself hooked up with their fantastic series of podcasts - Nerm was telling me some time back that they're 'limited edition' and I think they'll probably take em down when the fix themed shows are all up but then again, that from the blokes who haven't uploaded new party pics since October 2005 ;)   Nonetheless, rock your ipod to this shit while its hot.

 q.//

Ahh.... so the festival sub-site is now online and we're off the ground...

the whole team here at ie'06 is really excited about the events we're putting together in both Toronto and London this summer and plan to update this site frequently! Check in for all the latest, right here :)

But she has confirmed the situation on her Myspace website with a blog entry posted on 7th April titled: 'They Try Shut My Door!'.

The BBC Asian Network has officially announced the new line-up of presenters and it shows to promise new music with a view on sustainability - the plan is to support the (South) Asian music industry as well as build a more stable station.

**In the switch up Punjabi Hit Squad DJ/producer Mark Strippel (aka Markie Mark) has been appointed the Head of Music and our-man-from-the-pind Bobby Friction is to take over Adil Ray’s evening show - yes, that means Bobby will now be hosting a daily show on nation-wide radio int he UK as well as his hugely popular weekly wednesday night slot with Nihal Arthanayake on Radio1. A couple of weeks back he assured me that the new show will not be more of the same - he’s all about new music and will be pushing alongside Markie Mark for more new South Asian music to be played on air - so all you budding producers out there lurking in the digital shadows, drop a demo in to those chaps yaar.

Adil’s jumping to an earlier slot shifting into drivetime.

BTW, in that photo to the left, notice how Bobby, Adil and that one dude up front are the only ones who look young’n'hip? Interesting given that Bob Shennan, the station controller, is now actively targetting a crowd under 35.

More @ AiM: http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/radio/1277