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LONDON BABY!!
Our flight was TERRIBLE. But (sigh) at least we have each other and all of our precious instruments. We hop a taxi down across the River Thames to our Elephant and Castle Flat.
To my delight, I find that our building is quite beautiful, with a KOI pond in the Courtyard, a well-equipped gym, and an indoor swimming pool. Life has rare moments when it throws you a bone and rewards you, this was one of those rare moments. Our flat was sweet, just enough space, and after a few adjustments and setting up our London studio, we were ready to party.
Randolph and I were very excited that it was common place to drink beer on the streets of London town. Simple minds...simple pleasures.
And then what happened? Yes, Glastonbury. Glastonbury was magic.
It was magic, and mud. It was magic, mud, music, cold, rain, and a test to help you arrive at the stuff you are made of. Randolph had a few days of rehearsal with the Midival Punditz prior to our departure on a lovely tour bus equipped with TV's and beds...I especially liked the bed part. So I slept the entire way and didn't really notice any scenery, until someone started shouting, "we're here! we're here!"...
I was much too out of it to slap whoever it was, though I was in my head, I promise you. As it were, it was impossible to sleep while the van was jostling around like it was driving through an earth quake. The ground was already slushy from the rain it was getting the week prior to the festival. Something you should know about Glastonbury is it is the largest European festival EVER, held on farm land in the town of Glastonbury. It was said to be a land where spiritual energy ley-lines converge, thus giving this land an elevated vibration. The festival can only be held every other year, as the owners of the land wish to allow the land adequate time to regrow and heal itself. For the duration of the festival, an entire city is built, with towns and stages, food and recreational activities...
The Midival Punditz featuring Randolph, Karsh Kale, and Vishal Vaid, both of whom I know from NY and are dear friends, played the Jazz-World stage at Glasto. The Jazz-World stage was one of the best stages at Glasto, in my opinion. It was as big as the Main-Stage, and people who shared the stage included the likes of Rodrigo y Gabriela (love them) and Amy Winehouse. Needless to say, they rocked their gig. The crowd loved them, and Randolph as always, brought it with his style and funk on stage. I reunited with good friends Nerm from the Shiva Soundsystem and Shane from the D'Archetypes. Such good guys those ones are. Randolph also played with the Shiva Soundsystem on the BBC World stage. We hooked up with the Bandish Projekt for a bit, and we all shipped off to see Bjork. I had to push up to the front.
I so respect and admire Bjork's work. Her spirit has informed much of the work I do. It was my first time seeing her live and she was by far the high-light of my Glastonbury experience. 
The thing to remember about all of this, is that it was raining the ENTIRE time, it was also extremely cold, and there was no shelter. So that's what I meant by us really getting to know what stuff we were made of. I'm a tough bitch! 
Another highlight was when Randolph, Nerm and Dee (ShivaSoundSystem), and Reju (one of the head producers on BBC Radio1), used our artist passes to get into the Pendulum live gig in the Dance Tents. They were mind-blowing! We climbed onto the gates separating us from the sardine packed audience, raised our hands in the air and danced for a solid hour. All our necks were sore after that. It was lovely...
Backstage was always a party for artists with booze and food 24-7, so we spent a lot of our time back there, hanging with NOISIA, Annie Mac, Bobby Friction, The Foreign Beggars, whose drummer we ended up using for our gigs in London, Shiva Sound System, and the D'Archetypes. We dominated, drank brandy and cokes to keep warm, and danced around in our gumboots, paying no mind to the splashing mud and our frozen finger tips. We prayed to the party gods to keep us healthy and warm! Other artists we got to see are Timo Maas, Iggy Pop, The Chemical Brothers (visuals were astouding), Lily Allen, Adam Freeland, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and countless independent artists who left us inspired.
After Glastonbury, real world stuff sort of set in. Things like working on our next record, cooking at home, and staying fit, occupied our days
...until we began rehearsing for our first UK gig at VIBE bar on the famous brick lane. The event was called the Super-Sonic Buddha. We played our set after which Randolph and Nerm took over on decks. Our drummer, Praveen Mukhi (of foreign beggars fame), was tight and solid after only a few rehearsals. I retired to the bar where I met Rocky, former drummer from the Asian Dub Foundation. After a couple of rounds, he expressed an interest in having Shaa'ir and func play at a couple gigs with his current project entitled RockID. Randolph and I agreed, and added another three gigs to our London itinerary. Shaa'ir and func gigs in London included appearances at The Cuban in Camden, The Spotlight event at the Paul Robeson Theatre, Sound in Leicester Square ( same stage as Jamiroquai ), and The Institute for Contemporary Arts festival. Next was the Big Chill festival. Memories from Big Chill Goa came flooding back to me and I was immediately psyched in a good way. Goa was so amazing. Plus, it was actually ALMOST warm in London at that point and we were nearing the end of our trip. We had written a good chunk of our next record, become good cooks, done a few radio spots
on Radio1, made really good friends, and played some banging gigs in London. Big Chill was sort of our last hurrah. And we were off.......!
We arrived to the camp grounds after a lovely car ride with our dear Shane from D'Archetypes. Our good friend Tiku, aka Tyrone Fernandez, of Bombay Black fame, was down from India and came with. We lost him in the first hour, and Randolph and I just decided to explore on our own. After glancing at the lineup, I was most excited to see Bonobo. I love his record...an amazing sound scape that really takes you on a journey. Also, Shlomo and the vocal orchestra was down...his set consisted of a choir of beat-boxers creating a full on set that lacked absolutely nothing. It was dope. The entire Counter Culture Family was down from Bombay for the festival. We all had our own little Indian town in the Campsite. Randolph and I also popped into the only tent that sold CD's at the entire festival. It was there that we bumped into Ma Faiza, who then insisted that we give some CD's over for them to sell in the tent...after only five minutes of our record playing, we had sold two CD's and signed some autographs. Definitely some synchronicity there. That night, Randolph and I wondered to the body and soul tent, where we found a very GOA-like tent, full of musicians jamming. Some people recognized us and invited us on stage to jam. Of course, we did.....good fun was had by all. People are so open and loving at these festivals. It really gave me a brighter fire to burn for India and future festivals there. As a people, our culture is so colorful and warm...Indian festivals are coming in abundance, I felt in the earth between my toes. It's on.
Day 2 at Big Chill offered us a real highlight. We hooked up with Ojos De Brujo (which means wizard eyes), backstage after they dropped a wicked set on the main stage. They are such a dynamic band, with such a happening blend of authenticity and innovation. We really enjoyed meeting them. We rapped about similarities between their experiences being an alternative band from Barcelona and us guys from India.
Back home in London, we got one last call to collaborate on a track with the legendary Sam Zaman from State of Bengal. We went to his house over the span of a week, and wrote and recorded an extremely beautiful song. It was my first time meeting Sam (Rand and he are friends), and I can truly say, he is a wonderful artist and human being...he also has the best chai and ginger biscuits on earth!
I hope that you all will hear the work that we did sometime soon.
As a last and final farewell to the gorgeous south-bank that we lived a short walk from, Nerm, his partner Sangna, Dee, Randolph, and I had the most monstrous Mexican Meal with overflowing pitchers of Cuba Libres (Viva la Revolucion!) which then ended at an impromptu secret rave underneath the Waterloo bridge. We could run to the water (which was toxic), or dance the night away with our heads tilted upwards catching the visuals projected on the underbelly of the bridge. What fun.
Alright then, back to New York.
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