At the North American university I attended in the 70s and 80s, the small South Asian student body would occasionally organise a meena bazaar. The showing of a Hindi film in a cavernous lecture hall constituted the main attraction. I would entice friends and middle-distance relatives to these tamashas with the promise of tasty homemade treats and the rare opportunity of catching a cinematic experience that in those days was still very much a cultish phenomenon.
It was a time when the VCR was still a new thing and ages before someone coined the term Bollywood. And certainly long before today when every small town festival in the western world features a chorus line of bejeweled Indian beauties and turbaned men doing a mad travesty of Bollywood-line dancing. This was when most American audiences who saw a Hindi movie either giggled or sat in gobsmacked silence whenever the hero regaled the leading lady with song and dance.
How times have changed.
In 2010 in the land Down Under, a group calling themselves The Bombay Royale, came together to perform a mind tingling amalgam of musical styles built upon a solid foundation of Kalyanji-Anandji/R.D.Burman-era Bombay cinematic musical funk. A contemporary example of a finely honed Australian musical genre, the tribute band, The Bombay Royale, like Bjorn Again (Abba tribute band), and The Australian Pink Floyd Show (Pink Floyd tribute band) have not simply breathed new life into a classic group/style but taken it to a new level and made original art.
Here a few soundings from Australia that all Bollywood-music lovers need to be familiar with.
Karle Pyar Karle
A revamping of the 1970 item number from Sacha Jhuta, the original score of Kalyanji-Anandji is given fresh vivacity (dig those horns and the snappy snares) by the Royales. On lead vocal is a local Melbourne Sikhni, Parvyn Kaur Singh who goes by the moniker The Lady. She gives her vocal chords a good running as she often taps into the Asha Bhosle original, demonstrating her ability to convey that coquettish "not-as-innocent-as-you-think" feel that is essential for all these sorts of numbers.
You Me Bullets Love
An original number and their first video release in Oz, the influence of Gumnaam’s Jaan Pehechaan Ho, is obvious. And the Royales are not shy in wearing their besotted fans’ hearts on their sleeves. The track marks the beginning of a clear preference in the Bombay Royale playlist for including villains as leading characters in their songs. And for empowered women, who somehow seem to get those same jerky men tied up in knots by the end of the song.
Bunty Bunty
In this live set recorded for Australia’s Radio National, Shourov "The Tiger" Bhattacharya and Parvyn "The Lady" Kaur Singh trade barbs in Bengali, demanding return of the mysterious Bunty Bunty. The Bombay Royale’s appeal in Australia is huge in no small part because they don’t just make engaging fresh Bollywood-like videos but because they never leave their characters and always come ready to entertain. And of course because of their truly beautiful ability to make tremendous music they sometimes refer to as "spaghetti surf".
Monkey Fight Snake
A fantastic instrumental that allows the band to gush, without blushing, its love for that famous sub-genre of Indian film music, the Title Music sequence. With a title that references some of the all time (in Western minds) classic motifs of Indian life, this track demonstrates the ability of these guys to not just ‘pay homage’ to the great music directors of Hindi movies but to outdo them at their own game. The sound is massive and samples not just temple tabla beats but Mexicali trumpets embedded in James Bond orchestrations as well as snippets of meditative other wordliness. Stunning!
Henna Henna
The band’s most recent release recreates a Bollywood film in just three minutes and a few seconds. An entire story is told about: well you remember what we said about villainous wicked (not to mention quite stupid) men and empowered women? Another Bengali number, fans can take hope that the show of The Bombay Royale will continue to roll for many years to come.
It was a time when the VCR was still a new thing and ages before someone coined the term Bollywood. And certainly long before today when every small town festival in the western world features a chorus line of bejeweled Indian beauties and turbaned men doing a mad travesty of Bollywood-line dancing. This was when most American audiences who saw a Hindi movie either giggled or sat in gobsmacked silence whenever the hero regaled the leading lady with song and dance.
How times have changed.
In 2010 in the land Down Under, a group calling themselves The Bombay Royale, came together to perform a mind tingling amalgam of musical styles built upon a solid foundation of Kalyanji-Anandji/R.D.Burman-era Bombay cinematic musical funk. A contemporary example of a finely honed Australian musical genre, the tribute band, The Bombay Royale, like Bjorn Again (Abba tribute band), and The Australian Pink Floyd Show (Pink Floyd tribute band) have not simply breathed new life into a classic group/style but taken it to a new level and made original art.
Here a few soundings from Australia that all Bollywood-music lovers need to be familiar with.
Karle Pyar Karle
A revamping of the 1970 item number from Sacha Jhuta, the original score of Kalyanji-Anandji is given fresh vivacity (dig those horns and the snappy snares) by the Royales. On lead vocal is a local Melbourne Sikhni, Parvyn Kaur Singh who goes by the moniker The Lady. She gives her vocal chords a good running as she often taps into the Asha Bhosle original, demonstrating her ability to convey that coquettish "not-as-innocent-as-you-think" feel that is essential for all these sorts of numbers.
You Me Bullets Love
An original number and their first video release in Oz, the influence of Gumnaam’s Jaan Pehechaan Ho, is obvious. And the Royales are not shy in wearing their besotted fans’ hearts on their sleeves. The track marks the beginning of a clear preference in the Bombay Royale playlist for including villains as leading characters in their songs. And for empowered women, who somehow seem to get those same jerky men tied up in knots by the end of the song.
Bunty Bunty
In this live set recorded for Australia’s Radio National, Shourov "The Tiger" Bhattacharya and Parvyn "The Lady" Kaur Singh trade barbs in Bengali, demanding return of the mysterious Bunty Bunty. The Bombay Royale’s appeal in Australia is huge in no small part because they don’t just make engaging fresh Bollywood-like videos but because they never leave their characters and always come ready to entertain. And of course because of their truly beautiful ability to make tremendous music they sometimes refer to as "spaghetti surf".
Monkey Fight Snake
A fantastic instrumental that allows the band to gush, without blushing, its love for that famous sub-genre of Indian film music, the Title Music sequence. With a title that references some of the all time (in Western minds) classic motifs of Indian life, this track demonstrates the ability of these guys to not just ‘pay homage’ to the great music directors of Hindi movies but to outdo them at their own game. The sound is massive and samples not just temple tabla beats but Mexicali trumpets embedded in James Bond orchestrations as well as snippets of meditative other wordliness. Stunning!
Henna Henna
The band’s most recent release recreates a Bollywood film in just three minutes and a few seconds. An entire story is told about: well you remember what we said about villainous wicked (not to mention quite stupid) men and empowered women? Another Bengali number, fans can take hope that the show of The Bombay Royale will continue to roll for many years to come.
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