About Artist
Happy New Year:! I have added two new songs for you all for the new year....'Streets of Vienna' & 'See you Again (Auf Wiedersehen)'.... Hope you like them.
Thanks for listening to my songs....
Writing songs has been my hobby for awhile and I have been inspired mostly by people and places I love. Obviously my influences have been the music from the '60s but I listen to all sorts of music from around the world including folk, alternative, jazz, new age, classical and Bollywood stuff. These are strictly demo quality recordings. I hope you enjoy them !
"....And after all we are only ordinary men" - Rick Wright (RIP)
"I am just an ordinary guy - ordinary family, ordinary education, ordinary face, ordinary grades, ordinary thoughts in my head..." (in Haruki Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood').
This summer (2012), I went to Prague (Czech Rep.) and Vienna (Austria) for a quick visit to see the beautiful Prague Castle and St. Nicklaus's church where Mozart played the organ; and to see Mozart's haus (where he composed Marriage of Figaro) next to St. Stephen's Cathedral. There were tourists from all over the world and an interesting thing was a lot of Asian couples were getting married in Prague's baroque churches and getting pictures taken in front of the Astronomical Clock. Went and saw the John Lennon Peace Wall and remembered Lennon's most important message of PEACE (see photos below)...Gotta Imagine that ! Prague has a special reverence for Lennon since I guess Vaclav Havel was an ardent fan of the Beatles.....Prague and Vienna are both very musical cities, that is they have plenty of musicians and musical traditions....street musicians were seen playing all sorts of music on the Charles Bridge and street corners, and numerous rock concerts were scheduled in those two cities...Queen is scheduled to play in Vienna in Nov./Dec.....Imagine Bohemian Rhapsody in Vienna ! In Vienna, I saw the not-so blue Danube as the waltz twirled around in my mind....
Summer of 2011, I was in Istanbul, Turkey. Had a wonderful time seeing the Topkapi palace, Hagia Sofia (can be seen in James Bond movie 'From Russia with Love') and the Blue Mosque. Took a boat ride down the Bosphorous strait and went upto the mouth of Black Sea. The city is a good mix of West and East and the people are really friendly and laid-back.
Steve Jobs & John Lennon: It is John Lennon's 71st birthday and Steve Jobs passed away few days back, so it it is fitting to see that there is some connection between the two. One person's vision of world peace and of people from all over the world 'coming together' was enabled by the technology and tools conceived and produced by another man who ran a cutting edge tech company at the vanguard of information revolution. Lennon sang 'Come Together' and 'Imagine' while Jobs imagined tools and tech to bring the people of the world together to do some thing positive and wonderful, and to bring world peace. That's why it was possible to have an Arab Spring this year and ongoing struggles in N. Africa and in the Middle-East; in Greece and Spain; and in the USA we now have the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement which is spreading throughout the country. The new technology (iPhones, iPads etc.) along with the Internet's social networking sites have made it increasingly possible for the people around the world to 'come together' for a cause. See what a little imagination can create and do !
The Summer of 2010, I visited Lisbon, Portugal and the most memorable experience was the visit to the Palacio da Pena in Sintra (a UNESCO designated World heritage site). Incredible architecture and designs - a combination of Moorish and European styles. Lisbon town itself was very scenic and the view of the river Tagus was magnificent. One could visualize the Portuguese, a sea-faring nation, sailing out from the docks of the river to discover the world. The most notable voyagers and discoverers were: Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Tristan da Cunha, Pedro Cabral, Barthelowmew Dias and others. Porto was another beautiful city up North I was fortunate to see - I stopped by Porto on my way to Braga for a big jamboree. I went back to London, UK (on my way to Southampton) again, for a very short time since I wanted to vist and see the artifacts in the British Museum and the St. Paul's Cathedral. Seeing the Egyptian mummies, the Rosetta Stone and Babylonian sculptures was an eye-opener. Of course, how could I miss not going to see the fun at the Abbey Road crossing.......once again I was fascinated by all the kids and young folks who thronged to the crossing to re-enact the Abbey Road album scene. And these kids are from all over the world speaking different languages......
This summer (2009) I visited India and London, U.K. In London, I didn't find any 'Itchycoo Park' but I went to the Regents Park and saw the beautiful flowers and roses of various colors and to the vast Hyde Park (the Rolling Stones did a free concert in 1971 in memory of Brian Jones)......got off the tube at St. John's Wood station and walked down to Abbey Road and saw the Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles did all of their recordings....of course I crossed the zebra crossing with family and friends.....took a cruise on the River Thames from the London Eye side and floated down the river under various bridges and watched the sun go down and I was almost in 'paradise' (remembered 'Waterloo Sunset').....I also took a fast ferry to the Isle of Wight and was impressed with the scenery - the rolling meadows and beautiful beaches and located the Isle of Wight music festival arena (begun in 1968 - '70 of which the 1970's was the most famous where Hendrix, Doors and the Who played to an audience far larger than the Woodstck 1969. Dylan played at the '69 Wight festival).....a 'magical' time was had by all....
Summer 2008: Athens, Greece
Summer 2007: Helsinki, Finland
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