My Musical Notes - Queen 'The Game'

This is the first introduction to Queen and it was a solid one. It had terrific energy with songs like 'Dragon Attack', 'Another one bites the dust', 'Crazy little thing called love', 'Need your loving tonight' and others. My favourite was 'Another one bites the dust' followed by 'Dragon Attack'. 'Crazy Little thing called love' left enough impression to last a lifetime. Another of Mani's contributions to my musical growth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spm5-SXo4Do (Dragon attack)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE (Another one bites the dust)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6D_BAuYCI (Crazy little thing called love)

Queen, I have heard on so many occasions with my friends, myself. Favourite memory is listening to it on my hooked up system where I connected a tape recorder to our radio to increase the volume and played it loudly back in the 80s. Queen was always cool.

Years later I found another Queen fan in Sunil Jyothi who was another music friend of mine. Sunil loved Queen and Jetthrotull and introduced me to several new singers. Most impressive of that list was Supertramp but we can come there later.

This one dedicated to Mani.

My Musical Notes - Bread's Greatest Hits

This was a tape Mani gave me when we were in school perhaps. Maybe early 1980s. Mani was not too possessive about his cassettes unlike some of us. He also listened with a marginal interest - not obsessively like I did. So it stayed with him for all these years. It was the first time I heard Bread. They had a different sound, soft and soulful. Very fragile.

Bread was an LA based band which made its music in the late 60s on. Their best number was for me 'If'. Nice lyrics. I shared this one song with all the girls I felt something for. Sharing music was big for me - it was letting that person in. Many a night I have played this cassette and dozed off listening to the soft music of Bread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYFJRomR12k (If)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0KXV0gB0dw (Make it with you)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsKJ0KUyJw (Guitar man)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-OJV4hjwSI (Sweet Surrender)

I loved the sound. It fit a particular mood. No one ever asked to shut Bread off when I played it. It seemed to have some haunting quality to it.

Thank you Bread for the wonderful moments. Dedicated to Mani.

My Musical Notes - Little River Band 'No Reins'

1985. Choudary and I are at Chirag Ali Lane for some work of his after college. He takes me to this little shop that sells all sorts of stuff - including music. In this vague little shop I find an exotic collection. Like this one - a rare album by Little River Band 'No Reins'.

Little River Band was little known to me. The numbers I had heard of theirs till then were 'Man on my mind' and such which were completely different from this one which was a rock collection. Some fabulous numbers like 'Face in the crowd', 'Time for us', 'No reins on me', 'Thin ice' and 'How many nights'. 'Forever Blue' was a haunting number.

I just realised that it has John Farnham on vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5-Fo93Esbo (Face in the crowd)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVNsZp5p4xM (No reins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN9t18bHJLk (Time for us)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPst1_jldmA (Thin ice!)

Not too many shared my enthusiasm at listening to Little River Band but it's one of my favorites and I listened to it alone many times. Biggest memory - finding that shop and going there with Choudary on his Bullet.

My Musical Notes - Rock Hits 86

This was one of those albums that compiled hits. When I bought this I really didn't know many groups or songs. But it had some great numbers like 'These Dreams' by Heart, 'Rock Me Amadeus' by Falco (never heard of them again), 'Manic Monday' by the Bangles (big hit). I liked 'Calling America' by ELO, 'Beats so Lonely' and the biggest hit in this album 'Let's go all the way' by Sly Fox (another one hit wonder).

What I am loving about this exercise of pulling out my old cassettes is that they give away tell tale signs of the times when I bought them - sometimes I wrote the name of the place and date on the cassette cover. But this tape has great memories as we played 'Let's go all the way' many times in our parties. My all-time memory of this was Venkatapathi Raju telling us how much Azhar loved this song on an England trip that they had made then.

Nice stuff!

My Musical Notes - Bryan Adams 'Reckless'

Back in 1985, I ran into my friend from Junior College, Naresh Raghavan. Naresh and I were music buddies. In our Intermediate years I visited his palatial house in Padma Rao Nagar and we listened to 'Beat It' by Michael Jackson on his stereo. He also introduced me to 'Eye of the Tiger' and 'I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight' among many others.

Anyway, after I met him, he showed me this video of this song 'Run to You' by Bryan Adams and told me how he loved the way Bryan Adams pulls the guitar from the sand and plays on it. The song was lovely. I made a trip to Sangeet Sagar and got myself my own cassette. 'Reckless' was the album and it remains one of Bryan Adams best with songs like 'One Night Love Affair', 'Run to You', 'Heaven' and 'Summer of 69'.

Bryan Adams came back again and again with so many beautiful albums and I bought most of them. When he played at a concert in Bangalore I went. And then I went again when he came another time. Always as good as the first time.

Favorite memories are playing these numbers at parties with the gang. And recording them for my favorite people with whom I shared music as a way of sharing my friendship with them.

My Musical Notes 20 - Rocky III

1983-84
Rummaging through the tapes, I found this old one of Sylvester Stallone's 'Rocky'. I first heard of the 'Eye of the Tiger' from Naresh who told me about this fabulous song by a new group called Survivor which he heard at a New Year's Party. I had not yet heard about 'Rocky' series or even if I did, was not a big fan.

So when Mani (aka Satyanath) my neighbour showed me his cassette and gave it to me, I took it home and listened to it over and over again. 'Eye of the Tiger' was brilliant but so were 'Take you back' and 'Pushin' and the overall theme music. Now when I opened it I found Mani's signature on it. So I caught him the other day when he was walking the dog, showed him his old tape and took a picture of us with it.

'Eye of the Tiger' gave us many hours of pleasure in parties. My friends who were also boxers - Madhav, Vardha, Ranjan, Choudary (the last three only rained with them) - were big fans and they would imitate Stallone and his stuff. And of course show off their budding or non-existent biceps. 'Eye of the Tiger' certainly inspired many in the gym those days. Survivor however never had another big hit if i remember right.

My Musical Notes 19 - Alisha Chinai's Jaadoo

This is of 1985 vintage certainly. Really old. I also suspect it is from Mani's collection and stayed on with me. It's a Hindi tape with the songs from the movie Tarzan on one side and Alisha Chinai cooing 'Jaadoo mera chal gaya' on the other. Pretty saucy video too.

Alisha was a serious pop star in the Hindi private pop albums. Blessed with a unique, girly voice she did complete justice to these songs. After Jaadoo her other songs were 'Mon Cheri' (with Annu Malik), 'Rutho na hamse' and a couple more songs.

Tarzan the movie was famous for Hemant Birje who played Tarzan and did a good job of playing dumb and the sensuous Kimi Katkar who showed enough skin to draw the audiences in. The song 'Tarzan' was pretty popular and was sung by Alisha Chinai. There's a song by Sharon Prabhakar and one by Uttara Kelkar. Subhash Ghai was pretty adventurous.

My Musical Notes 18 - Tina Charles's 'Greatest' and Michael Jackson's 'Off the Wall'

1983-84
The cassette was the first host to two albums - Meatloaf's classic 'Bat out of hell' and Toto's 'TV'. Both great albums but somehow they did not appeal to me then. So when I spotted Tina Charles's Greatest Hits and Michael Jackson's 'Off the wall', I happily traded the earlier two albums. Of course, in later years, as I grew up and lost sweetness for bitterness, I brought back rock music into my life and these two albums came back.

Tina Charles was regularly played by the RJ on Yuvavani and the song 'Dance little lady dance' was a big hit. Other numbers like 'You set my heart on fire,' 'Love bug', 'Love me like a Lover' were all big hits. Tina has this unique voice and was much liked by my sisters, Chanti in particular who used to do a nifty little step on 'Dance little lady dance'.

I played the tape over and over again perhaps while studying or reading some novel. (My favorite memory of a book associated with music was Donna Summers 'Bad Girls' and The Godfather - done in one sitting!)

I did enjoy Tina Charles but Michael Jackson's 'Off the wall' was sensational. 'Don't stop til you get enough', 'Rock with you' and 'Get on the floor' were superb numbers. I haven't heard many people listen to this album but I loved it.