M.I.A. at Lollapalooza

Your girl and mine will be at Lollapalooza this summer with a whole slew of amazing acts: Lupe Fiasco, Cold War Kids, The Roots, G Love & Special Sauce, Polyphonic Spree and Regina Spektor, to name a few.

Pearl Jam is the big headliner (and who doesn’t love Pearl Jam, really?) along with Daft Punk and Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals.

The festival runs August 3-5 at Grant Park in Chicago. Tickets are $195, no service charges, no add-ons. Snag yours now at the Lollapalooza Web site.

Music & More By Micropixie

(micropixie.com)

Having seen her perform at ArtWallah last summer, I can see how Micropixie might bring to mind a “Desi Björk” (ethnotecho.com). Charming accent? Check. Quirky and whimsical? Check and check. Pixie hair? Make that an eponymous check. But there are things distinctively her own about Micropixie’s (MPX) style. “Made in Bombay, born and raised in the UK, and currently based in San Francisco,” her electronic music defies easy classification with tracks like “Cognitive Dissonance” and vocals covering different styles—jazzy, introspective and konnakol, and the sounds of bongos, puja bells and harmonica.

“My Beige Foot”

If the sonic visuals painted by her debut album “Alice in Stevie Wonderland”, made at home entirely on a Mac computer with collaborator neo eon one intrigue you, then take a look at her short films made under the name Single Beige Female, including the “Flick Trance Groovies” “My Beige Foot” (touching on the randomness of nationality and skin color) and “The Beige of Reason.”

MPX will perform live at the upcoming “Girls Gone World”—“Three Indian singers from Planet Earth bring you ambient, soulful sounds”—on April 15 in Los Angeles at the Temple Bar, along with Manisha Shahane and Sumitra Nanjundan.

More: Micropixie.com; Micropixie’s MySpace
Previously: Rupa and the April Fishes; vidyA
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The Beat Goes On

Timbaland’s new album, Timbaland Presents: Shock Value, just came out on Tuesday and boasts a track from M.I.A. only on the U.K. version of the album, which seems to have a different track listing and artist collaborations than the U.S. release. (The U.K. version boasts another song called “Bombay” with Amar & Jim Beanz that you might want to check out too.)

M.I.A.’s song, “Come Around” was leaked last week on various music blogs and boasts a vocally cleaner sounding M.I.A. with a sweet beat. Kind of odd to hear her with tight and clean production … and oh HELL no! I KNOW Timba didn’t just say, “Babygirl. You and me. Need to go to your teepee.” Oh wait, he did. Aghh!

Rumi Turns 800

Deepak Ram

It’s east meets, um, east next Thursday at the Sackler Gallery in the heart of the nation’s capital.

The museum is celebrating Rumi’s 800th birthday and will feature famed Turkish fiddle (“kemenche”) master Neva Özgen in concert with Deepak Ram—a Bansari flutist and student of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. The performance will draw “upon the Sufi repertoire inspired by the poet” and is to take place at 7:30PM on April 12th in the Meyer Auditorium. The show is free and open to the public, but swing by (at least!) an hour beforehand to snag tickets. Go here for details.

Özgen and Ram then head to Boston for a repeat performance on Sunday (they’re calling it: “Seher – Sufi Music from Turkey and India”). Tickets are available online.

More:
Turkish Sufi music
Qawwali central

Sanjaya Out Of This World?

“Welcome to the UNIVERSE OF SANJAYA!!” American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar yelled out during yesterday’s show—after Simon Cowell called his performance “incredible.”

Cowell isn’t alone in his, er, support.

“I want that funny Indian kid to win,” actress Rose McGowan told the snaparazzi while signing autographs earlier this week. “He’s horrible. He’s great.”

“I can’t even comment on the vocals anymore,” said judge Randy Jackson last night. “What I like about you now is that you’ve turned into a great entertainer.”

EvenTony Bennett agrees. “I really think you’re terrific,” he told Malakar, adding that he appreciates his “sense of humor.”

Now Kentucky Fried Chicken has come forward, saying Malakar will be given a free lifetime supply of KFC’s Famous Bowls if he sings on stage in a bowl haircut. “We’re sure America will be as ‘bowled-over’ by your take on this classic look as they are by our KFC Famous Bowls,” KFC’s president wrote in a letter to the singer.

Tell us what you’re thinking in the comments-section below (especially re: the latest ‘do. Is it more Sopranos or Saturday Night Fever? Also: “Sanjaya is my Papaya?” Please explain.).

More: Sanjaya also makes me cry; Making girls cry since 1989; Starving for Sanjaya; It’s in his hair.

Alanis Got Mad Junk

(alanis-morissette.com)

I admit, after Alanis’ Jagged Little Pill, my interest in her declined—sharply. However, I may just decide to marry the woman and have all her babies after seeing her new mock-video on Best Week Ever.

In it, Alanis has decided to cover The Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” (as in, my lovely LADY LUMPS) in a style that is classic Alanis. And she manages making this horrible excuse for a song sound almost pretty while sung veeeery veeeeery sloooooowly. Really.

Meanwhile, the video is deliciously low-budget, parodies the original and features a gyrating Morissette (styled, apparently, with clothes from G+G) with a bevy of rough-looking dudes all looking to, uh, touch her lady lumps. The Fergie bangs and outfit are absolute perfection and she is hilarious to watch. Watch the video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

“Imagine India,” Macy’s 61st Annual Flower Show

I used to think the coolest thing about Macy’s in San Francisco’s Union Square was its nearly hidden subterranean post office. That’s where I dropped off a package today and noticed something that might be even cooler—Macy’s 61st Annual Flower Show, “Imagine India.”

The store was transformed, from the miniature chocolate elephants on display downstairs, to the huge Ganesh on the store’s façade, which I noticed on Friday night when it was dramatically lit, with the wall of windows customized to look like part of a shrine. For the next two weeks, until April 14, the store will “showcase the art, architecture and history of Indian culture amid lush greens and thousands of blooms.”

I will go back again, and probably not just for stamps. In-store scheduled events include a Dosa cooking demo, the Lancôme Henna Lounge and DJ Rekha live. Shoppers will have the chance to purchase authentic Indian textiles, jewelry, furniture and antiques from specialty shops, and to buy plants from the show at the end. Unscheduled events include dressing up in authentic textiles, pretending to be part of the display and then jumping out to startle wide-eyed shoppers.

More:
Additional event information
Local ABC news talk show interview with DJ Rekha and Macy’s (anchors seem to be fascinated by the DJ’s career choice.)

Update: Photos of “Imagine India” from Darcy Vasudev.

Starving For Sanjaya

Sanjaya Malakar has many fans, but Simon Cowell isn’t one of them. “He’s not going to win. I won’t be back if he does,” the American Idol judge has said.

One viewer, a 23-year-old New Yorker known only as “J,” is just as eager to see Malakar booted off. That’s because she has been on hunger strike, protesting the singer’s success on the show.

On day nine of the strike, J writes: “It’s getting to a point where I don’t know if I can continue on like this anymore, my parents are starting to get concerned.” She has also complained of having “slight hallucinations” but refuses to eat until Malakar is sent home.

Go to J’s MySpace page (Starving for Sanjaya) for more, or check out the video she recently posted on YouTube outlining her position. Bizarre, much? What say you Sanjaya fans (“Fanjayas”)?

UPDATE: J ends her strike (thanks, Ismat!)

Sawhney’s Soundtrack

Sawhney (Undergrowth.Org)

The Namesake continued its impressive showing at the box office this weekend.

To date, it has raked in just under $5 million at the (domestic) box office—not bad, given a limited release of just 237 theaters nationwide.

Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-seller, the film has a fan in Stephen Holden of The New York Times, who feels Mira Nair’s “lush palette lends her films a throbbing physicality that invites you to step into the screen and embrace the sensuous here and now.”

And thanks largely to the efforts of Nitin Sawhney, the aural connections that link Calcutta to New York are just as rich and effective.

The Namesake soundtrack is worth a second listen (at least). The tracks manage to gently nudge the plot along, taking you from India (“Shoes to America”), to New York (“Mo’s Affair”), back to Calcutta again with an aching poignancy and tender ease. Says Nair: “I love Indian classical music and I wanted to link that classical sound with the pulsating New York sound of today.”

The London-based Sawhney is responsible for pioneering the Asian Underground movement. Go here to read about his experience recording The Namesake soundtrack with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

More: 21 things you didn’t know about The Namesake

Ansari Excuse For Music

Have Aziz Ansari and his friends managed to create the world’s sh*ttiest mixtape? You be the judge—and be sure to visit Nirali Monday morning for the exclusive on Ansari and his new sketch comedy show Human Giant: