Brownspot
The new Goldspot look is unapologetically desi, a courageous choice for an emo band from LA with only one desi member. Crowned with a lotus, their new logo looks like the gold leaf stamped on a sack of atta. It’s rendered in a non-cliché faux Indic font, which is hard to pull off, and reminds me of the Soviet kitsch at KGB Bar.
One of the English mixes of ‘Friday’ relies on a lush, Bollyflick-style orchestral lead-in, which singer Sid Khosla insisted on having recorded in Chennai. And it works beautifully with the body of the song. Listen here.
What I love about all this is that the band isn’t just pitching unreconstructed Bollyclassics to a resistant culture. They’re adapting it, saying listen through my ears and you’ll see the beauty in this. It’s proudly brown and inventively kitsch. M.I.A.’s harder sound is more my taste, but Goldspot’s delicate tracks are lovely, evoking Morrissey and the Cure. And how can you not fall for the Khosla paterfamilias:
Mr. Khosla Senior was right in front, looking up his son’s nostrils, and there was no way you could miss the proud parent. This is because if you were anywhere near him, he would clutch your shoulder, beam and yell, “My son!” … Mr. Khosla pointed out to me Sidd Khosla’s mum, aunt, uncle, second aunt, fourth cousin, second cousin brother, first cousin brother’s wife, their goldfish and so on. This explained why the first two rows had an eclectic mix of waifish, wide-eyed girls, salwar kameez-clad aunties, moustachioed uncles with white hair, and me…
… the band’s front man is Indian. An Indian unlike Freddie Mercury who, thanks to his Parsi heritage, could almost pass off as white and shrouded his real name of Farrokh Bulsara under shiny leotards. In any case, one could argue he was from Zanzibar, really. Mr. Siddhartha Khosla, front man of Goldspot, can’t be anything but Indian…
Sidd Khosla was endearingly nervous and swilling Johnnie Walker to deal with that. Once he started to do some entirely embarrassing “dancing” - somewhere between aerobics and stamping his foot as though throwing a tantrum - we knew that the whiskey had kicked in… [he sang] a guitar and drums version of a patriotic Bollywood number (”Aye Mere Pyare Watan” from the 1961 film Kabuliwala)… [Anon and On]
Khosla has beef with his guidance counselor:
You were a Poli Sci and History double major. If you were a freshman today, would you do anything differently?
I probably wouldn’t be a Poli Sci major. That was a waste of a major. I learned absolutely nothing. I wish I had been an English major actually. [Link]
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Courtesy of Anon and On |
on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008, 7:40 am in Art, Music › 
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on-stage aerobics in something other than a shiny leotard? defies logic that does
Interestingly, it’s his vocals I found most brown. The bollyflick lead-ins are nice and subtle, but Khosla’s vocals smack you in the face with old-school Bollywood nostalgia, IMO. There’s also a lot of Beatles in there, but I’m not convinced the Beatles didn’t steal it from brown first anyhow. ;)
I really enjoyed that, thanks for pointing me in the direction & I agree with brimful on the beatles resemblance. Very cool .
Great call on the Beatles. I didn’t hear it because there’s no chorus.
“New” remix? That version was regularly played on LA radio 2 years ago. :)
Abhi just broke the laws of physics by pulling a hipster comment while still being a fan of John Mayer and Coldplay. No wonder he’s an astronaut-in-training. ;)
Not sure what remix you guys are on about but Manish, thanks for linking to the blog. :-) I’m not so sure about the Bolly nostalgia, brimful. I have a funny feeling that if we didn’t know Siddhartha Khosla is brown, we wouldn’t think of Bollywood when listening to him. Not that it’s a bad thing if he does smack of Kishore Kumar. Kishore Kumar meets John Lennon… not bad at all. :-D
P.S. Manish, apologies that the nickname isn’t creative enough for Ultrabrown but perhaps the website could be less demanding of us uncreative types. It’s the only nic I’ve got.