Agam – Contemporary Indian Music Band

This is the 3rd post in my Contemporary Indian Music Bands Series and its about my yet another favorite Indian Band Agam.

Was sad that I wasn’t able to attend their gig yesterday so thought at least would write about them. The band name “AGAM” literally translates to “the inner self” in Thamizh. It is a Banglore based Carnatic progressive rock band which was formed in the year 2007. This band had played in many leading Indian Contemporary Music festivals like MAD Festival and Fireflies festivale.

Team Agam [Source : Wikipedia]
Sitting: From L to R – Jagadish Natarajan, Vignesh Lakshminarayanan, Swamy Seetharaman.
Standing: From L to R – Ganesh Ram Nagarajan, Sivakumar Nagarajan, Harish Sivaramakrishnan, T Praveen Kumar

One fine day I was damn bored, being an ardent fan of A.R.Rahman I randomly searched for “A.R.Rahman Band” on the web and I came across a video where Agam is featured as  winners of a band based reality show which was judged by A.R.Rahman sir himself. That is how I came to know about this band.

Agam Band Logo – Inspired by the folk art Theyyam of North Kerala.

Their blend of both Carnatic and progressive rock gives a unique dimension and a great energy to their music. Their songs are full of energy and I can never miss them in my running playlists which would give me some extra push while I run. The following is their first song which I heard, which made me a fan of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKocOmyM0NA
Band Members

• Harish Sivaramakrishnan – Lead Vocalist and Violin , I would say he is the face of the band and has an amazing energetic voice. I am a big fan of him.
• Ganesh Ram Nagarajan – Drums and Backing Vocals , He is another face I could remember if think of the band.
•  T Praveen Kumar – Lead Guitar.
• Swamy Seetharaman – Keyboards and Lyrics.
• Vignesh Lakshminarayanan – Bass Guitar and Backing Vocals.
• Sivakumar – Nagarajan Ethnic Percussions.
• Jagadish Natarajan – Rhythm Guitar.

Below is the YouTube playlist of some of my favorite songs of the band
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HMLjBWRpe7QaP7yQMmQ3xwtpMNeMZOz

Listen and Buy their maiden album “The Inner Self Awakens”
http://www.oklisten.com/album/the_inner_self_awakens

Official FB Page
https://www.facebook.com/agamtheband

Official Twitter
https://twitter.com/agamlive

Poorva Formerly Yodhakaa – Contemporary Indian Music Band

As I mentioned in my World Music Day post that I will be writing a series of posts on some of my favorite Indian Bands and this is the very first of the series. Let me start with the very first band which i started listening to.

POORVA previously known as YODHAKAA is a Contemporary Indian Music band. It is an unique fusion band which fuses traditional texts (Sanskrit and Recently Tamizh) with the music around the world. The have played in major contemporary indian music festivals like MAD Festival. I have been to some of their concerts and it’s a pure pleasure for me to listen to them live. Its one of my most favorite Indian band and being one of their big fan i miss their concerts nowadays, hope and wish they perform more again.

The band is a team of very versatile musicians. The lead singers of the band are Pradeep (a.k.a Trichi Pradeep Kumar) and Susha (a.k.a Subiksha Rangarajan), They both are well known carnatic singers. Pradeep not only sings but also plays guitar and sliding guitar for the band, and He also sang Asai Oru Pulveli (Attakathi) & Mogathirai (Pizza). RaghavendraRaja (a.k.a Sean Roldan, RR) who is yet another well known carnatic singer is also part of the band and plays various instruments next to singing.

performance in TEDxSSN

Thamarum Amarum -Thirupugazh (my favourite)

Listen to their maiden album
http://www.in.com/music/album/yodhakaa-78822.html

Official FB Page
https://www.facebook.com/Yodhakaa

One Who Widened His Ears – A Note On World Music Day

Today (21-06-2013) is World Music Day, Though it was first started to celebrate in France in 1982 to celebrate music and musicians later it got spread all over the word. Main goal of this day is to promote all genres of music  and make it accessible to all. So wish all music lovers a Happy World Music Day and lets thank the musicians who give us great pieces of music .

Clicked By Me – Happy World Music Day

I fall in the category most fall in, The category who doesn’t know anything about music but love, listen and rejoice in it for ever. Music is some thing which accompanied me the most when I felt lonely, Its some thing which gave energy when I was down. It put me to sleep some times, It woke me up from sleep some times. It helped me to concentrate, and It distracted me too. It induced lots of love and other feelings in me. Listening to it some time created wounds and made it worse, some times it heals wounds or at least helped me forget the pain. It also made me to annoy people next to me, one can spot me singing worse with wrong lyrics, tapping the table with wrong beats and headphones plugged tight to my ears.

“For me music is like an unspoken language, It’s the sound of nature, If you listen carefully there is music in every thing. There is only one way to understand and enjoy music, You just have to keep listening, There is so much to hear.”

Those above awesome words are from one of my favorite  World Space Radio Add featuring A.R.Rahman sir, It also make me to wonder whether is there anything like good and bad music or it’s all about our likes and taste.I am a big A.R.Rahman fan since my childhood, ever since I started listening to Roja and Uyirae non stop repeat in the audio cassette player we had.

Until couple of years ago the only music i listen to is film music and mostly rahman, My ears were so narrow when it comes to music. Later i got exposed to some Contemporary Indian Music bands and some Independent Musicians and started listening to them. I really liked their music, their music sounded very fresh to me and was quiet different from what i used to hear. Each played different genres and some awesomely fuse Indian traditional and folk music with international sounds, Listening to them also refined my taste towards listening music. The growth of Social Media really helped those Bands and Independent Musicians to reach  more audiences than the past. But i could still see lack of support for them, might be because they are not much exposed by media or most of our ears are still narrow to film music alone. Lets widen our ears and welcome their music too, you might feel their music surpasses your ears and reach your hears. Lets also support and encourage the spirit of Independent Music and Independent Musicians.

In continuation to this post i will also write more posts on my favorite bands and musicians in the near future under the category Contemporary Indian Music. “Without music, life would be a mistake” so keep listening, Be Happy 🙂