Some time ago, Munira, a regular in my cybergang, turned me on to Coke Studio, a rock/traditional/fusion music show in Pakistan with a post highlighting some fantastic music. Since then I’ve been hooked. I’ve trawled through all the past series and downloaded my faves. It’s official, okay, no cheap scamming.
Can you believe I was excited to hear that Season 5 was on it’s way ? Why do I love this show ?
1. They’re a great house band.
2. The music is as varied as it comes, mixing traditional styles with rock/rap/funk/whatever.
3. It is pushing the boundaries by blending traditional instruments with modern music.
4. The band work with different artistes for each song. The variety keeps it sparky.
5. Guaranteed…..you can never foretell where a song or piece of music is going. It’s an adventure.
At a time when Pakistan is often in the western news for all the wrong reasons it is a reminder that there are some great artists and musicians working hard to earn a living and producing some great work.
And isn’t this just a great endorsement of the web. A new rock show starts on the other side of the world and I can sit and watch it in the Cotswolds. Wonderful.
Here is my favourite from Episode 1 – check it out. Go on, tell me it doesn’t rock !
singlemaltmonkey 
Great tunes.. and btw.. love your new header picture.. just gorgeous 🙂
Thanks, Lynne. I was standing precariously on a rock above the waves suffering in the dawn chill for my art. 🙂
You speak the truth! \m/
Haha, thanks, Mun. I’d like to know what you’re liking this series too.
Will probably make an assessment after a couple of shows 🙂 Charkha Naulakha is probably my favourite performance of the first episode, though I’ve been singing ‘Larsha Pekhawar’ too…..without knowing what the words mean! 🙂
Read this poem the other day and it reminded me of you….you’ll know why when you read it 🙂
The last day of 2008 I woke
wearing the same blue shirt I wore
driving down through the pines
to hear Carlos Santana,
the hills a pale brown near Vallejo
where Bill Graham’s helicopter crashed
in the power lines over the marshland.
The shirt hung on a shovel near Big Sur
smelling of almonds and sulfur
where I sat one morning reading Chuang Tzu
trying to understand about the Tao.
I wore it to feed Amy’s chickens
and wrapped its loose arms
around my wife, who was smoking
outside by the mailbox, having swallowed
a fragment of glass in her coffee
the Advice Nurse said was most likely harmless,
trusting the colon’s pulses to pass it
moment by moment.
We drove back north through Golden Gate Park
where an alligator once escaped
into the pond just off Lincoln Drive
and where Michael Bloomfield OD’d in his car
near the hall of flowers
and the Grateful Dead played for free.
We’d like to see them come back again,
the way Mickey Rourke showed up
at the Academy Awards interview
for his role as a broken-down wrestler
walking the two roads of grief and hilarity,
the cat’s eye ring on his finger,
his silver tooth, his rat-goatee
and wraparound shades,
weeping into his water glass
mourning his dead Chihuahua:
I swear I’d give him the shirt off my back.
Love it. Thank you, Mun………….. Al
this KILLS “pop” music. thanks Al. continue…
Too right, Tony. It’s going forward, isn’t it?
I love Coke… in all its forms!
Thanks!
Haha, ’nuff said.