In Praise of Colin Hay and Men at Work
17 Monday Nov 2025
Posted in 2025, music, music video, performance
Tag Archives: music
A Millennium Before Christopher Columbus Was Born, My People …
04 Friday Jul 2025
Posted in 2025, Asia, Bali, Commentary, Tamil Coast, thoughts
Tags
art, Asia, Bali, culture, east, hindu, India, Indonesia, life, music, news, rumination, SE, south, Southeast, thought, writing
A millennium before Christopher Columbus was born, my people – since I am descendant of the Tamil Kings – embarked to sea without knowing what they would find; explorers, with ships filled with the best spices, jewelry and manufactured goods on the planet.
They were headed toward the dawn, open ocean to the East and South, with probably very well-thought-out research, because we’re Tamil, on what they’d find.
For the next twelve hundred years they met, traded with, loved and engaged with every single culture from my birthplace to the “Wallace line” – end of the Sunda shelf.
This is why, every time I travel in what you call South East Asia, I feel intense kinship with every person I meet. They feel it instantly, and I acknowledge it openly, with deference and appreciation.
My pleasure at the exquisite variations of the cultures here that were born from those now ancient relationships THRRRUMMMMS! with a harmony of centuries.
That I know this pleases everyone – and their cultures flower before me in brilliant ways:
Here’s a current playlist on my travels:
The White Man just. doesn’t. get it. It’s a god damn distant object of exotic fascination from what they perceive of falsely as a lesser culture.
My people had libraries and Universities while the European man was still crawling in the dirt.
Then slowly, they learned everything from us. Then they ran out of room for themselves, built ships and started “colonizing”: calling all other people animals and heathens and enslaving and murdering us. For five hundred years.
It’s certainly political. People don’t like us … Hindus. Because they’re not sure what they’re gonna get when they open the pack. Surprise! Wild card!
Rest assured, what you will get will be deeply civilized and intellectual.
Take me for example, I am not a practicing Hindu anymore, I have been studying Buddhism for three decades and am an atheist dedicated to a scientific interpretation of our universe for the good of all humanity.
Well look, I gotta go. But anyway, I’m in Bali and I love every single person from here to Tamil Nad. But not enough to call you back.
Musical Influences ‘Til Age 33
06 Tuesday Jun 2000
Posted in journal entries
Tags
journal entry from June 6, 2000
USA 1981 – 1990:
aged 14 to 22
Ellington, Basie, Miles, Coltrane, Parker, Diz, Ella, Billie, Monk, Jobim, Gilberto, Getz, Bill Evans, Irakere, Hancock, Corea, Hubbard, Breckers, Stravinsky, Strauss [Richard], Debussy, Copeland, Bach, Brahms, Mussoursky, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Stevie Wonder, Carol Kane, Elton John, The Police, the Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Rapper’s Delight, Duran Duran, The Cars, Devo, Billy Joel, Talking Heads, Public Enemy, Tears for Fears and then at college: The Housemartins, Sade, Trip Shakespeare, The Cure, The Smiths, Morrisey and Indigo Girls, Bob Marley, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and every Beatles record ditto REM and U2 and a big Dylan period and The Stones and Public Enemy and RUN DMC, and (finally) Zeppelin and CSNY and de la soul, Sinead O’Connor, James Brown, Maceo, Prince, Fishbone, Buckwheat Zydeco, and live music where I was: Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Reivers, Timbuk 3, Poi Dog Pondering, twang-twang-shock-a-boom, but basically I bought what I was sold for a long time until leaving the US and worse, I bought it late.
Asia 1990-1992:
aged 22 to 24
International music in Asia, Tribe Called Quest, Jane’s Addiction, Nirvana, Dylan, John Prine, Dead, The Band, Tom Petty
New Orleans, USA 1992 – 1993:
aged 25 to 26
Nevilles, Howling Wolf, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, Fela, Aster Aweke, Lucky Dube, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Marsalis’s, Rebirth Brass Band, Boozoo Chavis, Zydeco, Cajun, Los Lobos, Nina Simone, Klezmer-shit, Arrested Development, Gangstarr, Disposable Heroes of hiphoprisy, gypsy kings, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, L. Subramaniam, Zakir Hussain
SF 1993 – 1997:
aged 26 to 30
primary musical influence was dj consuelo who brought me to much of the following: Funkadelic, 4 hero, ten city, horace silver, mingus, roach, ellington, coltrane, strayhorn, roni size, nu yorican soul, anohka, talvin singh, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Abdullah Ibrahim, Paul Horn, Ravi Sankar, Shakti, Zakir Hussain, Ali Akbar Khan, John McLaughlin, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, maxwell, charlie hunter trio, broun fellinis, wallace roney, pharoah sanders, disposable heroes of hiphoprisy, warp, photek, bjork, Cachao, Steely Dan, Johnny Cash, Bob Wills, more Willie Nelson and Paul Simon, Brothers Johnson, Harlem Underground, digable planets, Nick Drake, Cesaria Evora, Ben Harper, countless unknown labels and sounds.
New York City 1997 – 2000:
aged 30 to 33
Hariprasad Chaurasia, mos def, talib kweli, common, djpremier, asian dub foundation, LKJ (live), Hendrix, Medeski Martin and Wood, D’Angelo, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep, DMX, Prodigy, John Zorn, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, James Carter, Eric Allen, Michael Burns, Brent Kirkpatrick, Nusrat Fate Ali Khan, Fiona Apple
— MTK June 02, 2000
Musical Influences 'Til Age 33
06 Tuesday Jun 2000
Posted in journal entries
Tags
journal entry from June 6, 2000
USA 1981 – 1990:
aged 14 to 22
Ellington, Basie, Miles, Coltrane, Parker, Diz, Ella, Billie, Monk, Jobim, Gilberto, Getz, Bill Evans, Irakere, Hancock, Corea, Hubbard, Breckers, Stravinsky, Strauss [Richard], Debussy, Copeland, Bach, Brahms, Mussoursky, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Stevie Wonder, Carol Kane, Elton John, The Police, the Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Rapper’s Delight, Duran Duran, The Cars, Devo, Billy Joel, Talking Heads, Public Enemy, Tears for Fears and then at college: The Housemartins, Sade, Trip Shakespeare, The Cure, The Smiths, Morrisey and Indigo Girls, Bob Marley, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and every Beatles record ditto REM and U2 and a big Dylan period and The Stones and Public Enemy and RUN DMC, and (finally) Zeppelin and CSNY and de la soul, Sinead O’Connor, James Brown, Maceo, Prince, Fishbone, Buckwheat Zydeco, and live music where I was: Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Reivers, Timbuk 3, Poi Dog Pondering, twang-twang-shock-a-boom, but basically I bought what I was sold for a long time until leaving the US and worse, I bought it late.
Asia 1990-1992:
aged 22 to 24
International music in Asia, Tribe Called Quest, Jane’s Addiction, Nirvana, Dylan, John Prine, Dead, The Band, Tom Petty
New Orleans, USA 1992 – 1993:
aged 25 to 26
Nevilles, Howling Wolf, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, Fela, Aster Aweke, Lucky Dube, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Marsalis’s, Rebirth Brass Band, Boozoo Chavis, Zydeco, Cajun, Los Lobos, Nina Simone, Klezmer-shit, Arrested Development, Gangstarr, Disposable Heroes of hiphoprisy, gypsy kings, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, L. Subramaniam, Zakir Hussain
SF 1993 – 1997:
aged 26 to 30
primary musical influence was dj consuelo who brought me to much of the following: Funkadelic, 4 hero, ten city, horace silver, mingus, roach, ellington, coltrane, strayhorn, roni size, nu yorican soul, anohka, talvin singh, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Abdullah Ibrahim, Paul Horn, Ravi Sankar, Shakti, Zakir Hussain, Ali Akbar Khan, John McLaughlin, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, maxwell, charlie hunter trio, broun fellinis, wallace roney, pharoah sanders, disposable heroes of hiphoprisy, warp, photek, bjork, Cachao, Steely Dan, Johnny Cash, Bob Wills, more Willie Nelson and Paul Simon, Brothers Johnson, Harlem Underground, digable planets, Nick Drake, Cesaria Evora, Ben Harper, countless unknown labels and sounds.
New York City 1997 – 2000:
aged 30 to 33
Hariprasad Chaurasia, mos def, talib kweli, common, djpremier, asian dub foundation, LKJ (live), Hendrix, Medeski Martin and Wood, D’Angelo, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep, DMX, Prodigy, John Zorn, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, James Carter, Eric Allen, Michael Burns, Brent Kirkpatrick, Nusrat Fate Ali Khan, Fiona Apple
— MTK June 02, 2000
MTK The Writist 