![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_future_modernes posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rocknroll_n_blues_queensUltrababyfat- Twist (Her Old band)
Tigers and Monkeys - Fire escape (Her New Band)
Variety Shac (The Comedy Troupe)
The Interview: Shonali Bhowmik, Leader of indie band Tigers and Monkeys, member, Variety Shac
How did you get started playing music?
My best friend growing up, Michelle, (unusualmusic's note: she too was a guitarist and vocalist) was in my last band, Ultrababyfat, with me, and when we were kids we made tapes with each other, with rock songs and stories, we called it the prophecies. I hadn’t heard it in so long and Michelle sent me a tape for Christmas as a few years ago from when we were 16 years old, and in the tape it talks about us being in a rock and roll band in New York and dating all the hot rock and roll dudes and it’s hilarious because I did it.
It was always a part of what I wanted to do but I don’t think I had remembered that. I figured I’d go to law school and music would be a hobby but it honestly was the only thing that I’d always done. Especially being Indian, where you’re told you need to be a lawyer or doctor or engineer, you grow up thinking that’s what you’ll do. But my hobby was just so well received by music lovers and critics and while I was in law school, we got signed to a label. That was when I started playing the most music I ever played.
It became what I knew I had to do as a career. I didn’t even practice law after I got out of law school, I just toured and played music. I graduated in the late 90's, and ever since then, it’s been the only thing that I’ve done. Everything else subsidized the music. I waited tables and tutored high school math at a private school in Atlanta. I also taught aerobics, I did LSAT courses at Princeton Review, I taught programs at Friends Seminary, whatever I could do. I was a producer for the Siren Festival, I worked at CMJ for a couple years. This is the first time I’ve fully worked as a lawyer, but it’s temporary for me, so I can leave when I want to play shows; it’s worked out perfectly.
....
How’d you come to form you first band Ultrababyfat?
I’d been writing songs for the fun of it with a friend, Michelle since we were 10 or 11. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, we worshiped all these male rock bands. We dated boys in rock bands, we were writing songs on the sidelines and watching them play, and we said, let’s do some open mic nights, while I was in law school. We were so scared, but our songs were well received, we started getting really great reviews in Atlanta in the press and then we started getting calls from record labels in different cities. It’s amazing how fast things happened for us. It’s all we did for fun, we weren’t doing drugs or drinking, we were just writing these songs, so finally we brought it out onstage.
It was just the two of us, and then we would ask different musicians we knew to play with us that night. Britta Phillips, who’s in Luna, played with us for years. We had no aspirations other than wanting all the male rock bands to come see us play and know that we were at least as good as them, if not better. Ultrababyfat toured with David Cross for his DVD Let America Laugh. He’d seen us in Atlanta and he was so supportive and we had so much fun touring with him. Then Michelle started going to grad school in Atlanta and we both had enough material to start doing our own thing. My new rock band, Tigers and Monkeys, are people I met while I was in NYC.
...
How would you describe your sound? There’s something very Southern about it to me, in part because of your accent, but even the rock songs seem a little slower, a little more sensual or something.
Tigers and Monkeys is a bluesy pop rock band in the vein of the Pixies and the White Stripes, mixed with country, and there’s a darkness to it. There’s a haunting sound beneath it all. Most recently I used minor chords a lot and I used to use major chords a lot and that’s a little more of a positive sound, so there’s a darkness that I’m grasping onto that makes me feel good.
Chuck Eddy from The Village Voice came to a show and he commented that he had some of my older band’s music and he said I enunciate extra words and syllables that don’t exist. I don’t even know that I’m doing that and I realized that I don’t hear many people doing that, ti was very organic. I’ll make up words within syllables, adding things for rhythmic sounds. There’s a line where I say “this pretty thing is broken, this pretty thing won’t smile,” and I add syllables that I don’t even know I do, that’s like three extra syllables for the word smile.MORE
Ultrababyfat Website
Ultrababyfat Myspace
Tigers and Monkeys website
Tigers and Monkeys Myspace
Tigers and Monkeys - Fire escape (Her New Band)
Variety Shac (The Comedy Troupe)
The Interview: Shonali Bhowmik, Leader of indie band Tigers and Monkeys, member, Variety Shac
How did you get started playing music?
My best friend growing up, Michelle, (unusualmusic's note: she too was a guitarist and vocalist) was in my last band, Ultrababyfat, with me, and when we were kids we made tapes with each other, with rock songs and stories, we called it the prophecies. I hadn’t heard it in so long and Michelle sent me a tape for Christmas as a few years ago from when we were 16 years old, and in the tape it talks about us being in a rock and roll band in New York and dating all the hot rock and roll dudes and it’s hilarious because I did it.
It was always a part of what I wanted to do but I don’t think I had remembered that. I figured I’d go to law school and music would be a hobby but it honestly was the only thing that I’d always done. Especially being Indian, where you’re told you need to be a lawyer or doctor or engineer, you grow up thinking that’s what you’ll do. But my hobby was just so well received by music lovers and critics and while I was in law school, we got signed to a label. That was when I started playing the most music I ever played.
It became what I knew I had to do as a career. I didn’t even practice law after I got out of law school, I just toured and played music. I graduated in the late 90's, and ever since then, it’s been the only thing that I’ve done. Everything else subsidized the music. I waited tables and tutored high school math at a private school in Atlanta. I also taught aerobics, I did LSAT courses at Princeton Review, I taught programs at Friends Seminary, whatever I could do. I was a producer for the Siren Festival, I worked at CMJ for a couple years. This is the first time I’ve fully worked as a lawyer, but it’s temporary for me, so I can leave when I want to play shows; it’s worked out perfectly.
....
How’d you come to form you first band Ultrababyfat?
I’d been writing songs for the fun of it with a friend, Michelle since we were 10 or 11. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, we worshiped all these male rock bands. We dated boys in rock bands, we were writing songs on the sidelines and watching them play, and we said, let’s do some open mic nights, while I was in law school. We were so scared, but our songs were well received, we started getting really great reviews in Atlanta in the press and then we started getting calls from record labels in different cities. It’s amazing how fast things happened for us. It’s all we did for fun, we weren’t doing drugs or drinking, we were just writing these songs, so finally we brought it out onstage.
It was just the two of us, and then we would ask different musicians we knew to play with us that night. Britta Phillips, who’s in Luna, played with us for years. We had no aspirations other than wanting all the male rock bands to come see us play and know that we were at least as good as them, if not better. Ultrababyfat toured with David Cross for his DVD Let America Laugh. He’d seen us in Atlanta and he was so supportive and we had so much fun touring with him. Then Michelle started going to grad school in Atlanta and we both had enough material to start doing our own thing. My new rock band, Tigers and Monkeys, are people I met while I was in NYC.
...
How would you describe your sound? There’s something very Southern about it to me, in part because of your accent, but even the rock songs seem a little slower, a little more sensual or something.
Tigers and Monkeys is a bluesy pop rock band in the vein of the Pixies and the White Stripes, mixed with country, and there’s a darkness to it. There’s a haunting sound beneath it all. Most recently I used minor chords a lot and I used to use major chords a lot and that’s a little more of a positive sound, so there’s a darkness that I’m grasping onto that makes me feel good.
Chuck Eddy from The Village Voice came to a show and he commented that he had some of my older band’s music and he said I enunciate extra words and syllables that don’t exist. I don’t even know that I’m doing that and I realized that I don’t hear many people doing that, ti was very organic. I’ll make up words within syllables, adding things for rhythmic sounds. There’s a line where I say “this pretty thing is broken, this pretty thing won’t smile,” and I add syllables that I don’t even know I do, that’s like three extra syllables for the word smile.MORE
Ultrababyfat Website
Ultrababyfat Myspace
Tigers and Monkeys website
Tigers and Monkeys Myspace
