Home / News / India News / Article /
Updated On: 25 July, 2010 11:15 AM IST | | Lalitha Suhasini
Girlfriends, marijuana and the bhaajiwali are great fodder for funny songs, say city musicians who know how to crack up an audience. Stand up comic and Alien Chutney frontman Vir Das hopes to find a regular slot for bands that can get some laughs
Girlfriends, marijuana and the bhaajiwali are great fodder for funny songs, say city musicians who know how to crack up an audience. Stand up comic and Alien Chutney frontman Vir Das hopes to find a regular slot for bands that can get some laughs
Weu00a0are watching Malegaon ka Superman, the low-budget laugh riot that was born after Malegaon ke Sholay became a raging hit, at musician Sidd Coutto's Bandra residence. "Is he wearing Hawai chappals?" we ask Coutto, who laughs out hard when he looks at the stick figure lead actor being bashed up. Coutto manages to sputter between laughs, "Yes, and look at his naada (drawstring)." Next up, an episode of South Park, the American animated series, where Stan, Kyle and Eric take the mickey out of err Mickey Mouse and The Jonas Brothers. Coutto's hard drive is crammed with more funnies.
 |
| Sidd Coutto's Tough on Tobacco is currently working on its 21-track second album. On this one, guitarist Gaurav Gupta takes on lead vocals on some tracks. |
His facial histrionics are amusing and he has a fantastic sense of timing, which is why we weren't surprised when we saw him at the first Comedy Rock night held at The Comedy Store in South Mumbai, last week. The list of bands was drawn up last month. Except for two -- Workshop and Vir Das's Alien Chutney, the rest of the line-up that included Mumbai bands Something Relevant, Ghalat Family and Tough on Tobacco, went on an experimental ride that evening.u00a0
Shock value
You are not sure how to react when you hear Frank Zappa sing that he's a sexual spastic for the first time or when you watch an Ali G video from his film Indahouse. There's pure shock, for one. Shock works for Delhi band Emperor Minge who don't want to be lumped as a comedy rock band. Emperor Minge bandleader Stefan Kaye calls it absurdist humour. The band once set up a mock police raid at the end of the show. "Some people were uptight and a lawyer in the audience went up to one of the cops and gave him his card," says Kaye. Finally, the main cop, incidentally an opera singer, went up to the microphone and sang a line off Arthur Sullivan's The Policeman Song: 'A policeman's laugh is not a happy one' which is when the audience was let into the joke.
Ask him how he gets his ideas and Kaye replies, "They just fester around." For one of The Medicine Shows, the band's performance art project which includes bizarre sketches, Kaye roped in New York-based actor Shelli Koffman to play a psychopathic homicidal woman in a psychiatric ward to sing Mad About The Boy. The song written by Brit playwright Noel Coward talks about a young woman's unrequited love for 20s Italian pin-up Rudolph Valentino. "Shelli does a very convincing nut job," says Kaye cheekily, adding, "A lot of people didn't laugh."u00a0u00a0u00a0
Read Next Story
Trending Stories
Latest Photos
Latest Videos
Latest Web Stories
ADVERTISEMENT
Mid-Day Fast
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT