Shah Rukh Khan praises Nakash Aziz

At Mirchi Music Awards in Mumbai recently, ‘Saree ke fall sa’ fame singer Nakash Aziz also performed in this awards, which celebrates music, lyrics and singers of our country. Nakash sang songs of Shah Rukh Khan along other singers to pay tribute to SRK. He sang ‘Aakho mein teri’ from the film OM SHANTI OM.

When Shah Rukh Khan went up to stage he praised Nakash Aziz but wrongly called him Aakash on stage. Later, when he realized his mistake, then he hugged Nakash back stage and said sorry; and also said to the singer that his voice is really great.

Kiwi Musician Mikey McCleary re-invents ‘Aaj ki raat koi aane ko hai’

Mumbai based this Kiwi Musician, Mikey McCleary, re-invents the most beautiful songs from 50s and 70s Bollywood era to create some phenomenal tracks like Khoya Khoya Chand from Shaitan, Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho from the Coke "invisible bottle" TV ad, recently at Sitara studio in Mumbai completed shooting his music video for the track ‘Aaj ki raat koi aane ko hai’ for his upcoming 3rd album.

Kiwi musician Mikey McCleary's band, The Bartender, revamps Classic Bollywood music with their own personal twist of seductive jazzy style. The Bartender's first album was 'Classic Bollywood, Shaken not Stirred' and second album was ‘B Seventy’ was created in honour of Amitabh Bachchan and was released as a dedication to him on his 70th birthday. They have completed shooting their music video for the track ‘Aaj ki raat koi aane ko hai’ for their upcoming 3rd album.

As we all know the beautiful and seductress Helen featured in the original track ‘Aaj ki Raat’ from the film ‘Anamika’. While the setup of this video shoot was that of 40s jazz bar look. This jazzy number, while staying true to the original soul of the song, combines reggae with cabaret and motown, Mikey has re-invented the music for ‘Aaj ki raat’ and Shalmali is the lead singer in it, and they both will be acting in the video along with Shibani Dandekar, singer, anchor and model.

The video will be a murder mystery with Shalmali playing a seductive bar singer and her outfit was giving required amount of glamour quotient to the video, while Shibani is playing a beautiful waitress who has the moves to die for and Mikey will feature as a detective in the video.

Mikey has a special liking for 50s and 70s era Bollywood music. Why this special choice? He replied, ‘I think the melody of those songs are so beautiful and there is lots of romance in those songs. The original recordings are quite old, I want to add something to them…the songs are like…like beautiful women wearing the old clothes, I am just giving them new looks to them.’

Born in Chennai, he is originally from New Zealand. He studied Composition and Orchestration at the Wellington Conservatorium of Music and at Victoria University, Wellington. He then worked as a music producer in London at Trident Studios London among other places.

Mikey has previously worked with industry stalwarts like Lucky Ali starting with his debut album Sunoh, and AR. Rahman for their home as well as crossover projects. He has also been actively involved in producing music for a number of TV programs, commercials for brands like  Vodafone, Coca Cola, Levi's, Canon, Sony, Titan, Garnier, Lakme, amongst others, Bollywood films tracks and background score for films like Shaitan, Shanghai, David, Nautanki Saala, Shaadi Ke Side Effects etc. and movies down south.

Mikey has this eclectic music sensibilities which gives his music a unique edge. Mikey proves again with ‘Aaj ki raat’, that Classic Bollywood is truly timeless!

My name is being used – Kailash Kher

Buzz these days going around is that Kailash Kher is giving music in director Anand Kumar's film "Desi Kattey" solo. Whereas firstly it was heard that his band Kailasa is giving music in the film. To find out what’s the matter? We meet him. Kailash Kher explained, "It is not that in the film "Desi Kattey" I'm composing solo. Like the usual, in this film too, Naresh & Paresh are with me and will always be. My name is being used in the credits only because Director Anand wanted to use it, so that’s it.”

In this film there are total 7 songs, which has been written by Kailash Kher and Prasoon Joshi. The playback singers used in the film by Kailash are Rekha Bharadwaj, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shreya Ghoshal, Shankar Mahadevan and Hard Kaur. About the music of the film Kailash Kher said, ‘In the film the music is according to the story of the film, and so, it will have all kinds of music.’ When asked will the film music will have any Sufi number like he has in his albums, he said that there will be romantic, nostalgia, item numbers - are all kinds of songs, Sufi may particular won’t be used this time but the music would be Desi. 

Shibani Kashyap’s first Punjabi song ‘Soneya’

Shibani Kashyap has sung her first Punjabi song, ‘Soneya’ with none other than Mika Singh, a Times Music release. The enchanting and winsome voice of ‘Saajana aa bhi ja’ – Shibani Kashyap is a Punjabi herself; still she hasn’t sung any Punjabi song in her career for so long; so after the recording of ‘Soneya’ song she felt happy and content. The excited singer shared her thoughts, she said, ‘Finally, my first Punjabi song and that too with Mika Singh, is like icing on the cake. I have known Mika for quite a long time but now we got the chance to sing and performer together and that too in a Punjabi song.’

The song has a very upbeat, bright and international feel to it plus it has folk feel also but any traditional instruments hasn’t been used.

This is one of the songs in the Indipop album Shibani has worked on. "I will keep releasing the songs one by one. I feel Indipop has immense potential and is going to be back in a big way," she concludes.

Milind Soman's 74 year old mother walks 100 km in less than 48 hours

Walking 100 kilometers in less than 48 hours? Seems like child's play, doesn't it? Well, what when you're 74 years old? Exactly, but defying the norms, actor-model Milind Soman's mother Usha Soman, along with her three daughters, Netra, Medha and Anupama, not only completed the walk but also did not use any sort of physiotherapy in its duration.

Organized by NGO Oxfam, it was a charity fund-raising event wherein, its winners were honored at another awards event by Kiran Karnik, Chairperson of Oxfam India and CEO Nisha Agrawal, in Mumbai.

The participants of the first Mumbai Oxfam Trailwalker collectively raised funds exceeding INR 70 lakh.

This money will be used by Oxfam India to support six projects in Maharashtra, Bengaluru and Delhi under the areas of education, health, livelihood and urban poverty.

Kiran Karnik said “The Trailwalker is not just a fund-raising event but it also creates awareness regarding education for poor girl child and others, hopefully the next walk which will be from the 5th to 7th of December will have more walkers and bigger awareness.

In this trail walk competition, participated 70 teams and 274 walkers out of which 191 completed. The winning team walked the 100 km distance in 16 hours, approximately.

Kailash Kher visited the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga in Ujjain

Popular singer Kailash Kher who worships Lord Shiva and considers himself the greatest devotee of Lord Shiva, and even his name, Kailash, is also associated with the God; few days ago visited the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga in Ujjain. The temple is considered as most sacred place for devotees as Lord Shiva’s twelve Jyotirlinga is supposed to be in the temple.

Kailash Kher firmly believes that whatever happens in his life are the blessings of Shiva. So when the singer was in the ancient city of Ujjain for a concert he visited the shrine in the next morning itself after the show. Kailash Kher visited the temple earlier in the morning so that he could see the whole ‘shingar’ of Lord Shiva before the most sacred ‘Bhasma Aarti.’ Kailash Kher did the puja and archana with full devotion.

Though Kailash Kher is theist himself but he doesn’t like to visit temples as he believes God is everywhere. But this time Kailash Kher was visiting Ujjain after 10 years so he couldn’t control his love for Lord Shiva and visited shrine. After experiencing the whole prayer he said, ‘while the rituals were being performed during the prayer, I felt some sort of connection with my soul and my Shiva. This is one of a kind experience for me. If I again get a chance to come here in Ujjain I will definitely visit the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga again.’

Hard Kaur’s ‘Babloo Happy Hai’ is going to be on 7th Feb

Hard Kaur has given her voice, penned down the lyrics and even given music to the title song of the upcoming film ‘Babloo happy hai.’ This film is releasing on 7^th of February and it has been directed by Nila Madhab Panda, of the film ‘I am Kalam’ fame.

The song, ‘Babloo Happy Hai’, is become a kind of rage among the bachelors as some of the song lyrics is ‘Kal Hone Wali Shaadi hai, aaj toh Babloo happy hai.’ Rapper Hard Kaur is already claiming that her upcoming track ‘Babloo happy hai’ will become even bigger hit than ‘Char Bajgaye lekin party abhi baki hai.’

Hard Kaur’s upcoming projects are Atul Agnihotri’s production ‘O Teri,’ sung a song in the film ‘Youngistan’, along will all this she has even rapped in one of the item song in the film ‘Desi Kattey’ in which Kailash Kher is the music director.

When asked about what new she will be doing in 2014, she replied, ‘Yeah. There are lots of projects currently, I am working on, and along with that I also wanna give chance to new talents to work with me, just like Shankar Mahadevan gave be the chance earlier. There is a lot of unexplored talent in our country.’