Up Close & Personal with Orange Street

Presenting a video interview (at the end) of the two good men from Orange Street, Anirban (Ban) and Donn Bhat (Don). Orange Street have always been one of my favorite bands (please note I am not using the term Indian Band here). I have always found their songs, be it the lyrics, music or sound, very unique and very groovy.

Orange Street broke into the scene with their funk laden single 'Over N Under' on the very first Great Indian Rock compilation (Album on extreme right on that page and you can order for it). The same album also introduced Parikrama to India. Since then both bands have followed diagonally opposite routes. Parikrama focused on being a 'Rock Band' with gimmicks and showmanship, while Orange Street have always been about great original songs and music. Both have been very successful in their acts although I have a weakness for Orange Street (Subir if you are reading this, please forgive me. You are an equally good friend :P)

Orange Street have released a studio album called 'Drive Carefully For Our Shake' (available at leading book stalls) couple of years back and have toured Europe extensively. Lately they have been trying out a lot of Indian elements in their songs, a good example would be their song 'Morey Piyaa' which I have used as the soundtrack for the interview video. There has been a lot of changes in the line up, with Ban and Don being the only permanent members of the band as of now.

Don joined Orange Street couple of years back. We go a long time back. He played his first show at IIT Kanpur's cultural festival Antaragni way back in 2001. Incidentally, I was the student coordinator for the rock show and I also opened for them with my good friends Udai, Norbert and Joppu (good days man).Don was with Friday the 13^th then and I have dug up my archive to bring to you a very are picture of him hiding behind his mass of hair (he thought it looked cool at that time). He will of course deny that. Great guitar player. Lately he has been experimenting with electronic sounds and they can be sampled here

Somebody has even made a video of one of his songs called 'Your Song' and posted it on Youtube

I hooked up with the dudes at the Hard Rock Cafe and I managed to get their ugly mugs on my camera and talk about their plans, sounds, albums, Superfuzz and of course, women and porn. They are also part of the Sahi Bol album, which will be released in a week by Sa Re Ga Ma. The compilation will showcase the best of bands from Delhi . Orange Street have a gig coming up on the 27^th in Delhi and all you Delhi people should check out the show (will update on the venue) and buy the album which will be a 2 CD compilation.

Before you check out the video and the song, many thanks to Pratish and Dubey and for making this video possible. You guys are great.

If you liked the song, you can download it from here (right click and 'save as')
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