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 Brimful
of Tjinder Singh
It's
1992… Morrissey is performing live on stage at Finsbury Park, north London.
The long-time indie hero… fanatically worshipped by poor, blinded - and sooooo
impressionistic young fans - jumps around holding the Union Jack. So what?…
The
Union Jack!? You know, the standard that National Front members never flag from
sticking, using, swaying, and holding while chanting fascist anthems. Big deal?
Hmmm, but what if Moz's lyrics go along the lines of 'National Front Disco'
- one of his songs which is signed off with - "We are the last truly British
people you will ever know…"
Excuse
me?
Whatever…
but the then unheard of - and unsigned - Cornershop turned up outside the offices
of EMI to burn posters of him. It was symbolic, don't you know - 'cos the boys
had at one time actually... like... erm, thought he was quite cool...
PR
stunt? Maybe; but if it had been to draw attention to someone with NOO talent
then we might have complained. But hey, we were introduced to Cornershop and
he of the golden-throated tonsils - Tjinder Singh.
A
few gigs; a few critically acclaimed singles and albums ('In the Days of Ford
Cortina' - Melody Maker single of the week: 'England's Dreaming'
- NME single of the week); a number one which was actually GOOD and not
just another tiresome commercial track: need I say it - Brimful of Asha. Signing
up with Luaka Bop then Wiiija records, and - in true rock style - the trashing
of hotels (even if it was only Bristol) and claims of nervous exhaustion. So
now, a few years later and a whole lot older, Ben Ayres and Tjinder Singh, have
released Disco And The Halfway To Discontent
- the debut album, not from Cornershop, but Clinton - and released it on their
own label - Meccico Records.
With
great relief to be OUT of the office I made my way to interview Mr Tjinder Singh…
It
was raining. I was late. Cold, late, and wet. Signing myself in at the Virgin
home in Harrow after a long arduous journey all the way from across town in
Angel, I noted rather anxiously that ‘Mr Singh’ had already arrived - ten minutes
beforehand - I was ten minutes late…
All
apologies. No cool and collected entrance. No time to get organised - and then
launch myself into a smooth question and answer scenario.
Oh
wellll…
"Tjinder
this is Rukhsana from Oilzine: Rukhsana… Tjinder."
I
know, I know, I know…
With
his back turned initially, watching some video on cable TV, he shifted round
slowly and grinned - brim full of sandwich.
"Hi,
so sorry I'm late." (Big GrIN)
No
time to check the dictaphone - I had glanced at it furtively in the taxi just
beforehand but… So, quickly pulling out my rather tattered sheet of neatly typed
questions and my very temperamental VoiCe AcTivated DictaPhonE (Oilzine
editorial budget - You know how it is.) I plunged in…
Okay,
first question - "Why have you decided to form Clinton - you enjoyed huge success
with Cornershop and so many of your fans recognise you as Cornershop?"
Of
course Me - still anxiously settling down only half heard his reply -
my attention was on the VoiCe AcTivated DictaPhonE (Oilzine Editorial
Budget - You know how it is). It was NOT Recording (Sharp intake of breath).
Tjinder
stopping short - "It’s not recording is it?" (Embarrassed) "No!" Agitated,
and fiddling with the dictaphone, hoping that the damned thing would work. Fiddle…
testing - one - two - one - two. Rewind and play. Nothing.
After
a couple of moments trying and failing, my allocated time running out - I looked
resignedly at Tjinder - "Do you mind if I take notes?" "Are you going to transcribe
this for the Web?" "Erm, yeah…" hand on head - despair. "Here", and Tjinder
- my hero - took that dictaphone and shook it - or something - and got it to
WORK.
So
replaying the interview, I am now missing the reply to the first question and
it opens only with some clicking and banging and me "I’m sooo sorry about this!"
And Tjinder: "I think it's working now" - Bang - "Shit!"
And
then my smooth, eloquent question and answer was in play - for all of ten minutes.
Oh
wellll…
Getting
back to the interview and Clinton, the lyrics are still quite P-O-LitiCal: "People
power in the disco hour, natty natty movement, there's motorway grooving… Some
many miles to be done, Well we're gonna take this movement onto the streets...There's
gonna be a people power in that disco hour." ('People Power in the Disco Hour'
- Disco And The Halfway to Discontent).
How
do you make Disco - that sooo dated sound of cheesy descent into cool-kitsch
sounds with political intensity? After the Morrissey incident they could have
left it all behind them, you know - the 'Political Agenda' - but does Clinton
or more truly Tjinder have one to follow? "Not an agenda, no." But? "I think
you've got to push things with songs, even if they're instrumental….'GT Road'
uses copulation mixed with Punjabi folk, which, really, in the past, have never
really met - but if you've been on the 'GT Road' you'd understand that they
do meet."
As
well as the subtler connotations of "copulation" on the 'GT Road', Tjinder has
supported the "Free Satpal Ram" campaign along with ADF, Chumbawumba and many
others. Cornershop/Clinton became involved after being asked by ADF. "It was
something we wanted to do… I'm just reading some stuff on the turn of this century
and what was happening in the early 1900's... what was happening in Bengal.
The different movements that were going on - the Swarajist movement, people
like Subash Bose and other political nationalists were in prison for absolutely
nothing - with the Raj… they were imprisoned every now and then to keep everything
under wraps and that's exactly what's happening now with Satpal Ram - it's pretty
sad power."
Musical
influences from the last few decades are easily felt tripping through Disco
And The Halfway To Discontent. More specifically 'Hip Hop Bricks' (I thought)
held similarities to Bootsy Collins: on pressing Tjinder… he is surprised (probably
because he thinks I'm too young to know!) "Well in something like 'Hip Hop Bricks'
we used that song as a means of… (saying) …all our 'thanks to'. It was just
a reeling off of that. It mentions people like Cool Keith's - it turned out
to sound a bit craft-worky in terms of the music… A lot of people have said
Bootsy, Funkadelic and Parliament, but it's not - and maybe they are a bit swayed
by the name Clinton."
Come
to think of it, Cornershop is a name which is easily if not fully understood:
many references are conjured. A cynical kind of ‘up yours’ to the stigma of
being Asian and growing up in '70s Britain when being Asian was so un-cool.
It was a time when the first immigrants from the sub-continent worked, slogging
their guts out for an ungrateful employer in a menial position for little -
if any reward. So they set up their own businesses: preferring the volatile
tide of self- employment to being penalised in a system for no other reason
than being Asian.
But
Clinton?… Why Clinton? Hey Tjinder? "Just to confuse people I think. It was
done in ’94 and whether it was the reason to do it or not – it has confused
people."
Oh.
The
second generation of Asians are a world removed from their parents. Is cool
Tjinder part of the clique of those Asians at the oh-so-cutting edge of music/arts/MEEEJJJIAA?
Would he have been as ‘acceptable’ ten years ago with his cleverly fine tuned
English and Punjabi lyrics? What about all this fuss over anything and everything
Asian at the moment? Is it a positive thing? "Not really, no. I think it’s a
little bit 'selling out to Whitey.' Asians are a big money market… and it's
another way of getting into that. But I think it lacks integrity in a big way
- in a way it is a step forward, but in another - there's been no compromise.
There's been nothing. I think it’s a big sell out at times, even on TV a lot
of the Asian actors in, like Eastenders and Coronation Street don’t even look
Asian."
The
clever turning around of English lyrics (The Beatles' 'Norwegian Wood') into
Punjabi; and Punjabi lyrics set against ‘non-Indian’ sounds - Giddian Di - is
something that runs consistently throughout Tjinder's songs; yet he was recently
quoted in NME as saying: "Asian music samples out of context sound shit! and
white people get all the fucking praise for it". So of course this conjures
up the sounds of Kula Shaker and their ilk; using pseudo Indian-ness for some
sort of middle-class aspiration towards spiritual hip(piness).
But
Tjinder has other ideas: "I don’t necessarily think that Kula Shaker and the
way that they use things was really that bad, because they did it with a bit
of integrity in terms of the sound." And then, looking rather forgotten, confused
and laughing he went on: "I don't know what drugs I was on when I said that."
Finding his track again he continued: "There are some things that just sound
bad, but I think Bhangra is one example of things taken out of context - where
there’s a bass line and even maybe a beat, but there (are) whims of sitar, which
doesn’t mean anything to me and doesn’t make that much sense." But Bhangra isn’t
something traditionally written, or composed, or even marketed by ‘white people’.
"Oh I see what you mean - Giddian Di Rani is using lots of different things
- but it was the attitude of Giddian Di Rani …(laughing in self-wonder), written
on the back of a bus. It was done live and .. the attitude it was done (in)
led it to fit in with Punjabi folk music."
Coming
from a Punjabi background, a lot of his peers are into the Bhangra and Bollywood
that Cornershop/Clinton although influenced by… er, the same it ain’t! Tjinder
may have been marginalised by the white dominated indie music industry. But
doesn't he find the same attitudes existing amongst his peers: by Asians who
don't particularly understand the lyrics, or the music? Tjinder though is calmly
reflective over this: "I don't think a lot of people understand it to be honest
with you."
Fullstop?…
"Fullstop!"
But
then doesn’t that bother you?
"No
not really, I think it takes time to understand things and even with like -
'Brimful of Asha,' there's stuff about the dams and the building of dams that
has come more to the fore with what's happened at the Wheel". He refers here
to the Big Wheel and the recent demonstration to highlight the plight of millions
of people made homeless; and the acres of precious land and forests lost by
the building of dams in developing countries such as India… "Arundhati Roy and
the work she's been doing campaigning… will bring out issues and (through that)
bring out what has been said in songs. So it takes time."
Although
the ‘original’ members of pre-Cornershop - General Havoc - included Tjinder's
brother, he does not come from a musical background. "I think that's good -
I don’t particularly like that many people who come from musical backgrounds…"
Do
you consider it limiting?
"I
personally do yeah, I can see the virtue of it - I can understand why people
would want to be in the same key, but I think you can do without knowing all
the little tunings and what have you - especially with technology… I was listening
to some Turkish stuff in some … Turkish snooker hall the other day and the beats
they were using were done by computer. It could have been done in Dalston that
track. So everything's getting smaller - everyone's using the same sort of things,
they are using the same computers the same computer software…" And then Tjinder
is lost again amongst his words ".. er, erm I don't know why I'm saying this
- I've forgotten what the question was…(laughs)."
What
about Wolverhampton? "Wolverhampton wasn’t very good for me actually
- there were a few things that were good but generally as a place it was something
I wanted to get out of pretty quickly - well as soon as I could. I think I was
at the peak of my life when I was about eight. When we were travelling around
doing chess competitions, playing all over the country and that was just a great
experience. Playing in lots of teams and having lots of responsibilities and
being music monitor. I think all these things...after about eight my life went
a bit downwards ..."
Downwards?
"Yeah
that was my peak."
That
may be his opinion, but Tjinder and Ben Ayres are difficult to define and predict.
They may have released the debut album from Clinton but Cornershop is not on-the-shelf
(wasn't that a good pun Michael?) (How should I know? - Ed). Their immediate
plans are to promote the album in America where it is to be released in January
and "then we'll move on to recording stuff with Cornershop."
rukhsana yasmin
Meccico-clinton.com
(Watch Clinton videos)
The-raft.com
(Virgin site with stuff on Clinton)
unomas.com
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