Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bamboo Shoots blog/press wrap up

Here's what everyone's been saying about us...

"
Bamboo Shoots’ debut ‘Armour’ is out... first track is hot" via Ultrabrown

"Bamboo Shoots' major-label debut features Parsippany native" via The Daily Record

"A band with an eclectic sound, unique look and rising popularity may soon be joining the list of famous musicians from New Jersey...Bamboo Shoots will debut its first CD, "Armour," on Tuesday. The release is the latest stop on this quartet's meteoric rise in the music industry." via Burlington County Times

"That album, a bubbly cocktail of new wave, dance pop and a dash of their Indian heritage, would be shepherded by producer Jerry Harrison...who straddles the line between megapop (Madonna, Beyonce, U2) and indie (Arcade Fire, CSS, MIA) like few others. The result is a frenetic offering that teems with Price-indebted electro like “Hey Girl..." via Shakefire


"Armour officially drops today, and we’ve officially started paying attention." via Format Magazine"
I cannot seem to get [Hey Girl] out of my head, so I wish you all good luck with that." via Guilt Free Pleasures

"Try It Before You Buy It- Week of September 29th, 2009" via Largehearted Boy and KEXP Blog Out This Week

Epic Records Press Release on Armour

Epic Records posted a press release about the release of "Armour" which you can read here.

Avir wants YOU to buy Armour!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Bamboo Shoots and Kofi Annan's TCK TCK TCK- free download

A while back, Bamboo Shoots joined Kofi Annan's TCK TCK TCK Campaign for global climate change. The campaign is geared towards this year's conference in Copenhagen. All of the artists involved recorded a cover of the 1987 Midnight Oil track "Beds are Burning." Get it as a free iTunes download here. While you're there, don't forget to pick up Armour, Bamboo Shoots' debut album!

Check out the other artists involved:

Monday, September 28, 2009

ARMOUR IS RELEASED!!!

Armour, Bamboo Shoots's major label debut is available NOW as a digital download at your favorite online music retailer. Pick it up on iTunes, Amazon.com or at www.bambooshoots.com TODAY!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

5 days till Armour...what what! Get your copy now...

We can't believe Armour is out in 5 days! Finally! Pre-order your copy now at www.bambooshoots.com.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Bamboo Shoots attend "Age of Stupid" premiere in NYC and Shiv chats with Heather Graham

(via http://shivhead.blogspot.com/)





Yesterday Bamboo Shoots and I were invited to attend the premier of the documentary, The Age of Stupid. It's about climate change, the war for resources, the ending of humanity if we continue to consume the way we do etc. It was pretty moving. Here's a link to a decent review in case you wanted to read more.

Upon arriving, we were escorted to walk the "green carpet" and posed for a couple pictures and did some interviews.

And then I met Heather Graham! I've always been a fan of her but when she appeared in my favorites series ever, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, it sealed the deal. I got a quick photo with her, and upon saying goodbye I said "I love Saddam!" (it's a line she spoke in ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, Season 1 Episode 14, "Shock and Aww")...she laughed and smiled. And the rest of the night I was glowing. And of course I totally thought she was into me.

Kofi Anan was also there, as well was the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson (whose business card I still have from meeting her at a development conference at Yale back in 2004), the president of the Maldives (Bamboo Shoots tour??), Gilian Anderson, Stephen Baldwin, and one of my new favorite actors, Larry Gilliard, Jr. who plays D'Angelo in HBO'S The Wire.



Monday, September 21, 2009

Bamboo Shoots Cover Series: We cover Ne-Yo



Notes on the Video:

We met up earlier in the day for practice and setup to do this taping. Right from the start, everything went wrong. The audio setup wasn't working right, everything was taking forever and we were getting frustrated. Then my wurlitzer fuse blew and Ankur had to disassemble it and jerry-rig it into the PA. It was hot and sweaty and by the time the cameras finally turned on, we were all aggravated and taking it out on each other. If you're in a band you probably know what I'm taking about. As I'm watching this, I can feel the tension in the room and if you know us, you can probably see it on our faces too. I love that Steve dutifully captured it. Anyway, we hugged and made up after the taping, and now it's just funny to see us going through this band drama while singing "nobody struts like her" in perfect harmony.

Huge disclaimer: I think Ne-Yo is one of the best singers out there right now. I'm not Ne-Yo, we're a rock band, and believe me I'm not trying to put my voice in the same league as his. We just like his songwriting, it inspired us, and we thought we'd share. Hope you dig.

--Avir

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

About to Pop: Bamboo Shoots

Check out this interview with Avir and Shiv on Popeater, it's good stuff:


About to Pop: Bamboo Shoots


Less than two weeks to go!

Armour's almost here, folks... hitting your computer on September 29th. Be sure to pre-order your copy here and get a free 3 song EP of "Hey Girl," "Wrong All Along," and "Milk, Satin & Silk," while you count down with us to the big day!

We've also got a great new official website up at www.bambooshoots.com

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Coming soon...cooking with Frankie

Hey guys it's Shiv here, the drummer from Bamboo Shoots, and this is my first blog entry! Wanted to let you know that tomorrow, Wednesday September 9th, I'll be featured doing one of my favorite things - cooking! There's this blog site about music and cooking called The Young and The Hungry, and I've been invited to showcase some of my favorite recipes for a video shoot. This is a really interesting site by an eccentric guy called Frankie who has previously hosted bands to come in and cook for the show. And in between he does a bunch of weird stuff like this video which is all about cooking a fillet of sole fish -- all set to an original song and video written, directed and performed by Frankie himself. I must say I've never seen anything quite like it before -- there's a part in the middle of the video when the fish is slowly frying and reaching it's point of done-ness that Frankie splits the screen to a raging and building guitar solo which matches the climax of the cooking fish! So I'm pretty excited to be working with Frankie tomorrow and think it'll be a lot of fun to cook for his show.

I figured I'd make what I love to cook for the rest of Bamboo Shoots when we have super long rehearsals at Avir's house. My boys need a high protein, lowfat and tasty meal to keep on rockin! So tomorrow I will showcase my "Chicken Curry with Lentil Brown Rice and Cucumber-Mint Lowfat Yogurt." I don't know if you're into Indian food, let alone curries, but wait till you see how I'm going to make it -- this aint yo mamma's preparation for sure! I don't know when the video of me doing this is going to be online, but be sure to check back for updates! THIS IS GONNA BE FUN....AND TASTY!!


Shiv with his Mom, the best cook in the world!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Choose our next cover

That's right...YOU can choose our next cover - go to our MySpace to vote for what song you think we'd do best. We'll be recording it with a video too. The choices:

Sweet Dream- Beyonce
Party in the USA- Miley Cyrus
I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
Love Game - Lady GaGa

Friday, September 4, 2009

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Anokhi Magazine Article

Cheers to our friend Hilal for writing this piece which you can read in its original form here


Bamboo Shoots Are Shooting Stars
Desi American Pop-Rockers Are New Jersey's Next Big Export

BY: Hilal Nakiboglu Isler
PHOTO: Courtesy of Hilal Nakiboglu Isler


I met Ankur Patel in an over-lit New Jersey diner a few years ago. A
kid with a quick smile and over-sized jeans who didn’t talk much, and
when he did, it was about this band, called Bamboo Shoots, he was in
with a couple of his buddies.

I might not have taken Patel that seriously (what is it with boys and
their garage-bands?) if Rekha Malhotra, a.k.a. DJ Rekha, hadn’t been there.
She’s the New York-based turntablist responsible for bringing Bhangra to the
city through her long-standing club night Basement Bhangra. I was
interviewing her and had spent the day being SUV-ed around to a local
TV taping to her offices in Brooklyn and now here to this restaurant
booth off the New Jersey Turnpike.

It was she who introduced us. And over some deep-fried food, which the
three of us now shared, she told me Ankur’s band was the real deal, a
group to watch. She was a fan, and had recently hosted them at
Basement Bhangra, part of an attempt to showcase Desi-American music
not of the dhol-beat-repeat kind.

Patel, softspoken with an earring and well-pruned goatee, told us
about a competition they’d recently entered: an annual contest
sponsored by mtvU, held in attempt to find the "Best Music On Campus."
He said if they won, it would be "huge" and gave me the online address
where I could go and place my vote — which I did later that night.

So did thousands of others. The Bamboo Shoots secured a win, becoming the
first Desi-American band to do so. The prize: a chance to perform on
Late Night With Conan O'Brien and a deal with Epic Records, a major
mainstream label.

That was two years ago. Since then, there have been gigs, lots of
them, across the United States: at dive bars, clubs, even a theme park
(the tween girls seemed to really enjoy that one). Then three months
ago, a first: a five-city tour of India.

You don’t see many young bands travel to India so early on in their
careers. That’s something generally reserved for rock veterans
(Metallica, Iron Maiden come to mind) who roll through, almost as an
afterthought, on the tail-end of an Asian blitz. So why India? And why
now?

"We get the sense that most American bands would only come to India
once they were firmly established internationally," frontman Avir
Mitra told me from Delhi, where he had performed at the Turquoise
Cottage the evening before. "They'd stop by on their way to Japan or
something and play huge venues and then leave. We want to do it
differently…to start from a grassroots level, build a solid
relationship with India early on." They’ve managed to pull this strategy
off nicely in the States.

The guys (there are five: Avir Mitra, Karl Sukhia, Shiv Puri, Ankur
Patel and Ahmed Mahmoud) have a following as loyal as any — people
they’ve won over with their accessibility and their endearing, nerdy
charm. Watch their YouTube videos (/bambooshootsband), and you’ll see
what I mean. In the clip where Mitra announces the India tour, for
instance, he sits mumbling in a collapsed lawn chair, nervously
tossing a pebble around before someone (is that Ankur?) starts raking
a pile of dead leaves in the background.

The video ends as awkwardly as it began which makes you realize two
things. One: these guys probably didn’t go on many dates in high
school. And two: they don’t see any reason you can’t be rock stars and
normal people simultaneously.

The Shoots cover both classics (Al Green’s I’m Still In Love With
You), and contemporary hits (by Kanye West, Radiohead), but it’s their
original pieces like Milk, Satin, Silk and Wrong All Along that are
really memorable, full of punchy charm. Their debut album, Armour, is
to be released late this year. Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads
gets production credits.

Their legion of committed online fans will help make the album a
success here. And in India? "None of us had any idea how our sound
would be received," says Avir Mehta, "But people there are definitely
getting it."

That’s reassuring and suggests if word-of-mouse spreads, as it does,
the Shoots just might become a band with a transcontinental following.

Visit the band on MySpace for more info: http://www.myspace.com/bambooshoots.