Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Mohd Rafi, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Ryan Adams, Allman Bros Band, Tori Amos, Bjork, the Decemberists. Asha Bhosle, Ani Difranco, Dixie Chicks, the Evens, A.R. Rahman, Juliana Hatfield, Hem, Indigo Girls, John Mellencamp, R.D. Burman, Matt Pond PA, Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, Joni Mitchell,Sinead O'Connor, Shankar/Ehsaan/Loy, Malonius, Beth Orton, Papas Fritas, Tom Petty, Lata Mangeshkar, Pinback, Neil Young, Wilco, the Who, Suzanne Vega, U2, Wheat, Tom Waits, Sufjan Stevens, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Michelle Shocked, Bruce Springsteen, Simon & Garfunkel, the Rolling Stones, Manna Dey, the Smiths, R.E.M., Damien Rice, Elliott Smith, Shaan, the Replacements, S.D. Burman
Hiding behind the Bollywood dialogue & posters is fun...but The NRI is actually just a normal Indian/South African/Canadian/American musician! I play in the Rock band GIST from the Washington, DC area. GIST has a few records out and has done a lot of touring (check us out on myspace!). This moniker, The NRI, came about when I decided to release some home 4-Track cassette recordings of mine. Hearkening back to the days of lo-fi cassette releases and mixes. All the recordings were done on an old-fashion Yamaha machine, then converted from cassette to CD to mP3. I'm so old-fashion I still demo songs like this! Our band GIST runs a small label in DC - Red Stapler Records, so this will be put out on there by December 2007 (RSR003). With a backlog of acoustic numbers, I'm going to record some additional songs in 2008 -- this time around at a friend's home studio with his full sweet set-up. But for now, as a kind of vanity project, I thought I'd share some of these early recordings -- of me learning to play, sing, and write. The collection of songs span a period of over 10 years!
