Music with DJ Usman and DJ Shahzaib from FM 101
By Mohammad A Qayyum

As the voices of FM 101's much acclaimed High Voltage show, Shahzaib Atif and Usman Ahmad may well be heard and loved by millions of desi alternative music lovers, yet it does not get them recognized in person or open a lot of doors for them. In this one particular instance when I met up with the duo to talk music, it failed to get us a table at Melody Park in Islamabad. We looked hither and then thither but found the whole park filled up and no one offered us any of their chairs too. Ultimately, we had to make do with a table at Zeenos, a restaurant just outside Melody Park, ordered some food and finally got down to talking music.

Usman and Shahzaib (along with DJ Kamran) despite being 22 and 23 years olds respectively are old hands in the music scene: if you do not already know, they have by now over a thousand hours worth of broadcasts on FM 101 and interviews of over 60 artists under their belts. Not a mean achievement for Usman who has just finished his BBA from PIMSAT and Shahzaib who is still completing his MBA from Bahria University. On High Voltage they and DJ Kamran have long flown the flag of local alternative music and supported all and sundry musical talents. Their knowledge of the scene is encyclopaediaic: they are two of the few who, I will admit, know more about the local music scene than anyone around. As the conversation developed I was soon to also learn that they still remain as ever unjaded, enthusiastic and strikingly hopeful about Pakistani music.

Since we had each come from separate concerts in town to Melody Park, the bands we had seen were as good a place as any to start our discussion. They had come from a Junoon concert, the first one for a long while in the twin-cities, and I had just been to a Corduroy performance at the Civil Junction

Moby

Junoon as ever was first. Or was it. According to the boys, the Junoon performance had been a disappointment. One, Junoon had rushed through their set as they had an early flight out of the Capital. Considering that the Capital goes to sleep after six anyways, I would not blame them too much for this. Two, the disappointment was doubled by the fact that despite being part of the Dewar tour and having promised much awaited new material, none was premiered. Three, however, while the performance was ragged (it was early days on tour), it was nevertheless forceful. "And in any event," Shahzaib added, "they played their instruments well and were still infinitely better than the opening act Rage, who played a DAT."

I on the other hand took to raving about the energy of Corduroy, who despite being derivative and mostly cover oriented, were great value for a good night out. Yet, Shahzaib objected and complained of "too much attitude with the band." Clearly he was referring to lead singer Moby. Aparently, Moby and Shahzaib had previously had a run-in over a Battle of Bands on Radio. "For my money," I added, "the more attitude the better. Isn't attitude the prime ingredient of rock?" Basically, at the end of the day we agreed to disagree.

I then asked them the less obvious question: "Which artist do you not particularly care for Shahzaib did not miss a beat. "The Laila guy, Shahzaman. He is really a one-hit-wonder and really desparate to make it big." "Errrm..." he even had me nonplussed. "Wasn't 'Laila' good? And at least he says Alhamdolilah a lot in his interviews," was all I could manage to say. But Shahzaib was unmoved. "No talent," was his last word on poor Shahzaman.

Usman, the quieter of the two, but the one with the deeper voice on radio, was as ever more composed. He professed a dislike for Hassan Jehangir. I was a bit taken aback by that as I fondly recall, much as it pains me to acknowledge now, shamelessly grooving to Hawa Hawa when it came out eons ago. I still maintain it was rather alright. "Passand Apni Apni," as Shahzaib put it. But Usman pointed out that Hassan had gone on to release Shadi Na Karna Yaaro and Hatho Bacho with utterly putrid lyrics. He hummed us a few of the lyrics and soon enough I could see that he had a point, a poison-tipped one for Hassan Jehangir unfortunately.

"But what about Shahzada Faisal, my choice in the least favourite artist category?" I asked. "He does not even figure in the race being in a class all of his own," Usman added. "I couldn't believe he put an advertisement out in a newspaper for his album when he released it and put his phone number on it." We laughed and left it at that.

Our Pepsis soon came and that got us talking about the all-time darling of P Cola. "Yup, it is true. Vital Signs are coming back and Pepsi is backing them in a big way," revealed Usman. "The unfortunate consequence," he added, "of the return of VS is that Aaroh, the Pepsi Battle of the Bands winner, seems to be losing out on Pepsi-love in the process." All eyes and energies would now be focused on the return of VS. (The latest buzz of course is that the VS reunion is possibly off again, so Aaroh may breathe easy).

The other Pepsi band was then also discussed: more particularly, we concentrated on the plight of Strings for their next album. I mentioned that I heard with Shallum out of the picture and happy with Fuzon, Strings are, pardon the pun, rather 6-stringless and still groping around for inspiration. I mentioned that the news on the Strings website some time back had been of them getting together in Murree to write up some songs. So we all hoped that one does not have to wait for the next one for as long as one had to wait for Duur. But then again given that even Duur had quite a bit of filler on it (remixes, etc.), it just might not take them too long. (And sure enough Strings seem to have clued in to the delay and have announced the release of their latest album Dhani.)

We also sat and bemoaned the lack of activity on part of Karavan. For a band that had one of the best albums in recent memory with Gardish, the band is shockingly silent and has not been seen. We all agreed that the album was excellent and had excellent CD case design. Usman added that the CDs and cases were however being produced in horrid quality now. He mentioned that he had actually come across a CD of Gardish in which the cover was badly printed on a Hritik Roshan cover for Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. (He showed me the said case the next day too and he was quite right.) I complained that I had come across brand new CDs of Gardish with serious production faults (skipping, clicking, etc.) and the duo confirmed the same. Yet however much we discussed other matters we continued to come back to bemoan the fact that Karavan, an incendiary live act, is getting no shows and basically going nowhere other than supplying its members to back other bands (Sam is with Fuzon these days, Alan with Junoon, Asad with Haroon and Tanseer by himself.)

"So what is banned on Radio these days?" I asked them. I recalled some time ago when I had visited Radio Pakistan there had been a list of banned artists. Adnan Sami Khan's 'Teri Oonchi Shaan Hai Maulah' had been apparently banned back then for being "too frank with Allah Mian." Naseebo Lal had been banned on FM 101 for being vulgar at some shaadi. Shahzaib confirmed that these days Sharique Roomi is banned for his song 'Gal Bandi Nai Ai'. But then again considering the horrible, tasteless video made by Mr. Roomi, the song being banned is not much of a loss to the music listening public.

By now two things were becoming apparent. One, their passion for music was obvious. Two, the two DJs were an interesting contrast in themselves too. Shahzaib was and is quite outspoken. I was surprised to notice that he normally speaks in what I had assumed to have been his radio voice, a voice I imagined he put on when he spoke on radio only. Instead he actually sounds in real life like what he sounds like on radio i.e. all heavy basso voice and with proper enunciation. Usman in real life is actually quite softspoken and shy almost. But despite different personalities is was cool to see how different people can still connect over music.

While we were talking of Karavan, talk of Asad led us to talking about his other Awaz mates: Haroon and Faakhir. Faakhir came under discussion: "great production and good songs," I said. That last bit of the comment did not go down well with them, so I clarified, "shamelessly commercial, but he is great at what he does." We were all in agreement on that.

Haroon was more liked by the duo. They added that Haroon was a great performer, better than Fakhir. However, according to them, Haroon's first album was better produced than Lagan. I disagreed: the production of Lagan is certainly better than Haroon Ki Awaz but the songs were certainly better on Haroon Ki Awaz. Mention of Haroon also brought up a point of disagreement between the two DJs. Usman mentioned that he had loved 'Jao Tum' and had suggested to Haroon, who apparently also loves the song, to make a video for it. And apparently Haroon had said that he was unsure about making a video for the song, but Usman's support had convinced him that he should. Shahzaib in all of this was laughing his head off as he thought the song was weak and unconvincing and that Usman was actually pulling Haroon's leg. Usman apparently was not and Shahzaib was rather surprised by this. I would have placed myself in Shahzaib's camp, but after recently seeing the video of 'Jao Tum', I must say Usman was right: the video is tastefully done and really improves the song.

Ahmed

Indus Music VJs also came under discussion. I mentioned that I found Mani to be the best. He said that Mani did not get his vote for numero uno. Usman stated that Dino tried hard but we all agreed he still was not all that. Votes were split on the croaky voiced Anoushey. We all agreed tight-shirted Ali Salman should be left in Bangkok or wherever he is sending in his shows from.

Mention of Indus Music also led to talking about Indus Music 3, their new collection. Mishi Khan ('Wai Merai Mahiya') was laughed at. Khadija Haider (apparently her sibling who is a video director was pained at her video) and Mazhar Rahi (Sarkari Order, just singing in Punjabi does not make one funny) were too. Nadeem Jafri boggled us all in that he has released a lot of music onto TV but to date nothing has found its way to the market. I liked Nizar Lalani's work too much to bring him up in this bout of critical nastiness. But it does remain a shame that Nizar, the one person who has taught most of our big-shot artists how it is done, himself remains absent from the scene.

Noori came under discussion. We all admitted the unreleased song doing the rounds on the net have a lot more depth than songs put on the first album. That actually made the next noori album something worth looking forward to. I complimented them on the Ali Noor interview (available at noorifanatix.com) they did on FM 101 sometime back and they said they had liked it too and it had been one of their best. They asked me what the word was on the next video. I said I was as clueless as they, but the word is that the next video was likely to be Dil Ki Kasam (it is). We all admitted that the noori - IM linkup was horrible and the ads looked like a detergent commercial. For a band with positive messages, base commercialism seemed a tad inappropriate?

Just as I was sitting and decrying the migration of Lahore talent to Karachi (noori had just recently shifted), the boys mentioned Islamabad talent had been blossoming of late. Shery R of Soul Slide fame was slowly but surely working on his solo stuff. Corduroy was building up a local underground following as well. Abbas Ali Khan (www.abbasalikhan.com) was coming up too they added. Actually they raved on about Abbas and went as far as to hand me a copy of Abbas Ali Khan's debut album Humsafar which I was quite pleasantly surprised with. Admitedly the song 'Jane Kia Hai' aped Sting's When We Dance in video and sound, but the song and the video by Shahzad Hydri, lack of originality notwithstanding, are drop dead gorgeous. The production of Humsafar was also excellent and Abbas seems to be quite a good Adnan Sami clone.

The rants and raves continued on much later and grew more vicious and pointless as the night wore on (I suspect it was all down to the caffeine high of drinking loads of Pepsi), but soon our discussion had mostly shifted to topics other than those for this article, English songs, which artist would beat which artist in a wrestling match and other sundry topics. We ended at around 2 am when I dropped them off in F-10 and toddled off to write up all of this about the High Voltage duo who, shocking program name aside, was rather nice and greatly music-mad.

(Shahzaib and Usman and DJ Kamran can be caught on High Voltage everyday from 1 to 3 pm on FM 101. They can also be contacted through http://www.highvoltagefm101.tk/)

Album
Your Song
Leeway
Aas
Goddamned
Dystemper
Blue Chip
Ground Zero
End
Wide Awake
You're Everywhere
Prologue