sonam

Japanther/Xray Eyeballs/Hector’s Pets/The Numerators/DJ Alix Brown
Impose Magazine is throwing an after-party

20 Meadow St, all ages, $8, cheap PBR & free cupcakes, don’t sleep on it.

letsgetbent:

In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.

There’s something intensely special about giving someone music, in any form. It could be via mix, gifting a record or tape, through making your friend listen to a song you love. Over the past year, we’ve shared music in every way we know how. Besides writing about it, we’ve made you seventy-six mixes—whether it’s compiled by the staff, a themed videogram, or put together by your favorite band. We’ve given away over a hundred records, tapes and concert tickets. Here’s to another another year of giving as much as I can to the people who’ve given me the best thing I could’ve asked for—a reason to get out of bed every morning.

Compiled below is a list of some of our favorite giveaways, events and mixes. If you want to contribute, contact me. - Sonam Parikh, Managing Editor

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letsgetbent:

In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.

For this month’s staff mix, we’ve decided to choose songs to tell our own stories of how we got here and why we love it. What’s the song that changed your life? Tell us your story in the comments below!

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They’re playing at St. Vitus on May 24th in Brooklyn!

All of us at GET BENT were told to write about a song that changed us for our upcoming yearly recap. (We’re turning one this week and I’ll be hosting a birthday show in Brooklyn!!) I began mine and went well over the prescribed word count, so.. here’s the unedited version.

I grew up on Bollywood soundtracks. Every Sunday, my parents bought bootlegged Indian movies set out on bedsheets along the streets of Jackson Heights. While my contemporaries listened to classics on their parents’ record players and knew what the Beatles were before the age of sixteen, I wouldn’t see my first piece o’ wax until freshman year in college.

Instead, I watched as Rahul and Pooja discussed the nature of love via dance number in Dil To Pagal Hai, as Aishwarya Rai’s melancholy made her to slit her wrists for a lover in Taal, backed by one of the most mournful love songs I have ever heard. When Hrithik Roshan became a bona fide brown Ryan Gosling, I became more enamored with the weird synth-pop and musical pacing in his better movie roles than his perfect, toothy smile.

As is customary when you’re fourteen and super hormonal, I was bratty as fuck. My parents (dramatic sigh here) just didn’t “get me.” High school started, and this little Indian girl fell promptly in love with punk rock. On Sundays when my parents went to Queens, I would sit in my room and play my CDs as loud as they’d go on my pink Barbie radio. Sometime after that, when the teenage rebellion set in full-time, I got sent to boarding school along the foothills of the Himalayas. There, I learned all about classical Indian music, and became enamored with it once again.

A few months ago, I listened to the Simla Beat compilation. The recordings are by the winners of a battle-of-the-bands competition that took place in India. The contest only ran for two years, ‘70 and ‘71. The first time I ever heard the compilation, I cried. It was and still is so cool to hear a connection between the driving forces in my life; my culture, and music that I love. “Psychedelia” sounds like it could’ve been played at Woodstock, but the Eastern influence is unmistakable. I like to think those kids from India (never to be heard of again) had to dig through the many layers of classical Indian music and American rock n’ roll to achieve a sound where neither influence was forgotten. 

So, here is one of my favorite songs, “Psychedelia” by X’lents. I hope you enjoy it.

pre-historic surf punx!