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On the phone from his home in England, Tjinder Singh sounds irritable, cranky, a bit whiny and unquestionably bitter. He has every right to be all these things and more. For starters, he hasn't slept in a day and a half. More importantly, his band Cornershop, one of the most inventive, original and important rock bands in the world, is broke. Flat broke. With all the injustice Singh has seen growing up as a member of the Asian minority in England, you'd think the perils of the music industry wouldn't faze him. Yet even with his band's third album, When I Was Born for the 7th Time (Luaka Bop), gaining notoriety on the strength of the hit single "Brimful of Asha," and with more and more music fans and critics coming to appreciate Cornershop's multicultural, omnigenerational sound, the bottom line still hurts. "It fucks me off that we've had to work so hard, harder than any other English band, having to justify ourselves all the way," Singh says. "And to do what we've done and not got any financial credit for it is really sad. We can't do it any more. We're physically and mentally drained. We can't carry on as a part-time group trying to do a full-time thing. If we don't get the money, we'll give it up." That the creative force behind Cornershop has such worries is troublesome. Few musicians have crossed so many stylistic borders with so many satisfying results in the past five years. The band's first album to be released in the United States, which followed some England-only EPs and a 7-inch pressed on curry-colored vinyl, was Hold On It Hurts, a collection of provocative, political punk songs with forays into traditional Indian music via sitar and flute. Cornershop then jumped from the Superchunk-owned label Merge to David Byrne's Luaka Bop, issuing the innovative Woman's Gotta Have It, which hopscotched from melodic, guitar-driven indie rock to tabla and sitar meditations to funky grooves overlaid with Punjabi vocals. The album was a tough act to follow, but with When I Was Born, Cornershop rallied and came up with a record that's every bit as challenging and irreverent as Beck's Odelay and nearly as accessible. Singh and his primary collaborator, guitarist Ben Ayres, added electronics, hip-hop beats and even a nod to country music to the band's already broad soundscape. "Brimful of Asha," a tribute to Indian singer Asha Bosle, combines a lackadaisical Velvet Underground guitar riff with an insistent drumbeat and witty lyrics, and it's one of the catchiest songs of the year. There's also the warped faux-game-show theme "Butter the Soul," a tongue-in-cheek Casio interlude called "Funky Days Are Back Again," some Indian instrumentals--this time updated to feature samples and loops--and a few tracks produced by San Francisco hip-hop mastermind the Automator. That's not to mention the guest vocalists: Tarnation's Paula Frazer duets with Singh on the country-flavored "It's Good to Be on the Road Back Home Again"; Justin Warfield raps on "Candyman"; and Allen Ginsberg, months prior to his death, recorded his spoken-word piece "When the Light Appears Boy" with Cornershop backing him. Singh says these collaborations came about organically; that was certainly the case with Ginsberg. "He knew we were using some of his spoken-word after gigs," Singh explains, "and he was willing to work with us. It's good to work with people who have the enthusiasm to want to work with you. There's a lot more integrity there. That's why we leave it at that. We wait for people to approach us." One unexpected collaboration occurred when Cornershop's note-perfect rendition of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" met with opposition from the owners of the song's publishing rights, who disliked the only adjustment Singh made to the sitar-tinged tune: He sang it in Punjabi. "The publishers refused [to grant permission to cover it] on account that it was Asian, and therefore they saw it as a direct transformation of the song," Singh says. "So we went to Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney, and Yoko agreed within a matter of days. I think it had a bit to do with Sean Lennon, who we knew was into it. Paul McCartney was on tour, so it took him a while to get back to us." Despite high-profile artists and a growing legion of fans attracted to his music, Singh remains unsatisfied with the attention When I Was Born has brought Cornershop. "It's a development, certainly," he says of the new record. "I still think there's a bit of time before people can actually understand what we were trying to do with Woman's Gotta Have It, because it was light years ahead. This album is a lot more immediate and people can get into it a lot easier." Unfortunately for Cornershop, the whirl of creativity surrounding the band and the mountains of positive press clips haven't amounted to massive record sales, nor any financial reward, for that matter. So, Singh says, he and Ayres will most likely dissolve the band and morph into a project called Clinton, which they hope can secure a more lucrative contract. "It's exactly the same as Cornershop only it's got a different name," he says. "The only difference will be that we'll make money out of Clinton." |
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