Meeting The Band: Half of Basheer & The Pied Pipers

So, I've hit 10,000 views on my blog. As a little celebration I'm writing another Meeting The Band entry!

Basheer & The Pied Pipers... 1/2

June 26th I made a blog entry featuring the Pakistani experimental ambient/electronic group Basheer & The Pied Pipers. Five days after the post I get a message on Facebook, "I'm one of the two guys from Basheer & the Pied Pipers. Are you going to be in Oklahoma July to August? I might be coming there for a few weeks." Soon after the initial excitement, confusion set in and my first question was, "why...?" Saad was visiting the US for a medical internship in pediatrics and was going to intern in three cities, OKC happened to be one of them. We were only able to meet once before my trip to Boston to see God Is An Astronaut at the beginning of August. I took Saad to a great gastropub, RePUBlic, for some amazing food and drinks and we talked for a while about various things such as his band and the Pakistani music scene, which really intrigues me.
I was hoping to hang out with him a bit more before he went to Los Angeles for more internship training, but I wasn't able to. I'd get texts and calls, "Hey maaaan, I'm so booooored!!!!" And felt bad that I was too busy to show him around. Oklahoma City just isn't exactly the most exciting of cities to visit, especially when you get a considerable layover in New York, enough to get a taste before flying out.

A couple weeks after my return from an amazing trip to Boston, there was a local music and arts festival I decided to attend. Midway through it hit me, "Saad is back in town! I should pick him up!" He had arrived back from Los Angeles earlier that day and was already bored when I had called him, hah hah. I hurried up to pick him up and as we drove back to the festival he shared some stories of his experiences, some good, some bad... and some amazing. He got to experience God Is An Astronaut on their last show of their US tour. He had some terrible experiences before then but that moment, seeing GIAA play, he hit his peak. I couldn't help but smile as he recalled his memories of the show.
We arrive at the festival to catch the last four bands, Sheree Chamberlain, Dead Sea Choir, The Pretty Black Chains, and Colourmusic. Dead Sea Choir wow'd the both of us. I had never heard of them before then and was blown away. Then when I looked over to Saad to see how he was reacting he'd be staring, agape, or closing his eyes and just absorbing the music. I don't often get to experience music with musicians, so experiencing how they take in live music is just too cool for me. I'm not huge into The Pretty Black Chains, but man, Saad was really getting into them. And Colourmusic rocked both of our heads off.

Saad and I hung out a couple times more before he continued his trip to Atlanta, hitting up a great burger shack (S&B Burgers) and spontaneously attending Oktoberfest where he got to dance with the locals and eat some bratwursts and knackwursts.

Hanging out with this guy was cool, everything was like a new experience for him. Everywhere I took him it was like taking a kid to a candy store.
Occasionally he'd call, or I'd call him, to follow up on his experiences in Atlanta. Apparently the internships have been pretty intense there, but hearing the concert experiences was fun. When he saw Opeth, "THAT WAS THE BEST SHOW EVER!!!!" When he saw Battles, "HOLY CRAP, THAT WAS THE BEST SHOW EVER!!!"

Now that I think about it, though, I never did delve much into his influences or other Basheer related topics after our first meet. Actually, a lot of the time when we weren't talking about the Pakistani music scene I forgot he was a musician. I feel like many of us have this preconceived notion that musicians are these certain types of people. And to be honest, the many musicians I've met and got to hang out with do have this certain subtle air about them that I've only been able to sense from other musicians. They're all fairly normal, but I can still sense that musician aspect from time to time. Saad is probably just about as normal as one can get, hah hah. He doesn't really exude that musician persona or appearance, or even have much of this subtle "air." But then I listen to Basheer & The Pied Pipers I think, "Wow, that really is Saad in here..." For this reason, Basheer & The Pied Pipers is at the top of the list of bands I really want to see play live. I want to see this seemingly inconspicuous, normal, young physician that did the chicken dance bunch of locals and would occasionally text me how bored he was up on stage playing music and expressing this passionate side. I think that would probably be one of the coolest things to see.

Now I have to meet the other half of Basheer & The Pied Pipers, Salman! In due time... in due time.


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(EP available for free download on BandCamp.)