Rock 'n' Roll with Remo (Courtesy: Deccan Herald)

MICHAEL PATRAO profiles Remo Fernandes, who stormed into cyber age with his new album Cyber Viber

Pop artistes come and go. Some fade away over the years, others go into oblivion as quickly as they have risen. But Remo is one artiste who goes on and on and perhaps has had the longest innings in Indian pop history.

Recently he notched up an Indipop first by uploading his new (MP3 format only) number Cyber Viber on the net. He then went on to make a video for it and in the process he set another record by making the entire video on his own.

He invested in a complete video production studio, equipped with camera, lights, editing suite and backdrops. He wrote the script, directed it, handled all the camera work (except the shots where he is present) and edited it on his new video suite - all single handedly. He did all the computer graphics, animation, special effects, sound effects, casting, costume designing and choreography.

Sounds incredible. But Remo has always been like that. In his struggling years, he turned into a sort of music ombudsman and brought out an album all by himself, when the handful of music companies which were existing at the time failed to give him a break.

Luis Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes, popularly known as Remo, was born on May 8, 1953 in Panjim, Goa. He showed his music talent as being out of the ordinary since his school days as Don Bosco, Panjim, where he carried first prizes in all music competitions.

During 1970-76, when he attended the Sir J J College of Architecture in Bombay, he also played and cut records of his own compositions in association with one of the top Bombay beat groups, The Savages. Then followed two and a half years of travel in Western Europe and North Africa with a haversack and guitar, playing at underground stations. He played with several reputed artistes and garnered much experience.

On his return to India in 1982, he formed an Indo-fusion band called Indiana and in the following year, undertook a concert tour of Holland with the Dutch Full Moon Band and cut a record at Amsterdam. Back in India in 1983 with new progressive ideas, he decided to open his own recording studio and cassette company called, Goana Records and in 1984 released Goan Crazy, followed by Old Goan Gold. He, for the first time, composed and directed the music for Shyam Benegal's film, Trikaal. He then composed and directed the hit song, Dekho, dekho...yeh hai jalwa for Gul Anand's Jalwa, which is doing well in the remix version even today.

He performed at the International pop song competition in Dresden of the erstwhile East Germany, bagging three top awards for India. In December 1986 he released his anti-drug album, Pack the Smack. It emphasised the originality and topicality of his social message through song and music.

The year 1987 was a hectic year for Remo. He participated in the Political Song Festival in Bulgaria. He also performed in Kuwait and by the end of the year released the album, Bombay City, which soon became the best selling album ever by an Indian artiste in English. He peformed in London at the Save the Children show in June 1988 and in July the same year, he went on a concert tour of the USSR and performed at the closing concert of the Festival of India in Moscow. Barely two months later, he performed in Washington DC and in November 1988 in the closing concert of the Festival of USSR in New Delhi.

He is the first Indian to release fully solo music albums in India in which he composed, wrote and arranged all the songs, played each and every instrument, sang all the voices (including the female sounding harmonies), engineered the recording and mixing, designed the album covers, advertisements and himself handled both distribution and marketing.

The credits in Bombay City, his second album with CBS goes exactly like this: ''All voices sung by; all instruments played by; all music composed by; all lyrics written by; all drum computers and sequence programing by; all studio recording and mixing by REMO.

His last album, O Meri Munni' (1998) took a long time in coming after his previous album, 'Politicians Don't Know How to Rock and Roll' (1992). But he was never out of the limelight, all the while performing in live shows and singing Hindi film songs. He has sung some of the best remembered songs in the past few years:
Humma Humma (Bombay), Huiya Huiya Ho (Khamoshi), Daud,
Aflatoon' and Pyar Tho Hona Hi Tha.
His songs are distinguished by his inimitable style.

From Hindi film songs to a Hindi pop album was a logical step for Remo. O Meri Munni contains three folk tunes - Goan, Damanese and Nepali. The highlight of this album is the live music. There is no studio gimickry. Every single note is played live by his band, 'The Microwave Papadams.' A bold legend on the album says, 'All music played by human beings.' It also notes, ''Today, when most Indian pop albums are computer produced or recorded abroad, this one is about a bunch of musicians going into a home studio in a tiny village called Siolim in Goa, India, and doing just what musicians are supposed to do - play their asses off ! This album features absolutely no quantified sequencing, no drum machine programme, no artificial note correction, no pre-recorded loops and sample, not even a metronome.'' At an age when most pop singers in India retire, Remo has stormed into the Cyber age. He recently appeared on a chat show in the Channel [V] Chat Room. As this goes to press, Remo was performing somewhere in Bangladesh.
(Courtesy: Deccan Herald)