Shilpa Ray

Shilpa Ray (born c. 1980) is an American singer-songwriter from Brooklyn, New York with a DIY punk experimental sound.[1] Her music has been compared to Blondie, The Cramps, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins[3] and her singing has been compared to the style of Patti Smith, Nick Cave,[4] and Ella Fitzgerald.[5] Ray is notable for combining an Indian harmonium with a "big-voiced blues-rock howler" vocal approach and has been known to sing in styles ranging from metal to the balladry of Leonard Cohen.[6] Rob Harvilla of the Village Voice once stated in 2006 that her vocal range could put the entire lineup of Ozzfest to shame.

Shilpa Ray

Shilpa Ray
GenresPunk rock,[1] blues,[1][2] garage rock, indie rock,[2] punk blues[1]
Years active2004–present
LabelsKnitting Factory, Bad Seed LTD, Northern Spy
MembersShilpa Ray - vocals, harmonium, piano, organ, synth
Websitewww.shilparay.net

Starting as a solo performer in 2003, Ray later put together the band Beat the Devil in 2005. After the dissolution of Beat the Devil, Ray formed another band, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers, which Boston Globe critic Jonathan Perry described as the "best-named band" in a lineup of numerous indie bands in July 2010.[7]

As the principal songwriter and band leader, Ray described her role in her band as being similar to a "democracy under a dictatorship". In an interview, she commented about being a female artist: "I think Feminism in America went through a huge backlash during the W. Bush years. We are now going through a cool Renaissance. There are tons of amazing female musicians and artists on the scene with something to contribute and it's not cheesy, kitschy, or female centric. It's universal."[8]

The band toured extensively with Man Man and Acid Mothers Temple in 2011. They also performed at the SXSW festival that year in Austin, Texas and were invited to the Billboard event at the Buffalo Billiards venue. She offered advice to struggling artists: "The hardship of being an artist in this country is gender neutral. Own yourself, what you do, how you live and don't worry about the end results."[9]

After splitting with Her Happy Hookers in 2011, Shilpa continued under the moniker Shilpa Ray, touring Europe and North America with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as a backup singer and also as their supporting act. She recorded a version of "Pirate Jenny" featuring Nick Cave and Warren Ellis for the 2013 compilation album Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, released by Anti/Epitaph.

She released Last Year's Savage (2015), Door Girl (2017), and Portrait Of A Lady (2022) with Northern Spy Records.

Career

Beat The Devil

  • Beat The Devil, 2006

Ray's first project under the moniker of Beat the Devil, combining punk rock music with Indian time signatures in a new format. Beat The Devil was released in the latter half of 2006. The group disbanded soon after releasing their first and only album.[10] Beat the Devil's cover of Suicide's song "Mr. Ray" was released as part of the Alan Vega 70th Birthday Limited Edition EP Series.

Her Happy Hookers

  • A Fish Hook An Open Eye 2009, Kepler Records
Shilpa Ray And Her Happy Hookers

After dissolving Beat The Devil, Ray went solo with backing band members to form Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers.[11] Produced by Jay Braun and Shilpa Ray, A Fish Hook An Open Eye was released on July 6, 2009.

Her second release with Her Happy Hookers, and also the first release on Knitting Factory Records, this 7" limited pressing of 500 copies included a track from her second release on Knitting Factory Records, Venus Shaver.[12]

Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers put out their second full-length record, and first full length on KFR, on January 18, 2011. Teenage and Torture both refines and expands upon the arresting qualities of their first release. The result "isn't as thrown together as the first one", says Ray. "The first record was like a series of thoughts, this is one big thought. You’ll slip into a different world when you hear this." Recorded with Black Dirt Studios’ Jason Meagher at Seizure's Palace in Gowanus, Brooklyn, the songs on this album are dark, sardonic looks inside Ray's own world and obsessions, augmented by the musical styling of her Happy Hookers – Nick Hundley on bass, Andrew Bailey on guitar and John Adamski on drums and percussion, and featuring Greg Lewis on organ, Jonathan Lam on pedal steel and Andrew Hoepfner on vocals and keys. The record in turn led to Shilpa supporting a number of Nick Cave tours in addition to an EP released on his label, Bad Seed Ltd.[13]

Shilpa Ray

  • It's All Self Fellatio, Shilpa Ray, 2013, Bad Seed LTD

After disbanding Her Happy Hookers and touring Europe and North America with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, in 2013 Shilpa Ray released her first EP on Cave's Bad Seed Ltd. label, It's All Self Fellatio. As well as performing with Cave, Ray's band performed with Sharon Van Etten, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Nicole Atkins.

Shilpa's first EP release on Northern Spy in 2015, Make Up, included two covers, "Make Up" written by Lou Reed, and Dinah Washington's "What A Diff'rence A Day Makes" with Shilpa Ray on keys and vocals, Jon Delorme on pedal steel, Alistair Paxton on bass, and Russ Lemkim on drums.[15]

Ray's first full length on Northern Spy Records, Last Year's Savage was also her first full-length solo record as Shilpa Ray.[13]

Door Girl is her second album on Northern Spy Records.

Musical style and influences

A report in the San Francisco Examiner describes Ray's New Jersey upbringing as an Indian American from an immigrant family as contributing to her having a "scrappy" demeanor.[16] As a youth, she claims she was mistaken for an Iraqi during the Persian Gulf War and was "pelted with beer cans" by racist hooligans at the age of 5.[4] She dealt with restrictive parents who banned Western-themed music[4] and learned to play the harmonium and piano beginning at age six.[17] While a student at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, she became a stealth goth and listened to music by punk rock bands such as the Cramps, the Stooges, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Velvet Underground.[16] She has also cited influences including Ministry, Billy Idol, Pat Benatar and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).[18] In her twenties, she moved to New York City and worked as a solo artist, singing a cappella at first and later accompanying herself on the harmonium,[4] which also happened to be Nico's instrument of choice to suit her distinct voice and delivery.[19]

Personal life

Shilpa Ray currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.[20]

Reviews
  • Music critics from The New York Times have focused on Ray's lyrics and voice. Jon Pareles described Ray's act as combining punk rock band shtick with a touch of goth burlesque but with music which deals with the "contradictory pressures women face" such as being "cosmetically perfect but authentic".[3] Another Times critic, Ben Sisario, summed up Ray's act in four words: "that scream is primal!"[21] Critic Jacob Brown described Ray's voice as a "honey-toned wail" along the lines of Patti Smith merged with Nick Cave.[4]
  • Critics in The Guardian described the music as "grinding blues, sleazy jazz, and bracing rock with punk immediacy and pop appeal."[5] Shilpa Ray was "like a vulgar Ella Fitzgerald" singing songs with a "wall of distortion and thunderous, pounding rhythms."[5]

In other media

Television series
SongShow titleEpisode title
"Liquidation Sale"Being Human (US)"All Out of Blood"

References
  1. "Happening Wednesday". Los Angeles Times. March 23, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011. Blues-punk outfit Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers will open.
  2. M. Tye Comer (March 19, 2011). "Billboard's Friday SXSW Show Ruled By Indie Rock". Billboard.com. Retrieved May 19, 2011. SXSW 2011 hit ... But if you were a fan of indie rock, there was no better place to be than Billboard's sold-out event at Buffalo Billiards. ... bluesy New Jersey ensemble Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers ...
  3. Jon Pareles (January 27, 2011). "Falling in Love, Longing and Leering". The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2011. ... There's a lot of shtick in Shilpa Ray's act, much of it borrowed from a couple of CBGB-era bands, Blondie and the Cramps. ...
  4. JACOB BROWN (February 23, 2011). "Shilpa Ray – Good Time Girl". New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2011. ... Since escaping her conservative parents (her father banned Western music in their home) and moving to New York about nine years ago, she has hauled the unusual instrument to gigs to accompany her honey-toned wail of a voice. ...
  5. "Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers at SXSW 2011". The Guardian. March 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011. Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers play grinding blues, sleazy jazz, and bracing rock with punk immediacy and pop appeal. The result? Something like a vulgar Ella Fitzgerald, channeling Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and singing her songs before a wall of distortion and thunderous, pounding rhythms. The band reads like a who's who of recent NYC rock luminaries including members of Creaky Boards, Soft Black, Kapow!, and cult rock producers The Negatones. Live shows are already a notorious commodity – and audiences have been screaming as loud as the band does.
  6. Tris McCall (January 14, 2011). "CD reviews: The Decemberists, Shilpa Ray, The Multi-Purpose Solution, Carl Orff". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved May 19, 2011. Big-voiced blues-rock howler Shilpa Ray ...
  7. Perry, Jonathan (July 2, 2010). "Indie-pendence day". Boston.com. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  8. Shilpa Ray, in an interview in NPR, 2011[3]
  9. Shilpa Ray, 2011[3]
  10. "Beat the Devil". April 16, 2007.
  11. "Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers : A Fish Hook An Open Eye".
  12. "Store – Knitting Factory Records". shop.knittingfactoryrecords.com.
  13. "Shilpa Ray – Northern Spy Records". northernspyrecs.com.
  14. "Shilpa Ray, "Pop Song for Euthanasia" – New Music – Impose Magazine". March 3, 2015.
  15. "Last Year's Savage – Northern Spy Records". northernspyrecs.com.
  16. Tom Lanham (May 11, 2011). "East meets west with harmonium-playing Shilpa Ray". San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved May 19, 2011. ... in her New Jersey childhood, when — mistaken as Iraqi — she was regularly pelted with beer cans by white hooligans.
  17. "Shilpa Ray, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers". NPR. May 19, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  18. "Shilpa Ray: 'I get to run around and lie down more cause the stages are bigger.' (4/15 at The Foundry w/ July Talk)". Philthy Mag. April 9, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  19. Dillon, Brian (April 8, 2022). "The Misunderstood Voice of Nico". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  20. "Shilpa Ray: Last Year's Savage Album Review". pitchfork.com.
  21. Ben Sisario (March 19, 2009). "SXSW: More Four-Word Reviews". The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2011. Four-word reviews, Wednesday night. Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers: That scream is primal!


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