Rough Cut
It could have been anyone’s wildest dream project: a nightingale-voiced vocalist from Pakistan teaming up with who is considered to be one of the best guitarists in the region, on a single album. When two exceptionally gifted and well known individuals work together on a project, expectations tend to run high: the outcome has to be nothing short of pure genius. After all, one plus one equals two, nay in some cases even three, but never zero. In this case however, it seems as if these two individuals ended up cancelling each other out: the much-awaited Hadiqa Kiyani and Aamir Zaki collaborative effort, Rough Cut, is pure genius, but only at putting the listener to sleep. In some cases, forever.

Disappointingly enough, Is baar milo, the song that did end up becoming a massive hit does not make its appearance in the album. Hadiqa has carried the style of singing predominant in Is baar milo, throughout Rough Cut, however, coupled with the change in language and overall content, her style of singing seems highly unsuitable. To top it off, her desi accent manages to creep in here and there in the songs. Altogether her efforts sound extremely amateurish and not something one would expect from someone with more than 10 years of professional singing and extensive exposure to all kinds of music.

It would be unfair to heap the album’s lack of impact on Hadiqa alone. With Rough Cut his first proper recorded piece of work in more than a decade, Aamir Zaki’s musical contribution in the album seems minimal, and in some cases, non-existent. This causes one to question why? Is it because he has run out of musical creativity or simply because he is afraid?

When it comes to the content, the album deals with a variety of issues ranging from the harsh life in the media, to the monotony that overcomes a person’s life to the age-old subject of love and heartbreak. The song, City of Fallen Angels, deals with the violence predominant in Karachi (as the City of Fallen Angels) and it is perhaps the only song in which Aamir Zaki lends his vocals as Mr. Undertaker. However, with Hadiqa singing along with him, it becomes difficult to decipher Aamir’s voice, since her voice is a little too loud. Thus the only duet in the album ends up as none.

Perhaps another track that needs a mention here is Easy ride. It dominates an unmistakably familiar bass line which die-hard Aamir Zaki fans would recognize since the bass line itself had been released on his website a couple of years ago. One of the better tracks in the album, perhaps also because it doesn’t attempt at sounding ‘eastern classical rock’. The album, including this song, has an unmistakable early nineties sound to it and might have fared better had it been released when it was initially supposed to.

The flute (courtesy of Baqir Abbas) and tabla (courtesy of Arshad Ali) make their appearance a lot throughout the album. Complete with soft (and safe) guitar strumming and oddly-familiar bass lines, the music in the album ends up in a cacophony of confusion since one cannot tell whether the album is going towards a pop, or an eastern pop sound or is trying to embody an orchestra-oriented sound – a definite confusion of identifies. The album has its share of perks, but they’re not strong enough to overshadow what is wrong with it: this collaboration lacks chemistry – at least in English.

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July 1, 2007

Été De La Musique

(changed to "Singing in the Rain" in the published article)

With humidity levels on an all-record high, summer in Karachi isn’t exactly the best season in the year for its inhabitants. Keeping that in mind the organizers of the Fête De La Musique (World Music Festival), celebrated every year at the Alliance Francias (Karachi), had their representatives hand out hand-held fans to those who attended. What’s more is that they were armed with water guns they’d use to sprinkle water on those who came a little too near and seemed a little too warm. Summer had officially arrived and City FM89 celebrated it by hosting another one of their all-day music events. With the last event (held several months ago) a huge hit, one definitely looked forward to attending this one.

The lineup this time around included The Strange Brew (who also played in last year’s festival) as the opening act followed by Taal Karisma, Leon Menendez, Tee-M, Aunty Disco Project and Mauj. When one arrived at the venue Mauj were engaged in a somewhat lengthy sound check that seemed to last, well, forever. Not many seemed to mind, there were vendors right outside the performance area selling munchies and people could be seen lounging around, either waiting for the performances to start or for their friends to arrive. Tariq Mirza (Tee-M) could be seen conversing near the entrance of the performance area while members of the Aunty Disco Project hung around, sipping drinks, waiting their turn on the sound.

A somewhat three hours later, a cheerful RJ Munizeh announced the opening act and The Strange Brew took their places on the stage. The Strange Brew is a popular underground act that has been performing popular seventies and eighties for several years now. With only five minutes of sound check, the band launched into Talking in your sleep by The Romantics, delivering only half of what their best performance is normally like.

Although they got off on a bumpy start, their performance of Mustang Sally (dedicated to RJ Munizeh) definitely hit the right notes with this scribe – the band was in sync, the song was upbeat and the chorus was catchy enough for people to sing along to it. The band pumped up the energy with a lesser known, Doogie brother’s song which ended with a prominent play on the keyboards. They delivered another great performance with the massive 1980s hit, Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf but ended their performance on a not-so-great note with classic jazz number – it seemed a little too mellow especially after they had the crowd worked up with the upbeat rendition of Mustang Sally and Born to be Wild. One has to mention here that despite being a very good live act, this wasn’t The Strange Brew’s best performance. They lacked their usual energy on stage and perhaps a lot of it can be attributed to the half-hearted response they received from the crowd.

After a short break, during which the clouds turned into hues of blue-grey which threatened to spill rain any minute, Taal Karisma took the stage and amidst the muffled thunder in the background, launched into their first (and only) composition of the evening, Soul. Fusing the sound of the keyboards, lead guitar, bass, tabla and darbuka, Taal Karisma’s Soul embodied an intimacy that seemed to reach out to its listeners, accentuated by the sharp, easily audible tabla beats. With the wind blowing on the stage, the thunder in the background and the air smelling of rain, one can safely say that put altogether; it rendered a romantic air to their performance. Unfortunately their performance was cut short only after one song and by the time Leon Menendez took the stage, it had begun to rain hard.

With the performances being held in an open-air venue, there were some attendees who chose to leave the moment they suspected rain, but on the other hand there were others who stuck around wherever they could find cover. Just when one thought that the evening had ended, ADP took to the stage (which was set in a rain-sheltered area) and began performing. Performing without vocals (the microphone wasn’t working because of the rain), ADP exuded enough magic to have the crowd going to the Indian classic, Papa Kehtay hain and the more recent Indian hit, Beedi. After which they launched into their fast-growing popular original, Sultanat. They continued to entertain the crowd for a further five or six songs after which they made way for Mauj.

With two of their singles, Kush Fehmi and Paheliyaan already massive hits on the tube, Mauj are fast-growing popular in both Karachi and Lahore and are establishing a reputation as a formidable live act as well. They began with a cover of Dick Dale’s Misirlou (OST Pulp Fiction) – somewhat becoming a signature opening track for their performances – pumping energy into the audience. They followed that up with a Mauj original, building up their performance and just when things couldn’t have gone better, they came to an abrupt stop, packed up and left the stage.

According to the ever-dependant rumour mill, they left because they were unsatisfied with the ‘sound’. That is surprising since they spent a little more than an hour working on it, delaying the overall Music Day celebrations. On the other hand, some claim that the organisers had pulled the plug on their performance, which seems highly unlikely: why would anyone hire a band for a full performance and let them perform only two songs? Mauj was the closing act and anyone with an inkling of interest in live performances knows that the closing act is considered the most important to any event since it sets the tone at which the event ends. It’s essentially what the audience takes home with them.

With nature gate-crashing on this summer fest, this wasn’t the best Fête De La Musique, hosted by the Alliance Francias; it was however, the most interesting. The highlights of the evening definitely include Taal Charisma’s soulful performance and ADP’s love and commitment towards their audience. One was taken aback by Mauj’s diva-oriented behavior, especially since they normally do not behave as such. At this point, one cannot stress the importance of a band’s commitment at living up to their (promised) performance, no matter what – anything less is completely unacceptable. With City FM89’s knack of hosting events that entertain with an added ‘oomph’, one is hoping that there would be a Fête De La Musique II, which would make up for the shortfalls in this one.

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July 1, 2007

Shooting desi
Nothing remains hidden for long in our entertainment industry. No project, scheme, development or any kind of machinations that people might be up to. And so it was that a little bird working in a certain television channel told me about two individuals from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC to you and me) who had flown into Karachi recently to make a documentary on certain aspects of Pakistan’s entertainment industry.

This immediately caused one to wonder why, followed by ‘what have they found’? It’s always interesting to get an outsider’s perception of our television industry that seems to have grown on us. Several phone calls later, I found myself face-to-face with the team members late last week.

Irshad Arshad and Atta Yaqoob look like they are in their late 20s or early 30s. Some of Atta’s immediate family members live in Lahore and have been constantly updating him on the developments that have been taking place in the entertainment industry here. For Irshad Arshad, it’s been 17 years since he last paid a visit to Pakistan and it was out of sheer curiosity that he made the pilgrimage back to his home country, albeit for purely professional reasons.

By the time this interviews appear in print, both Irshad and Atta will have left Pakistan and returned to the UK with the hope that once the four documentaries go on air, they will be back again to shoot some more.

Q: So what have you been preoccupied with in Karachi?

IA: We’ve been here to make four films about modern Pakistani culture — the television explosion, the fashion modelling scene, truck art and a film about the Food Street in Lahore. I’m the director and Atta is the presenter. We’ve been here for three weeks and we’ve been working every single day. It’s been amazing because the working trip has been the best trip because we’ve worked with Pakistani people from all levels of society and got an insight into Pakistan. Personally speaking, it has completely changed my opinion of Pakistan.

AY: I work as an actor in the UK. I’ve done quite a bit of established work in mainstream television, Irshad’s with the BBC and he knew me through that, and hence I’ve been invited along to report on the different aspects of Pakistani culture.

Q: And what was your perception about Pakistan?

IA: Most British Pakistanis’ opinion is based on the Pakistani community they grew up in, which left the country from the Kashmir and Mirpur region some 40 years ago. They are still dedicated to maintaining the traditions and lifestyle of the Mirpur that was four decades ago. My opinion of Pakistan was also formed by growing up in that immigrant Pakistani community in the UK.

Q: Is it very different here from what is perceived in the UK?

AY: Unbelievably different. But having said that there are a lot of aspects that you can relate to on both sides. In hindsight, before coming here I had thought ‘it won’t be like it is in the UK over here’. The fact that I’m sitting next to a female journalist interviewing me in a bar … I wouldn’t have pictured this.

Q: How far are you into your documentaries?

IA: We’ve shot all our stories. We shot the behind-the-scenes of a Hum TV drama and we shot with The Musik. We met some VJs, I saw some show reels and they blew me away. After we had interviewed some of them and walked around the studios, the impression we got was that the entertainment in Pakistan is a huge, burgeoning industry.

I’ve been talking to people and they say ‘if you’re young and smart and walking up the street and you got a job, you can succeed very quickly’. You can’t do that in England because getting anything like this done there is extremely difficult.

AY: For me, apart from the heat, it’s been refreshing so far. As an actor, seeing these television studios and production setups and the work going on, and not just any run-of-the-mill work, and the passion with which it is being done has been mind-blowing.

Q: In terms of programming content, what difference do you see?

IA: The stuff that’s really popular on network television in Britain is kind of live-talk reality shows which are really quite formulated. All the best television documentary makers are kind of in exile from British TV because their documentaries don’t get shown there. They are now working towards independent distribution.

I have seen the ARY show reel and technically I was blown away. I think it’s really good. There is a really popular comedy character in the UK called Borat who reinforces the worst stereotypes about the East … one of them being that they make crappy television programmes. At this point, the one thing that I want to do is say through my work that if you thought that Pakistan is anything like the Borat TV show, think again.

Q: What are your observations about Pakistan’s fashion industry?

IA: We did a story about the models and again it was interesting in the sense that all the models we met were really quite intelligent, well-spoken and we could hold really intelligent conversations with them. In Britain you can’t get that access. It will take me three weeks just to get to talk to their PR persons.

AY: We met some designers and I realised that they make clothes for the elite who can purchase these designer outfits. But something interesting came up in our research work: It will all be copied down, making fashion more of a commodity for the common man which is interesting. There is always a cheaper version available and that is how fashion can influence.

Q: Why pursue truck art?

IA: Truck art for me is a phenomenal outfall. When we went to the truck adda and we met guys over there we were blown away by the kind of authentic art we saw. In Britain, everything is commodified, everything is kind of globalised. We appreciate things that are unique and authentic. We cry out for things like “this is Pakistani culture and it’s best.” It’s a phenomenal kind of art form with a lot of skill going into it.

Q: Any final words of encouragement?

IA: The creative energy that we saw in the television industry here, we haven’t got in the UK because it is already so established there. Overall, you guys over here are doing your thing and doing it really well. You know, you don’t need the BBC to say that you are doing it well or for it to come over here at all. I am very impressed.

AY: It is always fascinating to see such a dynamic, innovative young team doing business. Professionally speaking, it is a war and it shows as such.

Photography: Amean J.

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June 17, 2007

Carving the 'Rough Cut'

Growing up in the nineties, there were very few role models in the Pakistani media that one being a female one could look up to. More so, there were even fewer that one could relate to. But Hadiqa Kiyani changed all of that. She is perhaps the only female vocalist who has managed to stand on her own and establish her own identity and sound in what continues to be a largely male-dominated industry. And she has remained strong for years to come. This is further proven by the fact that the Herald’s 2005 annual issue has a foldout in which all of the top pop industry’s music makers are posing on a four-page spread. Hadiqa is the only woman in it.

Since the re-boom of the entertainment industry, we’ve seen a host of aspiring female vocalists try and take her place. But none of them have so far managed to come close or show signs of even having the potential of reigning for as long as Hadiqa has. Following a career and a personal life that has had its own share of ups and downs, Hadiqa is more than just a signer/composer: she represents Pakistan on state-related foreign trips and was recently awarded the coveted Tamgha-i-Imtiaz. Once banned for not wearing a duppatta, although still dressed modestly, and for saying ‘I love you all’ to her audience, Hadiqa has managed to survive the best and the worst that working in the music industry has to offer. Now, she is back with a much-awaited album by a musician who, for most part of his tenure, as been regarded as a maestro in his own right but has chosen to remain shrouded in mystery.

At first glance Hadiqa appears almost fragile. It is difficult to imagine a nightingale voice such as hers coming out of such a thin, petite frame. But as the interview (‘conversation’ as she called it) progressed, she not only appeared friendly and somewhat talkative, she also sang excerpts of foreign language songs here and there. Although sounding perfectly alright, she apologised for still having a ‘morning voice’.

“I always love to sing in different languages. Ever since I was a child, I was a member of the National Council of Arts and used to go to different places where children festivals were held such as Bulgaria, Turkey and Jordan,” she says about adapting to singing in different languages. “I recently got the chance to go to Malaysia and sing in Malay. I’ve also sung in Chinese on my visit to China, in Turkish (Turkey) and in Arabic on my visit to Jordan.”

So does she know these languages or does Hadiqa learn them at the spur of the moment? “You have to pick up the right accent. And you have to listen to it over and over again and you hear it and then you grow with it. And I’ll hear the song maybe, a thousand times, over my iPod with my headphones on,” she replied, “listen to it a countless number of times, till I’m totally ready to perform it.”

Her collaboration with Aamir Zaki on their much-anticipated, full-length English album, aptly titled Rough Cut, is finally set for a release. What does she have to say about it? “It was a great honour for me to work with such an artiste as Aamir Zaki. Because people know him as a good musician and as a good guitarist, I think he’s a good lyricist as well. He understands what you really want to say,” she says enthusiastically. “Fifty per cent of the songs in the album are his and 50pc are mine. The concept of the song you’re hearing nowadays on television, Living This Lie, was mine. I wanted to talk about showbiz, I wanted to talk about the spotlight and the fake smiles that we give sometimes.” Elaborating on the song further, Hadiqa said, “We go on stage and we’re feeling low and all that but we still have to perform. Sometimes there is a lot of pretension that is going on. I try not to pretend which is why I avoid interviews and the like.”

The buzz surrounding Rough Cut began a couple of years ago. The recording, mixing and mastering had been done and it was set for a release several times in the past but was never launched. “It wasn’t years ago but it was a long process. Once you start working on something, it doesn’t take that long. But the whole process of putting things together, giving your input, etc, takes a long time. In my and Aamir Zaki’s case, the major factor was availability because he is mostly in Canada and I, here. The fact that we weren’t working as a band but as individuals working in our own environments, so putting things together took longer than usual.”

Hadiqa and Aamir have been acquainted with each other for quite a few years now and it was about time a collaboration such as Rough Cut came out. How did they finally end up working together? “I’d asked him to write an Urdu song for me, Iss Baar Milo, which formed the basis for everything. He writes in English mostly and he feels comfortable in that. So he said to me … no, asked me very casually that ‘what if we do an English project together?’ I said why not. Music is music, and for me it doesn’t have any linguistic boundaries.”

With the video of the hauntingly brilliant Is Baar Milo (directed by Jami) already having scored a hit with both the critics and the masses alike, and with Living This Lie (directed by Sohail Javed), what more can we expect next from the album Rough Cut? “A video for the song, All The Same, directed by Kookie (Hamza Ali Butt).” According to Hadiqa, the video has a very youthful element to it and “to me All The Same means that it’s really all the same and that there’s nothing new in life. It doesn’t really matter what happens, it’s all the same,” she says on a pessimistic note.

Talking about the musical aspect of the album, she says, “It’s a new genre and Aamir has defined it in a way that it’s ‘eastern alternative rock’. It has him on a six-string bass and guitars, flute by Ustad Baakir Abbas and tabla played by Arshad Ali.” One can’t help but wonder whether Zaki has also played his latest favourite, the fretless bass guitar on it as well? “Yes, he has.”

At this point, I can’t help but beg to differ. The music on Rough Cut isn’t out-of-the-ordinary and no, Aamir Zaki has not defined ‘eastern alternative rock’. If anything, that credit should go to Faraz Anwar’s collaboration with Yasir on Kalavati, with Yasir on the sitar and Faraz on the lead guitar. Having already heard it, the music on Rough Cut is anything but out-of-the-ordinary.

Perhaps the only song in which Aamir Zaki lends his vocals is City of Fallen Angels. It sees Hadiqa crooning to a certain Mr Caretaker with Aamir replying in the midst of fast-moving guitar riffs and music. “He wrote it about Karachi and the chaos that goes on in it. It’s a very good song,” says Hadiqa. She added that the video of City of Fallen Angels would be directed by Sohail Javed and contain footage of Karachi in chaos without including any performance-based clips in it.

When two of the best artistes in the industry come together to work on a project, you cannot help but build expectations about what that collaboration will result in. Hadiqa has proved that she can make it in a man’s world, while Aamir continues to remain a silent legend despite being a well-known recluse and shying away from the media. At this point, one feels the need to point out that had Rough Cut been released around the same time the buzz surrounding it had begun to build up, it might have had a chance at scoring a massive hit. At this point, with all the delays the album has suffered, it sounds slightly dated and lacks the expected impact.

With Hadiqa working on her next solo album that, according to her, would be a tribute to all the ‘world legends’, i.e. includes her covers of all of the foreign language songs she’s performed abroad and with a collaboration with Ali Zafar on an English track in the UK in the pipeline, we might not have seen (or heard) the last of her yet. Having listened to her vocal versatility when it comes to switching languages, one can safely say that might just be a good thing.

First Published:
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June 10, 2007

reviews/previews

Babel
In this Oscar-nominated movie, acclaimed director Alejandro González Iñárritu, brings to light the real barriers that seem to separate mankind. Babel, which by definition means “a confusion of voices and other sounds” and has been mentioned as “a tower built by a tower built by Noah’s descendants who intended it to reach up to heaven; God foiled them by confusing their language so they could no longer understand one another” in the Genesis (11:1-11). That is precisely the concept on which the movie is based and sees the lives of individuals, who otherwise have nothing in common or to do with each other, delicately entwined with each others’. The beauty of the movie lies in the multitude of ways in which it can be interpreted.

The movie focuses on four different set of characters and they each have their own storylines. Interestingly enough, individually they don’t seem to have anything in common or any point of connection, either geographically or culturally etc, but as the movie progresses, the viewer discovers that they are. The first set of characters is an American couple who come to Morocco. The second is the two children of the American couple of are left in charge of their Mexican nanny who needs to cross the border to attend her son’s wedding. We have the Moroccan Sheppard who buys a rifle from a neighbour in order to protect his livestock from wolves. And lastly, we have a Japanese father/daughter couple, the daughter is deaf and dumb and the father, a hardworking businessman. The latter seem to have the least likely connection with the rest of the characters in the movie.

The American woman gets shot by the Sheppard’s riffle which was fired by his son who had been playing around with it with his brother. The Mexican nanny cannot find someone to take care of the children while she attends her son’s wedding hence she takes them along with her. On the way back, she has a run-in with the border authorities resulting with her hiding with the children in the desert along the highway. The Japanese father finds it hard to reach out to his daughter who on the other hand is desperate for any connection with the outside world.

In some parts of the movie we get to see the world through her eyes where a possible connection can be established only visually but once her eyes are closed, it’s lost. This is perhaps most evident when she walks into the club, a place where dancing to the music that an attendee can ‘listen’ to is considered the norm. Instead of the music we’re confronted with bright, flashy lights. In the end, she doesn’t dance to the music; she dances to the rhythm she feels from the artificially-induced high she receives from the drugs she takes and the movement of the lights. One flicker of an eye and we’re there and then we’re not.

An interesting point made in the movie was that Babel doesn’t have to be between people who can ‘hear’ other people talk in a strange language, Babel truly exists when a person is unable to make sense of or communicate with those whom he/she wishes to. In one movie it displays the diversity of mankind, our vulnerability in a foreign land and our intrinsic desire to, putting it simply, ‘communicate’; to understand and be understood.

The movie deserves every bit of Oscar nomination it received this year. There are points in the movie when it may appear to be confusing for the viewer, but then, that’s Babel for you.

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June 10, 2007

reviews/previews

Perfume: Story of a Murderer

The movie Perfume: Story of a Murderer is based on the book by the same name by the German writer, Patrick Suskind. Kurt Cobain from Nirvana wrote a song based on the book, titled Scentless Apprentice, Steven Spielberg stated that the movie-version was impossible to make. Just when you’d think that the movie adaptation of the incredibly successful book was going to be shelved forever, along comes Tom Tkywer, a director bold enough to try. The end-result of his efforts is nothing short of pure, heart-felt genius.

Set in 18th century Paris, the movie centres round the perfumer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an incredibly gifted individual blessed with an extremely accurate olfactory sense. Not only can he remember every single type of smell that his nose comes across but can also differentiate the different kinds of scents that make a certain type of scent up. Keeping that in mind, it’s ironic that he is given birth in the most foul-smelling place in Paris, the fish market and that at the age of 13 he’s sold into servitude at a tannery thereby becoming surrounded by putrid scents for most of his growing years.

Another thing that becomes immediately noticeable while watching the movie is that all of those who come in contact with Grenouille and are left in charge of his life end up mysteriously dying in one way or the other after Grenouille leaves them.

In an opportunity that would change his life, he ends up gaining an apprenticeship with a has-been perfumer, Guiussepe Baldini. With his talent, skill and unconventional style of making perfumes, Grenouille ends up turning the perfumer’s fortunes again for the better. In return all that Grenouille asks him is to teach him the art of perfume making; the art of capturing scents.

His quest in attempting to create the perfect perfume leads him to Grasse — an idyllic town whose primary source of income is via perfume-making. Eleven or so mysterious deaths later Grenouille does manage to create the perfume: a perfume so powerful that it has the ability of transforming whoever smells it an illusion of being in paradise. What Grenouille learns in the end, however, is he can make a perfume that has the power of extracting pure love from those who smell it but he, on the other hand, is incapable of any feeling any by himself.

Kudos need to be given to the director for the incredibly beautiful way in which he managed to translate the storyline graphically vivid enough for a viewer to ‘feel’ a sense that otherwise has no graphic connotation. The character seems tailor-made for Ben Whishaw as the scent-driven Grenouille has a hapless romantic air about him of a man resigned to experiencing the limits of his gifted olfactory sense. At the end of it all, a viewer of this movie doesn’t just ‘watch’ the movie, he/she ‘experiences’ it.

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June 3, 2007

STARBUZZ

LSA off to Malaysia

This year’s Lux Style Awards will mark six full years since the awards first came to be. And for the final bang, LSA 2007 will be hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was announced last week at a press conference in Karachi attended by the likes of Reema, Nirma, Humayun Saeed, Saqib Malik, Ali Zafar, Shakeel and others related to fashion, music and television. More on the ceremony is that it will take place on July 20 at the Genting Highlands.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise to say here that the LSA hasn’t been an easy ride. In fact, for one of the first entertainment-related award functions to establish themselves in the new media boom, they have certainly come under a lot of scrutiny. And have suffered the most critique.

It’s also no secret that most people within and outside the showbiz industry believe that the awards ceremony is ruled by a lobby. In order to be considered truly transparent, the LSA will have to take drastic measures, especially where their judging policies are concerned.

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June 3, 2007