Text, Vivian G. Kelly
All images, Vivian G. Kelly with the exception of Image of Sting, from www.manhattan.smugmug.com, image of Sting & the Police from www.thedailymail.co.uk
Time/Place: in line and inside the Bruno Jamais Supper Club, East 81st Street, Manhattan
6:30 – 8:15pm
WHAT:
The launch party for IVY CEILING, an album released by LOKAH.
Lokah is the collective creation of two artists-- Sri Michael and Uma Nanda Saraswati. This debut release merges the ancient Indian art of Kirtan with modern musical styles of the 21st century..
The album fuses traditional Indian kirtan with modern pop music. Sacred Sanskrit mantras are combined with electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Rap mogel, RUSSELL SIMMONS, does the spoken word introduction, on the first track. STING does the vocals for MA DURGA, the 3rd track.
THE EVENT
We went, primarily, because we’ve been huge STING fans since 1983, when Sting played Cameron Stadium at Duke University and we heard the whole concert from our single in our quad @ 100 yards away. The other reason, PR KATHERINE ROTHMAN always puts together a great event, and it had been a while since we’ve had a night out in the Big Apple.
The Cote D’Azur style supper club was packed to the gills and it was mayhem at the door, even though we arrived at 6:35pm, well in advance of 7pm – the official start time. The insanely long line, and security on the townhouse’s steps [one in a sharp suit, the other in a black tee and a modern day version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime] had us thinking we were at one of the best parties this summer in NYC.
RUSSELL SIMMONS arrived early on and posed graciously for the dozen+ women who approached him pleading for a snapshot together with him.
Unlike some of our fellow bloggers, we tired of waiting and left apparently just before “the tantric one” arrived with his wife Trudy Styler, wearing a white suit, hat and a full beard.
Our only consolation - We probably wouldn’t have recognized him if we had stayed.
ENDNOTE: We left with a copy of IVY CEILING and we’ll be running a review here on LYRA MAG in the coming weeks.