Goa Information Blog

Selwyn Pereira started his own band when he was 10 years old. This much appreciated band of youngsters was named the “Civilians”. He then played for one of Goa’s top rated bands known as the “Big City Band for 5 years. At its peak, the band played shows in Goa as well as the UK and the Middle-East, and was guided by their able manager Mr. Thomas Luis Cardozo.

Later he joined Goa’s renowned Musician, Remo Fernandes as a keyboardist playing for “The Microwave Papadams”, a band comprising of professional musicians. Mr. Remo, in Selwyn’s opinion was an excellent musician and a ‘great gentleman’. He has extensively toured India, Hong Kong, Middle East and Australia with the band.

He also used to manage FLO-SEL ENTERPRISES, an agency dealing in Amul Dairy Products.

He owes his gratitude to his parents for backing his musical career all along the way.

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Chris was very loving and highly religious, quite contrary to all the rumours that have been systematically be used to defame him. “He was very religious. We had to recite the rosary at 8 pm every evening. ‘Throw out the phone’, he would say if the phone rang during the rosary. At 12 noon and at dusk we had to say the Angelus. He was a model father and always talked about music,” recalls his eldest son Giles.

Another practice that Chris religiously followed was that of compulsorily blowing his trumpet - the instrument that became his signature, from among many he had mastered. He was literally wedded to music, and the trumpet in particular, which he blew effortlessly upto the fifth octave. “His daily routine every morning as soon as he woke up was to would first smoke a cigarette, have a cup of coffee and blow his trumpet. Only then would be go for a wash. Even now when he hardly practiced seriously, he had the confidence and proved it at a number of impromptu performances - it was amazing, pure magic. His tone was so fresh and young, if you closed your eyes, it seemed like a 20-year old was playing the trumpet,” says Miles. “He always had his favorite instrument close to him. Even while he slept, the trumpet would be on one side and mummy on the other,” adds Errol.

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Since 1987 Remo has been the highest record selling pop/rock artist in the English language in India, and is the only one to have earned Gold Discs in this category here. Since his foray into Hindi he has been at the top of that category too, with three film songs (”Jalwa”, “Humma Humma” and “Huya Ho”) going double platinum and topping every Indian press, radio and television hit chart.

Remo made the decision to make his original music his profession (he is a Bachelor of Architecture) at a time when there was no pop music scene in the country. In 1983 there was no air play on radio and television (they were both monopolized by the government, who refused to accept pop music’s existence); no record companies willing to sign a contract (specially as Remo wrote and sang in English; they said “Give us Hindi disco and we’ll sign you on right now!”); and the only concerts where one could play were so-called charity ones where the organizers mainly took artists for a ride.

Remo knew that his songs, though in English, had nothing foreign about them, and reflected life and sociopolitical happenings in India which every Indian could identify with. So ignoring record companies’ lack of vision he invested in basic home recording equipment, recorded and released his first album called “GOAN CRAZY!” on a 4-track cassette Portastudio in 1984 (on which he played all instruments, sang all voices, composed all music & lyrics, engineered the recording and mixing, designed the album cover, etc), made a thousand copies in Bombay, distributed them to record shops around Goa on the yellow scooter he drove at the time, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Besides his tremendous success with records, Remo is known as a stage performer and entertainer without equal in this country, and is the only Indian pop/rock artist to perform totally LIVE, without fake lip-sync or even backing tapes. He has represented India at the Tokyo Music Festival, the Festival of India in the USSR, the MIDEM ‘96 Music Festival in Hong Kong, besides Festivals in Germany, Bulgaria, Macau, Seychelles and Mauritius. He has performed in Europe, the USA, the Middle East, Australia, Africa, Reunion Island, etc.

PEPSI USA chose him, as India’s leading pop/rock star, to endorse and star in Pepsi’s first two launch films here - films which made advertising history in India.

He is known as an artist who spreads social messages through catchy hit songs. He is equally at ease writing good-time dance tracks and international award-winning love ballads.

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I started off with the violin and proceeded to the guitar. Eventually I was tempted to try my hand at digital recording with a Yamaha O2R mixer, which has been a magnificent facility to put our talent together, says Clifford, talking about his initiation into music, which blossomed from his love for music and bolstered with his study with the Trinity College of Music.

Cliffy, as he is known back home in Saligao, always nurtured the aspiration to get among the top bands, whose music he had been addicted to. “The Seventies band America was my real inspiration to search for the musical strain in me. Sister Hazel is among the other modern bands I prefer to tune into the moment I have time to listen to my personal choice,” Clifford adds. Of course, being at a top ranking music company, he is constantly immersed into all sorts of music.

As for Tanzer, the young musician taking an early lead with the piano, is a professional pianist already. Tanzer performs solo at major hotels in the Muscat. However, Yamaha, which could be rightly called the watering hole of all musicians in Muscat, is where the two aspiring music producers brushed shoulders for the first time, and sort of took an instant liking for each other’s proficiency in music.

Cliftan, with a couple of multinational companies extending their support, is on the verge of signing up with one of the major music companies, who have shown keen interest in their creativity.

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Alfred Rose was not only a singer but also a noted musician and playwright. He has many firsts to his credit. He brought out the first Konkani cassette. Son of then famous tiatrist A M B Rose and Dolarosa Fernandes, Alfred was born in Aldona on August 5 1932. His real name was Rosario Alfred Fernandes.He sang his first song at the age of seven at C J Hall Museum and regaled the hearts of the audience indicating that a star was born. After performing in several Konkani shows, he took the name Alfred Rose in 1950.novels and acted in Konkani films namely Amchem Noxib , Sukhachem Sopon , Bogllant , and also sang and wrote the lyrics for Bogllant .He produced and directed his first tiatr Yench Tem Karan in 1956. Some of his hit tiatrs were Rogtak Tannelelo , Lakhpoti Nouro , Dotor Advogad , Bhangaracho Voti , Angounnechi Okol , Munis vo Deuchar, Director Saib , Pessaumcar .

In 1962 he came out with the first non-stop show Director Saib Alfred Rose had his own band called Rosebuds Swing Band along with his brothers Marshall and Albert.He has performed not only in various parts of India but also in London, Paris, Frankfurt - Germany, African and Gulf nations,Goa s Melody King Alfred Rose may have faded away on Tuesday, but his songs will continue to inspire the tens of thousands of listeners it enchanted when played on the radio or across cultural performances of local Konkani-loving audiences. Remember, the singer with a Panama hat on his head and a magic wand in his hand delivering the opening song for tiatrs in English-Konkani in the 60s?, reminisced Isidore Dantas, in a recent profile published in the local monthly Goa Today some time back.

Besides being called Goa s Melody King, Alfred Rose was also called The Man with the Golden Voice by the HMV recording company, and gifted other sobriquets like Konkani s Ambassador, International Superstar, and the Living Legend of Konkani Music. ose had been ailing for some time now, and was tended by his musician-wife Rita and their family. He has six decades of musical popularity to his credit, and was christened Junior Rose by versatile Konkani tiatrist C Alvares, being the youngest among the actors during his tiatr debut way back in 1943.

Alfred Rose is also credited with recording all eight songs in a single day.Rose spoke highly of the patronage of Goans abroad, saying he has toured globally and performed his Konkani musical show in almost every Goan destination.

Alfred Rose who started out in fifties with ever popular hits such as Sui Sut Ani Cator (The Needle, The Thread, and The Sissors)) and Dev Nidonk Nam (God s Not Asleep) is credited with having charmed the air waves of Portuguese-run pre-1961 era Emissora de Goa and All India Radio.

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