My Day at Ringo Starr's house!

I'm not sure how exactly to say this casually, so I must just resort to using all caps-I JUST WENT TO RINGO STARR'S HOUSE AND PLAYED TABLA AND SANG IN HINDI ON HIS ALBUM AND ALSO GAVE HIM A LITTLE TABLA TUTORIAL!!!

Seriously, how crazy is that?? I've met lots of celebrities and I really must say, "Starr" is the perfect name for him. He somehow manages to be humble and sweet and warm, but also just inadvertently commands attention with his infectious enthusiasm and his seriously witty one-liners. He is the KING of one-liners. Everyone in the room was just cracking up the whole time. He's SO loveable a person, and it really is NOT because of the fact that he is a legend, but just because he is a truly beautiful person.

He gave me a white "peace and love" band (which I have still have not taken off). The greatest thing about him giving out these bracelets is that he really and truly wants to spread peace and love throughout the world. For example, he got a bit annoyed at one point when we had to dump out half of a small water bottle since we didn't know whose it was. He said "just this much water could save a little kid's life". How sweet is that?!

You must check out this incredible two minute clip of Ringo and my little tabla tutorial session with him. It cracks me up every time I watch it-he's so funny! Just click HERE to watch the video!

I wish all celebs could be like Ringo-gracious, kind, incredibly entertaining, humble, able to focus on the truly important things in life, etc. What a truly wonderful experience...

Pics from my performance with the legendary Dave Stewart and the Rock Fabulous Orchestra!

Dave and I and the incredible Rock Fabulous Band!

The beautiful and very sweet host, Rosanna Arquette, and the absolutely hysterical special guest, Kevin Pollack!

Dave and I rockin' out!

Singing leads on one of Dave's many hit songs!

I had the honor of opening the show solo by singing a traditional Indian song and playing tabla while the incredible band and orchestra made their way onto the stage!

Season 2 is out!

Ever wondered how to make a samosa look even more oily? No? Oh ok. (Pretty gross though, huh?)

"Guru Kanaiya" as my aerobics instructor....helping me get "Bollywood Abs"! (Stay tuned for that webisode!)

The first video is up, and it's seriously goofy! I am really so excited about this, mostly because every time my dad acts I can not believe how naturally gifted he is. He honestly never breaks out of character. He was doing THE most insanely funny things, and I will admit that I pulled a "Jimmy Fallon" once or twice where I couldn't help but laugh during he skit. (Remember when Jimmy used to do that during an SNL skit once and a while? It was very cute!) Anyway, dad, on the other hand never once broke out of the Guru Kanaiya character, and he was so incredibly funny the whole time! (Maybe I should just quit the music biz, and be his agent.....hehe)

Ok, so webisode 1 is officially up! It all leads to the premiere of my music video for "Bollywood Girl" which was shot by the 25-Emmy-Award Winning Company "Redline Films"!!

Here's the first of four! http://www.youtube.com/tinasugandh

Season 2 is out next week!

OK guys, season 2 is launching next week!! I hooked up with the incredible company, DesiYou, to shoot some bigger and better webisodes for season 2 that will show you ALL I went through in order to shoot my music video for "Bollywood Girl"-(which was shot by the 21-Emmy-award winning "Redline Films").

For now, check out the best of season 1! http://www.youtube.com/tinasugandh




Here is a picture of the outfit that was designed for me for "The White Party". It's from "Red Carpet by Nirali Designs"!

Love it? Hate it?

Wow, it's been a while since I've written a blog! I'm SO sorry! I promise to write more!

I've been wonderfully busy! I went back to Ringo Starr's house for lunch (home cooked Indian food-no joke), got a call from Max Weinberg saying that he loved my feature in Drum! Magazine, I think I just got hired as a comedic anchor on TV (stay tuned for more on that), collaborated with the guy who took Bob Marley's place with The Wailers, and I've been performing at some incredibly wonderful shows! All of this is happening with NO management and NO record label!!! (Sooooo, uuuummmm, does anyone want to manage me or put out my new album on their label...hehe).

I am going to write very soon to tell you about these shows as well as other projects that I am taking part in, but for now I am leaving you with this:

Here is the craziest pic I've ever seen of me at a show. Half of me loves it since it really does capture how intense I feel when I am on stage, and half of me just looks at and thinks (in a "Wanda Sykes" sort of voice) "Wow, you look like a damn porcupine".

What do you guys think? Love? Hate? Somewhere in between?

My (celeb-filled) CW-11 Morning Show Performance!

I recently performed my song "Bollywood Girl" on the CW-11 and it was SO exciting! Everyone at that station was so incredibly sweet!

(*The entire performance can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/tinasugandh ).

I didn't even mind waking up at 2:30am to get ready. (Ok, maybe I did mind that just a bit...) My poor makeup artist had to come over around 3:15am! (A huge thank you to Alexa for doing that! www.theglamfairy.com)

Ok, so the first person I saw when I walked in was Dee Snider (the lead singer of Twisted Sister). It's kind of surreal to be in sleepy mode and then walk right into Dee! I have met him several times before, and every time he had asked about the album I would reply, "still working on it"! So when I proudly told Dee that my album is finally out, he sincerely (in that hardcore, passionate NYC way) said "Congrats, this is YOUR time", which was really, really sweet.

Then we ran into Mookie Wilson, who is THE man!! (You baseball fans know why!)

Then we went into the greenroom and got ready for the interview and performance. It was me, my dancers- Ryan Holder and Brandon William, my choreographer Ayesha Khanna (www.Bollywoodfunknyc.com), and Alexa. We were all fairly calm before the performance, and went completely bonkers afterward. (Yes, I used the word "bonkers"). In fact, I may just put some footage up on my youtube show of us in, um, full-blown-bonkers mode. Stay tuned....

Anyway, after the performance was over, we ran into Jennifer Love Hewitt (who looked SO pretty), and Jamie Kennedy, and Marlon Wayans. Marlon was totally confused when I told him about the tabla so I switched to the term "Indian drum", and he said (in that hysterical "Marlon" way) "why didn't you just call them 'Indian drums'?! If you had said 'Indian drums' I would have known what you were talking about all along!" He's seriously hysterical.

As always with any performance, there were little things that went wrong. For example, at the very being of my song "Bollywood Girl", the veil that I bend down to pick up was missing! (Hopefully no one could see that I panicked on the inside for a split second). Also, my foot jewelry starting slipping off half way through the performance and it kept poking me in the bottom of my foot. OUCH.

Other than tiny things like that, it was an AWESOME day! Thank you CW-11!!! I can't wait to come back!

My debut album "TablaGirl" is out - after 3 years in the making!

I am SO proud to announce that my debut album is officially out!! I have to admit that I am a bit nervous. It took me four years to get it out into the world, and I am praying that all my efforts translate into you guys enjoying it!!

http://www.tinasugandh.com

(*If you want all the lyrics to the entire album, they are on the digital booklet on iTunes)

It's been a long road! I have been wanting to share my debut "TablaGirl" with you for so long. It actually took me 3 years to make the album, since my producer (Angelo Montrone) and I wanted to make something more organic and heartfelt by using tons of live instruments. (The other producer on this album is Lester Mendez - Shakira, Jewel, etc). Although there is a strong live element to it, "TablaGirl" is still a feel-good mainstream pop album - but it has a huge Bollywood flare. (I really can't believe that after all these years of doing interviews and talking about what the album will sound like, you can actually just finally hear it for yourselves!! Anyway, I actually went to India and discovered all these gorgeous Indian instruments to use for the album, (and I basically just kept buying more and more of these instruments until Sony told me it was time for me to wrap it up and come home!) Some of my favorite "exotic" instruments that we used are the tabla (obviously), dholak, dhol, naal, ghatam, santoor, sitar, harmonium, ghungaru, bansuri, bul bul tarang, been, ektar, tanpura, goob goob, daffali, mridangam, and SO much more. (Yes, I know it sounds like I'm just throwing random syllables together and making all these words up but they all are really amazing instruments!) We also used the more common instruments of course like guitar, bass, drums, violin, etc. It was an absolute honor to watch these instrumentalists from all over the world throw down their magic on my album!

The other reason that this album took so long to release was because last year, my worst nightmare became a reality when I lost my beautiful, incredibly radiant, always-smiling, and eternally-positive best friend last year - my mom. I took the whole year off to take care of her and I can not describe how incredibly painful last year was because there really are no words. Although, since mom always taught us to see the good-and ONLY the good in everything and everyone, I will say that I am SO grateful that she got to sing on this album. This album would not have been complete without my mom's voice on it. My producer knew how important it was that I have my entire family on this album, and so he actaully flew out to California, and shipped all his recording gear out there in order to record my entire family, including my sister, brother-in-law, and niece and nephew! For example, that's my newphew's voice you hear at the very end of "HisStory", that's my mom's voice you hear at the outro of "Stay", it's my sister's voice that you hear for the intro of "T.here I.s N.o A.lternative" and it's my dad that you hearing shouting in the middle of "Break Me"! All of us say "namaste" at the very end of the album after the last track "Stay". My niece was so little at the time that we needed to use studio tricks to piece together syllables that sounded like "Namaste" (That is the ONE time I will admit to using "studio tricks"!) We basically just tickled her a lot until we got her to make some sounds-very cute!!

Point being, it's been a long road, and I so grateful for all of it. I'm grateful for the low points in my career as well as the high points because the lows kept me constantly aware of what's really important in life-family, love, smiling, spreading positivity to the world, etc. I am also extremenly grateful to have had a mother that I will strive to be like until the day I am gone - beautiful, radiant, selfless, open-minded, healthy, always-smiling, super-positive, lights up a room when she walks in it, and the list goes on and on.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for everything! Thank you for your support, patience, and especially for all of the emails I received last year with words of hope and encouragement.
Tons of love,
-Tina