The Wedding Professionals Podcast Episode 16 - Tracing Tejinder Singh's Nostalgic Journey: From Immigrant to Media Industry Maven

Say hello to Tejinder Singh, our esteemed guest in this enthralling episode, as we traverse the path of his life since immigrating to the UK in 1985, and his journey through the media industry. Tejinder opens up about his early days of working arduous jobs like offloading lorries and punching data into systems, before switching lanes to programming. Brace for a hard-hitting discussion as he shares his experience of racial abuse, shedding light on the tribulations faced by immigrants and the persistent struggles they overcome.

Immerse yourself in a nostalgic journey as Tejinder elucidates on the evolution of wedding photography and videography. Remember the 90s when weddings were smaller and community music was the norm? Tejinder's personal wedding story paints a vivid picture of the era, complete with his uncle on video duty and a friend doing the photography. Watch as the scene morphs through the years, transforming Gurdwaras and wedding halls, ushering in larger venues and shifting music preferences from community singing to contemporary tunes.

Join this candid conversation as Tejinder takes us back to his early career in media, all the way from Nairobi, Kenya, to the UK. It's a story of passion, with photography at its heart, fostered by the unwavering support of his family. Tejinder's first encounter with the camera was at the Kenya Safari rallies, a memory etched in his mind. But hold on, there's more! Get a glimpse of the flamboyant bhangra music gig scene of the 80s and 90s, as Tejinder gives us a detailed account. He wraps up the conversation with an interesting perspective on the revival of bhangra music at weddings and other events. You wouldn't want to miss this captivating journey with Tejinder Singh!

Transcript

Andy: 0:01

Hello and welcome along. It's Andy, and you're host on this here podcast. Hello, dear listener, and welcome. It's episode 16. This week, the granddaddy of the Asian wedding videography and photography market, mr Tajind Singh, who I think everybody knows, everybody's worked for at some point. I wanted to go a bit deeper than just the videography business. So please enjoy this chat with Taj, and we cover everything from, I think, about 1980 something right through to today. Yeah, let's have a listen, taj Singh. So here we are, episode 15. Episode 16. Big thanks to Atal because he's provided the venue for today's recording. And if you can hear crunching and slurping going on in the background, that's my guest eating his roasted and salted jumbo cashews and very nice cup of tea supplied by IXL Centre. So, and my guest today is the one and only Mr Tajind Singh, welcome, welcome, andy.

Andy: 1:15

Thank you very much for doing this, and I know, I say this on every episode, but we actually have had all on fun trying to arrange the time and the place and the venue to do it. So now you're famously Punjab 2000. But that's not really what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about with you is because you've been. How many years have you been in the business?

Tejinder: 1:37

Oh cracking, and yeah, I can't even remember. Now, come on, oh God. Well, punjab 2000 started in 2000.

Andy: 1:43

2000. Bit of a giveaway with the name.

Tejinder: 1:46

So the wedding arm started, probably about accidentally, about four or five years later.

Andy: 1:55

OK.

Tejinder: 1:56

Yeah, and that was an accidental thing.

Andy: 1:58

So why did you set up Punjab 2000 in the first place?

Tejinder: 2:02

That's another long story. I'm obviously an immigrant to the country, by the way. Andy, you never knew that, did you?

Andy: 2:08

No no no clue, no clue.

Tejinder: 2:11

So I came from Nairobi, kenya, ok, born in Kenya, I've shot there, love it, so yeah, it's an amazing country.

Andy: 2:18

It's an adjust.

Tejinder: 2:19

Yeah, I landed here back in 1985. I did my education here.

Andy: 2:23

OK.

Tejinder: 2:24

And then I got married here. Ok, and basically that was it, so I became a resident citizen of Britain.

Andy: 2:33

OK, right. So you did your education here, you got married here, you became a citizen here. Tell me a little bit more about actually entering the UK. What age were you when you were?

Tejinder: 2:47

around, so I must have been. Oh god, andy, that's going to be you going to calculate my age now, unless something else we need to talk about.

Andy: 2:57

You're not as old as me, that's all right, not nearly so.

Tejinder: 3:01

yeah, I was around. About what was I 19? Ok, 19,. Yes, I would have been 19 then.

Andy: 3:07

OK, and what was your first sort of employment then in the UK? Because obviously it wasn't media and stuff, I'm guessing. Oh, crikey.

Tejinder: 3:15

Yeah, yeah, that's taking me back in the days of Oliver Timson. Where else operative hours? I'm off loading lorries, my friend. Oh, ok, yeah, shoe lorries and shoe boxes. Yeah, my aim was actually to get into the computer room, right. So the only way into that quickly was to get employment in the company somehow. So I managed to secure this job off loading da da da. I worked there for about three months. It was the hardest three months I've ever done honestly, Andy.

Tejinder: 3:48

Yeah, it was hard. Physical labor, physical labor, your off loading lorries outside in the rain, the cold, the snow, everything OK, so it was not easy. Ok, there have been some of their employees there that have been working there for years. How could they go? Oh, my God, how have you guys been doing this?

Andy: 4:09

And also because they've got no ambition to get any further. But you did have a vision.

Tejinder: 4:14

I don't know it's personal circumstances, whereas myself, that was my aim. That's where I needed to go.

Andy: 4:20

OK.

Tejinder: 4:20

So because I've done computer operations, I was a computer, I was trained in computer programming and all that. So my idea was how do I get into a programming job? Right? So I thought, ok, this company does. They did COBOL programming, they had COBOL systems in place. Right? So I thought, ok, that's the way to go. So I become a in the warehouse. I moved up to being a punch operator.

Andy: 4:45

Okay.

Tejinder: 4:46

So I used to punch all the data into the systems and then slowly went into the computer room into the computer operations.

Andy: 4:52

So you just like slowly crawling away at the ladder.

Tejinder: 4:55

Uh, and part of it was I faced a lot of racism, by the way, andy, oh my God.

Andy: 4:59

Oh, let's come back to that. That was in those days.

Andy: 5:02

Let's examine that now it was it was horrible, it was terrible. Really.

Tejinder: 5:07

Uh, at times I used to feel quite lonely on my own, so how?

Andy: 5:11

many other Asian immigrants were there working around you. I mean, they want that many Presumably 1980 something, yeah they want that many, not Asians.

Tejinder: 5:23

It used to be a lot of obviously a lot of whites there, yeah, and in terms of blacks, they were mainly on the lowly paid jobs in those days and definitely horrible. And I had lots of friends there as well, yeah, but none of them would actually step up to these guys. They would come in and racially try to target me, yeah, uh, but it's grim, you know, it's one of those things you stand up to that.

Andy: 5:47

But that's some years after Idi Amin and Ugandan Asians arriving in the UK. So even at that point in the eighties, you're still suffering from racial abuse.

Tejinder: 5:58

And you still have it to this day. It's grim, but going back to those days, it was hard. Yeah, it was hard. I eventually managed to get out of that. We had lots of fights and you know the managers at that point they weren't really on your side. No, they would just turn a blind eye, they would just look the other side and let it carry on. You deal with it, okay. So yeah, we used to have lots of slagging matches Taken as being banter.

Andy: 6:24

I'm assuming is just banter, yeah.

Tejinder: 6:27

There was nothing physical, yeah, but yeah, definitely verbal abuse and all that you'd get.

Andy: 6:33

So, following Timpsons, where did you move to from there?

Tejinder: 6:37

Well, funnily enough, my wife spotted this.

Andy: 6:40

Hang on you've not got marriage yet in the story.

Tejinder: 6:44

Well, yeah, later on, in terms of I was obviously moving along in terms of working at Oliver Timpsons, I was there for about a year and then eventually I got engaged and everything, and that's when my wife spotted this job opportunity, okay, and she goes oh, there's a job opportunity here.

Tejinder: 7:04

This is, I think, about three years after I was at Oliver Timpsons, I moved to Benson Shoe as a computer operator, right, and that was another company I targeted because they did COBOL systems, yeah, so my previous experience at Oliver Timpsons and Shoe Company meant I was able to go into Benson Shoe, okay, and that's where I got most of my programming and operations experience. And then that is after. That is when I was able to move over to the county, the message county council Okay, because they had a job opening that my wife spotted.

Tejinder: 7:41

Oh, okay, and she goes Ted, why don't you apply for this? Okay, so I applied and got in, just I mean, I started off with what? 90 pound a week in those days. Back in then, yeah, and with the council, there's much improvement in terms of wages and everything.

Andy: 8:00

Yeah, what about the racism, though? Did that still carry on along the similar lines?

Tejinder: 8:06

It slowly started changing because of my position then. So I was now a computer operator, well liked actually, in Oliver Timpsons and obviously at Benson Shoe, because I used to get up really early in the morning during my shifts, things like three o'clock. I'm supposed to be there for five, so I wake up at three, I'm getting in for four and we'd get all the data downloaded from those to have about 350 branches all over the UK. So you were, mr productive, I was getting in there. The only reason was I could leave early. I mean doing a shift on a Sunday.

Andy: 8:47

So when you got married, then I'm imagining the landscape of photo video was completely different to how it is now. There was. I mean, we have teams of multiple people filming, you have teams of photographers, teams of videographers, you have sliders, you have cranes, you have this, you have that. How much of that was present when you got married? What was your wedding video?

Tejinder: 9:11

Oh, cracky yeah In terms of my wedding. We didn't even have a reception.

Andy: 9:17

Okay.

Tejinder: 9:18

No, because the family I got married to Missicide. They wanted the dad. He didn't want receptions and stuff like that, they just wanted a good daughter wedding and that was it. Okay, they we did have pre weddings and in fact we shared those pre weddings.

Andy: 9:35

Okay.

Tejinder: 9:37

And no, I mean the my uncle Missicide. He done the video. I had a videographer from our side a friend who did that and it was just you know shoulder mount huge big cameras with cables and everything. So in those days it wasn't fancy wedding halls.

Andy: 9:54

And even in terms of the number of good where are available to you to get married in, I'm imagining eight is probably nowhere near the number that we've got today.

Tejinder: 10:04

That's correct. I mean, I got married at the Romgría Good War in Leicester, yeah, so that's one of the oldest ones, and which they've now moved to a new one over in Hamilton. So that transition was quite big and I've filmed that as well. You know, in terms of the size of the good water, yeah, what we used to have and what we have now, because the community has grown, so we now have larger good dollars that now cater for just about everything you know your parking spaces, your education facilities, so it's been big leap in terms of the good water facilities for the community.

Andy: 10:41

You were sort of saying there was no reception, but you did have pre pre parties and things. Were they covered for photo and video or were they just sort of celebrations?

Tejinder: 10:51

Yeah, I mean the coverage was like minimal in those days. They were what? So very minimalistic in terms of the photos, the video. There don't be one person covering everything. Yeah, so you imagine that today you could still do it, but it'd be very difficult.

Andy: 11:11

Well, Mandy Dilling gets close to it, I think. And she has one person coverage.

Tejinder: 11:16

Well, I'm actually editing. I edited one of the videos that she did for me, okay, and she had like about three cameras yeah, I know, nice and steady. And, in fact, the way her data was laid out. Yeah, on the folders and everything.

Andy: 11:34

Yeah.

Tejinder: 11:35

Was really neat and tidy. I've got to give it to Mandy. I mean, that was really tidy. You know, camera one would be red, one blue one and it's, I think, going back to what Vince used to do. Yeah, we'll talk about that later, about Vince and everything, but yeah, in terms of the Gurdwara side.

Andy: 11:55

Yeah.

Tejinder: 11:57

And weddings. They used to be smaller weddings in terms of the venues.

Andy: 12:03

Yeah, I guess numbers.

Tejinder: 12:05

Yeah, and then they started growing bigger slowly because weddings moved into wedding halls.

Andy: 12:10

Yeah.

Tejinder: 12:11

Okay yeah, instead of small venues, they started using the school halls. Oh, okay, that's when things started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Okay, and the music in those days was like amazing, and the majority of that singing used to be community singing. The ladies would sing. So on your pre-wedding parties, all the ladies were singing.

Andy: 12:32

Well, this is because occasionally women do break into, particularly at Milne's. Women will just break into song and it's kind of it's all not half-hearted, but not many people join in as well at the same time. So is that a throwback to those sort of days?

Tejinder: 12:47

Exactly, yeah, but that's again that's changing because that's the old generation and majority of that old generation has now obviously passed. Even here in Leicester we used to have the satsang. We used to call them the ladies sanghi. They used to do lots of singing of hymns at the Gurdwala and I think from that group there's only a few ladies left and majority of the previous ladies. They all sang at my wedding and it was amazing. I can imagine, just amazing. Yeah, imagine the pre-wedding being in your front room. That's what used to happen. So they used to all just gather into the living rooms and the garages and everything, and everything just used to happen in the house in those days.

Andy: 13:45

And presumably because the community has grown over the years, over the intervening years. That's another contributory factor, I guess, to why we've got the big, fat Indian weddings that we have today.

Tejinder: 13:55

Yes, it's not only that People have now got bigger businesses. There's a lot of money. People can afford to buy bigger houses, bigger places, and they can also afford to spend more money on things that they missed out. So they're spending that on their children.

Andy: 14:16

Understood.

Tejinder: 14:18

And it's a nice thing to do. If you can afford it, so do it. That's not saying everyone should do it, but at the same time, try and live within your means and try and do that.

Andy: 14:30

Do whatever you can for your children Just rewinding, then back to your job with the council. Where did you go from there then? So you're now married. Children at that point.

Tejinder: 14:47

No, mike, we actually waited. So, yeah, we waited for about five years because we'd go into, basically, financial reasons I just come across from Kenya didn't really have a lot of money and I didn't really want the pressures of bringing up a new family because we didn't even have a house by then. So we finally bought a house through my father-in-law, who had a garage in Leicester and next door there's this lady that was selling her house and she gave it basically cut price. She knew the family and she was very happy to see that someone else that she knew and the daughter would be moving into the house. So she was really kind, lady, and gave us a house, and so that's how things moved. So once we had bought the house, then we thought, okay, right, it's now time to start the family. And in fact that actually leads me to the video side, because when my daughter was born in Taranjit, I went to the hospital and I took some pictures on a poxy little camera and I had them develop and I thought oh my God, what is this?

Tejinder: 16:07

It was so rubbish and of course I was working at the council then, and so I had a little bit of money and I went off and bought myself a Canon video camera. I think it was a half inch CCD then, or something like that, octane?

Andy: 16:24

Yes, that's not somebody breaking wind, that's some construction work going on, I'm guessing.

Tejinder: 16:32

It's supposed to be the choir room.

Andy: 16:34

Yeah, yeah, no, we'll get through it, don't worry, so yeah.

Tejinder: 16:37

So I bought the video camera it's a Canon one Fantastic camera, it was and took some video of my daughter in hospital, and that's where things started moving along in terms of video, so that sort of piqued your interest in video and photo and just.

Tejinder: 16:54

Yeah, I mean in terms of photo. I already had that because going back to now, kenya in my younger days I think it was back in probably this probably must be the 75, 1975, something like that or probably some roundabout there where friends of my dad, they wanted to come over to the UK so this is kind of near roundabout the Exodus period and they didn't have enough money to buy the tickets to come across to the UK. So they had permission, they had the visas and everything sorted down. They wanted to come over here. So it goes to my dad. Have you got some money you can lend us? I think they needed something like 30,000, 40,000 Kenyan shillings to make up and that goes. Yeah, I'll lend you that and you can pay me back later and they goes.

Tejinder: 17:45

Well, we've got this kit because they were into photography and everything in those days, and they goes to dad. Here's a box it was a minolta box with all the minolta cameras, the lenses, everything. I think it was worth about 50,000 shillings then. So it goes to dad. You have this. What am I going to do with that? So they goes, your son could use that, and that was it. My dad kept it and I started using that camera.

Andy: 18:19

Just breaking in usual thing, halftime interruption from me just to ask, and a few of you are now, so I'm grateful for that, thank you. But if you are listening and enjoying what you're listening to, then please spread the word, not just in the Asian market, but far and wide.

Andy: 18:37

I think everyone's got an interesting story to tell and I want to get those stories out there, so please share the wedding professionals podcast on all social media channels. It's available on every podcast platform you can mention. So yeah, send it out there, let's get people listening. Thank you very much. I'll see you in the next video to Tej. So you had there's always been that little interest in imagery.

Tejinder: 19:06

Yes, so when we used to go for picnics or day outs, we used to have the Kenya Safari rally back in those days and my dad used to take us out for that, so I used to use that camera to take some photos. I don't know where those photos are.

Andy: 19:20

I was just going to say, but I really don't know.

Tejinder: 19:23

Because I immigrated this way and I think a lot of the stuff was left behind and nothing came across. What a shame. Yes, I will ask dad. My uncle still has some of the photos, so one day I'll get those. But that's where my photo interest started back in the day. So imagine taking photos of the Minolta manual camera man, yeah, absolutely, and on film, not digital.

Andy: 19:46

Yeah, it was on film, yeah, so you don't know what you've got until it's developed.

Tejinder: 19:50

That's right. You'd be standing around corners and the cars would be zooming by and you'd time it and make sure you've got the camera ready and click.

Andy: 20:01

So now we're fast forwarding to. Well, was there anything in between the sort of? So we've got up to probably the late 80s, I think, is what's there in between the late 80s and Punjab 2000 in 2000?

Tejinder: 20:18

I don't think there was anything happening, apart from I still had a keen interest in Bangra music or music in general guzzles. I used to listen to a lot of jjigjit back in the day, so I used to love that. And then when I moved here, my Mrs was into Bangra music and I can't dance. I've got to left feet. I didn't see him dancing at my wedding, so she got me into this dance group that she was already in and they were missing out. A partner, hang on.

Andy: 20:55

So you took her up dance.

Tejinder: 20:57

And just for that occasion. So she told me how to dance and I just carry on with the Bangra music, listen to it. I loved it because I used to listen to a lot of R&B because of my cousins, so R&B was with us. That was yeah, okay, that was it. You know, we used to play R&B on albums, records and stuff, and really loud in the house.

Andy: 21:21

So is that a clue, then, to where Punjab 2000 started, because I know you've got a huge interest in live music and live music events. You're always out covering this and that. So is that where the genesis of that started.

Tejinder: 21:35

Yes, definitely. I mean slowly we migrated into going to events, listening to music there. I think Punjab 2000 was more about selling music because I used to visit Tony's shop here in Leicester. Friends Electric.

Andy: 21:57

Now, tony was your business partner.

Tejinder: 22:00

Yes, so initially, obviously you were just a shopkeeper that I knew and he was a good, great shopkeeper that everyone used to go down to Listen to the music he would just take out a tape.

Tejinder: 22:14

Play you the music. Do you want to listen to it? He would open the CDs and the tapes. Make sure you listen to it before you borrow it. So he slowly developed a kind of feel for what I used to like. So sometimes you just put five tapes away from me and say, here we go, this is what you're having this week.

Andy: 22:35

And that was it.

Tejinder: 22:37

I thought, tony, what about selling these online? And that's what I was thinking about online back in those days, because I had already set up a kind of a message board, which was the Punjab 2000 message board. So that was happening in the background. And then we thought, ok, right, using that, we can now sell this music. So that's when Tony used to give me these CDs and tapes that I would take home or punch in the information onto the system, type all that in, it was hard work. And then by that time my dad had come across, so mom and dad had packed away from Kenya and there were now things OK, you guys have moved across that way.

Andy: 23:25

Yeah.

Tejinder: 23:25

Yeah, mom was already a British citizen, so she was able to bring dad here that way, no problems. Yeah, and he came here and he's like I was a headmaster over there. What am I going to do here? Because, my dad runs school. He had two schools in Kenya, ok, and then he thought, ok, there's no point of us staying here if you guys are over there.

Andy: 23:49

Sure.

Tejinder: 23:50

So my brother had already moved here, my sister, so we were all here.

Andy: 23:53

Yeah.

Tejinder: 23:54

So they've joined us as well, and I thought OK, right, dad, you're going to be typing all this information in instead of me. So that's where Punjab 2000 actually started. Then he was able to enter all that information into the system and we were able to start selling these CDs on an online catalog. So we were selling to across the world.

Andy: 24:15

So this is an aspect that I had no idea about at all. Yeah, so we were selling quite a lot of albums, CDs tapes, which also gives you an in, if you like, with the artists themselves as well, because they consider it yourself.

Tejinder: 24:28

Exactly, they used to. Well, majority of the artists actually used to come to the shop to do their album launches and stuff.

Andy: 24:33

Yeah, ok.

Tejinder: 24:35

So we were selling between Punjab 2000, the artists and Tony Pavler Friends Electric. All connected.

Andy: 24:41

And this is UK Bangra artists. Or what UK Bangra?

Tejinder: 24:44

The majority was UK Bangra artists. In terms of the actual Punjab 2000 message board, we were actually I think we were Facebook before Facebook In terms of Bangra music.

Andy: 25:00

If only you'd solved that idea a bit further on Well we were never.

Tejinder: 25:04

we were never sort of interested in the money side of it. It was more about the culture, the passion. By the way, many marriages have been made on Punjab 2000 message board. Many have been broken. I laugh about it. I mean, some people have taken it quite seriously because it has affected them in ways that even we didn't imagine. And it's only later on we found out. Oh hang on a minute, xyz. You know, nowadays what you find on social media is you get this bullying and stuff and people just call each other names and derogatory comments and all that happened. That used to happen on the Punjab 2000 message board and unfortunately we couldn't police it enough because it was huge. We all had full-time jobs and then we had this thing happening in the background and then we got people there late at night in the middle of the morning putting up messages that we weren't aware of. So by the time XYZ had found out, something had been written about him. That message has already gone down the timeline, so we don't know what's happened.

Andy: 26:12

Human natures are a funny thing, isn't it?

Tejinder: 26:14

Yeah, I mean this, unfortunately, and I apologize to everyone that might listen to this and find oh, this happened to me on the message board. We're sorry, just not enough. We just couldn't handle it. It was something that was there.

Andy: 26:29

Yeah.

Tejinder: 26:31

And you just had to either report it back to us and we'd deal with it or, if it, wasn't reported it. Just, I mean, we did have some administrators, but again they weren't able to handle it either. Yeah, but it was very good in terms of advertising, music, talking about music. Yeah, and if you think about it, the podcast, it's like the podcast that you're now doing, but on the message board it's all written.

Andy: 26:59

Yes.

Tejinder: 26:59

And people can write anything.

Andy: 27:01

Yeah.

Tejinder: 27:02

And we used to have loads of keyboard warriors.

Andy: 27:04

Cheers it astonishes me.

Tejinder: 27:07

Yeah, it's definitely the keyboard warriors and they have a lot of time on their hands. Yeah, too much time on their hands. It's just mental yeah.

Andy: 27:15

So talk to me about Tony then, because Tony, I know, became then a huge, huge part of your life, didn't it?

Tejinder: 27:21

Amazing fellow Tony was. He had a grey heart. Yeah, fantastic. So, going back to the shop days, we slowly became friends, basically, yeah, and that's the name of the shop.

Andy: 27:33

Yeah.

Tejinder: 27:35

And he was basically friends with anyone. He didn't have a bad word to say about anyone, very pleasant shop, and he would spend ages on the phone, ages talking to his customers and his mum would always tell me, tell him, he's got a business to run.

Andy: 27:49

Yeah, he's not making enough money, yeah.

Tejinder: 27:54

And you know he should be spending more time making the money instead of spending time talking on the phone. He was forever on the phone. I mean, he would spend hours. Even if I was, he was ringing me. He would be an hour on the phone to me. Okay, it's just crazy. Yeah, very lovely shop. His knowledge of music was amazing.

Andy: 28:13

Okay, have you got anywhere near his level of knowledge?

Tejinder: 28:17

No, no, no, he used to know the CDs, the albums, the sleeve covers, the tracks that are on there. Who played what he had, all that knowledge, yeah?

Andy: 28:29

And that was just purely sort of banger music, then nothing English or American or In the shop.

Tejinder: 28:37

It was all banger Asian music, bollywood music, guzzles. It was a whole range of the genre that he had, not mainstream English music. No, he was also into R&B, like myself. Okay, into English music and gigs. And we used to go to those festivals. Yeah, he was out there the carnivals.

Andy: 29:00

Yeah, it was all. I can't imagine you at a carnival somehow, and he's just how the years treat his family right.

Andy: 29:10

So, stepping on very slightly, then Punjab 2000,. The message board everything's happening. You're selling music, you're a big artist, you know all the artists. So when do you start morphing into taking photographs at concerts and video at concerts?

Tejinder: 29:24

Yeah, that basically started with the gigs with Punjab 2000. So I spotted that at the shop there used to be lots of gig flyers. Yeah, Any gig happening, they would drop the flyers with Tony.

Andy: 29:37

And was there? Sorry to interrupt, but was there a very healthy gig scene at that time?

Tejinder: 29:41

Oh yes, because banger music was, it had taken off and it was round about that time and it was really taking off, okay, in terms of the gig scene.

Andy: 29:52

Yeah.

Tejinder: 29:53

A lot was happening.

Andy: 29:54

Yeah.

Tejinder: 29:56

The wedding scene was taking off, yeah, and people wanted live music, exactly. So you've got the banger artists and live music and they're just taking off from there.

Andy: 30:03

Yeah.

Tejinder: 30:04

We used to have the day timers. I mean, those were the days. What all day parties, or Well, not all day, they used to be in the afternoons normally, so that's when the students and so on were able to get to wherever. So we used to have day timers in London, day timers in Leicester, Birmingham, now and everywhere, and this is where the gig scene was really kicking off.

Andy: 30:27

Okay.

Tejinder: 30:27

Because students obviously are supposed to be in school. Yeah, or in colleges, and studying, but, oh no, we were parting away. So, yeah, those were great days in terms of banger music. Yeah, the live scene, the gig scene, yeah.

Tejinder: 30:44

And you see some of that coming back in terms of we've got the old school banger gigs that have started happening now in Birmingham, in Leicester as well, London as well, is to try and revive that music, and the old banger music is what you call the evergreen music. I mean it's also like you've got Bollywood music, which is evergreen. You can listen to it today and it still sounds so relevant and so good.

Andy: 31:10

Yeah.

Tejinder: 31:10

And in terms of the music, the composition, it's just perfect.

Andy: 31:14

I mean, I love when somebody like Jus Joe Hell, he does like half an hour of old school and they're the bits that I really really love because they're really pumping on there, yeah, yeah.

Tejinder: 31:27

And then what you can do with that is, you can have one song playing and you can mix the next one. It just flows.

Andy: 31:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tejinder: 31:35

That's just amazing. And the thing with that is it's music that you can not only just dance to, you sing along to it.

Andy: 31:42

Yeah, well, you can.

Tejinder: 31:44

Yeah, and it's not me. Yeah, no, it's a fantastic. I mean banger music, it's folk music.

Andy: 31:53

Yeah.

Tejinder: 31:54

And it talks about the culture and there's a lot of humor in it. There's lots of things that say the music, yeah. The words, the lyrics and everything is just amazing.

Andy: 32:04

Yeah, and somebody like Malcolm Singh then is probably a throwback to. I mean, where was he in the 80s?

Tejinder: 32:13

Again. So he's in the background scene then. Yeah, so he's already there. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the artists were established then, do you know? Push?

Andy: 32:21

Yes.

Tejinder: 32:22

Push, I didn't know was a tubler player back in the day with a Shahn group.

Andy: 32:28

Okay, right.

Tejinder: 32:30

He was only with me yesterday and we were just talking about it. He said he goes, tedge. You know, I was trained, I goes. Who are you trained by? He goes by Gushan Mal. Wow, oh, I'd never have thought of that.

Andy: 32:43

This is the thing people hide their light under a bush. Yeah, because not many people learn that.

Tejinder: 32:47

Yeah, Because I got trained by him. They do now and he goes. I also learned tubler off Tubsy. Okay, I thought what he goes yeah, tubsy, so yeah, in those days, the bunker scene was, I mean, in terms of the artists as well as the musicians, it's very close. Everybody knew everyone. Yeah, so yeah.

Andy: 33:16

And then was there just carrying on with the banger thing, because obviously I mean, I've been doing Asian events for probably 12, 15 years and mostly I thought I would say in the early days it was just a DJ and big PAs and recorded music. But I've noticed a resurgence in live acts. I'm starting to appear again, like Melkit, for instance. I filmed him so many times and I think there's been a real resurgence and it's really nice to see live bands coming back at weddings and so on and so forth. So was there a this is a very long-winded way of asking did banger music tail off for a bit and now it's coming back?

Tejinder: 34:00

Yes, that is definitely correct, because obviously it's a generational thing, isn't it? Yeah, so in those days, that generation loved the live scene. Then you have the younger generation. They were now into their English Western music and so on, so that's changed. So then you have that dropping in that. I think that's what happened. Also, I suppose, in terms of the quality of music that was coming out was maybe not the kind of music that the younger generation wanted to listen to, so that changed. But now what you have is the younger generation producing music that their friend circle and people of their age want to listen to.

Tejinder: 34:54

Yeah, but does it has its roots though going back to yes, it does so majority of the artists, the younger artists, will have listened to music from current bongar artists. Majority of them have, and they'll say that was their inspiration.

Andy: 35:15

Yeah.

Tejinder: 35:16

Yeah.

Andy: 35:16

Yeah, yeah. Well, I suppose it's like Oasis citing the Beatles as they're very similar and that's how it happens. Fantastic. So we've still not yet got to the point where you wake up one morning and decide that you're going to film weddings for everything.

Tejinder: 35:35

Yes, so well, I was filming. Well, I had the video camera for my daughter, so I was filming family videos and stuff, yeah. And then what happened? And I went to the Gurdwara. This is Lester's Gurdwara the holy bones we call it, but it's called the Gurdwara. That's the official name.

Andy: 35:58

Okay.

Tejinder: 35:59

And I love listening to the Keith.

Andy: 36:03

Yeah.

Tejinder: 36:03

I thought, okay, I'll record this. So I recorded. One Sunday I put my camera and recorded that and I think he was was it Daljeet, neer or one of the TV station guys saw me recording that and they said can we have the footage? And that's where it kicked off. So I started recording every Sunday at Gurnana Gurdwara for the TV and the Gurdwara and a number of other Gurdwars got together and they would sponsor this program on TV.

Andy: 36:38

Okay.

Tejinder: 36:39

So I actually got paid. By the way, okay to do this. This is a refreshing change.

Tejinder: 36:43

It wasn't a lot of money but it was just covering my expenses, my time expenses and so on. So it was okay and I loved it and that's how I got into like videoing and video skills and so on. And then I used to see a lot of other videographers come to the Gurdwara for the weddings and film and so on. I thought, oh God, that's a lot of hard work, isn't it? This is great, I just do this and off I go.

Tejinder: 37:10

And then I think I slowly got to know this guy who became a very close friend and I think one of the best portrait family Punjabi photographers in Leicester ever I've seen. His name was Kushpal Singh Burme. He used to come, I think nearly every other weekend. They used to have weddings there and he used to come with a lad called Johnny and they used to film and they used to photograph and they would come in round about the time my session would be starting, so I'd always bump into them. So I got to know them and so on. And then, after I think, about maybe a few months, johnny passed away. Johnny was a videographer that.

Tejinder: 37:58

I used to work with Burme and then Kushpal Burme had a wedding coming up and he goes Ted, do you think you could do this wedding? I thought I've never done a wedding before. Quite terrifying oh yeah, so he goes. Well, I'll be with you and we'll do it together. He goes, it's nothing major. So that's where I moved into weddings. I haven't looked back really.

Andy: 38:24

No, so what year was that, do you think?

Tejinder: 38:26

That would have been around about 2002, 2003, probably Okay.

Andy: 38:31

Yeah, around about then. So we're on about your 20th anniversary of weddings then.

Tejinder: 38:35

Yeah, so yeah, I suppose, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, quite enjoyed that, I mean. But once I moved into that with Kushpal, it was just amazing. It was just another thing we still used to have. We didn't have big batteries or anything, so we had these training cables for the lights and everything. It was mad, it's something I didn't like doing, but I ended up doing it.

Andy: 39:06

And what about the editing? After you'd filmed it, he carry on with the editing, or was it down to you to do?

Tejinder: 39:11

that. No, basically his job was the photography side. He would take care of that and the video side became mine. I just did the video side.

Andy: 39:20

But then with your knowledge, your computing knowledge, probably you were ahead of the game.

Tejinder: 39:24

I was yes, at that time. I mean, in terms of software, I had some really basic software that used to just do cut to cut, editing, and that was it. That's all I needed for TV. So I just carried on using that for video. And, yeah, I carried on using that for a long time, I think.

Tejinder: 39:43

Then we used to bump into other videographers because in those days the bride side would have their team and the groom side would have their team and you'd have a clash. And that's when I learned from Kushpal, kush as we used to call him, kush as in happy, he would all be happy. Amazing chap he was. And he goes. Let's go and just say hi to them, let's check their hands, and if we get on, we get on. I really don't want to go Because they look evil. I go. I don't think they like us already. I look at them standing there. They're looking at us giving us the evil. Look the opposition party. But yeah, he trained me into that. He goes look, let's be friendly, let's shake hands, let's do it, and he goes. If they don't want to work with us, then fine, we'll just do our thing.

Andy: 40:44

And it was at about this point that I thought do you know what? This is going on longer than a normal record, and maybe we'll get two episodes out of this. And sure enough, when I came to sit down and edit, the amount of material that we got with Tej was phenomenal. So I'm going to curtail it here for this one. Join me next week when we get to the second half of the fascinating chat with Tej Singh. Thanks very much, see you next week, bye, bye.