Despite my own leanings, I cannot take seriously any article on the Indian rock music scene that dwells in the era of imitative cover performances, or performances of so-called originals that are so totally “inspired” by popular covers that they are no different from them at all. That stuff is so ten years ago. Maybe twenty. Without any vintage value whatsoever.

The “fascinating article” (by Arjun S Ravi on MTV Iggy) that Cicatrix speaks of in Sepia Mutiny reads like ‘The Best of RSJ (1992-1999), with Notable Exceptions’. It’s all been documented before with elan and sincerity by Amit Saigal. Today, it’s dated. Because it casually ignores a significant slice of Indian rock history — the independent music scene in Bangalore, which was where the really surprising stuff started to emerge from the mothballed closet in the late 1990s. In businesspeak, this era was when Indian rock music sought to “differentiate” itself. Not through marketing strategy (a la Parikrama et al which still have nothing to offer the discerning music fan) but through inventiveness, performance and startling creative energy. Ergo, I am not sure if Ravi’s omission stems from ignorance (which is unforgivable) or from personal bias (which is charlatan).

Thermal And A Quarter, as those who know their Indian indie scene know, began this revolution by playing entire three-hour sets comprising only originals — as early as 1999. No Indian band, repeat, no Indian band (save some in that fantastic cultural pocket — the Northeast) was doing that then. One other band that did it explosively — and I was witness to their memorable show at Madras Christian College’s Deep Woods in 1996 — was (then not-yet-Mumbai’s) Chakraview (with Dhruv Ghanekar on some serious gizmo-led guitar).

Perhaps Ravi also might want to remember that Laila Rouass-starring black-and-white music video, Colourblind, by the Mumbai band of the same name (the duo of Ram Sampath and Siddharth Achrekar). It was a brilliant new statement (very indie) and added a dimension to Indian rock that did not hitherto exist (or last). Sampath (now a composer for films and famous for his copyright victory over the Roshans for copying the music of Krazzy 4) told me off the record when I interviewed him (about Ram Madhvani’s Let’s Talk for Rediff.com in December 2002) that Colourblind “had not been viable”.

Viability has always been the gradient against which Indian indie rock has laboured. Indus Creed, after showing us the light, disappointed us by disbanding and resurfacing again as Alms for Shanti, with an eponymous album that was released both in English and Hindi (Kashmakash, Free Spirit, 2001). Alms for Shanti, with a name that sounded like it had been coined by an armchair Indologist at the University of Hawaii, plays the club circuit in New York where they have established themselves as export-reject exotics. Although singer Uday Benegal cribbed about the sleaze in the music industry as an aside during an interview with Rediff.com in 2002, he also told me this: “We went West because we were disillusioned with the East. Because the music we were doing at that time had absolutely no place here. Not that we were seeking salvation in the West. We wanted to go ahead with the music we make and look for the audience in the West.”

That’s one way to go, but if you know the audience to be here you have to be loyal to it. It must be remembered that around the same time that Alms for Shanti announced their album to a crowd of wine-sipping and tikka-nibbling celebs at a swank Tardeo lounge bar, a lot of bands that had been either influenced by TAAQ or shared the same struggle emerged from Bangalore — Kryptos, Myndsnare, Galeej Gurus, Zebediah Plush… And I am not even talking in any detail about the metal scene (which, being loud enough as it is, deserves an altogether different celebratory writeup amid a full-flowing headbangathon at Styx).

That TAAQ (still an unsigned band) was not from Bollywood-besotted Mumbai or Hindi-mein-gao-yaar Delhi or still-smoking-the-Sixties Kolkata was really what went against them when they started. Or the fact that their music was a leap year ahead of the public imagination — I mean, how many Benadryl-swillers orgasming in the moshpit had actually heard of (let alone heard) Steely Dan and Pat Metheny, or even imagined that they could influence an Indian band’s sound? The few critics of this counterculture — jealous jilted lovers of it mostly — judged the music by a myopic yardstick: the done-to-death genres of metal and dinosaur rock.

With Jupiter Cafe (2002), TAAQ’s second album, Bangalore shot into the limelight. It continued with Plan B (2004), the first album from India to be distributed with a custom Creative Commons-like license. These, inarguably, were milestones in Indian rock. Indie media (Indiecision, Split, RadioVerve… hell, even the un-indie Rolling Stone) acknowledged and celebrated them. MTV, which has always fed off the now happily moribund record industry (recently resuscitated by MJ’s passing) and now mooches off Bollywood to survive in the subcontinent, has no authority to comment on the indie scene. In the two fitful decades of Indian rock, MTV has neither recognised nor supported the indie movement. And to pay lip service to it now, with a limp biscuit such as this, is both embarrassing and shameful.

As the man who named his daughter Moon Unit said: “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”

Part of this rant was originally posted as a comment on the muchly admired Sepia Mutiny

Photo: TAAQ from the back by SlickThief

Cross-posted from here

The post Wha…?! Indian rock history minus TAAQ?! appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

We’ll leave you with some fabulous pictures taken by Shrenik Sadalgi.

Bruce Lee Mani

Rzhude

Rajeev Rajagopal

Thanks, Shrenik!

There are more fabulous pictures taken by one (and only) Mr. Gaurav Vaz. Facebook people: you’ll find them here.

The post Thank you! Now go vote! appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

High up in the blogosphere, a certain journalist has taken exception to two parts of the song title: ‘Shut Up’ and ‘Vote’.

His first blog post, titled ‘On Dumb Editors… and Dumber Rockers’ accused TAAQ’s anthem of being ‘exceedingly stupid’. We popped in to say our bit. Over the last couple of days, the conversation did hot up and today, he has a fresh new post where he snipes at TAAQ again.

Sauvik Chakraverti writes:

TAAQ confessed to having composed their song “Shut Up And Vote” in response to a “brief.” In journalism, we call this a “command performance.” As I said, this song is not from the heart nor from the mind. It is just an ad jingle – and a rude one at that. It cannot work. You cannot compose a jingle that says “Shut Up And Drink Coca-Cola.”

Our response: You can (in a bottle or in a can). And lots of people are doing that. But we won’t. And not just because we like our cola with rum.

A command performance, indeed! You wish!

Let’s get this straight. The Jaago Re One Billion Votes campaign is a citizen initiative spearheaded by the voluntary organization Janaagraha along with Tata Tea. If we were singing this anthem for a particular political party, the blogger’s accusation would hold water (or cola, or whatever). But what’s dumb about speaking out along with like-minded, progressive citizens, and what’s dumb about persuading young people to participate in electing our leaders?

Now, Mr. Chakraverti comes across as a reasonably intelligent, articulate sort of chap but, like many of his kind that we know of, his views are clouded with pessimism and this, in our observation, is nothing new to this creed of non-participants. And that’s what we tried to remind him about.

Go to the coffee shops and watering holes and pot parlours of the world and you will find plenty of them – bottom-feeders that drink deep but taste not the spring of citizenship. What we have exhorted the youth to do through this song is participate in the electoral process, to exercise their  right as citizens. That, Mr. Chakraverti, is a necessary first step. Before crying foul, before finding fault with the system, or even before poking holes where none existed.

Through this song and through this series of concerts, we urge the youth: Do not stand back and submit to pessimism and inertia. Participate as citizens. Idle debate is no good unless you have exercised your right to bring in change. Ok, you know and we know that the system sucks. You know and we know that even this time round, we cannot do away with corruption. You know and we know that the usual suspects may share power again. But all of that said, your inertia is not a fitting response. It will take us nowhere and will only leave us more frustrated at the way things are.

We’ll write another song for the cynic and the pessimist and the non-voting beefburger (haven’t we, already?). When it’s time.

Until then, shut up and vote.

Et tu, Mr. Chakraverti!

The post Shut Up? Vote? Or none of the above? appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).