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Music a symbol of peace and harmony and has always touched hearts and soul. The Century-old Bandstand culture was a unique feature in Mumbai. This fine tradition that has been revived by the Indiatourism and Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry – for continuation of the traditional and cultural legacy of the city.

A great attraction in the 1850s was the music that was played every evening after the sunset on Mumbai Greens, a vast fifteen-acre open-space opposite the Town Hall in the South Mumbai that later became the smaller Horniman Circle garden. It was a custom that continued from the days when the Governor of Mumbai resided in the Fort, in a building now popularly known as Old Secretariat. The practice to regale the Government House with music continued till the building was given up in 1860s when the Elphinstone (now Horniman) circle and other buildings were built. Until then, marching from the Town Major, located at the east-end of Hamam Street up to the end of Military Staff buildings, a band – consisting of drums and fifes and other instruments, played airs’. The brass band of an Infantry regiment went up and down promenading the Mumbai Green.

After restructuring the town following demolition of Fort Walls, regimental bands also began to play on the new reclamation at Apollo Bunder, where the Yatch Club was completed in 1881, the Taj Mahal Hotel in 1903 and the Gateway of India in 1924. The bands also performed once or twice a week in various Clubs – including Byculla Club (established in 1833), the Mumbai Gymkhana (established in 1875) and in later decades, the Wellingdon Club and Cricket Club of India. Among the regimental bands that played regularly were those of the Marine Batallion, 9^th Regiment, the Mumbai Volunteer Rifle, the 113^th Infantry, the GIP Railway volunteers, BB&CI Railway and the Governor’s Band. The services of regimental and private bands were engaged and the dates & venue were advertised in daily newspapers. A remarkable bonhomie among the spectators was evident at each recital.

As the Mumbai city improvement Trust developed new suburban areas north of island city, bandstands were built. These included –  Cooperage Garden, Girgaum Chowpatty (Kilachand Park), Victoria Garden at Byculla (now Jijamata Udyan), Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Garden (popularly known as Hanging Garden), Joseph Baptista Garden on Mazgaon Hill, King’s Circle Garden (Maheshwari Udyan) at Sion, Parsi Colony in Dadar and Bandstands in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The bandstands are maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.

The recitals continued for a few years after India’s Independence in 1947. Perhaps one of the finest and most moving performances was held at Apollo Bunder on February 28, 1948, marking departure of British forces from India. Detachment of the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry took place amidst guard of honour by troops from various Indian regiments. The soldiers closed ranks and marched slowly through the Gateway to the tune of Auld Land Syne played by the bands. The Governor read farewell message and troops marched down the stairs to their boats.

Live performances held during February-May 2010

32 youth bands performed live. These included bands like EOL Trio Jazz Band from France, Something Relevant, Ankur Tiwari and Ghalat Family, Lambada, Tough on Tobacco, Dischordian, The Mavyns, Spook, The Pulp Society, Shor Bazar, Radio, Seher, Coshish, Moksha, Vajra, Spook, Highway 61, Snatch D’Monk, The Colour Compound, Kamaal Ke Phool and the Institutional Police Band which evoked the nostalgia of the older generation with patriotic numbers. The grooving performances of these youth bands and the ethnic flavour brought back the indomitable Mumbai spirit.

Program Guide 2011

BLAKC + BOMBAY BASSMENT
March 12th | Kamala Nehru Udyan, Malabar Hills (Hanging Garden)

DISCHORDIAN + RANG
March 19th | Kamala Nehru Udyan, Malabar Hills (Hanging Garden)

MCGM BAND + ANKIT DAYAL + VASUDHA SHARMA
April 2nd | Kamala Nehru Udyan, Malabar Hills (Hanging Garden)

POLICE BAND + ANKUR TEWARI & THE GHALAT FAMILY
April 16th | Veer Prabhu Deshpande & Sant Dyaneshwar Udyan (Dadar Chowpatty)

SOMETHING RELEVANT + AIRPORT
April 30th | Veer Prabhu Deshpande & Sant Dyaneshwar Udyan (Dadar Chowpatty)

POLICE BAND + SPLIT
May 7th | Carter Road Amphitheater

SLOW DOWN CLOWN + SHOR BAZAAR
May 14th | Kamala Nehru Udyan, Malabar Hills (Hanging Garden)

THE COLOR COMPOUND + THE PULP SOCIETY
May 21st | Carter Road Amphitheater, Bandra

FINALE (TBC)
May 28th | Kamala Nehru Udyan, Malabar Hills (Hanging Garden)

TIME : All concerts will be held between 5.30-8:00 pm sharp

With India being one of the most sort-after destinations for bands across the world, Shikher Chaudhary uncovers the versatile music scene that this year has seen so far…

Akcent

With only six months into it, 2010 has already been a somewhat tumultuous year for Indian rock. From Tehelka articles hoping to expose a ‘make-believe’ scene cultivated by the media and harboring niche middle class rockers aping the west to protests and petitions against allowing a certain aging boy band to perform at one of the country’s premier rock festivals, the year has seen its share of ups and downs. But behind the usual doubt and criticism, a relative swell in the number of albums released by Indian bands, some duly worthy of high regard, the infiltration of once local acts now into major European festivals, and the bestowment of a select few with international acclaim and awards has led to an exponential rise in recognition across the board. It is perhaps this recognition along with the efforts of various promoters that has brought about the biggest change as compared to say a few years ago, a saving grace in many ways, an exponential increase in the influx of global acts, indie, metal or otherwise, from corners of the world and genres not generally exposed to Indian audiences.

Hot on the heels of a year that played host to acts as varied as the indie folk quartet Mumford & Sons, popular Danish hip hop act Outlandish, Swedish melodic death metal stalwarts Amon Amarth, celebrated 80’s band Mr. Big and more significantly, a band in their prime, playing a sold out show at Mumbai IIT’s Mood Indigo, the progressive rock styling’s of Porcupine Tree, 2010 has already borne witness to an notable set of bands and artists, washing onto our aural shores. Certainly the biggest and possibly the most controversial concerts of the year took place in Bangalore in the form of Rock in India. Headlining acts which included the likes of South African alternative band Prime Circle, Welsh multi-instrumentalist and rising star Jayce Lewis (due to embark on another 10 city Indian tour in the coming months), legendary singer/songwriter Richard Marx and the aforementioned boy band, the Backstreet Boys brought with them a barrage of negative reactions from rock fans displeased at the idea of allowing a certified pop group to play at a rock festival.

Lamb Of God

Speaking of pop acts, the trio of Adrian Claudiu Sina, Sorin Stefan Brotnei and Mihai Gruiaone better known as one of the most popular Romanian dance-pop group Akcent, also made their way across India from the 4^th to 6^th June thrilling audiences in Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. With smash singles like ‘That’s my name’ and ‘Stay with me’ the crooners entertained the hundreds in attendance with their signature disco house sound contrasted with a strong Romanian influence.

Danish band Michael Learns to Rock who made a career out of churning out soft rock classics such as ‘The Actor’ and ‘Sleeping Child’ in the early 90’s find themselves on their third Indian tour, after performing in Bangalore and Chennai in ’95 and Mumbai, Bangalore and Shillong in 2004, the band is back on a three city tour in June catering to their loyal Asian fan base. Relatively new to Indian ears is the massively popular psychedelic trance DJ duo from Israel, Skazi, whose distinctive sound merging trance and punk has gathered a cult following, becoming a staple of rave scenes across the globe.

Eternity

With respect to genres, there is no shortage of international bands thoroughly representing metal with the Bangalore crowds being treated to a heavy dose of American heavy metal throughout the year.  The Summer Storm festival organizers brought in one of the kingpins of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal in Lamb of God to headline the festival with their brutal yet groove based riff metal.  In almost certainly an attempt to compensate for their previous erroneous choice of bands, the Rock in India organizers have pulled together two renowned thrash metal giants, Testament and Slayer to be top of the bill at the second edition of the festival scheduled for 30^th October of this year. Each backed by an illustrious catalogue of classics, the show promises to be one of the explosive in the city’s history and certainly one for the history books.

Prime Circle

On the indie front, some major bands which have turned their sights towards India are NastyPeach, a funk/soul band from Tel Aviv performing the Indian circuit throughout July and British alternative act Placebo who have just released their sixth studio album ‘Battle for the Sun’, who with an ability to weave platonic melodies with teenage angst offer up a rich palette for devoted fans in the country when they tour sometime later this year. Irrespective of which bands tour across our country, it is safe to say that the rock scene has come a long way from catching glimpses of odd international bands every few years or so. India’s rock community is finally being given the chance to indulge in a plethora of sounds through these bands, each recognizing India as a bona fide market while at the same time paying dividence and enriching the rock scene as they pass through.

Article by Shikher Chaudhary

Sahil ‘Demonstealer’ Makhija shares his views about the evolution of Metal in India and the torch bearers who’ve led it from the front.

Sahil Makhija plays for Demonic Resurrection. He is the owner of Demonstealer Records and works for Furtados Music as their Artist Relations and Events Manager. For guest lectures and workshops, contact Sahil at thedemonstealer@gmail.com

When I was asked this column I was pretty unsure about what I was going to write so I figured I’d trace the outline and the evolution of the Metal scene in India.  As far as I know metal in India existed as far back as the early ‘90s when bands like Millennium and Dying Embrace from Bangalore were busy writing their original music. Millennium even released an album and had a music video which aired on MTV. In around ‘95 there was Brahma from Mumbai who also released an album and made a video.

Fast Forward to 1998 when I took my first step into the world of Indian metal. What I saw was all cover bands for most of the part. Even a band like Brahma that had an album was playing covers with rock bands like Parikrama, etc. So for the 2 years that I was just a normal rocker attending gigs it was mostly bands playing covers with maybe 1 or 2 originals thrown in apologetically. In 2000 I formed Demonic Resurrection and it’s about the same time that a website called Gigpad.com came into being as well. New bands like PDV also burst onto the scene while bands like Kryptos, MyndSnare and Threinody were gaining popularity. That year also saw the 1^st ever Deathfest held in Mumbai. This is when the original movement started and slowly but surely bands started playing their own music. However this was not an easy job, the audience had to be converted as well, especially because of years of conditioning to come to concerts and receive a 2^nd hand experience of their favourite bands.  Many of us bands played to non receptive audiences and even bottles and stones but somewhere down the road around 2004-2005 people’s attitude started changing while bands too started professional recording and releasing of music. An almost forgotten effort was ‘Deepthroat’, a compilation of Indian bands released by Throatlatch studios, formed by the members of a Kolkata band called Cranium who moved to Mumbai to start a studio and record label. However they didn’t survive long and vanished. Around this point many small independent ventures like OML, Counter Culture Records, RSJOnline, Demonstealer Records came up and began to push the scene forward. The Great Indian Rock Festival that had been supporting original music since 1995 started bringing in International artists.

Another big stepping stone was when DNA Networks broke the barriers and got Iron Maiden to India. Almost 25,000 metal heads stormed palace grounds for what was one of the landmark concerts in Indian metal history. Since then, the country has been stormed by foreign artists like Machine Head, Megadeth, Opeth, Enslaved, Satyricon, Amon Amarth, Textures and the recently concluded Summer Storm Festival that was headlined by Lamb of God.  Film maker Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden also found interest in Indian metal and featured Demonic Resurrection, Bhayanak Maut, Kryptos, etc. in their documentary titled Global Metal. Some of the other relevant achievements of the scene were Kryptos signing to OSM Records along with Demonic Resurrection who signed to Candlelight Records. Scribe and Demonic Resurrection both performed at the Inferno Festival in Norway this year. Also grinders Gutslit and Gorified joined Putrid Pile on their tour to Singapore and Malaysia. Both bands also signed and released their music on foreign labels. Bhayanak Maut and Undying Inc managed to bag a song each on one of Metal Hammers Compilation.

So having taken a look at how the scenario has developed I feel it’s only a matter of time before we break through and have a sustainable scene that won’t result in bands breaking up after 5 years to get married and become computer engineers… Instead, we’ll rock the stage till we grow old.

Article By Sahil Makhija

The Big M mobile App for Nokia is out now!

The Big M mobile app for Nokia is out now! You can download it for FREE from the Nokia Ovi store. Visit this link from your mobile browser to download: http://store.ovi.com/content/66757

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