Rohan Rajadhyaksha

There are countless number of youngsters and adults alike who harbor dreams of making a career in music. Though more often than not, we stop short of converting these dreams to reality. Yet, there are some who cherish these dreams and are heard humming Pink Floyd tunes or tapping their feet while typing away on their computers at work. As Yosef Hayeem, a budding singer and guitarist puts it, “I am going to be a musician someday. Not a rockstar – a pure and true musician. I am just waiting for the right time and the right opportunity to come my way. After that, it’s just going to be me and my music!”
Well, here came the opportunity. Dream Makers Entertainment, an entertainment & artist management company came up with a contest wherein all that one had to do was record a song (in English) and mail it across. The entries were to be screened by the singer/songwriter Nikhil D’Souza himself.
So why did they choose Nikhil D’souza of all the artists? On this Tanya Seth from Dream Makers Entertainment says, “Well, apart from Nikhil being one of our clients, he is open to such events and collaborating with fresh and new talented artists.”
The finale which took place at Blue Frog on 28th June, 2011 saw a set performed by Nikhil and like always, had the audience engaged and excited. However, the highlight of the evening was the announcement of the winner Rohan Rajadhyaksha. On what really made Rohan stand apart from the rest, Nikhil says, “I was going through the email entries and I came across Rohan’s which said that I am a 17 year old boy and I like writing my own songs and composing them. I knew I had to open this email and listen to him.”
Performing his very own composition, the 17 year old humbly speaks of his feat, “I am of course very excited. This was quite a surprise as I never expected it. I didn’t think of winning as I thought there would be many more talented and experienced people apart from me. This is of course a great chance and platform for me to learn and gain valuable exposure.’
Apart from getting a chance to jam with Nikhil, Rohan has also won himself other perks such as a solo show at Candies, Mumbai, Gift Vouchers worth Rs. 11,000/- , an exclusive photo shoot and an Artist Management deal from Dream Makers.
The contest received a great deal of response and the team at Dream Makers Entertainment hopes to host more such events in future. The concept is unique and provides an excellent platform for upcoming artists to showcase their talent and at the same time interact and perform with an experienced musician, thus helping them learn and develop their skills.
And how was it working with Nikhil? To this, Shreya Naik, the Founder of Dream Makers Entertainment says, “He has been extremely co-operative. It was fun working with him. We hope to do more of such shows with him in the near future. Nikhil is a rising international star today and we only expect his popularity to increase greatly in the coming days.”
Divya Naik

Music is not a profession but a lifestyle for them. They are not taught in schools but are born with this inexplicable talent that sets them apart. Being raw and unexplored is their forte and lacking commercialization is what works for them – these are the traditional Rajasthani artists and giving voice to them is a festival that picks them from distant villages and puts them on a global platform. The Jodhpur Riff, a music festival that has among its patrons legendary Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger and His Highness Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Jodhpur is what we are talking about here.

To be held from October 12^th to 16^th at Mehrangarh Fort that stands a hundred feet in splendour on a perpendicular cliff, four hundred feet above the sky line of Jodhpur, this year will be the fourth edition of the festival that started in 2007, but had to take a break the very next year, owing to a “calamity that resulted in many deaths” says Divya Kumar Bhatia, the director of Jodhpur RIFF.

“First year was 2007, but in 2008 there was a calamity in the fort and we had to cancel it just 10 days prior to its scheduled start. So pretty much we had to restart the festival in 2009” he adds.

The Jodhpur RIFF brings together more than 250 musicians and performing artists from across Rajasthan and around the world to celebrate their musical heritage and create new sounds through innovative collaborations. It is a partnership project involving two heritage trusts – Mehrangarh Museum Trust and Jaipur Virasat Foundation – JVF. The festival has also been endorsed by UNESCO as a “Peoples’ Platform for Creativity and Sustainable Development”.

Not only an interesting platform for traditional music in contemporary world space, Jodhpur RIFF also lays emphasis on their core focus, which is to get livelihood for the traditional artists of Rajasthan. Last year eight Rajasthani artists who had performed at the festival in the previous years got a chance to show their prowess at the 6^th London iTunes festival. Not just that, this year three traditional artists have been invited by the Edinburgh International Festival!

“This is the first time ever that Rajasthani folk artists are presenting a folk performance at this international festival. Never ever have Rajasthani artists performed there, so it’s a big first and it came across because the festival director witnessed the performances at Jodhput RIFF last year” informs Bhatia.

Selecting the artists for the festival is not a piece of cake though. For a five-day festival, a whole year of research work is required. Bhatia explains the process – “We have regional festivals, which we organize in villages with local artists. That platform is for us to identify local talent as well as to encourage them to perform. We document artists too. We already have over 1200 artists whom we have documented in our database. So basically we have a fair amount of research activity taking place throughout the year.”

“Then we undertake technical developmental workshops for the artists, where they get familiar with equipment, which they otherwise won’t get a chance to. Also, international artists are invited to collaborate with these artists. Though they can’t speak each other’s languages, they understand each other’s music. Some of these collaborations have performed at Amsterdam, London, Mumbai and Delhi, etc.” he adds.

This year there are many firsts that the festival has added to its list of artists. Till now they have shortlisted 175 musicians, but the final count will be close to 145 before the main event begins in October.

Among their proud discoveries, is the Bhil community, a tribal community in Udaipur, “who have some of the most interesting and unusual instruments and have a peculiar and distinct way of celebration that combines music and dance.”

Recently, the Jodhpur RIFF had a preview session at Blue Frog in Mumbai to create awareness about the festival and give a sneak peek into what the festival will be all about. The night showcased some of the best performers from Sarangiya Langa community of Rajasthan. The evening experienced the magic and vibrancy of some popular songs and music performed by this amazing community. The musical heritage was brought alive by artists like Nek Mohammad Langa, Mubarak Langa and Kasam Khan Langa.

The Langa community consists of some of the better known traditional folk singers of the desert state. Both the Surnaiya Langa (who play the Surnai, an aero-phonic instrument) and the Sarangiya Langa perform on special occasions for the ‘Sindhi Sipahi’ community, who have been their traditional patrons for centuries. Even today, the Langas receive remuneration in the form of cash and kind from their patrons; camel or cattle are highly valued gifts.

It is incredible that in spite of rural poverty and the influence of media, some within the Langa community have managed to retain their traditional verve and charm and continue to stay connected to their roots. The spellbinding performances only left more to be desired. So if you wish to treat your ears, you know where to head this October!

Article by Ruchika Kher

‘Love is in the Air’, a musical production by Poor-Box Productions, began running on Valentine’s Day 2011. More than 6 successful performances later, Tracy deSouza catches up with director Kaizaad Kotwal, to get a bird’s eye view of the work involved in putting up a musical performance as grand as this.

According to the directors of Love is in the Air – Kaizaad Kotwal and Vishal Asrani – Bombay’s grand old musical days have passed. These music lovers believe that musical theatre is a dying art in desperate need of revival. With their cabaret style presentation of a large repertoire of famous vintage and contemporary Western classical songs, they give their audience quality entertainment that stands out. Let’s take a look at some of the effort that went into making the show what it is…

Sarosh Nanavaty

Performance Space

For the last six performances, Love is in the Air has been performed at The Comedy Store at the Palladium, in Pheonix Mills, Mumbai. In fact, the show was conceptualized after a conversation between Kaizaad Kotwal and Amar Agarwal, the owner of The Comedy Store. In time, the show plans to expand and move to a larger performance space. However, due to exquisite technical requirements, there’s a lot of work involved in finding a suitable performance space for this musical production.

Casting

This production features three extremely talented performers, who sing and dance through every single performance and three professional dancers, who make well-choreographed entries and exits between the lead performances. The vocal parts fell squarely on the shoulders of Vishaal Asrani, Mansi Multani and Sarosh Nanavaty while Rashmi Ramesh, Imran Khan and Abhishek Patel handled the choreographed dance moves. Kotwal was lucky to have met the show’s performers through their previous involvement with Poor-Box productions. “I knew Vishaal Asrani since 2005, when he auditioned for Art as a comedy actor” says Kotwal recalling that at that time he had no idea that Asrani could sing. Similarly, Sarosh Nanavaty worked as a comedy actor for Lift Kara De, a Hindi play and Mansi Multani was a part of I Am an Emotional Creature; while most of the dancers were recommended by Longinus Fernandes, the show’s choreographer.

While Kotwal was fortunate enough to source the performers he needed with little effort, it was quite a task to hire the most dedicated. “It’s rather hard to find performers who are really committed to musical theatre” he explains, “You always have to contend with the Bollywood pay scales and since we’re perfectionists, the rehearsals are rather laborious too.” He eventually decided on a smaller, more dedicated group for the cast.

Vishaal Asrani

Musical Training

“An excellent musical performance is not just about good singing and hitting the right notes” Kotwal tells us of the rigorous musical training that his cast underwent. As singers, none of the lead performers had professionally trained voices, but each had worked hard to attain a beautiful tone. But, the nature of musical theatre dictates that performers are not merely outstanding singers but wonderful actors as well, so that the intention of their song is very clear to the audience. “A lot of what we worked on was how to tell the story in song” he says, “because each song was a play in itself.” Eventually, the quality of the performance depends on the performer’s ability to set a tone, convey an idea or evoke a feeling though their music; and they were able to do this well thanks to extensive directorial advice.

Choreography

Dance is a crucial part of an emotion evoking performance and choreographed dance moves make all the difference. Bringing an air of professionalism from Hollywood and Bollywood into the picture, Longinus Fernandes examined the amount of dancing that would be feasible and developed moves to fit the repertoire perfectly. Being perfectionists, these performers only needed a few extensive performances to commit the moves to memory and make dance one of the most exciting aspects of the performance.

Costume Changes

Between performances, the main artists were forced to shed their clothes at dizzying speeds because each costume was markedly different from the next. The dazzling, attractive costumes not only made the show much more enjoyable, but they also influenced the order of the repertoire testing the discipline of the backstage crew tremendously.

Technicals

Working with Poor-Box’s own sound engineer and the engineer from The Comedy Store, the production team developed the perfect sound and light settings for each piece of music. However, the time required to arrive at the required settings was huge – close to three hours each.

Repertoire

“There are many songs one wants to do but some don’t suit the talent or vice versa” Kotwal tells us, as he explains how his team created their repertoire which ranges from modern pop like lady Gaga, to musical theater greats like Phantom of the Opera, and even includes the popular Hindi song, Aaj Ki Raat. “We have a rather fluid process for examining the songs we’d like to try, and then we use the process of elimination based on what worked and what didn’t” says Kotwal, “We also set the order of the songs, for practical and thematic purposes, by working on the strength of our performers.” The setting and order of the repertoire allow a great deal of interaction with the audience, which becomes the high-point of the show.

The Future

For the people involved with the musical, it is a constantly evolving journey. In the near future Love is in the Air will be expanded to include four more dancers and two more singers. The hard-working production team has already begun looking for new performance spaces, new talent, technical equipment and exciting ways to improve the repertoire. And the process for building a well produced musical begins again…

 Article by Tracy deSouza

Three decades later, 4 Tune Kookies makes a comeback with two new music videos. Back with a bang, their classic rock flavour is more mature; we catch up with frontman Ronnie Desai to find out what the band’s been up to.

One of the biggest classic rock cover bands of the 70s has regrouped, albeit in a different avatar. Theirs has been an interesting journey from fulltime professional musicians to ordinary people, and then back to musicians; time has spoken – these musicians are here to stay.

Babu (Saiprasad) Choudhary - Lead Guitarist

Way back in the 70s, four young lads in their early 20s ditched everything for rock and roll. Frustrated by an ever-changing line-up that had people walking in and out, they chose to be called ‘People’; unfortunately the name stuck even after the line-up was standardized. This band had Ronnie Desai as frontman, Babu Choudhary on lead guitar, Hosi Nanji on bass guitar and Ranjit Barot handled percussion.  Playing every major college event and festival across the city; ‘People’ was a highly sought after band.

While they did have some original tracks, ‘People’ mostly covered contemporary artists of the 70s – The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd – on popular demand. They always had a surplus of gigs lined up and made just enough money to keep them going; during these years they worked wholeheartedly as professional musicians with no other source of income. Sadly, a little money is never enough and at the end of the 70s, their performances drew to a close.

When their glory days as ‘People’ were waning, this crew decided to put a decade of music behind them and began looking for the kind of jobs that would not only pay the bills but also make their lives a little more comfortable. Ranjit Barot was lucky enough to retain his career as a professional musician by moving into a better paying industry –Hindi film music. The others were forced to get ‘real’ jobs; Babu Choudhary went into his family’s textile business, Hosi Nanji set up his own business and Ronnie Desai ventured into advertising as a copywriter; little did he know that this would bring his band back together several years on.

Derick Gomes - Drummer

Working as a copywriter took Desai into some of the major advertising agencies of his time; he began with Lintas (which is now called Lowe), he then worked at Chaitra (now Leo Burnett) and finally Enterprise (now Bates). Being involved in the composition of several jingles he was well acquainted with the ad fraternity and gradually decided to move back into the music industry. “I noticed how much money was being wasted in hiring studios to produce our jingles” explains Desai, “I realized we could have better options.” As soon as it was possible, Desai and two other partners set up a studio to cater to the sound recording needs of the ad industry. This studio did so well that Desai was able to open a string of studios, with creative names like Sound Bar, Ear Drum, Band Wagon and Sound Slap, within the next ten years. Today, Desai and Choudhary run a production company – Musica – that caters to several high profile ad agencies and bigwig Bollywood film producers.

Having their own studio made it easy to produce tracks and the original members got back to making music once again. That is, all except Ranjit Barot, who had to be replaced by Derick Gomes, due to his other commitments. Back together, they called themselves 4 Tune Kookies to reflect the quirkiness of their band.

4 Tune Kookies is aware that that the 21^st century has arrived, so their promotions carry their flag with a nifty whiff of ‘viral’ action to help them set sail. This tech-savvy band began by creating a net presence with the release of their first song, ‘I Don’ Need’ on YouTube. As a first release, this cute, fresh, animated video with hippie culture tunes, introduces you to their mellow, laidback sound. Their lyrics are spattered with renewed teenage angst and feel-good flavours.

The introductory video was followed up by a hilarious song that takes a peek into the life of an overworked, underpaid ‘Bade Kompany’ employee. This spunky video quickly garnered over 7,000 views and allowed the band to interact with the adoring public through the video channel’s comments section. “With every music video, we gain more fans and more people get introduced to our music” says Desai revealing that the next video is in the pipeline and should be out within a month.

Going the modern way of digital distribution, 4 Tune Kookies released their music on Sa Re Ga Ma’s online store for as low as Rs. 9.50. “Although we will collect a statement from Sa Re Ga Ma at the end of the year, we probably don’t expect to make a lot of money through online sales” Desai explains, “Our videos are being aired on popular music channels like VH1 and on radio channels as well, we’ll probably earn much more in royalties than through sales.”

With a classy new age strategy in place, what’s next for this classic rock act? This band is constantly writing music and they plan to produce new songs and videos consistently. Watch out for ‘Pakistani Spy’ – their next video and their next six to eight tracks – which will be released through the course of this year; and who knows, may be they’d be performing at a stage near you very soon.

Piya Sukanya

The Bombay Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s initiative towards revival of bandstand culture in the city has been gaining momentum since its beginning in February.
The weekly affair at the Hanging Gardens, Malabar Hill, where every Saturday between 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, young and talented musicians of Mumbai play their original compositions, has created quite a buzz amongst music enthusiasts in the city. The Big M is proud to be associated with this movement to bring out talented and budding musicians and give them a platform to reach a larger audience in the city.
As part of our special feature covering the ‘Revival of Bandtsand Culture’ initiative, we bring to you few of the performances held here in the month of March.
6th March ’10: As the sun set marking the beginning of a lovely Saturday evening, it was time for two hugely talented artists – Pia Sukanya and Anushka Anand to step on stage and take the eagerly awaiting crowd on a nice little musical journey. Pia Sukanya the first performer of the evening crooned compositions that everybody could relate to. Her ‘Boxes on a string’, was about moving out from her cushy apartment. ‘Just Routine’, was a memorable love song in which she sang of the simple gestures of her lover, which made her feel special.

Electro

The guy sitting next to me found her long skirt and styling to be a reminiscence of the eccentric singer Phoebe Buffay , from the popular sitcom ‘Friends’. At the mention of this, Sukanya laughs saying, “Never got that one before! I admire that character and I am a nomad too!”
I could not resist my curiosity when I saw one of the French tourists present there taking photographs of Sukanya and blushing whenever she looked his way. On my questioning Arnaud, the French guy, he said “I think Pia is a Rock Princess telling us a musical fairy tale.” He found the songs based on her personal life quite intriguing and Sukanya strikingly beautiful.
Sukanya’s songs were blended with strumming of guitar strings by Sanjoy Das. What distinguished this guitarist was the fact that he could play Raag Jhanjat on his Spanish guitar during one of Sukanya’s songs. Had I not seen him play it myself, I would have assumed it to be a Sitar playing the raag. It was indeed a rare feat. On enquiring Das informed me that his guitar wasn’t one of those ordinary assembly line ones, but made exclusively from the wood of North American forests, hand-crafted at Mexico.

A Sploosh of Acoustics

Rahul Pandey

After Sukanya, came an equally talented Anushka Anand a member of the band ‘Noush like sploosh’, accompanied with acoustics. She could play her Banjo, blow through the harmonica and sing at the same time, just like Jim Carey’s character from the movie ‘Mask’. The tall, lanky and chic singer swooned the audience with her catchy numbers.
There was an elderly gentleman who was wheelchair bound, yet he and his wife found the performances at Bandstand pleasant enough to come there every week from Tardeo. The gentleman said that it reminded him of his heydays; when Pt. Ravi Shankar carried out recitals early in the morning at The Gateway of India.
27th March ’10: Two weeks later, on March 27th, rock band ‘Coshish’ added to the now lengthy list of artists performing at this venue, as it gave the crowd a taste of some Hindi rock. Though, a fair amount of credit for getting the crowd in the groove also goes to the cheer-leaders who the band had brought along. Well, don’t get too excited. The cheer-leaders here are not the ‘short skirt babe’ type; but, a bunch of ‘Coshish’ fans who follow the band wherever it performs.
“I call them the Coshish Brigade”, corrects Mangesh Gandhi, the lead singer of the band. “Your readers can also follow us on Myspace for videos and Facebook for updates and joining the Coshish Brigade” he adds enthusiastically.

Coshish

“You spell ‘cool’ with a ‘c’ and hence ‘Coshish’ is with a ‘c’ as we are so cool!” Gandhi added explaining the detour from the conventional spelling.
In the rest of the departments the band is pretty conventional, delivering what you expect. A bunch of four long haired guys: Srikant Srinivasan (lead guitar), Anish Nair (bass guitar) joined by Humza Kazi (drums) and Gandhi (lead singer) to whom you have already been introduced.
During the performance, the band was joined by Kaushik Ramchandran, a self-trained classical singer from ‘Paradigm Shift’, a Mumbai based band. The alaaps of Ramchandran blended well with the sound of Coshish and the crowd loved every bit of it.
It seemed that the quick thinking and on-stage improvisations succeeded in connecting with the crowd. And this is probably what made the band a choice of Radio-Mirchi. Yes guys, the band got an opportunity to perform on this stage after crossing Radio Mirchi’s battleground.
So, next Saturday, if you feel the need to unwind and soak yourself in some great original music, feel welcome to take a walk at Hanging Gardens.

What is in it for The Big M readers?

Well, if you always felt that you had the talent which can be appreciated beyond the four walls of your bathroom too. Then here is your chance to do the dance, I mean song. Call up Kavita Sharma, 022-22693896 or mail her at ks@bombaychamber.com, and get a chance to do a ten minutes opening act next Saturday or perform in the Grand Finale.

Article by Kirti Tarang