Some random thoughts..
RSJ and Indian rock music
RSJ has made a difference to the rock loving public in India. But it’s a real pity that it is only reaching the hard-core music people. Even there, not even most of them. Many people we have spoken to haven’t even heard of it. And to add to the probs, it never comes on time, not in Calicut anyway. Perhaps they should go on a subscription drive, do some of their rock shows in places like Calicut etc, by that we mean the B and C grade towns instead of concentrating only on metros. May be the build up events, the curtain raisers at least could be done in such towns. Now that would increase awareness about the magazine by leaps and bounds. For those of you who haven’t yet heard about them, do check out www.rsjonline.com . Perhaps RSJ should reduce the subscription rates a lot, might make for a vaster and more loyal reader base. Those GIR tapes/CDs, the Smoking Guns album, Orange Street album, Bombay Black album etc are fantastic efforts. But believe me, they help you in whichever way possible. By putting up your articles on their site and magazine, by covering your shows on the site and magazine, by putting up whatever news you supply on their website etc.
Indian Rock music scene in general
We have seen many people who have loved rock music, been to shows et al during their college days, suddenly shy away once they start working and making money, when they could really do their bit towards it. They will only agree to go to concerts by international artistes. It is sad that when a rock show is planned in their little town they will not contribute the smallest amounts by way of sponsorship or donation. We are speaking from experience here. Even a 500 bucks would go a long way in many cases, after all, how many rock shows will their town see in a year?! But alas, this is the situation. Suddenly, we are faced with questions; what will be the coverage, what mileage will I get, how many people will there be, Calicut?, no, not worth it!!!
Doing a rock show
It takes a lot to do a rock show. Let us tell you, a hell of a lot of leg-work goes into each and every show. And almost invariably the worst part is the hunt for sponsorship, where one has to go around with a begging bowl. Then comes permissions, corporation, police, electricity department, halls etc. Entertainment tax is another stupid thing that we have to face. Can you believe it, 35% of the face value of a ticket has to be paid as entertainment tax to the corporation, and that too, in advance!!! After the show, you can submit the unsold tickets, give a statement and claim the amounts due to you. But even your best Woodland shoes would have its soles worn thin by then!! We are still to get amounts from Calicut Corporation for shows done in 1997!!!! If you don’t pay the tax your tickets won’t be sealed, which means it becomes illegal to sell them. We also have to put up with hordes of corporation staff who come with the intention of seeing the program free under the guise of inspection for tax evasion. We have had occasions where a staff of the Calicut Corporation demanded money and booze at a show to enjoy the show better and threatened us with dire consequences if we didn’t pay up!
The saddest situation are the freeloaders, many of them genuine music lovers, who wait till the last moment to get a free pass and when they end up not getting one, their egos are bruised so much that they decide to boycott the show! We have had an incident where the lead singer of a band, which made it to GIR, was caught red-handed without a ticket. Some of the local musicians feel that they are entitled to free passes. We have also had an incident where we wanted to hire a drum-kit for a show and approached a local musician who normally hires out his drums. He refused to hire it out to us. The reason was that we had not given him a free pass for the last show. And we thought all musicians were broadminded souls!!!! When tickets don’t sell till the last day it is always too much tension for the organizers. We wish atleast the genuine music lovers would buy tickets for shows well in advance.
Support for Indian rockers
Why do we still not support Indian rockers? None of my many acquaintances, self-professed rock fans would buy an Indian band’s tape/CD. At shows they want only covers. We are not against covers, on the contrary we feel that covers are a must in shows. An all-original set is not a perfectly desirable thing, according to me. There should be plenty of covers as well as originals. The mix can vary according to the crowd. Luckily we have never had crowd problems, may be because we never had crowds in the first place!! Jokes apart, we have always felt that if the music is great, the crowd will never have the inclination to make trouble.
Promoting an Indian band
What would be like if a band could tour to promote itself? Our concept of it is like this: hire a vehicle like a Tempo Traveller, a/c, if funds permit. Load up a minimum sound gear, enough to do a small hall or so. Get sponsorships from your local town, mainly to cover expenses for diesel, food, sound expenses etc. One could paint the vehicle with the sponsors’ names. Some six months in advance, start writing to colleges in the areas you plan to tour; it could be as small as your district or as large as your state. Write also to the hotels that have bands playing. Say you will play free or for a token amount at the hotel in exchange for accommodation and food. Ask the colleges for a token amount. As soon as the replies start coming in arrange schedules. Play in the colleges by day and hotels by night. Get some posters printed showing all playing dates and venues. Put up a website. Try and get some free ads and write-ups in newspapers, TV Channels etc. Play whatever the crowd wants, while playing originals in between. Talk to them, ask them to come for their next shows, do press interviews. In short, build up a base. Whatever else anyone says against it, playing in a hotel on a regular basis helps. Even the little money each month is better than nothing. Your repertoire of songs increase. You are practicing daily, getting varied requests. Various people get to hear you. You build up a list of regulars who will vouch for you. And you will have an address where you can be reached easily. Been trying to sell this idea to many bands, but none of them have time. Some are too lazy for the slog, some are frightened at the prospect, some want 2 much money. Believe us, money is one of the main things u can really compromise on here. If it’s a place you have never played before and are unlikely to play in future, cut down the rates drastically and go play there.
Sound Engineering
Sound is one BIG aspect here. There are umpteen guys who do sounds, almost allof them don’t know what is what. They don’t know songs, dunno where the lead comes, dunno when drums kick in. But many of them have good equipment. If one of the band members or someone close to the band can learn to twiddle knobs, great! Its not really tuff to learn. Ofcourse, in some places like the Gujarathi Hall at Calicut, where acoustics are lousy, you will get jacked! But atleast if this guy can sit with the local sound guy n tell him, ok, here comes the guitar solo, here the voice is going to hit a high note, etc, it would help one hell of a lot! Of course, if the organizers can afford it, go for Reynolds, no one else can touch them. If not, settle for a local sounds, specify equipment needed and use your sound guy. You will probably save the organizers anywhere between 25 and 50 thousand rupees.
Foreign bands
One of our dreams is to get a foreign band come and perform in Calicut. A rather far-fetched and remote dream at one time. Now with the internet being what it is, it does seem like a possibility soon. Not talking bout big bands here. May be we could take care of their accommodation, food, sounds and inland travel and may be even pay them whatever possible. As for them they get a holiday in an exotic locale (www.calicutcity.com,www.calicut.org) and get to play and reach out to a totally new audience. Any bands reading this?!!!! Been talking to a band in Bangladesh and a lady guitarist of a band in Oz. Keeping my fingers crossed. If you guys have any links to anyone who’ll be interested, lemme know pls.
Rave magazine
Rave is another quality magazine. www.raveindia.com But somehow, the main concentration seems to be in making the mag look good. Mind you, it does look great. And it does focus a lot on art, Indian classical music, Dance etc, the rock content does get swallowed some times. And the subscription rate, when you compare it with that of RSJ, is dirt-cheap. The content is there, the looks are great, but somewhere it lacks that special something that would make it a class act.
Sponsors
Getting sponsorships is the difficult part, in a place like Calicut. Rock??!!! No way!! So what we have done over the years is to try and go for smaller sponsorships. Actually, more work for us, begging around, but there is really no other alternative. But despite all this, there have been people who have really helped us over the years. They have given us money in a jiffy without asking for the earth in return!
Some of them are :
Ganesh Bhatt. He is a friend, with whom we discussed doing a show with Indus Creed. We were so set on doing it, even had a sponsor lined up, who had agreed in principle. But the sponsor backed out a week or so before the show and we had decided to cancel the show. This gem of a guy, just put his hand over the phone as I was dialling Bombay and said he’ll foot the bill. How much would it take, totally, he asked. One lakh, said we. Okay, was what he said. His next query was how much he would lose. 25 grand, we said. He was okay with it and the show was on. Though we got the credits for the show, he should be the one who should get the entire credit. I don’t know if he would like me putting his name here but atleast at this stage we would like to give credit where its due. Sadly, he still has to get a refund of entertainment tax from the Calicut Corporation.
Sakthi Soft Drinks, distributors for Thums Up gave us most of the money for the very first show by 13 AD. Captain Nair, Balachandran, Suresh etc were the people involved. They also sponsored a Children’s Painting competition that we organized in 1992.
· BPL gave us a good deal for Usha Uthup. So did Santoor.
· Feroply gave us Shiva.
· CD-FX gave us our very first Krosswindz show.
· Chakolas Fairness Oil did the honours with Krosswindz in 2002.
· Coke made Buddha Blown possible in 2004.
· Airtel made Evergreen possible in 2004 ·
Capital Guest House, New Delhi, made ASTHRA possible in 2004
Then there were :
· VNM
· Standard Tile Works
· Asma Towers
· Malabar Palace
· Vythiri Resorts
· Hotel Maharani
· Ace Motors
· Premier Hawai
· Kerala Roadways
· Alukkas Jewellers
· Beach Hotel
· Live Band
· Aawaz
· Saptaswara |
