Calcutta

Calcutta was a whirlwind for me. I arrived at Calcutta airport after a pretty difficult journey (difficult transfer at Mumbai Aiport) at 9am in the morning. Everyone else in the party had arrived the night before and so had got a night of sleep in and were settling into the day as I arrived at the apartment.

We were whisked off to a meeting with some local promoters who talked to us about the live scene in India and Calcutta specifically.

Dubber and Jez’s India blog is a good place to see some video footage too of those conversations.

We were staying with Jay Singh and her lovely family. They have an apartment full of books and music and we had the apartment upstairs. As a result of this we were treated to home cooked food throughout our stay (which was amazing) and on the final night Jay and her family have a band called Pink Noise – they are Jay (singing),  Amyt (guitar), Gyan (Bass), Jiver (Drums). We all crammed in to their little music room to listen to three songs. You can hear those same songs on their Myspace page.

Here are some piccies and video from our private concert!

I’m In India again

Yes, I’m back in India – almost exactly one year on from my last trip. Last year’s trip if you remember was as a result of me winning the UK Young Music Entrepreneur Award 2008. So last year the British Council organised my trip to Mumbai and Bangalore to meet key people from the music industry out here.

Well a year on and I have developed proper friendships with some of the people I met last year, for example Tasneem Vahanvaty who works for the British Council in Mumbai and Gaurav Vaz who does so many things including playing bass with The Raghu Dixit Project and being Head of Programming Head of RadioVeRVe

I have kept up with Tas through the odd communication and she knows my every move from my Twitter stream! She came to stay with me in October and there was no news I could give her she didn’t already know via Twitter and a dose of psychic power!

Gaurav and I also follow each over Twitter but have also had the opportunity to work together on a number of smaller projects but namely when The Raghu Dixit Project came to the UK in July and played a couple of gigs in Birmingham that I put together for them (and of course had all the lads stay at my house which was great fun).

So both Tas and Gaurav have shown me around their home towns (Mumbai and Bangalore respectively) and I have given them both the official ‘Clare’ tour of Birmingham.

I also met Vijar Nair when I was here last year – and he deservedly won the Young International Music Entrepreneur Award this year and so while he was in Birmingham we started to plot some joint projects. He manages the Raghu Dixit Project and helped organise their trip to Birmingham in July and next year we are planning a conference in Birmingham – that looks very likely to happen too.

As part of the build up to this bigger project – I talked about wanting to see more of India and how I wanted to explore more links with the classical and folk music industries as we didn’t really look at those as all last year. So he set up this tour around the Unconvention event he is hosting next week in Mumbai – and here I am.

If you want to feel dizzy – have a look at my homemade map of where we are going over the next few days!

Today’s News from Mumbai

My thoughts go out to all those great people we met in Mumbai – since hearing the news today I have checked in with Tas – and she is ok – but it is still depressing to see the city I have become so familiar with rocked by this news.

Our thoughts are with everyone affected.

Results of the press interviews in Mumbai

The article in the Hindustan Times (with the hilarious photo!) was published on Sunday 23rd November – here is an e-version. I’ll try and scan it in properly too…

The DNA article is in today – click on this link and then click on Page 8 and you’ll find us!

 

Also – I’m off to the BBC on Sunday for an interview on the Asian Network – so be sure to tune in if you are still up at 10.30pm!

Tasneem

Tasneem Vahanvaty is a Project Manager at the British Council in Bombay. Tas has been the very best kind of host that Stephen, Adam and I could have hoped for. Claire from the British Council in London has also been a great companion on this trip – but I know that she won’t mind if I dedicate this post to Tasneem.

Tas has organised a really good tour for us here. We have met a real range of music industry companies and individuals – as I’m sure anyone reading this blog can testify.

On reflection we all feel that we have all benefitted from this trip and we all feel pretty confident that we will use the knowledge and contacts we now all have in the future. We will be feedback back more formally to the British Council but we have a lot of positive news to share.

But Tas has gone beyond the call of duty (her mum has hardly seen her!) and has taken us out for a range of different Indian cuisines – ordering for us – advising us on what to eat (and what NOT to eat!). Therefore we can all report no signs of Delhi belly and instead of losing weight – we have all gained a few pounds through the delicious food and drink!

She has also given us a really honest picture of the music industry in India and you can see that the relationships that she has with the people we meet are really good as they all have a lot of complimentary things to say about her…. and so now do we!

Thanks Tas!! xxx

 

This blog post would not be complete without saying thank you to Nerindra who was out driver in Bombay who put up with picking us up and dropping us off at endless meetings, restaurants and cafes and more! He also got up unfeasably early to take Stephen and I to see the early morning fish market:

Saturday at Blue Frog

Saturday evening we travelled towards the south of Mumbai to visit Blue Frog - Mumbai’s newest music venue. The club has been really well put together and is a quite beautiful venue. Although the clubs plays host to a wide range of musicians it certainly has the feel of an up market jazz club where you can dine and listen to music – or just come in and listen. Certainly the programme has its fair share of jazz and you can see why it would work:

Nice.

They have big screens in the roof and so I talked about the Mother India – 21st Century Remix that has been put together by Kalaphool in the UK – it would work really well here.

I also did a bit of a plug for Soweto Kinch – because I think he would work really well in this space too!

We also went behind the club where they have the Blue Frog record label and production studios. The studios are state of the art and really well put together so that they are nice places to hang out and do your recordings. Apparently A R Rahman loves these studios and uses them overnight when he is putting things together!

and you can see why:

Saturday and the press in Mumbai

On Saturday we had two press interviews. One with DNA and one with the Hindustani Times. They were both good interviews but the photoshoots were very different to anything I have been involved with in the UK. I’ll post up the results when they come out!

Send off for Claire of Braekeleer

On Friday night we were determined to go out to say goodbye to Claire de Braekeleer (or Claire of Braekeleer as she has been known on this trip) so we went to a local club called Poison as it promised lots of Bollywood tracks to dance to. We got there at 9.30pm and it was empty so we went out to find a bar in the meantime and they were all FULL! So after trailing about for a bit in the car we gave up and bought some beer and sat in the car (note Stephen trying to hide from the camera)!

When we headed back to the club and found that it was only playing retro music and a bit of drum and bass – so not quite what we had hoped for but I think Claire was happy with her send off…

Friday 21st November

This morning we met up with Anand Sorapur from Phat Phish Records in Mumbai. This was a really important meeting for me as Anand is doing a range of work that involves discovering and working with indigenous communities that make music throughout India. They have a commercial arm to the work that they do with the record label but also spend time looking for and nurturing musicians because they believe in what they do musically. So I talked to them about the work that Sound It Out does in Birmingham as Phat Phish seem to have a very similar ethos.

Phat Phish also have ambitious plans to give the music they discover a high profile platform on prime time tv allowing local music to break out of its local constraints and have a wider audience. I will be looking out for that on the internet!

 

In the afternoon we met with Vishal & Shekhar who are the highly successful Bollywood composers who have been involved in many smash hits (including Dostana which we saw at the weekend!). If you read their Wikipedia you will see just how prolific they are. Vishal is also the lead singer in Pentagram the successful Indian band that we keep hearing about and he sings many of the Bollywood tracks too.

They were able to talk more about the music writing process for Bollywood films and sill us in with a few stories from the stars too!

Thursday afternoon in south Mumbai

Tas had spoken to us about the south like it is a different city – and it feels like this. The first thing you notice is that the buildings get bigger and more grand:

and also the roads are wider and there are no rickshaws:

Went went shopping in the markets and bazaars and saw the famous gateway of India:

We also took a walk in the evening down to the sea front and as usual Adam made friends with the locals!