Music Station
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Shishunala Sharif is recognised as the first ever Muslim poet in Kannada literature
Mumbai, May 1, 2011
F
The man who makes Kannada
rock
usio’ is a much-abused word. Anything, from tabla and sitars layered over Lady Gaga’s newest hit, to AR Rahman’s music as rendered by the Pussycat Dolls, can be called ‘fusion’. But how did Bangalorebased musician Raghu Dixit make a tired formula work in an oversaturated market? After five years of prolonged efforts, his catchy Kannada tunes set to contemporary beats are winning audiences across the globe. Dixit is playing a full summer tour in the United Kingdom June-onwards, collaborating with English contemporary folk band Bellowhead, playing alongside Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant on BBC’s Later...with Jools Holland, and doing music for Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge, a Yash Raj film. At a time when “knowing how to play ‘Hotel California’ and Iron Maiden songs perfectly made you a rockstar”, as Dixit puts it, he wrote his own songs, inspired by 18th century poets and their songs. “It was very uncool of me,” he laughs. “But I wanted my audience to be able to headbang, and at the same time appreciate their Kannadiga legacy.”
Strawberry Fields and Bryan Adams Raghu Dixit’s initial rise, from a microbiology student in Mysore to a local musician of some note, follows a trajectory familiar to many aspiring musicians around the country. He started with a band cobbled together for the college festival circuit — “We named it Eclipse, which was appropriate, because the band eclipsed eight days later,” he laughs. This was followed by numerous other rounds of the college festival circuit, culminating at a landmark win at National Law School’s music festival, Strawberry Fields. A win at FM station Radio City’s music competition led to Dixit being handpicked as the opening act for Bryan Adams’ concert in Bangalore. Twenty-five thousand fans chanting “Bryan…Bryan...” as Raghu’s band — by now called Antaragni, or ‘the fire within’ — set up their opening set, might have unsettled a lesser musician. But Dixit won over the crowds. In what can now be considered a trademark move, he served them a heady combination of different genres. “We did a bizarre Carnatic version of ‘Hotel California’,” he recalls. “When the alap started, they were like what
RAGHU DIXIT 101 _ Popular songs include ‘Mysore se aayi’, ‘Mumbai’, ‘Antaragni’, ‘Hey Bhagwan’, ‘Har Saans Mein’, _ Heavily influenced by Shishunala Sharif, Kannada saint, poet and social reformer in the 18th century _ Is composing music for Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge, a Yash Raj production releasing this year the f**k! But as soon as they heard the opening chords of the song, they went back to mad cheering. It was hysterical.” The pivotal moment of his career came in 2005, when recording label executives met him in Mumbai to tell him that he wasn’t good-looking enough. “I was standing at a traffic crossing, already in tears, when I got a call about an empty slot at Zenzi Bar in Bandra,” remembers Dixit. Dixit, considering this to be his final act, agreed. It was at this concert that he met Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani. Impressed by his music, the duo offered to begin a recording label and launch his album. One thing led to another, and it was at a one-time performance at a festival in London that Dixit’s ambitions went global. After some hurdles, he obtained a UK manager and entertainment lawyer to represent him, and started planning.
The slow climb to the top The leap to foreign shores was a relatively painless one for the musician, who harnessed everything from Bollywood star power to online social networking. “Anybody who entered Vishal’s studio was made to listen to my music, and then he would
record their comments on it. These videos became testimonials we used to promote the CD,” says Dixit. His first manager, Vijay Nair of Only Much Louder, puts Dixit through to the right people in the UK who can help him get gigs and show slots. Dixit’s businesslike approach to his career is apparent. He uses the word ‘strategy’ at least 15 times in a two-hour conversation, and has a network of public relations and management teams which stretch from Bangalore to London. He has an intimate knowledge of the music industry, and can talk for hours, with technical depth and insight, about the relationship between record labels and the internet. “I’m in this for the long haul,” he says seriously. “I don’t want to be an overnight success.” Dixit calls his first UK tour “the invasion”, which is a pretty accurate description. Dixit invested forty lakhs — “I live very frugally,” he says — and spent it all on arranging concerts and airfare. He performed ceaselessly at ‘showcases’ for music industry professionals, toured in bars and clubs across the UK, and spoke to numerous record label executives. He performed at festivals in front of an audience of three — “one lady and two kids”, and at showcases with only twelve people in attendance. Dixit also gives importance to forging personal connections with fans. “There was a fan of mine who rescued me when I was in a jam last year. I was stuck with no place to go, and he housed and fed the band — all five of us — for 45 days. We’ve become good friends now, and he is helpful to the point of cutting my calls and calling back to save me money!” Dixit also gives out concert passes to loyal fans, and will call out names of people in the audience, and thank them for their support. He is on Twitter and Facebook “sometimes for hours at a time”, patiently inviting fans to his concerts and responding to their gushing with humility and enthusiasm. “They’re an investment which requires no money at all.” Dixit’s second album is releasing in September. Dixit, who has a penchant for the first person plural, referring not only to his band, but also to his PR and management teams as ‘We’, says, “We have a plan for the months to come. And we continue to make small changes, according to what happens. But I am very specific about the goals I will achieve, and by when.”
Drumming up a storm The Ju Percussion Group’s raucous and joyful performances in India last week left audiences thunderstruck Apoorva Dutt The young musicians of the Ju Percussion Group, suited up in black formals and smiling politely as they walk onto the NCPA stage, didn’t seem capable of what they will shortly do — get to work on the 5,000 kg worth of percussion instruments with hands and drumsticks like there’s no tomorrow. They bang, clang, yell, dance, act and slap their way through an 80-minute performance which includes Bollywood medleys and songs from the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. Their performance is raucous, joyful, and leaves the audience stunned. The instruments are both Eastern and Western, with marimbas, xylophones and some drums being used to full capacity. But what united the seemingly incongruous musical arrangements was the controlled energy — producing an experience which had the audience clapping wildly, and children walking out of the hall imitating their new idols. The packed houses and standing ovations that greeted their show, ‘Heartbeat
d_apoorva@dnaindia.net
Raghu Dixit, India’s first truly crossover rock musician, talks to Apoorva Dutt on how Kannada songs with a contemporary twist, combined with years of hard work, have enabled him to make a mark on the global stage
of Taiwan’ in Mumbai and Delhi last week would have hardly surprised the members of the Ju Percussion Group, for they have drumming successfully in Taiwan and all over the world for over a quarter of a century. Their artistic director, Ju Tzong-ching, is a pioneer in the percussion field. “It was not long after my return from music studies in Vienna that I started my percussion group in 1986.” “We’ve encountered many frustrations over the years,” 57-year-old Ju says. “But with the support and encouragement of audiences, we’ve made the impossible possible.” Ju first encountered percussion music when he played in the brass band of his local high school. He became an accomplished wind musician, but it was the ‘supporting’ percussion instruments that caught Ju’s fancy. He soon dropped out of formal education and began to pursue percussion music full-time. They celebrated their silver anniversary last January with two memorable concerts in Taipei, featuring the Taiwanese First Lady Chou Mei-ching as the surprise guest performer during the rendition of two encore pieces, ‘Love Story’ and ‘Body Language’. Ju has recently ventured into teaching very young children in Taipei the same skills that inspired him as a child. It was in the 1970s that the initial interest in music began, thanks to Taiwan’s booming economy and maturing cultural identity. Around this time children began to be sent — sometimes forcefully — to learn music, remembers Ju. “It became a painful process for them,” he says. “I want to bring back the enjoyment a child can naturally get from music.” d_apoorva@dnaindia.net
Resurrecting that bluesy feeling with Robert Johnson Musicians will gather in Bangalore next week to celebrate 100 years of the Father of Blues — Robert Leroy Johnson Elizabeth Soumya
L
ong after a certain historic birth, far away from the Mississippi delta, two musicians in Bangalore, Gurudarshan Somayaji and Vinoo Mathew, are gripped with an intuitive certainty that it’s a somewhat significant year for the blues. Their intuition derives from a monochrome memory of a young roving musician born on May 8, 1911. Dressed in a black suit and crowned with a slanted pork pie hat. He moseyed from town to town in and around Mississippi, pausing at street corners, juke joints and Saturday night dances, to strum out a potent refrain that would never cease to be remembered, revered and covered. And so it is that musicians from across India will come together to revel in ‘An Ode to the Blues’ in Bangalore next week,
with music concerts and movie screenings at CounterCulture on 7 May. While Johnson died at 27 having recorded merely 30 songs in 1936 and 1937, blues and rock musicians maintain that you ‘cannot not’ be influenced by him. Eric Clapton released Me and Mr Johnson in 2004, while Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin said: “Robert Johnson, to whom we all owed our existence, in some way.”
THE FATHER OF BLUES Robert Johnson is one of the most admired and influential Delta blues artists despite his short life and the small number of recordings that he left. His songs, such as ‘Sweet Home Chicago’, ‘Come on in My Kitchen’, and ‘Crossroad Blues’, are blues classics played by thousands of blues artists and adapted by rock 'n' roll artists such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton. His life and work influenced the growth and talent of such famous musicians as Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Elvis
What’s it about Mr Johnson? Ravi Khanolkar tries to put his finger on what made Johnson tick. “In his early teens, Johnson heard the music of Son House, Willy Brown and Charlie Patton. He soaked in the sounds of all three, fused them into one and created his own style.” It’s Johnson’s style of playing slide guitar and his vocal delivery that set him apart. For Srish Chander, who plays the rhythm guitar for Blues Before Sunrise, a young Bangalore band, ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ and ‘Crossroad Blues’ are his best songs.
Borrowing from the blues Next week’s concert will also try to resurrect the image of the blues, a genre that’s often typecast as music for an older audience. In fact, today’s more popular forms of music can trace their roots to
From left: Blues musician Buddy Guy, who performed at the Mahindra Blues Festival this year, the cover of King of Delta Blues singles release of 1961, and a portrait of Robert Johnson
the blues. “Many big rock acts were influenced by the blues,” says Rudy Wallang of Soulmate. Chander points out that “heavy metal has been influenced by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and so on, while these guys were in turn influenced by the blues.” Khandolar pitches in with more de-
tail of borrowed blues: “The entire debut album of The Rolling Stones was made up of blues covers. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was a reworked song, ‘Gallows Pole’ a blues cover.”
Back to blues Wallang sees a blues revival underway, with younger audiences being drawn to the genre. He remembers a gig a few years ago, when the band’s blues-heavy music was received “rather enthusiastically”, in a line-up that included heavy metal acts. Some popular blues bands include The Beet Root Blues Band, Chronic Blues Circus, HFT, Saturday Night Blues, Ministry of Blues and Blues Conscience. Owen Roncon, director of the Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai earlier this year, which included names such as Buddy Guy, Jonny Lang, Shemekia Copeland, and Matt Schofiel, was wary of doing a blues-only festival. But Roncon never expected the young crowds that turned up. Somayaji points out that South East Asia is now one of the biggest consumers of blues and jazz, with major festivals in Thailand and Malaysia. “Blues has lived on for a hundred years and will survive”. And that’s reason enough to break into the blues. e_soumya@dnaindia.net