{"id":23814,"date":"2012-07-21T10:29:47","date_gmt":"2012-07-21T10:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=23814"},"modified":"2012-07-21T10:29:47","modified_gmt":"2012-07-21T10:29:47","slug":"punk-sans-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/punk-sans-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Punk sans protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aradhna Wal<\/strong>\u00a0watches pop-punk band The Vinyl Records play to a bored corporate crowd and wonders what happened to rebellion<\/em>
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Girls not gone wild<\/strong> The Vinyl Records
Photo: Soumik Mukherjee<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSHORT, AGGRESSIVE<\/strong>\u00a0songs, unapologetic lyrics and a do-it-yourself ideology \u2014 punk can amp up crowds, making them go wild. Except in Gurgaon, at a posh brewery, in front of unreceptive corporates waiting for the house DJ to play Pitbull\u2019s greatest hits. To its credit, The Vinyl Records, an all-girl Arunachali punk band, played on undeterred.
\n<\/strong>The band was formed in 2010, by lead guitarist Banu Jini, drummer Mithy Tatak and bassist Minam Tekseng. In 2011, vocalist and keytarist Cheyyrian Bark, from Assam, joined them. The four are from Delhi\u2019s Arttree Institute of Performing Arts and Music and have been playing regularly on the city circuit. Excitable and perky, they cite influences such as CSS, Ramones, and The Strokes.
\n<\/strong>\u201cWe\u2019re not strictly punk,\u201d the girls say. \u201cWe\u2019re post-punk, indie and new wave.\u201d
\nWatching them belt out decidedly tame tunes, you wonder if punk\u2019s ethos ever carried over to Indian musicians. \u201cIndian bands basically think punk is Blink 182,\u201d remarked a bemused, bespectacled spectator, one of the few paying attention to the music. \u201cIt\u2019s not.\u201d Neither is The Vinyl Records. It is pop-punk, known less flatteringly as bubblegum-punk.
\n\u201cThey are sweet girls and I\u2019m fond of them. But they are very pop. Punk has been diluted to pop,\u201d says Rishu Singh, founder of record label ennui.BOMB and manager of Mumbai-based post-punk band Blek, one of the girls\u2019 favourites. \u201cThe message is no longer of a counter culture.\u201d It\u2019s hard not to agree, as lyrics like \u201cdon\u2019t break my heart\u201d evoke a latter-day Avril Lavigne rather than the Arctic Monkeys, who they claim to be influenced by.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do the feminist thing. This is an all-girl band. So it\u2019s about girl power,\u201d says Minam chirpily, as Mithi seconds her with a double-fisted air punch. Cheyyrian looks on sternly, as if to corroborate the seriousness of a feminist message. But their enthusiasm doesn\u2019t survive the journey from the stage to the seats.
\nSays Blek vocalist Rishi Bradoo, \u201cPunk is an easy sound. Many bands inadvertently start with it, but they need to evolve. Indian bands have to understand the difference between a genre and the original style.\u201d That is The Vinyl Records\u2019 shortcoming.
\n\u201cI saw them a year ago. They were good, but they needed work,\u201d recalls Ashwin Sharma, from the\u00a0Rolling Stone India<\/em>. \u201cThat might be because of a lack of live gigs. Venues stick to better-known bands that play famous covers. Bands need to be onstage to get better. Confidence only comes with live gigs.\u201d He adds that some highly talented punk bands couldn\u2019t make it because of the struggle. \u201cLavender Carnage, from Delhi was good. But it disbanded. Supersonics, from Kolkata, has reunited. They have that punk sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Excitable and perky, the girls are trying to do \u2018the feminist thing\u2019. But their music needs more than just enthusiasm<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThere may not be a proper scene,\u201d says Rishi, \u201cbut there are bands. The Riot Peddlers, from Mumbai, has tracks called\u00a0Chai Paani<\/em>\u00a0andSau Rupiya<\/em>. That is the sound and the ethos that goes with the genre.\u201d Socially aware, The Riot Peddlers tries to galvanise people into taking action against corruption.
\nHowever, it is in a minority. \u201cFew Indian musicians are trying to bring in the \u201970s counter culture. That movement has happened. They may be musically similar to punk\/post punk, but have nothing to do with, say, Sid Vicious\u201d asserts Singh.
\nDespite a mediocre gig, The Vinyl Records has believers among Indian musicians. But to make it big their sound has to evolve beyond pale imitation. For girls to play shows to indifferent squares is punk. Now they need the tunes to back up the attitude.
\nAradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.\u00a0<\/em>
\naradhna@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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