{"id":46056,"date":"2013-04-05T16:32:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T11:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/test.tehelka.com\/?p=46056"},"modified":"2013-04-05T16:32:18","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T11:02:18","slug":"indie-creed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/indie-creed\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie Creed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Click to zoom<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nA CLOSE UP\u00a0<\/strong>of oars easing through water. A voice says, \u201cAbhi<\/em>\u00a0light\u00a0bahut sahi hai<\/em>.\u201d Cut to a man in a boat wielding a knock-off Givson guitar and a 1000 Watt smile. Rushnaf Wadud is the lead vocalist for Chittagong-based Blunderware, who actually call themselves a BARFI band (Blues, Alternative, Rock, Folk, Indie). He\u2019s at the Okhla Barrage in Delhi to shoot a video for the Tehelka Music Project. The web series, started by TEHELKA in late 2010<\/a>, to discover new acts and provide a platform for independent music in India, completes 50 episodes this week.
\nAs the sun sets and the boat passes by the feather reed fields, Wadud breaks into\u00a0Afim Chaash<\/em>, his band\u2019s only single, which he says he wrote on a napkin. He sings, in Bangla, \u201cI farmed my heart in search of opium, and only my heart understands the intoxication.\u201d Unusual lyrics, unstructured staging, largely unknown performers; the Tehelka Music Project now occupies the intersection between college battles of the bands, late-night jam sessions in basements and bars, amateur YouTube videos, and a burgeoning interest in independent music. \u201cHaving followed similar shows in France and England \u2014\u00a0Une Soir\u00e9e de Poche, The Black Cab Sessions, A Take Away Show and Watch Listen Tell\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 I wanted something similar for Indian acts: the proverbial \u2018scene\u2019,\u201d says creator Andrew Clarance. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t any dearth of content or talent. It was all just waiting to be tapped.\u201d
\n<\/strong>Independent music web-zine NH7, which conducts the famous Weekender Music Festival, was the first to pick up on the series, asking readers to watch the show for the \u201cdeftly recorded audio\u201d. NH7 editor-in-chief Arjun S Ravi says that the production quality has now improved with time. \u201cDSLR technology has allowed musicians to shoot really compelling videos, and the team has exploited it really well.\u201d He loves the honesty of the episodes, \u201cThe edits retain the awkwardness of the bands\u2019 introductions, which I thought was really cool. Andrew has taken a simple idea and added character to it.\u201d
\nAs television executives woke to the growing market of a generation itching for better music by introducing shows like\u00a0Coke Studio India\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Dewarists<\/em>, the Project was already up and running. Instead of the studio or palaces in Rajasthan, the team shot in warehouses, in quiet bookstores, in parks with onlookers, in hotel rooms, by the sea, on rooftops, in abandoned bungalows and even the TEHELKA basement. The basement, a Twilight Zone few venture into, is filled with old issues, cobwebs and old furniture. Very apt for Sulk Station, an electronic\/triphop duo from Bengaluru. Soon the Project was being mentioned alongside prominent music shows. Tossed Salad, an independent lifestyle website from Pune called it the \u201ctrue indie show\u201d. And as Clarance puts it, indie cred is everything.
\nTHE BIG-BUDGET TV<\/strong>\u00a0shows made household names of formerly unknown acts. But Clarance felt that the Project would not work on that scale, choosing to use YouTube instead as his medium. He felt it was democratic. He also felt that the intimacy of the visual portraits, as he calls the episodes, could not be recreated on television. Those decisions became a structural framework for the project, supporting its spontaneity. \u201cAt the Asian Bands Festival one of my colleagues spoke to The Mekaal Hasan Band. The next thing we know, we are in their hotel room setting up sound and camera for a shoot. Between cups of tea and impromptu jam sessions, we spoke at length about \u2018Sufi rock\u2019 and the problem with that term, the music scene in Pakistan and about Kailash Kher\u2019s \u2018Sufi\u2019 music. We got out late at night after the shoot, equipment and guitars in hand, realising we really had something which excited us and would also be something completely brand new to the Indian music scene.\u201d
\nArijit Datta of Airport, a Hindi pop-rock band, says appearing on the Project helped them expand their fan base beyond Mumbai where they are based. \u201cThe song we recorded received tremendous support,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we came to Delhi for a gig, many requested that song. They bought tickets because they had heard us on the Tehelka Music Project.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not like a band will perform for the project and immediately be headlining music festivals,\u201d Ravi says of the impact of the Project. \u201cBut I think anyone who watches all 50 episodes will find at least 40 acts they have never heard of before,\u201d he adds, \u201cand they will fall in love with at least a few of them. It\u2019s a phenomenal showcase of new acts who get very little exposure in India. I\u2019m envious of them; I wish NH7 had started a Music Project of its own.\u201d
\nHari and Sukhmani, a Chandigarh-based Punjabi folk act, were shot on a rooftop on a cold December night. The location, decked with lightbulbs, candles, fairy lights and lanterns was a magical, if not entirely authentic, recreation of a winter night in rural Punjab. \u201cIt was elegant, raw and simple,\u201d says Hari Singh. Two weeks ago, the band made an appearance in the season finale of Coke Studio. \u201cThis,\u201d Clarance says, \u201cis what we wanted the Project to be. A catalyst.\u201d
\najachi@tehelka.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifty episodes later, the Tehelka Music Project continues to enchant with its intimate focus on unusual acts, says Ajachi Chakrabarti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":46066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[8040,8072,8073,8074,8075,5884,8076,8077,8078,8079,7446],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}