Bangalore has been considered, for long, the the mecca of rock music in India. Every every single international act - Deep Purple, the Scorpions, Roger Waters, Iron Maiden,Sting, Mark Knopfler, Santana, Metallica - has had its first Indian concert in this city.
When I was hired to set up a radio station for rock music lovers in early 2006,it was an invitation to step into a boyhood fantasy. As I stepped out of my earlier job, I had my head in the clouds, slinging an imaginary guitar around me and hopping out with a duckwalk, a la Angus Young. I looked forward to being surrounded by LPs and CDs of all the greatest artistes, being hounded by record companies to give 'the next big thing' his or her place on Radio One's sunny airwaves, the elusive Neil Peart being interviewed in the studios while I looked on indulgently...
It was too much of a good thing.
Exactly a week into my notice period, I was made to sit through a consumer research commissioned by my to-be employer, which revealed that as little as 4% of the local populace cared about an English-music playing station. Horror of horrors, over 70% wanted a Kannada station.
To make a long story short, Kannada music's golden age was the 70s and the early 80s, when the mellifluous voices of PB Shrinivas, Dr.Rajkumar and SP Balasubramaniam along with S Janaki and P Susheela combined with the lyrical abilities of doyens like Hamsaleka and Udayashankar, and the composing genius of Hamsaleka (again) and Ashwath to churn out melodies that transported listeners into non-spatial dimensions. Alas, the fall from the sublime to the ridiculous had been as swift as it had been painful. Both the lyrical quality and the compositions had swung from the gentle to the raucous,the mellow to the choppy, subtle to the lurid, and resonant to downright regressive. The fingers on one hand were far too many, for me to count the number of songs that have moved me in the decade following the mid 80s.
There was no way I was ever going to peddle this cacophonous sonic pastiche masquerading as music.
"Should I just go back to my job in Advertising?", I thought aloud as I shared a cuppa with Ravi Khanolkar. We were sitting at Koshy's, in Ravi's favorite corner.
Ravi moonlighted as a Radio Jockey with All India Radio and hosted a Blues Show at what used to be Worldspace. He was encyclopedic in his music knowledge, freely shared his thoughts and was delightful to converse with - just the right person to download my woes upon.
"You need to look at music as an enabler, an agent of change", he said, blowing a ring of smoke into the ceiling.
"The depravity and lack of soul in today's Kannada music is symptomatic of a larger cultural malaise. Kannadigas are probably the most unassuming and welcoming amongst all Indians. Look no further than the city of Bangalore. Unlike in a Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi or a Kolkata, most folks in this city talk back to an 'outsider'in the language they're spoken to - even if they only know a smattering. Try talking to a Chennai shopkeeper or a BEST conductor in English!"
"What's that got to do with bad music?", I ask.
"I could be very wrong in this, but I think being sticklers to cultural niceties has given rise to an eagerness to please, in Kannadigas. In the process, I think they've also lost a sense of assertiveness in speaking their own mother tongue. You'll find youth in Kolkata talking to each other in Bengali, ditto with Hindi in Delhi and Tamil in Chennai. In Bangalore, however, English is the default lingua franca. There's really no pride in knowing Kannada"
"Erm...what the connect with bad music?", I persisted.
"You can make it sexy again", he said, with a glint in his eye. "You can bring that pride back by making Kannada cool via its music. Look at what happened to Bollywood. When MTV and
Channel V first came in, there were protests on the streets against these 'culture vultures'. However, they realised that there was a market a gazillion times bigger than the Engish one, and changed tracks. They went on to embrace the local idiom, and how! They made it cool, sexy and upmarket. Bollywood's post-90s glitz can squarely be attributed to MTV and Channel V's influence in showing a new-world sound and look. This, of course, was catalysed by the emergence of the Rehmans, the Shankar Ehsaan Loys, the Amit Trivedis and the Vishal Shekars. Chicken and egg, much?"
"So you believe a Kannada radio station can make the Kannadigas begin to take more pride in their music and consequently, language", I query.
"It's how you package it and make it slick and modern. It's about the promotions on-air, the earworms you create. Think about it - if you marry marketing acumen with consumer understanding, you'll be uplifting this fabulous culture and engineering a re-birth of sorts. When history is writen, next to such iconic names as Kuvempu and Dr.Rajkumar, you'll find a plaque bearing the name of Shyju Varkey. How's that for an incentive?"
With that ended any uncertainty of my signing on for the job. I jumped headlong into it.
Three month's later, I'd played my part in launching the first Kannada private FM radio station in the world.
When I was hired to set up a radio station for rock music lovers in early 2006,it was an invitation to step into a boyhood fantasy. As I stepped out of my earlier job, I had my head in the clouds, slinging an imaginary guitar around me and hopping out with a duckwalk, a la Angus Young. I looked forward to being surrounded by LPs and CDs of all the greatest artistes, being hounded by record companies to give 'the next big thing' his or her place on Radio One's sunny airwaves, the elusive Neil Peart being interviewed in the studios while I looked on indulgently...
It was too much of a good thing.
Exactly a week into my notice period, I was made to sit through a consumer research commissioned by my to-be employer, which revealed that as little as 4% of the local populace cared about an English-music playing station. Horror of horrors, over 70% wanted a Kannada station.
To make a long story short, Kannada music's golden age was the 70s and the early 80s, when the mellifluous voices of PB Shrinivas, Dr.Rajkumar and SP Balasubramaniam along with S Janaki and P Susheela combined with the lyrical abilities of doyens like Hamsaleka and Udayashankar, and the composing genius of Hamsaleka (again) and Ashwath to churn out melodies that transported listeners into non-spatial dimensions. Alas, the fall from the sublime to the ridiculous had been as swift as it had been painful. Both the lyrical quality and the compositions had swung from the gentle to the raucous,the mellow to the choppy, subtle to the lurid, and resonant to downright regressive. The fingers on one hand were far too many, for me to count the number of songs that have moved me in the decade following the mid 80s.
There was no way I was ever going to peddle this cacophonous sonic pastiche masquerading as music.
"Should I just go back to my job in Advertising?", I thought aloud as I shared a cuppa with Ravi Khanolkar. We were sitting at Koshy's, in Ravi's favorite corner.
Ravi moonlighted as a Radio Jockey with All India Radio and hosted a Blues Show at what used to be Worldspace. He was encyclopedic in his music knowledge, freely shared his thoughts and was delightful to converse with - just the right person to download my woes upon.
"You need to look at music as an enabler, an agent of change", he said, blowing a ring of smoke into the ceiling.
"The depravity and lack of soul in today's Kannada music is symptomatic of a larger cultural malaise. Kannadigas are probably the most unassuming and welcoming amongst all Indians. Look no further than the city of Bangalore. Unlike in a Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi or a Kolkata, most folks in this city talk back to an 'outsider'in the language they're spoken to - even if they only know a smattering. Try talking to a Chennai shopkeeper or a BEST conductor in English!"
"What's that got to do with bad music?", I ask.
"I could be very wrong in this, but I think being sticklers to cultural niceties has given rise to an eagerness to please, in Kannadigas. In the process, I think they've also lost a sense of assertiveness in speaking their own mother tongue. You'll find youth in Kolkata talking to each other in Bengali, ditto with Hindi in Delhi and Tamil in Chennai. In Bangalore, however, English is the default lingua franca. There's really no pride in knowing Kannada"
"Erm...what the connect with bad music?", I persisted.
"You can make it sexy again", he said, with a glint in his eye. "You can bring that pride back by making Kannada cool via its music. Look at what happened to Bollywood. When MTV and
Channel V first came in, there were protests on the streets against these 'culture vultures'. However, they realised that there was a market a gazillion times bigger than the Engish one, and changed tracks. They went on to embrace the local idiom, and how! They made it cool, sexy and upmarket. Bollywood's post-90s glitz can squarely be attributed to MTV and Channel V's influence in showing a new-world sound and look. This, of course, was catalysed by the emergence of the Rehmans, the Shankar Ehsaan Loys, the Amit Trivedis and the Vishal Shekars. Chicken and egg, much?"
"So you believe a Kannada radio station can make the Kannadigas begin to take more pride in their music and consequently, language", I query.
"It's how you package it and make it slick and modern. It's about the promotions on-air, the earworms you create. Think about it - if you marry marketing acumen with consumer understanding, you'll be uplifting this fabulous culture and engineering a re-birth of sorts. When history is writen, next to such iconic names as Kuvempu and Dr.Rajkumar, you'll find a plaque bearing the name of Shyju Varkey. How's that for an incentive?"
With that ended any uncertainty of my signing on for the job. I jumped headlong into it.
Three month's later, I'd played my part in launching the first Kannada private FM radio station in the world.
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