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Journalism of Courage
It’s perhaps stating the obvious,but one can tell a lot about a countrys music scene by observing the people who throng its music concerts. At the recent Independence Rock concert in Mumbai,when one of the bands started playing cover versions of international hits,they were practically booed off stage. Audience expectations have changed massively since the independent music scene first started booming, explains Sahil Makhija,or Demonstealer,as hes better known in Indias underground metal movement. Makhijia,the man behind one of Indias most popular metal bands,Demonic Resurrection (DR),clearly knows what hes talking about when he says that in the past five years,takers for metal have grown,as has the quality of the music itself.
Metal bands Scribe and DR recently played at Norways Inferno Metal Festival to roaring crowds. Another metal band Albatross and Devoid released their debut albums Dinner is You and A Gods Lie,respectively not just to national,but also international acclaim. DR has recently won the Global Metal Award at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards one of the most important heavy metal awards in the world. Metal Hammer,which happens to be a globally prestigious metal magazine,released a compilation album of international metal acts called Planet Metal,which featured two of Indias favourite acts: Bhayanak Maut (BM) and Undying Inc. The number of internationally renowned metal bands which are performing in India Freak Guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh recently conducted masterclasses in the country,while Swedish band Katatonia is coming down to perform at the IIT festival later this month also confirm that metal music is booming in India. I could never understand why metal is so consistently stereotyped and condemned by so many while the headbangers hold their ground and stick to their faith in their music, says Mohammad Kabeer,who has made a
documentary on metal called Capital Metal.
One reason for this is the fact that metal has piggybacked on the success of the independent music scene. Theres simply more space for growth for all kinds of alternate music now and metal has benefited majorly from that, says Makhijia. Another important reason is that metal musicians themselves have pulled up the quality of their music. Gone are the days of covers; more and more bands are making original music and there are good incentives for them. Aditya Gopinathan of BM says,The people who attend concerts these days are already well-educated when it comes to metal. They know most of the top acts in the world and if they want to watch their favourite international bands play,they would rather go online and hear them than catch a cover at a live act by a local band.
In the past 10 years,metal has gone from being a mostly metropolitan passion,to a pan-Indian phenomenon. Gopinathan explains,Theres a lot of debate about whether Mumbai is the metal hub or Bangalore or Delhi,but it would be more appropriate to say that its spread to all of India. We recently played a gig in Ahmedabad and the turnout was unbelievable. Even people in smaller towns are completely into the metal scene.
More funds seem to be coming metals way as well,although not as much as required. There are more sponsors getting behind metal bands and a few dedicated festivals seem to be coming up. A case in point would be the upcoming RockFort 2010 in Mumbai on December 26. Renuka Narwanker of Queens Entertainment,which is backing the festival,is one such supporter. She says,A lot of these bands have to play in confined spaces,simply because there isnt a platform that can offer them the space they require. Theyre extremely talented and they deserve to be heard properly,and we hope more festivals will take this cue.
Some musicians,however,are keeping their enthusiasm in check. Riju Dasgupta of Albatross,for one,is not keeping his faith only on better funds. He hopes that production quality continues to improve despite that. The moneys grown from insignificant to slightly less insignificant. But yes,the standards of Indian metal production have gone up. Even at the cost of not recovering production costs,bands are investing more time into making better sounding records.
If Indian metals growing legions of fans national and international are anything to go by,the payoff for this dedication will come soon.
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