Film Industry: Strumming bass in the hinterland

Rock Goes Rural As Metal Bands Perform To Audiences In Maha’s Countryside

    The harmonium is missing, the musicians are wearing half-pants and instead of closing his eyes into a soulful song, the singer is frowning at them as he screams into the mike. It takes a while for audiences in the middle of agricultural land in Baramati and Jalna to adjust to the vagaries of a rock show.
    However, a few aggressive songs down, at the point when a Bandra crowd would be wildly headbanging, they too reciprocate, albeit with rustic dance moves. The lyrics, after all, are in their own mother tongue.
    In their own way, young Marathi bands such as Moksh, Say and Asmi that have performed in rural Maharashtra, are filling the gap between rural audiences and western genres of music with language. “Since rural audiences are used to sitting during concerts, we usually start the show by explaining the rock show etiquette in Marathi,” says Sagar Joshi, bassist and band manager of Thane-based Moksh, known to be the world’s first Marathi metal band, which has performed at many rural venues like Jawhar, Baramati and even a hybrid seeds company ground in Jalna. To initiate the audience, the five-member band Moksh opens with a couple of its songs including ‘Ghe Bharari’ which is a result of their frustration at not being allowed to open for drummer Tom Jones during a show despite being promised. Later, the tenor descends only to pick up again near the end.
    Initially, performing in rural areas involves encountering requests for rustic Marathi numbers such as Kombadi Palali (the Marathi counterpart of Chikni Chameli) and Mungda. “We have to politely refuse saying that these are difficult to play on a keyboard, drum and guitar ensemble,” laughs Gaurav Tanksale of Asmi, a Nagpurbased Marathi pop-rock group that recently did a tour of Vidarbha, in which they covered villages in Chandrapur, Akola, Yavatmal and Buldhana districts. Routinely, during its rural shows, Asmi, which experiments with various genres such as jazz, blues and reggae, even demonstrates the difference between each form. “For instance, at a show in the Bhilai civic centre, we played our song Aai in jazz and reggae patterns,” says Tanksale.
    Also, since their songs cover the gamut of social issues ranging from farmer suicides to female infanticide, a connect is easily established. “Religion too holds a strong grip here but despite that, our songs based on the Vidrohi Sant Sahitya which talk about the inner conflict of saints like Tukaram, too, do well,” says Sagar Joshi.
    Of course, young fans tend to look for a bit of dark, youthful humour. Mumbaibased three-member band Say’s anti-smoking song which contains certain explicit Hindi words and another number Gacchi, which contains pauses at opportune moments, have been downloaded and received well in places such as Alibaug and Ratnagiri too. Besides, the popularity of their song Break Up Ke Baad, a funny take on breakups, made an engineering college in Karjat invite them. “Since the budget was low, we performed without instruments by playing a track CD,” says Saptiskar, adding that Say’s tendency to use Hindi words, has helped it enjoy a following among non-Maharashtrian audiences too.
    Inadvertently, these shows serve as spontaneous studies in consumer behaviour. For instance, during Asmi’s show in Bhandara district, the crowd demanded Hindi songs too— something that was so far only characteristic of a cosmopolitan Nagpur crowd. Besides, all publicity is through word-ofmouth. Also, “in villages too, youngsters listen to songs on their cellphones and even log on to facebook,” says Saptiskar, who once received a call from a Panvel girl who had made her entire chemistry class listen to Say’s break-up song during practicals.
    However, being a regional band also means coping with lack of adequate sponsorship and involves its share of uncanny negotiations. Once, an organizer called up Say’s band manager asking if his band could perform for Rs 5000. He tried reasoning it was too less an amount given that they were three members. “Can you perform with two less members?”