Future Events:
22nd Feb DJ Chicago (1200 micrograms) Elektrik Sunset Sessions, Gaia, Pune
23rd Feb : Monday Shorts -Celebrate the art of the short film. Location: the Mumbai Times Cafe-Bandra ( 9:45 pm Onwards)
25th Feb DJ SARIKAH (progressive house, ambient and tech house) : Belvedere Downtown Wednesdays @ Wink, Taj President
27th Feb DJ RUSSELL ( techno, tech house, minimal) : Globaholics @ Wink, Taj President.
The inescapably groovy promotion of Pyaar Ke Side Effects currently scorching dance floors across city nightclubs and music channels opens with a hook that features the unmistakable voice of 29-year-old Robert Omulo. The lines are inviting, and coupled with the beats, draw you into the song. It sums up Omulo's role, who has also guest rapped on Ada in Garam Masala, a soon-to-be-released track in Sholay, Pyaar Vyaar and all that, and several other films, perfectly. Tease the listener, get them interested and leave the rest to the producers.
"It takes anywhere between one hour and one week to write for a Hindi film track," says Omulo (or Bob, as everyone knows him), who parted with his extended family in Nairobi in 1995. The safety of Mumbai's streets at night and the scale of the sprawling metropolis have fascinated him ever since he arrived. "You can't do that in any other city in the world. Over here, the night is like, Oh, the sun isn't around, that's all." The Geology major from St Xavier's college says that his themes revolve around humanity, how people think and react to situations. "Why should people with no blood relations look you up in an alien city? That's what is magical about humanity," he says.
Explaining his song writing process he says, "I check if there's catch phrase and tray to understand the theme. Then, it has to rhyme and the syllables, the rhythm have to go with the beat," he says. The toughest part of any assignment for the singer-songwriter is the first line. "Sometimes, it takes me 20 minutes to write the first line and 20 to finish the rest of the song," he says, adding that it's important to retain and grab the audience's attention.
Bob's introduction to the Hindi film industry is down to a game of rugby and some innovative chanting from the sidelines, to support the local Kenyan rugby team, back in early '90s, at Bombay gymkhana. His innovative cheer leading got the attention of a Brit agent, who was, at the time, looking to sequence a rap into Shaan and Sagorika's album. "This guy approached me and goes, 'Hey, I want you to rap on this album.' I laughed in his face," he recalls. Once the apprehension was overcome, the recording was followed by a multi-city. The presence of music producer Salim Merchant (of Salim-Suleiman fame) on the project led to more work and today, Bob freelances with several music producers, including, Dhruv (of Nach Baliye) and various Indi-pop artists.
Hindi films stand in for all the glamour and glitz lacking in Bob's bread-and-butter projects, dabbling in music "for the love of it", as he describes it. Whether it's jamming up with Mumbai-based bands like Groove Sabah and Bombay Black or working with smaller artists who don't even have the money to fork out, the rapper's associations are varied and plenty. The proof of the pudding, according to Bob, is an artist's ability to whip out lines and sustain during live performances. Though an all hip-hop event is still a distant reality, the audience in Mumbai has taken to the genre, albeit in its commercial avatar. "Today's artists like 50 Cent are more businessmen than performers," he says. "I prefer what today's kids would refer to as Old School. Rappers like Nas, who is airtight. The lyrics fit perfectly on the beat," he adds.
Hip-hop may be fashionable for teenyboppers but Bob is convinced it's more than just a genre of music. "It's a culture influencing dressing, style and language. I got into it in high school in Nairobi for the rap, but then I discovered all these things that I was doing was actually hip-hop," he says. "However hard you try, you can't disappear in a crowd here. There's always something reminding you about not being at home."
MUMBAI MIRROR | SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2007
Veteran deejay and musician Goa Gil still upholds the spirituality of the trance - dance experience,busted raves and druggie teenagers notwithstanding,reports Kenneth Lobo
If anyone's observed the progression of the trance scene from its embryonic days on the shores of Goa to the consumeristic hedonism of present-day raves, you can bet our house on Goa Gil. Credited with instituting the sub-genre of Goa Trance, the 65-year-old musician and dee-jay flew into India as a disillusioned teenager, booking a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Delhi via Amsterdam, and headed straight for the hills.
So, before Goa Gil, there was Baba Mangalanand."In the summer of 1970, I took guru dakshina in Kashmir, I would spend time in the jungles of Rishikesh where beautiful songs would come to me,like the Vedas came to the Rishis of yore," says the hardened hippie.The lure of celebrating Christmas with friends brought Gil down to Goa."The top of my head would open up and these songs would come through.The Rainbow Gypsies made a booklet then with poetry, drawings and my lyrics were in there with Goa Gil on it.The name stuck," he says. For the longest time, the deejay oversaw a gathering place called the Music House, a creative hotspot for Indian and foreignmusicians.
Gil doesn't play in Goa any more, an ironic in-dictment of the scene that gave him a name in the first place. "When people think of Goa Trance now,it's the stuff I don't play. Most of the producers of this music live in Ibiza and never even visit Goa. In
the last few years, a few of them came visiting, but that's it. A lot of promoters carved out a formula and stuck to it for over 10-20 years. I believe in pushing the envelope," he says. Gil traces the deterioration of Goa to early 2000, with the explosion of chai shops and plastic in all its avatars. His contribution to awareness is on a more abstract level,like a pastor or shaman, "feeding cosmic energy
into youth across the world, making them more aware of themselves and their surroundings." Yet,for three months a year, when he isn't travelling,Goa is home. "Where I live, we have African drums by the sunset and friends coming over. I still live in the '70s in that sense," he says.
Though his visits to Mumbai have been few and far between, he remembers performing at RangBhavan in '84 and Pune in '78, where recently dozens of youth were arrested and charged for drug use at a rave. For Gil, the difference between a trance party and a rave lies as much in intent as organisation. "Raves are organised with multiple deejays and bands. The quality doesn't matter; the focus is money. The "real" parties are about one or two people spinning, each deejay interpreting the
other's music," he says. What about cops raiding the party on Holi, when Indians publicly consume more cannabis than perhaps any other country in the world?
Gil feels that the problem is not unique to India, that around the world few have to suffer for the benefit of the majority."It's a problem with change and the generation gap.
Take the prohibition era of the '70s. Only tourists with permits cards would be allowed liquor in five star hotels," he says. The veteran is guarded when quizzed about his stand on the drug debate. "There are plenty of drugs in pharmacies as well. You need to be specific about what drugs you talk about. I believe in the ancient Indian tradition where you would work all day, head to the temple and smoke
a chillum. Today, alcohol is a bigger evil," he says..
Pratik Ghosh meets the members of a city-based music collective thats giving a much-needed platform to showcase the talents of DJs, VJs and budding rock stars.
A quaint tea shop in Mahalaxmi doubled as the classroom for some hardcore music lessons of the electronic variety. Ideally, the venue should have been a nightclub with head-spinning tracks blaring in the background, but the founder-fathers - Pramod Sippy, Sudeip Nair and Kenneth Lobo - of Bombay Elektrik Project, a platform to showcase the talents of DJs, budding rockstars and visual jockeys, preferred cutting-chai to cutting-edge ambience. The word Elektrik sums up the groups state of being - its charged up, dynamic, living and breathing electronic music.
Since music inevitably gives away the personality of the listener and the practitioner, a brief description of the trio - all in their late 20s - wouldnt be misplaced here: Sippy with a drummer-like figure and a smile of a romantic hero is already an established DJ specialising in house music; Nair with nape-kissing hair and eloquent eyes is a visual jockey in the making, and Kenneth Lobo characterised by a sharp nose, pointed chin and a goatee is the wordsmith of the group with an irreverent take on life.
Theirs was a friendship made in St Xaviers College nine years ago and nurtured by music. That was the time when they accompanied Sippy to his gigs. Sippy was striking out, learning the tricks on the turntable. The trio spent endless nights surrounded by struggling DJs, listening to tales of frustration. But since then, DJs emerged from anonymity and won some recognition as full-fledged musicians.
They have now gained status as captains of night-life, steering crowds to the dance floor. So the time was indeed ripe for the founding of Bombay Elektrik. "It was in May this year while we were driving down to a friends place that we thought of a collective for musicians," says Nair. Its been just four months but the group has already kicked up a storm, courtesy their Facebook profiles which drew the attention of music lovers from all over the country and some word-of-mouth publicity.
"We dabble in talent spotting, artist management, venue residency (deciding on the music to be played at nightclubs and lounge bars) and getting international DJs to play in India," said Lobo. They already have a bank of 34 DJs, 10 rock bands
and three visual jockeys, including Nair, who are waiting to burst onto the music scene and the nightclub culture. A couple of them have already created mild tremors. "Jennifer, possibly the only girl DJ in this otherwise male bastion, can be spotted at a Hyderabad club.
Arnold and Regnal are talented music producers-cum-DJs popping up at different venues in the city," said Sippy, who has already played at several nightclubs and lounge bars all over the country.
Last month, the group got together five rock bands to play at a 10-day fest at Mumbai Times Cafe in Bandra. A couple of gigs followed at the launch of a music store in Pune providing the stage for the rookies.
Bombay Elektrik gets by from the "kickbacks" they get by promoting artists. Last Friday, Sippy was pitted against Arjun from a Delhi-based rival gang Jalebi Cartel in a three-hour long duel hosted at Blue Frog. "It was an attempt at injecting some novelty into nightclub music. Though we both played house music, our styles were remarkably different," Sippy said.
Bombay Elektrik has also conducted dance and music workshops at their alma mater St Xaviers College. "We are also looking at odd-ball collaborations like getting street performers to jam with DJs, graffiti artists spray-painting to music beats and Indian classical musicians teaming up with turn-table artists," said Lobo.
Thats an awesome lot for the guys gearing up to blast the nights away.
Apr 12, 2008, The Indian Express
Saregama goes alternative and introduces Bombay Underground
An ambitious project that searched out new artistes and created space for new sounds in the industry, the Underground series (hopefully, a landmark three-album series) features bands, deejays and solo artistes from Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. “The music business has always been about young people and new sounds. Our album refers more to the artists than the music. These are musicians you won’t see and hear every day,” says Atul Churamani, vice president, Saregama India, who says that the label thought about the idea because “they were crazy and that it’s been too long in the making.”
The album is 27-year-old Shatadru Sarkar’s labour of love, whose idea it was in the first place to do something fresh, work with new artistes and not studio musicians for contemporary talent. “Last July, I was sitting with DJ Kris and thought of the idea for Bombay Underground. Later, we asked why just Mumbai, why not Kolkata and Delhi too,” says the A&R manager for Saregama.
The Mumbai chapter of the series features a roll-call of talented musicians who have been part of a scene that is itching to break into something bigger. Artistes like Kris, Tarun Sahani, Gaurav Issar, Sid Sharma and Suhas Shetty, Parvati Kumari and Bliss Logic (Lima, Lindsay and JD). While the series has been in the making however, several of the artistes have already stepped out of the bracket of the Underground, tugging on the coattails of success and fame.
Shaair n Func are established performers, signed on the newly set up Blue Frog record label, DJ Nasha is part of the wildly successful Sub Swara nights in New York, Hamza Farouki has several solo Bollywood soundtrack efforts lined up and DJ Tushqa has his own record label.
Also interesting are the differing perceptions of the ‘Underground’.
“As much as there is popular scene, there is an undercurrent of artistes who are not exactly part of the typical music and art scene. It isn’t thriving, but a decent, small culture of people who are doing something different, something that’s close to their heart still exists,” says Kris Correya, a veteran of the electronic scene in the city. “What’s not in your face is not underground. I’ve struggled for nine years to get to where I am, starting as a playback singer,” says Faruqui, who dabbles in songwriting, singing (as an Arabic singer) and has contributed a retro house track with Hindi vocals for the album.
One of the few rock acts on the Bombay Underground, Lima Yanger, vocalist and songwriter of Bliss Logic, which has the talented Lindsay D’mello (on drums) and JD (on bass), says that since such an album has never been attempted before, it will put the focus firmly on the artistes: “Us musicians have been bitching about record companies forever, but Shatadru’s finally said put your money where your mouth is.”
Mumbai Mirror - Thursday, May 31, 2007
Kenneth Lobo meets up with a group of music aficionados at the Mumbai Educational Trust World of Music, presently preoccupied with creating a storehouse of eclectic melodies.
BACK IN COLLEGE AT St Xavier’s, two magnificently stocked libraries catered to the student’s diverse reading habits, but if you wanted it supplemented by music, there was the Indian Music Group library, whose membership entitled you to air conditioning and their eclectic selection of Indian Classical music. not everyone was thrilled with the genre, however though today gadgets that stomach unprecedented numbers of songs in seemingly inexhaustible bellies make up for that drawback. The folks over at Mumbai Educational Trust (MRT) in Bandra recognized the eclecticism and bottomless pit syndrome that characterize youth of the 21st century, and assembled the MRT World of music or MWM in September 2006.
The idea of the lounge was a marriage of the institute’s information Technology spine and my love for Indian Classical Music”, says Sunil Karve, Vice Chairman, MET League of Colleges. Karve says that he struggled to find the particular kind of music or the exact song that fit his mood in the limited time he had for himself. After brief consultations with his in-house team, he began the first phase of any archive worth its salt, accumulation. “We requested teachers and students to donate their collections to the institute on loan. Some even had old spools which we digitally transferred”, says Karve.
For the lengthy process – sox top eight months of sifting and archiving - Karve enlisted the help of talented classical vocalist Omkar Dadarkar, who had no clue why he was listening to as many pieces of music, tagging and separating the chaff from the wheat. “I’d watch out for three elements: quality of music, lyrics and musicality”, says Dadarkar, who trained for six years at the Sangeet Research Academy, before being snapped up by Karve on his return to Mumbai. So you won’t find a lot of Himesh Reshammiya in here? Dadarkar laughs.
The best part of the MET’s endeavour is its indiscriminate outlook and musical liberality. Over seven categories of music are further divided into genre, artist, lyricist and director. Where Dadarkar felt the lack, particularly in Western music, he roped in students and further plans to hire musical consultants. The highlight of the collection is undoubtedly the Indian Classical music category. Not only is the selection of songs extensive – their taal, ragas and origin have been uploaded for the students to understand the roots – but they are accompanied by grainy black and white documentaries of the masters like Ustad Amir Khan, for today’s generation to glimpse into the past, reclining on comfortable seats.
The next phase of the project is to segregate music by the mood and allow listeners to find out what music is good for a particular time of the day “like Raag Bhairvi is for the mornings”, says Dadarkar. The vocalist is convinced this can be applied to Indian Classical music as well as Western music, though that task seems more knotty. Again, the chairman seems responsible for the initiative. “At King George School in Hindu Colony, I remember a concert by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. The combination of the Weather (it was raining) and music was over whelming and it’s something I’ll never forger. I often shed tears while listening to classical music,” he says. Karve used to be cynical about the survival of Indian Classical music, but student participation and feedback at the lounge has helped change his mind. “I thought the genre is dead, but now I’m convinced it will last at least a little longer”, says Karve.
The dance floor was going mental. Eight hundred clubbers roared and raised their sweaty hands in unison towards the DJ console as Armin van Buuren, the world’s number one DJ, took over the decks one night in November. Twisting basslines and snatches of melody bounced around the massive 6,000-sq ft Hard Rock Café in Lower Parel.
Among the footstompers was 27-year-old Anand Kamble, who had been laughed at by a friend only six months ago when the travel manager suggested that van Buuren might tour India. “‘Not even in your wildest dreams,” Kamble’s friend told him.
Kamble’s dreams are coming true, and how. When you weren’t looking, Mumbai’s electronic dance music scene began to shoot off into the sky. Every month, at least 25 electronic music artists drop sets in Mumbai, performing a rainbow of genres like house, dubstep and psy trance. The venues that host them range from posh clubs like Dragonfly in Nariman Point to Raw, a club past Vasai on an isolated stretch of Ghodbunder Road. It isn’t only the clubbers who are revelling in the music. Nightclub owners and promoters, liquor and energy drinks companies are all working enthusiastically to keep the great Bombay beat bazaar growing.
The rewards aren’t insubstantial. Van Buuren’s gig earned the organisers Rs 24 lakh on gate receipts alone. Within a week of the Dutch DJ’s performance, 1,200 psychedelic trance fans packed Enigma at the JW Marriott in Juhu to listen to Israeli psychedelic trance duo Infected Mushroom. Each fan coughed up Rs 1,200 at the gate, translating into sales of Rs 15 lakh –and that was before bar sales.
Matan Schabracq, one of the partners at suburban lounge Zenzi, has seen the city go from only a couple of bars playing electronic music four years ago to the genre now dominating DJ sets in nightclubs. “Electronic music is so ubiquitous that you now have to seek out Bollywood music,” he said.
Leading the electronic boom is Submerge, which was started in 2002 as a dedicated house music night by DJ couple Pearl and Nikhil Chinapa, with their friend Hermit Sethi. Twenty people showed up for their first night at basement club Rock Bottom in Juhu in November 2002. “The plan was that Pearl would DJ, Nikhil would jump around like a monkey and I would look cool,” said Sethi. Five years later, that one-off night has grown into a firm with networks in seven cities. Submerge organises 15 events every month, has a website with 13,800 registered members (Kamble is one of them), and its seven employees deal with tasks such as artist management, brand association and licensing. Sethi wears the title of brand manager, Submerge.
For club owners across the country, hosting nights like Submerge and promoting DJ acts makes a lot of commercial sense. Established DJs in Mumbai charge anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 60,000 a night, depending on the size of the event and the time of the year (October to February is season time). With international DJs, prices shoot up to Rs 75,000 up to Rs five lakh for middle-tier DJs, and between Rs 10 and 20 lakh for headliners like Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk and John Digweed. Firms like Submerge subcontract DJs to venues across the country, and enter into revenue-share arrangements for expenses like international flight tickets. “Alcohol sponsors save venues the cost of booze in exchange for promotion, and at other times chip in with finance,” said Sethi. Recognising the potential of electronic music in India, Defected Records, the world’s biggest house music label, launched a four-city tour in association with Submerge in April.
No one quite imagined that the scene would grow so huge when Ketan Kadam set up Fire ’n’ Ice, Mumbai’s first superclub, in 1999. Fire ’n’ Ice regularly flew down international acts and also pioneered themed nights through the week, a concept that most city nightspots still follow. Kadam said that the Tuesday electronic music nights earned him Rs four lakh – he made Rs eight lakh over the weekend – but this was before the genre exploded into the market.
Today, the Friday house music night at Aurus in Juhu is estimated to make anywhere between Rs five lakh and Rs ten lakh, depending on the DJ’s skill, talent and reputation. The event draws in an average of 400-600 people each week, each of whom spend a minimum of Rs 1,000. The event is so popular that Dharmesh Karmokar, vice president (fine dining), said that the bar is forced to shut its gates by midnight because it gets as packed as a local train. “We have a strict couples-only policy and our demographic is 25-to-36-year-olds, but we’re full-up regularly beyond capacity,” he said.
In Bandra, Poison’s Wednesday Ibiza nights pack in at least 300-500 people with guest DJs, said DJ Aqeel. Each of them pay a Rs 1,500 entry free. Across town in Parel, Blue Frog’s weekend house music night averages revenues of between Rs six and eight lakh. The increasing profitability of electronic music has resulted in a practice many partygoers couldn’t have imagined until recently: venues like the Grand Hyatt’s China House in Santa Cruz, Blue Frog, and Dragonfly in Nariman Point have all shut out Bollywood music.
The boom at home has propelled some city DJs to find a place on the international circuit. Along with Pearl, DJs like Kris Correya and Ritesh D’souza, who performs as DJ Nasha, have performed at clubs in France, the UK and New York. DJ Arnold Misquitta has been producing tunes that rank highly on charts kept by beatport.com, an online music store.
It’s taken Mumbai’s nightlife scene a long time to get here. The late ’90s were marked by an underground psychedelic trance scene, with parties being held on the outskirts of the city. There was also drum ’n’ bass-inspired music of Bhavishyavani Collective, which held gigs in seedy suburban nightclubs. But the club scene was dominated by Bollywood music and Indi-pop. Mumbai’s DJs were mining Bollywood hits from the past, isolating the vocals to loop over dance tracks by artists like Erasure and 2 Unlimited.
In 1998, the first Disco Mixing Championship to test the technical proficiency of DJs on turntables was organised in Mumbai.
A year later, Times Music logged on as a co-sponsor and took it over in 2000. They renamed the event the Times War of the DJs, rewarding the winner with recording contracts and music videos. But winners found themselves tied down by knotty contracts and were expected to deliver remixes of popular Bollywood tracks on tight deadlines.
Ironically, those commercial remixes have opened Mumbai’s ears to more-esoteric house music beats. Bollywood remixes are often directly lifted from international house music hits, so even clubbers unfamiliar with electronic music have, at some point, grooved to the beats. When the remix industry became saturated with Bollywood composer Himesh Reshammiya’s tunes (he did 14 films in 2005, following it up with 12 more in 2006), clubbers went looking for a new sound.
It’s the beat that turned Kamble, who attended the van Buuren gig in November, from being an alternative rock fan into a house music aficionado. “I found out about Submerge through the internet and was hooked on to the beat,” he said. DJ Pearl agrees that electronic music wins most of its fans with one-time exposure. “If you’re put in a club with a half-decent DJ, you’re likely to get hooked,” she said.
Pearl’s dream is to organise a Mumbai equivalent of Submerge’s year-old Sunburn festival in Goa, at which over 30 artists from across the globe gig for three days by the beach. She said: “The day Mumbai’s scene would have truly arrived is when we have 15 festivals like these happening simultaneously in a city.”
DJs Nikhil & Pearl
Carving out an alternative dance scene across India couldn’t have been an easy task, but DJs Nikhil Chinapa, 35, and his wife Pearl, have successfully created the nation’s first network of clubbers. Her carefully constructed media image means that she never reveals her real name, but we can tell you that besides DJing, she’s also good at painting.
Style: House, progressive house, minimal, techno, trance.
First gig Nikhil: At Rain in 2001 I played for free with 12 LPs and three CDs. I had no idea how to mix but no one else had my kind of music. Pearl: I played for free at this Delhi club Someplace Else in 1999.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year?
Nikhil: Not all cheese is stinky and tastes like it died and crawled up its own ass. Pearl: Learn more next year.
DJ Pramz
Pursuing law by day and honing his music skills in the dead of the night, 27-year-old Pramod Sippy has worked residencies at several city clubs. During his reign at the Phoenix Mills lounge White (from 2002-’04), he established a weekly tradition of quality house music sounds that few contemporaries could emulate. “Every DJ who is in charge of his dance floor is a celebrity in his own right,” he said.
Style: Minimal tech, tech house, techno.
First gig: A wedding party at a banquet hall for Rs 800 in 1997.
Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? A short bald chap in shades, dancing with a mop, performing house-keeping moves.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? We are all human but strangely many people lack humanity.
DJ Nasha
One half of DJ duo Order of the Essence, 36-year-old Ritesh D’souza, who performs as DJ Nasha and BassSociety (for his dubstep nights), is one of Mumbai’s first DJs to go international. He’s hooked up with Indian drum ’n’ bass DJ collectives in the UK and the Sub Swara dubstep crew in New York.
Style Dubstep, breakbeat, drum ’n’ bass.
Known for His 2002 remix of the “Flute Fantasy” track from Hero, a 1983 film with Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Sheshadri.
First gig At the Grand Canyon in Kumaria Presidency for a monthly salary of about Rs 1,000.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Definitely look for exit points at a party.
Most memorable gig? Playing at the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert to a sea of people.
DJ Reji
Electronic music portal Indivibe.com’s artist of the month for December, 27-year-old Reji Ravindran is one of Mumbai’s most in-form DJs. He’s a DJ professor (he’s taught 500 students in the past six years), promotes One Sunday, a monthly night at Khar club H20 to find new talent and encourage fresh sounds, is skilled in the art of turntablism and plays smashing house music sets across the country.
Style Breaks, techno.
First gig Spinning at the local parish fete in Marol in 1999, for free, of course.
Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? A woman doing a Sridevi-style snake dance on the floor against the walls and the speakers.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Keep the faith.
DJ Ryan Beck
A maverick who’s left a trail of success at every club residency he’s undertaken, 37-year-old Ryan Beck is the original poster boy of Mumbai’s DJ scene. Beck combines his unusual name and good looks with an obsessive mastery of the craft.
Style House, Euro trance, trance.
First gig ever I got a monthly salary of Rs 900 for DJing at the Piano Bar in China Garden restaurant.
Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? A fully dressed bridal entourage that stepped out of the banquet hall at the JW Marriott hotel in Juhu, entered Enigma, and danced to my psy trance set for two hours.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Being versatile is the key.
DJ Arnold
Arnold Misquitta, 25, is one of Mumbai’s most talented yet undiscovered gems. His first single “Am I?” released by Russia’s Carica Records in January catapulted him to the charts kept by Beatport, an online music store. Misquitta has also put a prominent Bandra street on the global dance map: DJs across the world are playing the tune “Carter Road”.
Style Techno, progressive house.
Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? This guy at Club Elevate in Delhi dancing like it was someone’s wedding to techno and progressive house. He thanked me for a great time at the end of it.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Smoking cigarettes in a club is hazardous to health but smoking on polluted roads increases your life span.
DJ Asad
Asad Zaidi started out as a DJ in the ’90s, establishing a successful DJ duo and business partnership with his friend Hussain Babbai (DJ Whosane!) as well as organising the earliest psy trance and house music nights at clubs across the city.
Style Electro, minimal tech, progressive house, psy trance, trance. Known for Initiating the Dance Ganesh festival in 1999 with DJ Whosane! The Berlin Love Parades-style gathering of revellers dance to electronic music en route to immersing the idol.
Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? On a searing day at the seven-day psy trance Boom Festival in Portugal, the fire brigade was called in. Just as everyone was looking around for the fire, the fire fighters sprayed people on the dance floor so they would cool off.
DJ M.Mat
Mathieu Josso forms one-third of the newest avatar of DJ collective Bhavishyavani Future Soundz, with Charles Nuez (DJ Charlee) and Cyril Michaud (DJ Loopkin). Josso was first introduced to the old guard of the Bhavishyavani crew in 2005, after organising a tour for house guru Laurent Garnier: “We decided to join forces instead of working in our own corners.”
Style House, techno, drum ’n’ bass.
First gig ever We rented a farm in Britanny for a student party when I was 21. Weirdest thing you’ve seen on the dance floor? A clubber performing old school Michael Jackson moves to house legend Laurent Garnier’s music at Kamala Mills in Mumbai in 2005.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Never postpone pest control appointments for your apartment.
DJ Kris
Kris Correya, 36, is one of the city’s most influential DJs, mentoring the current crop of top beatsmiths early in their careers and leading the pack with residencies at Razzberry Rhinoceros, J49, Black Out and now at Zenzi. “I haven’t won any Grammys yet so don’t even think of calling me a veteran,” he said.
Style Breakbeat, minimal, techno, drum ’n’ bass, dubstep.Known for His four-year stint at Zenzi, where Mumbai has been introduced to several cutting-edge artists and genres.
First gig A private party at a Versova beach bungalow in ’93 for the owner of Lion Pencils. I was paid Rs 500.
Most important thing you’ve learned this year? Only God knows the future of electronic music and I am not God.
The Bombay Elektrik Projekt
The Elektricians
-
WHO WE ARE:
A multi-format collective of artists – DJs, musicians, singers, poets, theatrepersons, film makers, visual jockeys – who gig across the country to promote cutting-edge initiatives in their respective genres.
WHAT WE DO:
Combine artist management, event organisation and talent scouting.We reach out to venue owners / promoters looking for fresh, cutting-edge experiences.Our focus is equally aimed at audiences: to find middle ground between giving them what they want and what they need to experience.
Search
© Copyright THE BOMBAY ELEKTRIK PROJEKT. All rights reserved.
Designed by FTL Wordpress Themes | Bloggerized by FalconHive.com
brought to you by Smashing Magazine