Bangla Rock Bands of Kolkata

Abhishek Dutt

CHAPTER ONE
My world, my music

October 1997. Just like many others, I was also excited to attend the live shows during the festival of Durga pujas in Kolkata. A very popular singer was about to start her show in my neighborhood. I was waiting. My elder brother came and forced me to accompany him for another live show happening nearby. I had apprehensions as I hardly knew the name of the artist. But after much coaxing when I finally went there, all my pre conceived notions of building a musical career changed in a moment. It was not just a mere performance by an artist. It was a stage full of dynamic performers, colored lights, lasers, amazing audio output, original new age compositions in Bengali, realistic lyrics, stage acts, innovative audience interaction, high energy attitude. Overall a high voltage performance - A Bangla rock band was playing!
Those days and before, the generic meaning of the word “band” in India personified a bunch of almost invisible and un-expressive musicians sitting on the back side of the stage, just playing the right notes. While the singers performed with an attitude as if they are the only ones producing the music and hence they were getting all the limelight. In fact the term “hands” was used to address the musicians. Vocalists ruled the top of the mind excitement of the audience, no matter how wonderful the musicians played. Pay structure was inhuman. For example, 70% of the payment went to the singer and 30% was divide among the musicians. The singers were not even asked to come to the sound check. As a musician I call this Musical Racism!
I wanted to become a complete performer, not just a singer. I had a keyboard and I loved playing it but I didn’t want to end up becoming a “hand” behind a singer. I wanted to become a complete performer. Going to a band’s show with my brother unknowingly gave a new perspective. Everyone’s contribution towards the production was showing. The musicians were equally important like the front man. My musical journey started that very day, and instead of a singer, I decided to become a keyboardist and a backing vocalist. I started buying cassettes of western bands, watched their live performance on VHS. I realized the importance of dynamic performance where one have to both listen and watch. For instance, you cannot close your eyes during a Pink Floyd live. It’s an adrenaline rush!! I found my perfect form of music which I could not wait to give a shape. Hence came to life, first ever Bangla new age rock band with four of my musician friends.
Language was another inspiring factor. Writing and performing rock music in our own language was fascinating. People started acknowledging and loving this new form of music. Bangla Rock became a movement and later a parallel culture to the mainstream film music.
I played for 12 years. We won the first ever band hunt in Kolkata, released 2 albums which topped the charts, performed in more than 1500 live shows - it won’t be an understatement to say that we were the youth sensation of the city. Overall the Bengali rock movement reached a different height during that time with the contribution of few other significant bands like us. Gradually there was an influx in the number of the Bengali bands. But slowly a down curve started in this movement. Revenue & diversion became the issue. Many musicians including me changed their profession and/or turned music into an extracurricular activity. Bangla Rock got weak, diluted & diverted gradually. While Bangla rock still exists, there are a lot of contradictions and challenges. And to be precise, it is no longer a movement.
After being a radio & television professional for more than a decade, now I see the Indian and most precisely the Bengali music industry from a bird eye view. I started analyzing this whole phenomenon through the musical, demographic, physiographic, cultural and socio-economic lens. How did it start? How did it work? Why was it unable to reach the pinnacle in spite of having all the potential? Was there an error in the movement or something was more powerful, practical and intelligent to control the movement’s success and get benefit out of it?

CHAPTER TWO
The Boss is always right

Along with its evolution, cinema has become the mother of all forms of mass appeal arts in India. As of 2012, every year more than 1600 films are produced in different languages in India.Radio, television, theater, print, digital media, they all merge into a single point of public address-cinema. From director to art director, music arranger to singer, dancer to choreographer, everyone dreams of working in cinema. Indian movies especially Hindi cinema has always set the qualitative benchmark of creative showcasing in India. No matter how good a content or performance is, it never gets that ultimate recognition unless it becomes a part of a movie. For example, many actors who work with a theater group look forward to get noticed by a movie director or producer. Some singers after training in classical music tries to win a talent hunt like Indian Idol to get a chance in a movie. There is an example for every media and fine arts professional who wants to see themselves associated with a movie. All other form of performing arts does have their own existence but always gets diluted and diverted by the super power, cinema. Indian cinema intensely influence the culture and life style of the country - music, fashion, food, romance, behaviors, daily lingos, everything. Cinema happens to be the boss of all entertainment and as they say the boss is always right.
Commercial Indian cinema is unimaginable without song and dance sequences. So, music plays a predominant part. The songs are released way before the movie is released. They are the main tool of promotion of a film. Majority of the revenue comes from the songs if they hit the chartbusters and this happens even before the movie is released. There have seen many cases where a movie did not succeed but the songs became immensely popular.
It is evident from most of the song sequences that they are placed in a film without any realistic approach. Protagonist is seen lip-sync to songs in almost every situations of the story. It does not matter how track full of gorgeous music starts playing automatically. And no one knows where the background dancers came from. Also, whatever character he/she is playing, does not affect his/her singing capability. They sing better than the winner of the toughest talent hunt show. This is where the magic of playback singing comes in.
Playback singing was a significant part of Indian cinema since its inception. It’s basically a process where the actors lip-sync over a pre-recorded song. Best of the singers in the country look forward to sing for a movie. A singer’s popularity is always judged by his/her exposure in cinemas. Playback singing is the key to the success, monopoly and ruling capability of Indian film music. On the other hand, Indian movies chose their lead actors from the best looking people of the county. They are projected as the best fighters, dancers, lovers and overall best human beings. Though non-realistic, but the fans treat them as God. These “Gods” along with the voice of the best singers, music by great music directors, well mixed tracks, international locations, great cinematography and choreography and best editing it creates magic on screen. This is one of the key reasons that film music is the most popular in India.

CHAPTER THREE
Bolly-Tolly

Bollywood being the largest film industry of India dominates other regional film industries. Bollywood or the Hindi film industry produce maximum amount of films and the distribution is
also wide. It also has the maximum budgets and box office collections. This is also because of the reach of the language Hindi. It is understandable by people not only in most parts of India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Gulf countries. As a result Bollywood movie’s acceptance is everywhere. After Hindi film industry, South Indian film industry and Bengali film industry (Tollywood) are the two very significant regional film industries.
Bengali films have always been dominated by Hindi film in terms of budget and exposure. The content, music, technics, style, stories in Bengali films are sometimes replicated from Hindi cinema. But Bollywood has always picked up talents from Tollywood, and produced great pieces of art with these resources. In fact major milestones in Indian Cinema were set by Bengali artists. In fact Bengali artists take pride in working for the Hindi industry. But there was a time when movies were made in Bangla and Hindi simultaneously, with the same set of cast and crew, based on adaptation of Bengali stories. With time when Bollywood influence actually took over Bengali cinema in the mid-80s, Tollywood was left only with imitations and lower quality films, which includes bad music as well. Main stream cinema became a cultural jerk. Bengali audience stopped going to the theater to watch a Bengali flick. Slowly the whole industry started running into losses and as result quality of film production suffered even more. Gradually money making financers took over the industry who followed a template pattern of film narratives to generate revenue. The stereotypical story of rich boy-poor girl love story (or vice versa) became the key narrative in majority movies. This degradation further effected the quality of the Bengali film music.
It was a major point of concern. The intellectual Bengalis wondered if the Bengali entertainment industry is going into a cultural black hole. They were deeply in search of a platform to showcase the real creativity.

CHAPTER FOUR
Silent Revolution

Bengali artists have been able to create content which has been appreciated by the class and aspired by the mass. Starting from the most popular and vast genre of music, Rabindra Sangeet, to the most significant creative revolution, Group Theater of Kolkata, Bengalis have always tried to build a counter culture through alternative form of entertainment, which defended the trend of money making mass entertainment.
The descending trend of Bengali films became intolerant for the artists and art lovers of Kolkata. The undercurrent started flowing badly and transformed into a revolutionary force. Soon the evergreen bonding of film and music was divided into two steams. Television and Non-film music. This was supported by the emerging satellite television channels and musicians who were not recognized till date due to the dominance of cinema. Good actors and directors, whose performance were limited to theater, started opting for TV serials and reached directly to every household. Music makers and music lovers started developing a parallel platform which not only promoted independent music but also developed a channel to bring it closer to the listeners and audiences. Finally, long confined independent Bengali music got a platform for expression.

CHAPTER FIVE
6 Strings

Bangla non-film music was always there, even when film music was ruling. It was somewhat prominent only in Bengal and almost no trace in the other parts of India. There was a trend of releasing non-film albums during the Durga Puja every year. Though these albums were produced by established playback singers in movies, it was like a trend and not something which promotes non-film music. Even singers from Bollywood who were not Bengali, released Puja albums. Though these songs became popular but they did not have any differentiating factor as
people were listening to the same set of singers and composers and similar kind of music which is already present in the films.
The new age Bengali non-film, which started its journey during the early 90s actually gave wings to many hidden talents. It was the start of a whole new era of soloists and bands. The first new age soloist Suman Chattopadhyay came up with an album called “Tomake Chai” (Want you). This album changed the whole concept of musical composition and performance. Bengalis never saw or listened to this kind of music before. An artist single handedly writing the lyrics, making the tune, playing the guitar and singing the song. It was fresh, dynamic, real and original. Highly contemporary lyric which spoke about real life instead of the over poetic lyrics which was happening till date. This became the main differentiator. Not only the youth but also the audience from all demography embraced this new soundscape and Suman became the idol for Bengali new age music. Anjan Dutta, Nachiketa, Shilajit and many more followed his path and gave birth to a new genre called “Jibonmukhi Gaan” (Songs about life). Soloist was a western concept which people here were not acquainted with. It never became mainstream but definitely made a separate identity.
The acceptance of a western musical concept freshly triggered a long suppressed musical format which showed up during the 70s in Bengal but never got any further as it was way ahead of time. And therefore the rise of the Bangla Bands was like an oasis - a rebirth, a new genre, a movement, a revolution.

CHAPTER SIX
Stand up and shout

Mohiner Ghoraguli is the first Bangla Band from West Bengal and was also the first in the nation. They were formed during the 60s. Highly influence from the western bands, extremely
experimental and way ahead of time. Bengali audience who were extremely obsessed with the old form of music couldn’t accept the music or even their stage acts. The Mohins projected all the members as equal. But who was going to understand that with such keen exposure to the world of music outside India were bands more than anything else in entertainment. Their music rose above the conventional stereotypes of entertainment as defined in India till then. As a result the band did not make any mark and slowly went off the show business. During the 80s few bands like “Nagor fellowmen” and “Behala’r Chourasta” tried to stand strong among the film dominated era, but was sabotaged.
With the fall of typical Bengali film music in early 90s, acceptance of “jibonmukhi” and exposure to foreign music through channels like MTV, the emergence of Bangla Band started taking place. This was when a young and educated community of musicians from Kolkata, playing instruments like guitars, keyboards, drums and bass, following the western method of singing, gave rebirth to the genre. Krosswindz, Candrabindu, Cactus, Parashpathor, Abhilasha, Fossils, Eshaan were some of those Bangla bands. The founder of the first band Mohiner Ghoraguli, Goutam Chattopadhyay re-released some of their compositions and the album was a massive hit. These were the same compositions which failed to impress the audience during the 70’s. Chattopadhyay became the father of Bangla Rock.
Within a short period of time Bangla Band became a cult for the youth of Bengal. Every college and university included at least one band during their cultural meets. In fact almost every college had their own bands. Terms like jam session, head banging, rock start etc. became familiar. The term “show” was replaced by “gig”. Soon there were many small and big band who formed a large community including performers and core audience. The concept of live show was completely changed, in terms of stage presentation. Colored par cans, laser, globe, mirror, moving head, artificial smoke, confetti etc. become a part of every gig. It gave a new and gorgeous visual impact to the shows. The local made PA systems were not enough to deliver that kind of powerful music, hence, replaced by branded systems like Peavey, JBL, Soundcraft etc. Not only the front man, but also all the musician got equal importance and developed massive fan base. The craze was accelerating among the youth rapidly. Most musicians started growing their hair, having tattoos, wearing black attire, torn jeans, accessories etc. The lyrics had its origin in “jibonmukhi” and had humor, satire, politics, current affairs, revolution, love, addiction etc.
Bengali bands use a wide variety of styles such as rock, pop, hard rock, blues, jazz, country, heavy metal, grunge, folk, fusion etc. It was extremely different from the Indian mainstream music. The mainstream songs were majorly based on Indian classical music and traditional instrumentation. Tabla, dhol, harmonium, Indian flute, sitar, sarod etc. along with few western instruments were used. Massive use of ¾ beats were seen which is rare in western music. Band music introduced distortion guitars, heavy drumming, bass guitars, keyboard tones like rock organ, church organ, E.P. etc. The conventional Indian song structure was replaced by the western structure of Verse, Pre-chorus, Chorus, Bridge. Distortion guitar leads dominated the interludes and preludes. Identified as Bangla Rock, different forms of Rock were explored by the bands.
On the other side of Bengal, which was outside India, Bangladesh has been experiencing Rock Music and band culture since a long time. It was like the main stream music there. Bangla bands of India also had influence from the Bangladeshi popular bands like Miles, LRB, and Feedback.
Bangla Band was the most promising thing that was happening in the 90s but it had its own challenges…

CHAPTER SIX
Back Calculations

Principle feature of Bangla rock was its hardness. Bengalis are soft traditional people. I have seen people putting their hand on their ear during the sound check when a guitarist checks his distortion patch. Although the youth highly accepted it but for the urban older generation it was considered uncultured and unsocial. Also people who had less exposer to western music could not take this music at all. A major portion of the mass wanted easy listening and soothing music. The mass was reluctant about most of the topics about which the lyrics were written by the band. Band fell between two extremes. One is comprised of orthodox and old school people. The other being the people with lack of awareness. Fans were hard core and the haters were too. The music got limited to the college goers.
The next challenge was the extreme domination of 90’s Bollywood music as Bengali movie music was hitting rock bottom due to poor quality. In case of live shows people were happy listening to copy singers if they couldn’t bring the original artist. Outside a college, whenever Bangla Band got a gig they not only had to establish or promote their own band, but also establish the concept of Bangla Band. Bangla Band music did not have enough strength to combat the power of Bollywood music.
Be it India, America or any other country, crowd expect some foot taping number by the performer, so that they can dance and enjoy the show. Free style dance in India also differ from that of the western country, due to the music. The beat of a drum, the sound of a guitar, up tempo patterns of rock, pop, swing, twist, rock-n-roll, reggae etc. stimulates dancing in the audience. Even head banging and mosh pit, which are associated with hard rock and metal are also expressions used in place of dancing. While in India it’s the up tempo Indian patterns like “dadra” (3/4) and “keherwa” (4/4) played in dhol, table, Panjabi dhol, nagara, thumba, congo and other leather rhythm instruments. The mainstream film music was using all of it, while the bands were playing pure western patterns. People were clueless about how to react to this music. Even after a power pact performance the shows were not that successful.
For countries like India where people are so much connected to their roots of rich cultural background it takes time to adopt something new. When some of the band realized this factor they started taking a shortcuts to make their shows successful. Band like “Paraspathor”, “Abhilasha” started including few Indian folk tracks with traditional patterns to fulfil this purpose. But this trend was not common and the musical arrangements were sill 100% westernized. But during the latter part of the decade a band called “Bhumi” launched themselves with such a sound that was purely like the mainstream Indian music. They remixed tradition folk songs and also had original compositions. They created a catchy soundscape and within a short span the band got extreme popularity. One of their original composition “Brandayer Roddur”(Sunshine in the Balcony) literally became like an anthem in Bengal. The mass audience who were not at all inclined towards Band music started identifying Bangla Band as “Bhumi”. But there was no trace of Rock in it though. Organizers who could not afford Bhumi started calling comparatively smaller bands to the shows. But audience expectation was disappointed as they played primarily rock music. Some new bands like “Kaya” and “Kalpurush” started following the path set by “Bhumi” and got popularity. A new sub-genre of folk rock was born. This was a great dissapointment for the Bangla rock movement. Bangla rock was not established strongly yet and amidst that a new sub-genre was spreading its tentacles with a type of music that was completely opposite to Bangla rock. Folk rock monopoly started. The revolution was more vigorous now, as the opponents were also within the fraternity itself.
Works of popular retro music directors like Salil Chudhury, R. D. Barman, Bappi Lahiri had western influence in their work. During the early 90s a new name emerged in the world of Indian film music – A.R Rahman. His music was a mix of Indian and western. He was a trend setter in all means. After Rahman more music director started using much more western elements in their compositions. People started getting accustomed to western style of music gradually. It eventually helped the Bangla rock bands of Kolkata as well.
Another very prominent music genre emerged nationally during that era, Indie-pop. It was non-film music by independent musician like Biddu, Instant Karma, Euphoria (Hindi Band), KK, Alisha Chinai etc. It comprised of original compositions and also remix of retro songs. The genre became immensely popular. Following this even in Bengal a group of soloist from Bengal like Indranil Sen, Srikanta Acharya, Rupankar, Lopamudra etc. created a same kind of music genre. But their music lacked any sort of western influence. By the beginning of the millennium Bengali audience were distinguishingly divided among several genres. Bengali film music, Bengali Rock bands, Bengali folk bands, Bengali other non-film, Hindi film music, Indie-pop and a very few English Rock bands of India as well. The Bangla rock movement was jeopardized in this clutter.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Rise up and fall

The new millennium came along with bunch of positive surprises for Bangla Bands. Many private radio stations and new satellite TV channels were launch. The money market was good and hence Bangla Band also got sponsors. Bangla band Fossils, doing pure rock music, launched there album. They definitely had potential in their music, but they also got almost 24 hours play rotation in one of the then leading radio stations of the city. Continuous hammering of a media content brings it to the top of the mind recall of the audience. And that is exactly what happened with Fossils. In the meantime Bengali film contents were also getting a complete make-over. Artists and audience both were getting exposed to international film and music. In 2005 when the leading film production house from Kolkata were launching the first commercial music TV channel, “Sangeet Bangla”, they planned to organize the first band hunt in India as part of their promotion plan. The language was Bengali, and it was a called “Band-e-Mataram”. The audience response was spectacular to the surprise of the organizers. Thousands of bands from all over the state participated. The platform was huge with multiple media promotion, celebrity jury panel and 360 degree publicity campaign. Undoubtedly Bengal has never seen a reality show of such stature. And our band Eeshaan emerged the winner. Undoubtedly it was a life changing moment for us. Entire Bengal knew us. We had to literally decide between shows. Not only us, the brand, Bangla Rock Band overall was hugely popularized among the mass. Suddenly number of show increased for all the bands and Bangla Band in itself became an industry. It was proved that if given a visual, financial and promotional support, anything can overtake the conventional patterns.
The production house, Sri Venkatesh Films, who organized this event, was profited to a great extent. Such was the vibe of the Band hunt that the television audience drifted from other channels to Sangeet Bangla. Not even the common mass, but also the people from the Bangla Band fraternity started believing in the fact that Band music will evolve with the help of this channel. Everybody started producing music videos and the channel also telecasted those. The Band hunt was organized for two more consecutive years. Band music was the key content on the channel for those two years as well. But their real intention and strategies showed up when they discontinued the festival and slowly Bangla band content was taken off-air. In the mean time they started producing high budget Bengali commercial films and promoting them on their channel. This was just a way to draw audience attention and slowly convert them into future movie fans. Instead of cloning content from Bollywood they copied content from South India movie industry. The formula of success was simple – glamorous lead actors, international locations, Bollywood standard song production, and mass appealing stories. These movies brought back the Bengali audience to the theatres. A whole new era of modern Bengali films started. Sri Venkatesh Films bought all the distribution rights and started a never seen before monopoly. The songs from the films produced by them ruled every radio and television station. In no time they became the No. 1 production house. Bangla Band on the other hand could not compete with the ultra glamourous Bengali films. After all it is not just a show, its show business!
Bangla Band did not die. Now their appeal lies only with the college crowd. But the college crowd is also an ardent listener of the new age ultra-glamorous Bengali films. Confusion, dilution and insecurity went up to a different level. Is it possible to continue like this? Is there a hope of sustainability?

CHAPTER EIGHT
Last Blood

During this time, the first decade of the millennium, western music started playing a dominant role in Hindi movies. Bollywood films like Rock Star, Rock on, etc. brought pure rock music to the mass audience. Films enhanced the popularity of rock music. Many national band’s member like Vishal Dadlani started career in Hindi film music. On the other hand Bangla band started suffering more and more with time. Number of shows went down. They were taken over by film music again. As an added incentive, now Indian films provide all variety of music for its listeners. There was nothing new that Bangla bands could present. The movement was dying.
In 2010 Bengali film embraced a new composer and singer - Anupam Roy. He signed a film with Sree Venkatesh Films in the same year. He gave a new soundscape which was able to
impress the Bengali audience. He reached the height of popularity with his new age lyrics and innovative music. But people failed to identify that he was just repeating the sound scape which the Bangla Bands were producing long back in the 90’s. Within a year other music directors also followed the same path and Bengali film music overall started sounding the same. Members of different Bangla band also wanted to work in films. It is an irony that Bangla Bands which started a musical movement against the monopoly of mainstream film music, were now trying to work in films.
Bangla band saw its ultimate downfall from 2012. Bands started splitting when member started playing with other solo artist or bands for money. Many left the band and even music for jobs. The bands started losing identity and got dissolved. Those who can sustain, are still trying hard to save their Bands. Many new band, those who could sustain financially, started doing free show just for the fame. Some other Bangla bands have started composing Hindi film songs covers as well. Eventually the main purpose behind the formation of the Bangla Band have diluted over time. It is tragic, that a movement like this which started with a greater cause lost its path in the maze of commercial entertainment.