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No bread, lots of jam
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Freedom Jam is getting bigger and better. And if you have lurking doubts about the implications of corporate sponsorships, the music is sure to drown them, writes C.K. MEENA
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They weren't performing, just jamming — Photo: K.Murali Kumar
THE PILGRIMS looked as if they'd been washed up on the rock by a large wave. They stuck out in the Friday evening crowd at Cubbon Park. Passersby gawked at them while they played "Channappa Channegowda" and many other ad hoc compositions on guitar, mandolin, flute, tabla, bongos, maraccas, and harmonica. A soprano recorder waited in readiness for the right note, a didgeridoo proceeded to "wharrump" and "whoo". Percussion emerged from what looked like a pale blue Easter egg, and from a little wooden mallet rapping one of those wooden foot-massagers you get in Pondicherry.
They weren't performing, just jamming.
Their pilgrimage on August 6 was to the large rock next to the bamboo grove (hereafter called The Rock), which is the birthplace of what is optimistically called Bangalore's Woodstock: the annual Freedom Jam. In the mid-Eighties, a group of music-lovers that preferred anonymity started free jam sessions on Friday and Saturday evenings at what they christened The Music Strip (hereafter called The Strip), the patch of grass between the Ashoka trees behind Queen Vicky. Anybody could bring along their instruments and provide acoustic entertainment to whomever cared to squat around them. On Sundays, the action would shift to The Rock where musicians would play in petromax light through battery-powered amplifiers lent by Reynolds.
You needed no bread to listen to music. Or to play it. Cool scene, man.
Revival
The Strip-pers and the Rock-ers played on for a few years but then the City got bigger, and restrictions in the Park, tighter. In '96, however, some old timers decided to revive the spirit of The Strip at a new venue: the outdoor arena behind Ravindra Kalakshetra. Thus began the Sunday Jams and the annual all-night Freedom Jam on the eve of Independence Day. The "no bread" principle was maintained. No more anonymity, though, for this was the Nineties. The identities of the organisers were no secret. They included Guruskool trustees Gopal and Geetha Navale, Siddharth who used to be part of Bharat Mata Nach Kud Baja or Baja for short, and Michael Sorensen who came to India eight years ago and does blues fusion on veena that he learnt to play by ear. The venue of the Freedom Jam shifted from Kalakshetra to the Navales' farm 30 km from the City.
This year it's at The Club on Mysore Road. And this year, Levi's is sponsoring it. A little voice in my ear hissed: "Sell-out, sell-out."
When I twisted the "no bread" slogan and teased Gopal that the company was providing plenty of it, he pointed out how the event was getting bigger and better. The company would pay for sound, lights, and venue. It would sponsor a couple of pre-Jam gigs and a half-hour nightly programme on FM Rainbow from August 8-13 featuring the best of the bands that would play at the Jam. The brand was much in evidence on August 6 at The Rock. To make use of photo and video opportunities, caps stamped with the logo were handed out for the pilgrims to wear, and a couple of guys knelt behind them, holding aloft a banner all through the jamming.
Changing times
Oh the times they were a-changin'. Mobile phones rang from time to time. "You have to register online," said Geetha to a caller. "Already about 50 bands have registered so you have to do it now." Siddharth was on the phone to fellow Baja member Jeet Thayil (poet-guitarist-journalist), ordering him to get his ass down to Cubbon Park. But Jeet apparently had a dental appointment that he was unwilling to cancel (dentists are cheaper here than in New York, see?). Another Strip-per Konarak Reddy couldn't make it perhaps because of rehearsals for the Genet play he was to direct.
It was only the jamming that managed to echo an earlier era of laid-back lifestyles. Nostalgia crept into the evening. Tabla-player and old timer Nataraj described to younger musicians how they used to manage with crude technology. Siddharth remembered this bloke called Barry from Fraser Town, an ardent music fan who played no instrument. He would throw open his house for musicians to practise in. Gopal recalled a Strip-per who had fallen on hard times: the all-too-familiar story of trippers who wind up with broken relationships.
"Pick the stuff you trip on." Message on a company folder for the event. It coyly continues: "In music, that is." Not powder, weed, or chemical. This generation is more circumspect. They don't take foolish risks. They have backup plans.
Talented singer Kamal has wispy braids around a shaved head, and a cluster of brass safety pins sticking out of his right ear. He plays with bands such as 777 (alternative) and Snot Ball (punk). After a public school education in Kotagere he did theology at ACTS for three years and led singing worship in a church. He earns his bread at a call centre. "I worked three hours before coming here," he said. "I asked for leave but they didn't give it." Pint-sized Anirban, the 24-year-old lead guitarist who has been winning prizes at practically every rock fest ("I've been playing the guitar for 12 years") is doing his first year MCA at BMS College. He wants to secure a degree so that he "can get a job any time". His parents are very supportive and don't want him to slog it out at a call centre, he says. Maybe he'll do sound engineering.
Do young musicians such as these really care who sponsors the events they play at? Do they worry about being used to endorse multinational brands? The Freedom Jam aims to free them from the stranglehold of the music industry. Do they want to be freed?
If the answer is no, let's not kick up a fuss and pother. Let us accept the fact that commerce rules the world. Who knows, some bands might see the Jam as a stepping stone to MTV. The industry having co-opted the term "alternative", maybe the focus should be on "alternative alternative". Oh, well. Time to stop agonising, and enjoy the music.
For more info, log onto www.guruskoolmusic.com.
Why not let live?
THE GOVERNMENT'S "blanket ban on live bands", as media headlines had it, has raised the ire of local musicians. The organisers of the Freedom Jam have initiated a signature campaign petitioning the government to reconsider. The problem is really one of terminology. "Live bands" is not synonymous with all bands that play live music. It is a term used by the police, and hence by the media, to indicate bands that play at bars where women take off most of their clothes while they dance to music. The police claim that these joints are a cover for prostitution and a hangout for criminals. But banning the bands is no answer. The petition says: "We understand that the decision to ban live bands stems from a desire to curb the flesh trade. However, we would also like to point out the example of the tourism and hotel industry which also caters to the flesh trade." Does this mean that all hotels must be shut down? The petition requests the authorities to "find a more humane means for curbing illicit activities by offering live band artistes an avenue to pursue their craft within a legally sanctioned framework". It concludes: "It would be wrong to deprive them of their only means of earning their bread by criminalising live band music altogether."
C.K.M.
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