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Log in to the radio

An enterprising trio starts an Internet radio station for independent Indian music

UNITED Gaurav Vaz, Shreyas Srinivasan and Kaustubh Srikanth PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.

If there's one peeve that unites rock music fans across the country, it's the lack of local music content on mainstream radio. So, Kaustubh Srikanth, Gaurav Vaz and Shreyas Srinivasan decided to pool their talents and create a one-of-its-kind venture, India's first Internet radio station dedicated wholly to independent Indian music.

Be original

Welcome to Radio Verve, where the only conditions for playing music are that the music be Indian, original and with no affiliations to any record label.

"I have a lot of musician friends such as Gaurav who do not want their music restricted to a geographical area or a niche audience," says Kaustubh. "I started Infinity Radio, which played every night from nine to eleven. I put the music online and spoke about it live, and got great feedback. So I asked Gaurav and Shreyas to join in, and we started Radio Verve."

One can listen to Verve's programmes by visiting the site and clicking on the link provided. One could also cut and paste the link provided onto an external media player such as Windows Media Player or Winamp.

"As of now, we have a bunch of shows that have been canned on the site and keep looping, and we add on new content whenever we can," says Kaustubh. That is not only albums produced by bands, but also interviews with bands, discussions, etc. "Right now the site is a work-in-progress, and a lot of the programming is ad hoc," admits Gaurav. "But that's because we're trying to work out the nitty-gritty of running the station seamlessly. We still need to resolve legal issues of what happens if someone we play on our station gets signed on by a label etc.," he explains. "We've found a lot more bands than we ever expected," says Shreyas. There is a band called Avial which plays only Malayalam rock music. Then there are some great bands from Shillong and the rest of the North East.

The problem, adds Kaustubh, is that even though a lot of talent is present throughout the country, much of the talent in the country is isolated as there has been no collaborative effort to bring it all together. "That's what we're trying to do."

At present, Radio Verve runs on the commitment of these three guys and the goodwill of everyone they know. "We spend Rs. 5,000 every month to keep the server alive, and we are lucky that a friend Atul Chitnis gave us the equipment and space to record our shows." What's really getting the trio excited is the kind of community building that is gradually taking place around the station. "There are people who are willing to write the code for our website, managers willing to help us out with management issues, bands that put up our banners for free at their concerts," says Gaurav.

Radio Verve is built entirely on free and open source software, taking forward the idea of a community-driven project.

"Everything from our streaming software to our flash player is built on open source, and we don't close off any modifications we make to them," says Kaustubh.

For details, log on to Radio Verve at www.radioverve.com

RAKESH MEHAR

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