The current state of independent music in this country is hardly something one can take pride in. The independent music scene was pushed to dire straits about eight years ago with the almost concurrent closures of spaces like The Humming Tree, B-Flat, and Blue Frog – today, it continues to suffer. Monopoly and cultural capital are the names of the game; much like how the mainstream film music industry chokes streams of revenue from reaching into independent music, the latter itself is a microcosm built on a similar disparity of resources.
The depth of the problem can begin to be accessed only when one sets off from a position that offers a clear view – of the lack of something as fundamental as attention, to any art that is not commercial. Like its siblings, independent music has its own little family, whose members, in their various capacities, are trying to keep the candle aflame, especially in a city like Bengaluru where the closures point to the city hardly having money or time for anything beyond its primary economic lifeblood: tech.
Despite the apparent systemic problem here being one that is not readily solvable, there is a lot one can do, especially if in a position of privilege. Samhita Nagaraj, founder and manager of The Blue Room, does not hold back, stating, “It’s about investment. People with the resources need to be willing to do things in a philanthropic way because there’s no other way that an industry like this can sort of grow from the grassroots again. It comes down to if people are willing to put the money on the table and not take anything for themselves; just be insanely generous.”
Sanjeev Thomas, manager of Rainbow Bridge, echoes the sentiment, saying, “The best part of having an ecosystem of live music venues is that there is fair play – both for the audience and the artiste. Today, the city has probably one or two dedicated venues, and nothing is fair when there is a monopoly of affairs. To keep our local artistes alive and thriving, we need more live venues to recreate the sense of community and camaraderie.”
Venues and funders stand at the forefront of this oft-dreamed pushback; but an echo is nothing without an ethos. Having the vision to sieve through the multitude of musicians and platform the (more) deserving is a challenge of itself. Integrity should, and is, the cornerstone for both the venue organisers. “For me, if there is one thing that I look for in an artiste, that would be how true the artiste is to him or herself. Only then can there be something unique,” says Thomas. Nagaraj’s palate is a mixture of honesty and sophistication when choosing artistes to play at The Blue Room. “In my mind, the filter that it goes through is: is it complex and is it, to some degree, improvised? Because that tells you about the person’s relationship with music as a language, and I know how hard both of those things are to really master,” she reveals.
The path is long and not for those who get easily worse for wear, but the ground gets more fertile every day. When venues like these set out with such ambitious resolve, it is only a matter of time till the plurality is magnified; and plurality is a magnificent thing. Until then, we live in obstinate hope.