NH7 › Nokia Music Connects: Impressions

Nokia Music Connects was a day long conference held at the Taj Lands End in Bandra, Mumbai on August 26. The who’s-who of the Indian music industry attended, discussed and ate free food. The consumption of the food was perhaps the most weighty of all the day’s affairs. We were there, also eating.

The conference saw the Indian music bigwigs partake in panel discussions through the day, which concluded with live sets from four Indian indie acts.

Notes

First off, props to Nokia and the folks at Radioandmusic.com for hosting the conference. The true importance of the event wasn’t getting all these people together, but finding out how much they understood of the current state of music and what they intended to do about it.
‘These people’ included Vijay Lazarus (president of the Indian Music Industry), Atul Churamani (Saregama), Vineet Taneja (Nokia), Rajat Kakar (Universal), Saleem Mobhani (Airtel), Shridhar Subramaniam (Sony), Bhushan Kumar (T Series), Kumar Taurani (Tips) and a bunch of others. Essentially almost all the decision makers in the hot seat of the way music is managed and consumed in India.
Joining them were a few international delegates including Seymour Stein (the guy who signed Madonna and The Ramones), Neil Warnock (the dude who brought Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones to India) and Rob McDermott (manager, Linkin Park).
For ball-by-ball updates of what happened, do check my Twitter.
Essentially, the conference was a great insight to what Indian music’s ‘leaders’ know and think about the current music scene.
Vijay Lazarus for example, made a statement to the effect that any artist would need to release at least 7-8 albums to achieve any sort of success. His reasoning? Without that big a repertoire, the artists would not have enough songs to perform on tour.
Far too much rhetoric was thrown around. Facts that are common knowledge became keynotes and the impression that the Indian music industry may in fact be FUBAR loomed large. But more on that later.
The average age of the people attending the conference was between 35-40. The target audience for all that was talked about was a good 15 years younger.
Apart from Rabbi Shergill (who was on a panel) and the bands scheduled to perform at the night’s gig (Advaita, Swarathma, DMajor, Sona Mohapatra), no other musicians were present. At the music conference.
The main problem at Nokia Music Connects was that no one could identify a main problem. Was Bollywood the issue? Was piracy the problem? Was MP3 the problem? The ambiguity of 90% of the discussions was absurd.
Identifying solutions was therefore impossible.
There was a lot of talk about indie labels and the work those labels are doing. Yet, only one indie label (Blue Frog) was represented.
A lot of people put made a variety of colourful statements that went largely unnoticed. Luckily not by us. Here are a few samples.
Farhad Wadia, when trying to explain the amount of new talent in the country – “We received over 300 demos for I-Rock this year. Half of them were thrash or death metal so we’ll ignore those.”
Ashutosh Phatak, when explaining that one doesn’t need to bring big, expensive bands to perform in India – “Forget the big bands. There are a million small bands out there that cost next to nothing.”
Kumar Taurani (Tips), when defending Bollywood – “We don’t have talent in India apart from Bollywood.”
Brian Tellis (he used to be on 107.1 FM, now with Fountainhead), wrapping up a session on the live music scene that didn’t address any issue or deliver any solution – “Looks like there is hope.”
Linkin Park may or may not perform in India sooner or later.
Nokia launched its music store (our early impressions) at the conference, with a tacky song and dance sequence (pictured).
The foreign delegates were of the view that India really needs to get its act together in the areas of music venues, a touring circuit, performance taxes, band managers, and essentially creating opportunities for more AR Rah-muns.
Rabbi Shergill really wanted to bust out some jams, and Swarathma obliged with two. Full review of the gigs in a bit.
Gary Lawyer, Himesh Reshammiya and the Black Eyed Peas were ignored entirely.

We’ll have a full editorial on what we think is the state of the Indian music industry soon. Till then, here’s a picture of Rabbi Shergill holding a guitar and looking contemplative.