This year’s finalists had plenty to look forward to in terms of prizes. Here is what the prizes are this time around as found on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam website

This year, we’re giving 8 bands the chance to play at an awesome live music club opening for a big time headline act. 4 bands will get to have a music video shot by some of the coolest and edge-iest minds by social media and production pioneers Jack In The Box and then of course, play at the coolest festivals in the country.

The finalists this year have also been announced so check out the lineup below.

24th Nov. NEW DELHI
Venue: Manasja
Headlining act – Indigo Children
Red Bull Bedroom Jam: MiddleFingerTheory (pictured) – from Delhi

24th Nov. PUNE – High Spirits
Venue: High Spirits
Headlining act – Sidd Coutto
Red Bull Bedroom Jam: Dark Helm – from Pune

25th Nov. BANGALORE
Venue: Counter Culture
Purple Blood
Escher’s Knot
Renegade
Headlining act – Swarathma

8th Dec. KOLKATA
Venue: Someplace Else
Headlining act – Skinny Alley

It is going to get tricky now so try and keep up! Dark Helm and MiddleFingerTheory are the winners of their region and also in the Buzz list of top eight bands, so they get all the prizes. Swarathma will pick a winner on the night from the lineup of Purple Blood, Escher’s Knot and Renegade and that band will also receive the same prizes as Dark Helm and MiddleFingerTheory. In Kolkata, however, Skinny Alley will have to choose two bands to play on the night and they will get no further prizes because they are not on the Buzz list of top eight bands. For more details about the winners, visit the Red Bull Bedroom Jam website.

Disclaimer: This is a promoted post.

Proof of the same is in this latest of Singh’s editing machinations. The band’s recent Pubrockfest gig at Turquoise Cottage, New Delhi featured a performance of the song ‘Terrified’. The song was shot on video by photographer Shiv Ahuja (keyboardist of New Delhi band Five8). Singh then put some of his post-production wizardry (check out Skinny Alley’s Flip Clips for more) to the task, and the result is this pretty awesome four-and-a-half minute video.

Watch below.

Terrified from PINKNOISE on Vimeo.

The latest one, titled That Cow, involves zoom-in/zoom-out/split screen footage of a mysterious cow. He is standing in someone’s driveway, peering intensely into their house, standing absolutely still. Check it out here. Cowabungalow.

Flip Clip #5 – That Cow from SKINNY/ALLEY on Vimeo.

The band’s experimental alterego PINKNOISE has been remixing Skinny Alley material at recent live performances.

Jayashree Singh, frontlady of both acts, told us about the project

We decided we would try and rework the Skinny songbook as we were tired of doing the same old same old and then just before rehearsals started both Jeff, the keyboard player, and Kochoo, the conguero, who sits in with Skinny at times fell ill and couldnt make it to rehearsal by which time the PINK foursome had already started working on the rework and were really enjoying it. By the time these were able to come back to rehearsal it was too late for them to get a hold of the tunes because they had wandered so far away from the original versions and were now totally in some deep blue zone and needed a total change of attitude for the musicians playing so we decided that we would do it as a PINKNOISE plays Skinny gig… as actually the ethos has now become so pink.

The gig starts at 10pm on Friday, Aug 6 at Big Ben, The Kenilworth in Kolkata. Check out live footage of PINKNOISE playing at the Princeton Club in Kolkata.

Pic: Vikas Munipalle, from this set.

D For Brother is a collection of songs written and recorded by Amyt Datta and his brother Monojit Datta (of Monojit Datta and The Orient Express), performed under the moniker D For Brother. The six songs were released on tape in 1992 and have now surfaced on Amyt Datta’s Bandcamp page. The music is experimental, fusion-y stuff that’s unlike much of the music you may have heard by Indian indie acts at the time. The songs are

‘Neelima’
‘Secret Marriage Of The Candles On A Crystal Chandelier’
‘Smriti’
‘Solo For Peace’
‘Umma Through The Woods Of Afternoon’
‘At A Distance’

‘Secret Marriage’ is my pick from this lot of pretty compelling tunes. While the MP3 files are lo-fi tape transfers and contain a lot of mono-ish hiss and pops, the music itself is well worth your time. Download the songs here. This is music you should own.

(Pic: Vikas Munipalle, from this PINKNOISE set at the Blue Frog)