Bengaluru crawls with live gigs on weeknds, as venues come alive. For the most part, however, tribute gigs and cover bands, the crowd-pullers, still dominate. The music community finds itself more or less restricted to the uncurated turf of open mics. Until now. Every week, musicians take over BlueFROG on Church Street, on a platform that comprises a house band, followed by an extensive jam. "It's a place for community, really, which I find is missing from Bengaluru," says Zui Kumar-Reddy, a day before the third edition of Funk Jam.
Back in the 1960s, a new, dynamic subculture began to surface. This celebrated experimentation and alternative lifestyles, with bands like the Beatles going on to become icons of the new revulution. The Mamas and the Papas, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead grew to prominence, resulting in an 'explosion' of rock and roll bolstered by constant experimentation. Much has changed since, with Bohemian freedoms giving way to the relative sterility of the recording studio and the compulsions of mass consumption. In India, the rising indie scene is thwarted by the film industry and the growing demand for ‘relatable’, straight-up entertainment gigs.
When she arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, with a passing interest in music cultivated from her guitarist father, Konarak Reddy, she found a very different scene. "I knew how to play a pentatonic minor scale," she recalls. When she arrived, her interest was nurtured at once and she ended up playing in a jazz band. "There was a venue that would organise a big funk jam on Tuesdays," she says. "The first set is a big one but the second is meant for musicians to come up on stage and swap out with the house band." With musicians like Justin Stanton of Snarky Puppy starting off the gigs, the younger suddenly found its chance to rub shoulders with the big names.
"When I came back, though, I found a another world," says Zui. With cover bands dominating the scene, few musicians are inclined to explore new sounds. "We don't even go to each other's gigs," she says. "My father taught me that if you don't fit in with the rest, there is no room for your talent, no matter how much of you have. There is no room for musicians to explore their individual sound and they're forced to move to other cities. Why don't we have a platform in Bengaluru to nurture our talent?"
Pianist Aman Mahajan making a surprise entrance at a Funk Jam gig only added to her conviction. "You have young musicians on stage and suddenly, they turn to find Aman at the keyboard. It's not often they get a chance like this . Moreover, the thing was unplanned, he simply heard the music from the street, where he had come to eat dinner!"
This week's lineup comprises Raghuram Ramasubramaniam on bass, Suraj Gulvadi on guitar, Bharath Kumar on guitar, Venky Naik on vocals and Siddharth Rajmohan on drums. "Entry is free for non-musicians too, from this week onward, although we will set up a donation box to keep future gigs going. Very little has been done for young musical talent and this is just my way of doing something for the community."
What: Funk Jam, When: April 20, 8 pm
Where: blueFROG, Church Street
