Indiecision: Music Blog: Independent Music in India and Elsewhere

SIDDHARTH COUTTO GOES SOLO

Helga’s Fun Castle, formed in mid-late 2004, was the project that saw Siddharth Coutto come to prominence as a vocalist. Having previously been behind the collective limelight, and the drums of Zero, Coutto made HFC the quintessential Indian rock supergroup. The first thing he said to me when I asked him about taking the mic in this new project (in an interview with HFC back in late 2004, when they were still Helga’s Funk Castle) was, “I was always a singer, man.”

Now, Coutto’s getting ready to release his debut solo album. He writes on his MySpace

Hi. I’m Sidd. I love music. I love humour. When you put together these exquisite passions, you pretty much end up with nothing useful, unless you’re Weird Al. Luckily, I write songs, sing, drum, play guitar*, program** and produce music too. Music and humour are my life. What I do for work is compose music and/or produce it. What I do for fun is compose music and/or produce it. Have I mentioned music is life?? Haha.*** And humour. I’ve been in some fairly popular rock bands (Pearl Jam, Steely Dan and the Eagles)**** I’ve finally written my solo album. Woohoo!! I’m in the process of producing it right now. ***** And I’m putting together a band to play the stuff live.

Up on his profile are three songs to sample

‘Concert Piano’
‘Voices In My Head’
‘Happy’

The music is very Ben Folds-ish in its style and delivery, and given Coutto’s penchant for improvisation (’Cows On Parade’ anyone), the live act should be fun.

PENTAGRAM TRYING TO BRING ZERO BACK TOGETHER

At the close of Zero’s final gig at I-Rock 2008, Vishal Dadlani, frontman of one of India’s biggest acts Pentagram and one half of popular Bollywood music composers Vishal-Shekhar, got on the PA and urged the band not to “give up something this special, fuckers.” The end of Zero obviously affected more than just the common Indian indie listener.

In an interview with the Times of India, Dadlani was quoted saying

I am shattered by the recent break-up of another group, Zero, and I am still trying to bring them back together.

The reunion of Zero might be a dream for many, much like Dadlani stating in the same interview

We are the best band in India.

Still, there’s always hope, even for Pentagram. Dadlani was also quoted giving props to metal acts Pin Drop Violence and Scribe, which is great because Scribe totally deserve it and PDV will be rocking on for humanity.

This same piece in the TOI also has several typos and claims that the crowd at the Bandra festival had probably never seen an act like Rodney Branigan and therefore were keen on seeing him end his performance. Racist macs.

INDIAN ACTS IN BLENDER’S LIST OF ‘100 HARD ROCK BANDS YOU MUST LISTEN TO’

Blender’s known for its vast variety of lists. As with most lists related to music, the results are often (always) debateable. The new issue of the Indian edition of Blender features the clinically titled list ‘100 Hard Rock Bands You Must Listen To’.

Making the cut among international acts like Nirvana (#3), The Ramones (#8), Meatloaf (#86) and The Clash (#8) are a few Indian acts. Here are the Indian bands that made it to the list of ‘100 Hard Rock Bands You Must Listen To’

Thermal And A Quarter (#48)
Junoon (#53) (not Indian though)
Pentagram (#76)
Agnee (#81)
Colourblind (#87)
Zero (#95)

In case you were wondering, Led Zeppelin were #1, The Sex Pistols were #2 and Deep Purple were #100. But Zero behind Junoon, that’s just wrong.

ZERO: WAS ALWAYS 10% OF OUR LIVES

Zero played their last gig at I-Rock 2008, and it was a pretty emotional affair with the ender, ‘PSP’, being sung by the audience rather than the band. For a band that’s been around for a long time, to end it like that was fitting. Still, it’s disheartening to hear that the music meant less to the artist than it did to the fans.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Bobby (Girish Talwar, bass) said

Zero was always 10 per cent of our lives. Like you keep space for dessert after food, this 10 percent is the dessert of our lives and will be reserved for music.

In relative terms, Zero was one of the biggest Indian rock acts. Their music was original and recognised wherever they played. I remember watching them in Ahmedabad a few years ago and Gujjus went ballistic over ‘PSP’ and ‘Not My Kind Of Girl’. But with Zero, one always got the feeling that the music was a placeholder; a stop-gap of sorts till the ’scene’ became bigger or personal priorities came along.

Be it with their album releases, or their website, everything took its own time coming. And before we knew it, it came to an end. So justifying a statement like the one above, is probably easy. However, the question really is - can a band ever be bigger than the sum of its parts?

In Zero’s case, despite the many, many guitarists they’ve had, disappointingly no.