Every time I think about the word “Underground” usually all sorts of dark and grim thoughts arise. It’s like one of those goons standing at the end of a dark alley, with some kind of a folding knife in their hand. Well that is somewhat the reality of underground bands too. They are the badasses of the music scene. They want no fame, no recognition and like to stay hidden in the dark alleys. Contradicting popular beliefs, underground bands are underground because they choose to be. Not because they lack talent. I’ve seen some bands, who have the potential to become one of the best in the country, but they choose to be underground because they want no part of that fame. It’s only the love of music that drives them.
Now that being said, the question that arises is – Isn’t it necessary to give them a bit of recognition for their contribution to the scene?
Well to start off with, every band starts as an underground band. They will perform in local pubs and maybe a few college fests to begin with. Then comes the moment of truth, the band has a choice to make – to carry on doing the pub shows and the occasional college fests or, make it big and perform in some national level fests, get recognized, maybe get an album deal and then tour the country. Bands taking the second option will be termed as mainstream thereafter. While the ones who choose to stick to the roots are the underground bands. So the bottom-line is if there were no underground bands, there would be no mainstream bands either, and hence no band good enough to represent the country in the International level (which India lacks at the moment). So it should be obvious to have some sort of an award ceremony to reward the best of the best.
But the thing is underground bands do not want such recognition. All they want is their music to be heard. Hence for them, the crowd turning up for shows is the biggest reward. No trophy or cash certificate can replace that feeling. But the current scene does not look promising at all. People don’t show up in local gigs, they never used to as a matter of fact. And with the rise of International acts coming to the country, the local gigs have dried up; as everyone wants to save money for the big events. This has resulted in cases were the bands are not even paid for the shows, as the turnout is so low that not enough revenue can be generated to pay the venue charges and the bands.
Only a few underground gigs are organised yearly. But of them all only Trendslaughter Fest and Underground Fest in Bangalore have a dedicated fan base in the country. Except these two, one hardly gets to hear about proper underground gigs, blame it on the lack of publicity or just a lack of management personnel to host a proper gig; nonetheless the number of gigs is very low. Though it seems other cities are catching up with Bangalore, most prominent of them all was the Ritual Ascension Fest held in Kolkata this year. It got a very good response for a debut event.
With such a bad turn out in general and lack of gigs, the existence of underground bands is at stake. Even award ceremonies can’t help them. The only thing that can be done is to have frequent mainstream-underground gigs. Most people will oppose this idea, but that is the only way these bands can get some exposure and retain the fan base. Something of similar sorts was seen during the first edition of The Mighty Riff, where Bevar Sea was seen sharing the stage with current crowd favourite – Inner Sanctum. The crowd response was good enough for a local gig. More initiatives like that can be taken to help the scene flourish.
Maybe a nation-wide underground fest may help too, different bands going to play in different cities. That would inspire some new bands to stay underground and not go into the mainstream because, the music scene is like the animal food chain; one link in the chain gets disrupted, the whole chain is broken. Hopefully the scene will improve soon and we’ll have a mainstream-underground harmony.
Talking of popular underground fests, Cyclopean Eye Productions presents Trendslaughter Fest 3rd edition, to be held on 10th of February 2013 in Bangalore. The fest will be headlined by Blood Division from Singapore. So if you are anywhere near Bangalore during that time, make sure you drop in, trust me you won’t be disappointed.
