Little plastic bricks and musical memories by Pavan R Chawla

When I unpacked an old brown cardboard carton recently, some fragrant musical memories tumbled out of it along with the dusty, crush-proof packs of audio cassettes! I clicked a few pics, just to take you back to the days of audio cassettes that arrived in crush-proof packs from Magnasound, Crescendo, EMI, Polydor, CBS, from the people who evangelized the music industry in India during the years of physical sales.

[caption id="attachment_1495" align="aligncenter" width="466"] Top: (Left) Shashi Gopal; (Right) Suresh THomas; Bottom: (Left) Vikas Varma; (Right) Gaurav Sharma[/caption]

I remembered people like R V Pandit, Shashi Gopal (the man who truly revolutionised Indi-pop and gave us most if not all of our playback and other singing talent) Suresh Thomas, Atul Churamani, Bashir Shaikh, Parag Kamani and others whose started with Shashi and then branched out variously, with Suresh launching (into) Crescendo in a big way, and doing some great work… In fact, every one of Shashi’s original team (read proteges) went on to do — and is doing — great work in the music industry. One of them who’s persisted and how, has been Suresh Thomas, but a more detailed, dedicated piece on Suresh will be upcoming soon. 

From EMI it was through Sanjiv Kohli, one of the first professional managers to join the entertainment industry way back in the late Seventies, if I remember reading that correctly. In the mid-Eighties, after a few years at Polydor, Sanjiv joined HMV / EMI, and was considered one of the finest creative-management professionals in the space.

[caption id="attachment_1497" align="aligncenter" width="244"] Sanjiv Kohli[/caption]

I remember Jagjit Singh telling me even before he planned it, that Chitra and he were planning to produce India’s first digital album, and it was Sanjiv and EMI who produced it. He really started collating the best of the HMV/EMI (and now Saregama) library across its musical legends, and his collections were amazing – across both, popular films and classical sections. Those, really, were the only collections, apart from some top international albums that one looked forward to receiving 

Then there was my dear late friend Irshwin Balwani, and Kalyanasundaram KS.

[caption id="attachment_1492" align="aligncenter" width="265"] Kalyan Sundaram[/caption]

Kalyan went on to launch many excellent music channels and to my mind, along with my dear friends Vikas Varma and Gaurav Sharma, is one of the best music industry creative guys with tremendous business acumen. Rare mix. Any label wanting an immediate intravenous business and creative refresh, you have three great leads right here. In fact, Vikas did some stellar work with Radio, powering the brand launch of Radio City, and later launched 9XM, which raced off the blocks and dislodged — destroyed, ratings-wise — MTV, leader of six straight years before it, in a matter of a mere four weeks. I love MTV and ‘destroyed’ is a harsh word, but that exactly was what happened. And now Gaurav has remained in FM Radio to power two brilliant brands – Fever 104 first, and now Radio Nasha. He is one of the best creative professionals on FM radio today, along with young Rishi of Red FM. Another wonderful, soft-spoken, brilliant professional and excellent human being was V T Ravi of Polydor. He always gave me great industry insights and my visits to pick up a cassette or two for review and playback after research always ended up in long, interesting conversations that I really looked forward to. Don’t know where he is today.

Memories of presenting India’s first Western Music Countdown on AIR

So I’ve rambled, because, as you can see, this spring cleaning in the run up to winter — whatever little we have of it here in Mumbai — has opened up the floodgates and taken me back to my days of presenting India’s first ever English Music countdown show on AIR FM in India from Mumbai, thanks to the brilliant, amazing Assistant Director of AIR FM in Mumbai, Mr Bannerjee. Have even forgotten his first name, but if anyone can get me in touch with him again, I’d be eternally grateful! I remember, those were days when AIR played music only out of the archaic spool recorders or Vinyl (LPs, SPs, EPs), or CDs, but the physical music industry had been pushed into the cheapest form of audio production, audio cassettes, I think largely because of a certain young man from Delhi who was selling audio cassettes at Rs 15 each, and that made them not only mass but also forced the rest to avoid LPs which required relatively more expensive hardware and were more cumbersome to handle. (But vinyl produced the best sound experience if played on a good sound system like my old Cosmic Lab 5000. Ah, bliss! I may be a sentimental fool, but I hold that the sound of a well cared for LP on a Cosmic Lab 5000 beats anything else, even today. Yeah yeah, I can see my son Yohan’s bemused eyebrows arch, but hell yes, nothing beats vinyl, even though I saw a piece headlined right here on Loudest.in that asks if Vinyl is really better than mp3  http://loudest.in/2017/08/27/debunking-the-myth-is-vinyl-really-better-than-mp3/ Have bookmarked it for a leisurely read soon.)

OK, so what did that ‘policy’ of release-only-on-audio-tapes do to Indi pop and private albums music? It was ‘Alas, Khalaas!’ for all new music that was produced, say, after 1988 or so, because 90% of it was being released only on audio cassettes, which were not considered broadcast resolution repositories of audio, and so AIR, which could only play out pre-1988 music, or just the very few, rare albums released on CD, had left music lovers hoping to catch the latest songs on AIR FM, high and dry! Music labels pushing physical sales of audio cassettes were up, well, dirt creek. After all, everyone knows FM Radio is the best seller of music and even promoter of footfalls for movies through new song playouts, and none of that was happening for tapes-only releases on AIR then.

So I reached out to Mr. Bannerjee, ASD of AIR FM Mumbai, and we decided to get a Philips Two In One stereo with a 2-RC out, as a source for my Audio Tapes, and then record the audio on to a spool recorder.

Then, I went over to Shashi Gopal, R V Pandit, V T Ravi and others, and sought permission on their letterheads, to play out their music on AIR FM, but, regretfully, without any payment of royalties – there was no precedent for a show like mine, and therefore, no budgets set aside for it, too. Every label owner heartily, happily, delightedly agreed, of course  [And see where the royalties issue is today!]

Then, there was the matter of how to make my list of the Top 10 songs. It had to be a fair listing, of course! So I decided not to go to the label owners, but to five music shops, retailers, across the city. I got this suggestion from R V Pandit, who recommended I should go to stores that stocked every label, and were not wholesalers of any particular label. So I went to Twin Records Shop, Rhythm House, Hiro Music House (both, Bandra West and in town), and another great store bang opposite the Colaba BEST depot (forget its name) and another one too that I cannot recall now. I spoke with the shop floor assistants in each, the ones selling English albums, and took down their lists of the Top 10. Just what they recalled/guessed or confirmed after they peeked into their stocks Requisition register, to list their top 10 selling albums.

Not a single Indipop album was in the Top 10:

Regrettably, not a single Indian artist or group was ever in the Top 10. So I announced that episode would have spot Number 10 reserved for an Indian act, and I would ask the shop floor guys to list the Indian acts too. That was how, for the first time on AIR FM in Mumbai, at least, acts like Uday Benegal’s Rock Machine, and 13 AD (I remember Ground Zero) and Louis Banks’ group Shiva and others received air play.

[caption id="attachment_1494" align="alignnone" width="225"] My Own Remixes[/caption]

My theme track for the show was the amazing, brilliant rock lead guitarist Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover, which EMI had released. Just love that number, even today it gives me the goosebumps from both, nostalgia and the playing. (I mean, Eric Johnson was such a tech genius, he could tell the make of the guitar playing provided the cables and equipment were pro class) Here it is: Since this is a video, you can not just listen to the dexterity, but also watch it in Eric Johnson’s flying fingers. Quicksilver!

A princely fee of Rs 135!

It was only once a month, this show, and it played twice on AIR – once on FM 107.1 and then on AM. For all the travelling, meeting, research, going back to the AIR studio and writing my script, running around to the recorder, pressing play and running back to the mike in the sound booth and reading my lines, then dumping all the music tracks from tape to spool, then editing the master, opening and closing packaging et al, I used to be paid a princely sum of Rs 135/- per episode, by cheque. Of course, it cost me much more to produce it, but it was a labor of love.

Missed opportunity!

[caption id="attachment_1491" align="aligncenter" width="244"] Arun Katiyar[/caption]

Sadly, I missed a great opportunity of getting on to the cover of Bombay magazine, then edited by the wonderful, knowledgeable, passionate music lover Arun Katiyar. He called me on an evening when I was commuting from the Times of India back home by local train. He even called my home number – no mobiles then – because he wanted a good picture to put me on the cover because a show like this was unheard of on AIR, but he came across my show on the day he had to put the edition to bed, so I lost out. Sheesh! But we’ve remained good friends, and he is someone I think of very fondly.

Times FM Inaugural Day in India – 15 August 1993

[caption id="attachment_1498" align="aligncenter" width="508"] Old personal treasure: The audio cassette with a recording of my radio show on Times FM’s inaugural day, 15 August 1993[/caption]

OK, to exit my ramble and cut back to the present: In fact, I also unearthed a recording on an audio cassette, of a program I presented on TIMES FM on Day One, its launch day, ie 15 August 1993. During those days, Irshwin Balwani was handling programming and content and had camped in a studio in town, getting shows ready for airing.

There were only four one-hour programs that Times FM played out on 15 August 1993 — one was a wonderful reminisced profile of the great Lata Mangeshkar by Harish Bhimani, a second was another one-hour show, mine, a Rockumentary on Michael Jackson, and then there were two others that I am embarrassed to say I cannot recall now. While Harish Bhimani was his usual brilliant best, I remember that the presentation on my show on Times FM’s inaugural day — the format, that is, and the personality — was really just purely conversational but regrettably, without any of the effervescence that sparkles on today’s young presenters like Malishka Mendonsa, Jeetu Raaj (Jai Mata Di, Jeetu!) Ro-Hini Ramnathan, Archana L Pania, Sidhu Fever — in fact, it veered more towards the conversational style of an Annu Kapoor Ji, or a Siddharth, both on 92.7 Big FM, but not even half as interesting as they are. (I consider Annu ji the epitome of brilliant conversational presentation on Radio. Many trying to emulate him but nobody comes even close). But hey, those were early days, and Radio was just emerging from the staid style of formal presentation of AIR, so well. 

[caption id="attachment_1494" align="aligncenter" width="549"] My Own Remixes[/caption]

I also unearthed an audio CD of audio remixes that I used to create at home on Audacity on Creative Rhythmania, on the amazing Creative Soundblaster Live! Value sound card on a Windows 98 SE-driven Pentium desktop with a massive 512 mb of RAM. Will share a remix or two, sometime. Just percussion added to the original songs, like Saathiya of A R Rehman, or Shankar Ehsan Loy’s Chup Chup Ke From Bunty Aur Babli, or M M Kreem’s Aawaarapan from Jism, or Dhanie by Strings… you know, songs I wished I’d’ve had played the congas, bongos and drums on, in the original recordings ? Waise nahin, to aise hi sahi!

Don’t forget to try Audacity

The best open source audio editing software. Wide and deep, and absolutely free. I’ll hopefully do a detailed how-to with Audacity for Loudest soon. For now, adios.

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Pavan R Chawla is an award-winning content and communication professional who has been associated with some of the best Media & Entertainment brands in India across a career spanning over two and a half decades. He can be contacted at pavan@pavanrchawla.com

[caption id="attachment_1496" align="aligncenter" width="138"] Pavan R Chawla, VIP Contributor[/caption]