Indian rock
During this period from Delhi there were The Thunderbirds (featuring singer Ashwani Bali,[1] Bass Guitarist Percy Singh), and WAFWOT (also with Ashwani on vocals, with organist Mark Spevak, from the U.S. and[2] Bass Guitarist Percy Singh) These bands played regularly on the Indian university and college music circuits, and some had successful EP and LP releases.
It was India's first English-speaking band,[7] and found success producing cover versions of The Beatles,[8] The Rolling Stones,[9] Trini Lopez, and other Western hits of the day, in the clubs of Bangalore, Calcutta, and Bombay.
After the band broke up, he moved in 1967 to England, where he later found breakthrough success after producing "Kung Fu Fighting" for Carl Douglas.
Contemporaries of the time were Easy Meat from Pune and Bands such as Holocaust, Morgue (fronted by vocalist Mrinal Das, Drummer Neeraj Kakoty, Ambar Das and Raju Seal on Twin Attack Guitars, Manas Chowdhury on Bass), Dorian Platonic from Guwahati, Assam, Grassroots Revival, Postmark, The Cannibals, Phoenix, Phynyx and Drixian Empire/Dark Crusader from Manipur.
The scene has also been transformed by the online medium, and the subsequent rise of a number of online portals promoting Indian rock, most notably the indie music website NH7,[11] Headbangers India,[12] IndianMusicMug,[13] Unholy Maunder, IndianMusicRevolution, Metalbase India,[14] Indian Metal Scene,[15] and Metal Spree.
The term for this was raga rock, and examples of it are The Beatles "Love You To", "The Inner Light","Across the Universe","Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Within You Without You"; The Rolling Stones' "Paint it, Black"; The Kinks' "Fancy"; The Doors' "The End" and The Byrds' "Eight Miles High".
[17] Indian funk is a loose term describing the style of rock and roll which is sometimes blurred into the realms of pop and other genres.
Also based in the UK, Botown take an approach inspired by Funkadelic with a large lineup of live musicians to blend Bollywood music with soul and funk.
The Singaporean band Rudra initially got their worldwide push from major heavy metal label Sonic Wave International.
With the introduction of new subgenre of heavy metal, the Vedic-core bands like, Antim-Yuddha, Roktobeej are contributing to the rising Indian underground rock culture.
Many prolific extreme metal bands have spawned from the Chennai local scenes like Siva from Crypted, Abhijit Rao from Escher's Knot, Vyas "Hex" Manalan from Fortified Destruction who are all frontmen of their respective bands and all known for their extreme vocal capabilities and the addition of guitar in the case of Hex.
Some of the most popular heavy metal bands in India are Midhaven, Zygnema, Bhayanak Maut, Albatros, Noiseware, Abraxas, Devoid, Sceptre, Kryptos, The Down Troddence, Crypted, Halakuah, Inner Sanctum, Scribe, and Cosmic Infusion.
From Central India, Nicotine, a band based in Indore, is widely credited of being one of the pioneers of heavy metal music in the region.
Kolkata, Shillong, Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore have long been the principal founts of Indian rock and continue to produce bands regularly.
Notable bands from Bangalore include ManojGeorge4Strings, Raghu Dixit Project, Girish and The Chronicles (GATC), Kryptos, The Down troddence(TDT) (originally from Kannur, Kerala), Inner Sanctum, Agam, All the Fat Children, The Usual Suspects, Final Surrender and Swarathma.
Bangalore was also the first city in India where internationally popular rock groups Opeth, Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, Sting, Aerosmith, Elton John, Deep Purple, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, among various other heavy metal groups performed live for the first time in India.
There are also other smaller rock/metal festivals happening regularly in Bangalore and Chennai, like "Euphony", the "September Underground", "Last Band Standing", and the weekly "Live 101."
Delhi's music circuit has seen its share of ups and downs, but has held on largely due to the local presence of Rock Street Journal.
Delhi being the operational home of the Allahabad-based magazine, local bands have benefited by the proximity to India's first dedicated to stories and features based around rock and metal.
[35] Notable bands from Delhi include Indian Ocean, Them Clones, Menwhopause, Bandish, Advaita, Midival Punditz, Mrigya, Guillotine.
Digvijay Bhonsale, a rock and metal vocalist, guitarist and songwriter from Indore[41][42] has played several gigs in the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
[47] Moheener Ghoraguli, a Bengali independent music group from Kolkata, is arguably India and Bengal's first popular rock band.
[48][49] Some of the most notable contemporary rock bands from Mumbai are Pentagram, Tough on Tobacco, Bhayanak Maut, Demonic Resurrection, Split, Sridhar/Thayil, Scribe, and Goddess Gagged.
The recent reunion of Indian rock pioneers Indus Creed was received with great enthusiasm,[50] especially with regard to their plans to produce a new album in 2011.
The recently reunited Indus Creed headlined the festival, which included other local favourites like Bhayanak Maut, Scribe, Demonic Resurrection and Pralay, as well as stalwart musicians like Dhruv Ghanekar, Warren Mendonsa, Loy Mendonsa, Ehsaan Noorani, Farhad Wadia (the festival's founder and promoter), Ravi Iyer, Chandresh Kudwa, Shazneen Arethna and Sidd Coutto.
A relatively recent entry into the Indian Rock circuit is the city of Pune has been the home of bands over the years and off late there has been a new surge with notable genre-defining acts like Silver, Strange Brew, Jazz Mates, Nothing as Now and more.
The live music scene of the twin cities Mumbai and Pune has been on a steep rise since 2005 with major International acts like Meshuggah, Tesseract, Satyricon, Freak Kitchen, Sahg.
Pune plays host to an annual musical festival, The NH7 Weekender, which takes place in the month of November and showcases international (mostly British) acts like Imogen Heap, The Magic Numbers, Asian Dub Foundation and Reverend Soundsystem to name a few.
Hailing from a small place quite unknown to the rest of the country, the bands of Ranchi from Jharkhand state had to face discrimination and hardships.
In 2008, music journalist Abhimanyu Kukreja directed Rockumentary - Becoming of Indian rock that was produced by NewsX and had a national TV release.
