Lunar tunes

Unohu performs live

The year is 1969. Apollo 11 is set for launch. Man is about to take off for the moon. NASA scientists on the ground have gone into overdrive. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are sitting in the command module. But when the spaceflight takes off and they put some music on to while the light-years away, the songs that they hear are from 20 years later. The astronauts are listening to a straight-up grunge playlist. It's a genre that emerged in the late '80s. But in this scenario that we are talking about, time is just a concept with no meaning at all.

That is the sort of outlandish theme that runs through Armstrong's List, a concept album that city-based act Gumbal will launch at a gig next week. It's a seven-track offering that is an imagined version of what the crew members of Apollo 11 would be listening to on their journey into outer space. Rock and roll, at that point in time, was a genre that was enjoying its moment under the sun. Grunge, its subset, was still a product of the future. But in the minds of Gumbal members Arjun Iyer and Satish Sridhar, that latter sound is what comprised the entertainment on Apollo 11 when it travelled all the way to the lunar surface.

(From left) Gumbal members Siddharth Talwar, Satish Sridhar, Arjun Iyer and Satish Sridhar mimic the act of looking at the moon

In doing so, the band members have fused their childhood fascination for the moon mission and their life-long passion for grunge music. But it isn't a sound that you get to hear in the city too much. There was a time till the mid-2000s when hard rock, grunge's kissing cousin, was a dominant factor in Mumbai's independent music scene. But then electronic music took its sheen away. And recently, hip-hop has driven a further nail into the coffin of rock in general. It thus isn't the best of times for a no-nonsense four-piece English outfit to ply its trade here. Iyer tells us, "I know some Hindi rock bands that are doing quite well. So if you're singing in that language, you can still think about sustaining yourself. But if you're talking about making a living as an English band, that is not going to happen for a while."

That sounds like a dire assessment of where things stand. But grunge has anyway been a nebulous genre since its inception. The label was initially given to bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so that the music industry could market a certain gritty sound that was emanating from Seattle in the US. It has since remained a subculture, though. The music never became a part of the popular consciousness. So, it follows that in a nascent ecosystem like India's indie circuit, the genre stands as much of a chance of overcoming the electronic/hip-hop wave as Rajpal Yadav has of winning a boxing match against Mike Tyson.

But that also gives rock musicians the freedom to push their own boundaries, without brands dictating them to mould their sound like a demanding boss shooting off instructions. Yohann Coutinho of city act Unohu - who will share the stage at Gumbal's launch along with Runt - tells us, "Other genres taking over gives hard rock a chance again. It's not in the forefront or mainstream anymore, and I feel that gives people playing the genre the opportunity to maybe even create a new sound, a new variety of rock with roots in grunge."

Iyer adds, "See, there is no intellectually honest way to predict the future of this sound. Music and technology are changing every year. But more and more urbanisation will lead to Indians opening themselves up to newer sounds. And one thing that doesn't look like it's going anywhere is the presence of '90s rock in places like college hostels. Plus, as long as there is heavily processed techno music going around, there will be an audience for live instrument-based tracks. Those listeners might call themselves 'purists' or whatever, but there will always be a crowd that romanticises this sound."
What he's saying, in other words, is that grunge music, despite its downward curve, might just pick up strength in the city some years down the line. Sure, it doesn't seem like it right now. But then again, there was a time when even the idea of man landing on the moon seemed like an impossible proposition.

On: August 3, 8 pm
At: The Habitat, Hotel UniContinental, Khar West.
Call: 9833358490
Entry: Rs 400

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