After starting an indie revolution in Mumbai last year with periodic gigs promoting underground and emerging talent at BOMB Thursdays and putting up successful additions of crowd-sourced gig Ctrl+Alt+Del, it’s time to scale-up the party. Music programmers and indie label ennui.BOMB are putting down the blueprint of a punk/indie music festival to be held in Goa called New Wave Music Festival on November 14 and 15, 2014. The festival, which is to be a do-it-yourself crowd-sourced gig, is an effort to get together musicians from around Asia to perform on one stage at a scenic location. This is ennui.BOMB front man Rishu Singh’s brainchild.
The first thing that is striking about the festival is the name itself- few things can define a punk and indie scene better than a “new wave of music.” Says Singh, “The fresh, newer, more interesting and more beautiful sounds coming out of at least the Indian indie music scene is the inspiration behind the festival’s name.” He continues by explaining why ennui.BOMB is doing what it is planning to do. “This has mostly always been the inspiration behind most of what we at ennui.BOMB do. Also, I say “at least” as we have not really heard much of the music stuff happening in neighbouring countries.”
And that’s what forms the second premise of the 2-day festival - getting to interact and improve the scene on a continental scale. Singh reiterates, “Bands should be able to plot Asia tours on basis of the friendships they make with some Asian bands they meet at The New Wave. We should be able to get to see and hear those Asian bands and make our own judgments about them.” And in that, he describes what is possibly the boldest step to improving the scene- interaction not only between local bands and their audiences, but also bands across countries, which inevitably leads to meeting event promoters from other countries.
This is the first time that ennui.BOMB shall be organizing an event of this magnitude, and Singh is a proud man about the inroads being made with this gig. “This is The New Wave of music coming out of the Asian underground music scene and I’m glad to say, this is ennui.BOMB representing India to be a valid part of it. Let us become continental citizens first. Global citizenship can wait. It’s time to check out some Burmese punk rock.” (among obviously, a lot of other music)
The specialty of the festival lies in how it is being planned, proposed and marketed- the entire works for the gig is going to be based on crowd-sourcing, and Singh says it best, explaining, “Let people who want to identify with punk/indie music and are interested in checking out some talent from nearby countries make it happen. Let’s find out if gigs can work with younger fresher local talent. Why can’t all the interested souls, get together and make a gorgeous gig they would identify with, happen?”
Speaking more on the working of the proposed gig, Singh continues “While the exact details are being worked out, one thing I can guarantee is that India will have never seen something like this before. It will a trademark ennui.BOMB gig. Mostly cheap. Sometimes free. Always fun.” There is also the international band angle he speaks about: “Yes. We are focused on Asian talent. To begin with, one can expect some super indie/punk talent from Nepal, Burma, Pakistan, Malaysia at least.” If all goes well, the guys at ennui.BOMB are hoping to turn this into an annual event, with larger crowds and larger line-ups. And while the event is Goa, you can expect the festival to be one heck of a paradise from start to finish and beyond.
You can check out the festival page here. To stay connected with ennui.BOMB, click here.
