Mine has no mention of that barring to say that the whole idea of the dinner-jacketed, slick-haired, bow-tied musiÂcian was so anathema to the rockers that they rejected it.Īs Naresh’s book shows, jazz went on until 66-67 and by 63-64 rock bands had started ”” they were called beat groups. For exÂample, his world shows people at the Taj singÂing in the ballroom. He’s a sharer, so he’s helped me with various things, but I conÂsciously wanted to keep that world out. So did you exchange notes with Fernandes for your book? Naresh Fernandes’s book Taj Mahal Foxtrot ends with a chapter on how the beat groups had arrived. So while my parents’ generÂation may have grown up under the Raj and listened to, say, Frank Sinatra, this generaÂtion just rejected that ”” they rejected jazz. So music, fashion, attitude, politics, everyÂthing changed. A generation that was born after 1947, grew up and wanted to express themselves in ways different from their parents’ time. On the face of it, it’s a book about bands, but it is the story of a rocking generÂation. I felt the way to enter a story about a generation was to use the rock bands as a device. Then I wrote that piece on Zeppelin in early 2011 and I think, soon after, I spoke to the publishers, they said yes. You never get a sense about your contemporary times because you’re too close to the event, but some years ago I began to think about the fact that there was no book on the SevÂenties in India.
So the idea was in the vague subconscious. All around in Bombay, there was this atmosphere ”“ monumental events were happening ”“ poÂlitical change culminating in 1975 with the Emergency and when I became a journalÂist, those things were in bolder relief. I began going to college in the 1970s and this was all around. It’s not an encyclopedia of rock bands of that time.
I would like to think of my book as a study of the cultural history of India. “While I don’t make a big deal about the internet, the fact that it was so difficult to get equipment forms a major part of my book.” Bhatia’s book is relÂevant to the current generation of music enÂthusiasts in that it traces the roots of Indian rock and if we were to go by this interview, the book appears to be packed with fascinatÂing stories from a time when tickets to a show were priced at Rs 5 and ShanmukhananÂda Hall was the hub of rock music in MumÂbai. While the alternative music scene has changed very little since the Seventies as far as music label support and venues are conÂcerned, Bhatia points out one of the key chalÂlenges of the time he writes about was access to information and equipment. People who had been around said, ”˜This is exactly how we remember it’.” What began as a 3,000-word article developed into a book that tracked the cultural history of India as seen through the journey of the country’s iconÂic bands. And of course, it was in the papers.” Bhatia reÂcalls being overwhelmed at the response to the piece. I knew it because I was around in Elphinstone at that time and I had vaguely heard my friends tell me about it. Says Bhatia when we meet him at his Mumbai resÂidence, “Some three years ago, I wrote a piece for Time Out Mumbai called ”˜Led Zeppelin in Bombay.’ They came to Bombay in 1972. Slip Disc is also the starting point for journalist SidÂharth Bhatia’s as yet untitled book, slated to be released early next year by HarperCollins, on the country’s biggest rock bands of that time. WarnerBros.In the Seventies, Slip Disc, a discoÂtheque, which was a stone’s throw from Taj Mahal Palace, was a landmark venue for cash strapped musicians and less upÂwardly mobile clubbers in Mumbai.