India


Girish "Bobby" Talwar
Age: 28

My Job Title

Musician/Promoter Director - Only Much Louder, Mumbai, India;
Counter Culture Records, Mumbai, India;
Babble Fish Productions, Mumbai, India

My Education

Ramnarain Ruia College, Matunga, Mumbai in 1999 (Political Science, B.A.)
Government Law College, Churchgate, Mumbai in 2002 (Intellectual Property Rights, LL.B.)
Completed a diploma in Media and Entertainment Law from the Asia School of Cyber Laws, Pune and;
Completed a course in General Intellectual Property Rights from the Institute of Intellectual Property Studies, Mumbai.

My Work

"I have been closely associated with the music industry in India as a musician for the past 11 years, as a lawyer practising media and entertainment law and as an entrepreneur in the media and entertainment industry more so with the music industry. I have had the opportunity of collaborating with senior musicians to compose and perform at various venues all across the country. I have also produced and organised various concerts of Indian artists in India.

Only Much Louder is currently an artist management company that also facilitates production services and infrastructure needs for live musical concerts and events. Its vision statement is 'to dynamically evolve from niche players into India's preferred media and entertainment company and to create premier brands through novel ideas, creative thinking and trusted partnerships.'

Counter Culture Records is a record company that produces, markets and distributes independent performers and musicians. Its vision statement is 'to provide musicians with a full fledged self support system, that enables them to explore their musical talent, and reap maximum rewards while doing so.'

Babble Fish Productions is a production house which produces music videos, advertisement films and corporate audio-visuals. Its vision statement is 'to transform ideas from an individuals mind into an expression, through a visual medium of their choice, by utilising that mediums full potential and creating new bench marks every time'."

Issues in the music industry in my country

Through Only Much Louder, Counter Culture Records and Babble Fish Productions, I have managed to introduce some form of structure and order to independent artists who want their music seen heard and experienced throughout India. We organise concerts wherein they can perform their music in front of large audiences, sometimes as large as 10,000 people. We give them the opportunity to go into the best studios that India has to offer and record their music. We get them to liaise with arguably the best producers in the country to produce their albums. We help them manufacture compact discs and cassettes at the lowest available prices in the market. Through our strategic partnerships we then help them to distribute their music to the people of India on a national level. We also help them conceptualise and record their music videos and facilitate these music videos being aired on national music channels.

Positive things about the Indian Music Industry

• Large Market potential: The Indian music industry is the fifth largest consumer of units in the world. This means that the markets have an incredible capacity to consume music. Economically this also means that the buying capacity of the people in India as regards music is immense.
• Receptive Audiences: The audiences are always receptive to new genres of music, which encourages musicians to continually experiment and innovate newer sounds, rhythms and beats.
• Exposure to diverse cultures and genres of music: Because of the fact that Indian culture is so diverse and so vibrant, the people here are exposed to various kinds of music, i.e., tribal music, folk music, film music, classical music, western music, etc. This kind of an environment has created a pool of talent in terms of musicians/artists who are proficient with more than one style of music and who are just waiting to be tapped for their creative talent.

Negative things about the Indian Music Industry

• Not enough Exposure: The India music industry has still not reached its desired level of exposure, and its people the desired level of professionalism, for the Industry to grow leaps and bounds; the industry needs to put in place systems and be run in a more organised manner.
• Lack of Intellectual Property Right awareness and enforcement: There is a total lack of awareness and knowledge as regards intellectual property rights (i.e., copyrights and trademarks), not only amongst the general public at large but also amongst the people who are associated with the music industry. Awareness of these laws and knowledge on how to use ones rights in this regard needs to be spread. Piracy is only rampant because the enforcement of intellectual property rights is not regular enough and there is a general apathy of people in wanting to approach courts for relief.
• Lack of courage to back innovative talent: The entrepreneurs in the Indian music industry would rather support an artist/a genre or a formula of promoting music that has worked in the past. There are some who would take innovative risks but they are too few and far between. We need entrepreneurs to identify newer audiences in India (which do exist) and cater to their needs while sincerely putting their trust in and backing newer forms of music.

There is a lot that needs to be ironed out but a lot that is definitely positive as regards the Indian music industry. One thing is for sure is that the Indian music industry is possibly the largest untapped market which has tremendous potential for growth in areas which are till today unexplored.

Innovative artists & music business trends from my country

2 Anything Indian today is considered to be 'hot and happening', be it its food, its religious beliefs, films, yoga etc. This has exposed a lot of other cultures to Indian music in particular. Off late a specific genre of Indian music - i.e. bhangra - has taken the world by storm. Every successful artist has to have a bhangra version of their latest hit. There is no doubt that the incorporation of Indian music elements with more popular genres of music is the best thing that could have happened to the Indian music scene for it to come out of the closet, however at times, I have noted that there is a very forced attempt at trying to shove an Indian element into forms of music where it is absolutely undesirable. I would rather promote avenues of creativity wherein Indian musicians themselves (as opposed to just one-off composers) meet and interact with their western counterparts (abroad or even in India) one-on-one over a period of time and create something through their joint effort which is more 'real' and will be more original. Thus in a line, I would promote, 'new,' 'innovative' and 'original' music. Much like I have done in the past through the above example of Helgas Fun Castle and Shrikant Sriram in Mumbai, or like I had done with Zero, a reputed Indian rock band and Ravi Chari on sitar."

The information above is taken from the application form completed by the finalist in early 2007. Things may have changed since this information was provided and we recommend that you should not rely upon this information as a definitive statement of current fact. Click here to contact the finalist.