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Cooking music on the web
Chefs Mandar Agashe and Adinath Mangeshkar have
cooked up Musicurry, India’s first web music radio, playing music 24
hours a day, seven days a
week.
Musicurry, which was launched on November 23, is great news as far as Indian
technology is concerned, and even greater news for music lovers. Mandar Agashe,
singer-composer, who sometime back, had released his album Nazar Nazar, and
Adinath Mangeshkar, son of composer Hridaynath Mangeshkar, are the two brains
behind Musicurry. Gautam Godse is the CEO of this path-breaking venture.
Mandar, the MD of Musicurry, and Adinath, the executive director of Musicurry, have been striving to make, Indian music available across the world. “With internet breaking all boundaries, we decided to use it to our advantage for making Indian music available to any music lover, anytime, anywhere in the world, and that’s how Musicurry came about,” says Mandar, who incidentally is a BE in computer science. Agrees Adinath, “All that great music which I have grown up on, I was keen to get it across to a wide number of music lovers. Musicurry does just that.”
The website www.musicurry.com is free and all you need to download is the Real Player G2 installed in your computer. Once the site opens, it’s an enchanting journey into the world of music, with an array of options in the menu to satiate a die-hard music freak. There’s news on the latest happening in the Indian music scene, album reviews, interviews of artists, information about music concerts and latest music systems, and opinion polls to name a few. The internet user need not continue to be logged in on the site just to hear music. He/she can continue listening to the multi-channel radio, while surfing other sites. “Web radios are a rage in the West, but our site has a lot more to offer. With Musicurry, web radio is now a web experience,” Mandar states, “And what’s best about this site is that the software is not MP3, so nothing can be downloaded. There will be no piracy of music, one can only listen to the music.”
With internet just catching on in India, what scope does the duo foresee for Musicurry, and how viable is it? “Well, the site will naturally be accessed more by the Indians living abroad. In UK and USA there’s a lion’s share of Indians, and you have more than 1.5 million NRIs connected to the Net. And that’s a great number for our site, which has got a lot of sponsors from the corporate sector,” informs Mandar, “My sister who’s in US, would always ask me to get cassettes of old numbers. But she now listens to them on Musicurry, and there are many like her who can get any Indian film, folk, pop, classical music on our site. In India too internet users are increasing by the day, and I’m sure the site will catch on here.”
The site, which started functioning on November 25, two days after it was launched, has had total hits of more than 100,000. More than 1000 people have already registered. Both Mandar and Adinath are confident that number will increase by leaps and bounds. “That’s because we are offering entertainment and education,” point out Mandar and Adinath, “And we cater to every taste. For the serious minded we have a segment on the history of musical instruments, while classical buffs can listen to tabla recitals. There’s also a Yellow Pages on music, doling out information on who’s who of music industry, and a free classifieds segment where you can place ads for selling your old systems online.”
The highlight segment according to Mandar is the Adinath Mangeshkar Chat Show, which will have Adinath interviewing music and film personalities, where music lovers can join the chat. “Another interesting part is Online Guruji, where you can learn music online with daily lessons,” says Adinath, “And we’ll be having Online auction too where rare music memorabilia will be auctioned. Requests for songs by our patrons will be satisfied too. One can even write to his/her idol or any celebrity, and we will see to it that the celebrity artist will reply to the fan. That’s our USP.”
Musicurry will also promote upcoming artists by putting up their profile on the site, and thus help them in getting work. A section is devoted to live performances too. “And these live performances by stalwarts like Bhimsen Joshi and Pt. Jasraj are from my personal collection,” points out Adinath, “We will be paying royalty to all the artists. In fact we have already paid royalty to many.”
Music from the West too forms a part of Musicurry. “We don’t have just top of the pops, but ethnic Western and European music too. Besides symphonies, we have Baroque music and ethnic French music, and folk songs from Sweden and China,” reveals Adinath. “Musicurry is a webcyclopedia of music,” adds Mandar.
To provide this vast information, Mandar and Adinath have with them a dedicated team and solid infrastructure. Besides Rashid Mohammed, who is the Chief Operating Officer, there’s a staff of 20 stationed in Mumbai and Pune, which is where Mandar and Godse reside. “The upgradation is done from Pune,” informs Mandar.
The duo, alongwith their partners are constantly improving and enhancing their site by adding new features. “We are now working on a radio player which can be fitted into a car, and with a wireless modem it can be connected to the web. It will be an authentic radio, not pirated MP3,” says Mandar, “Our site has attracted attention. We have bagged a contract to design a similar site in US, and Musicurry was even featured on CNN.com.”
With Mandar getting involved in the website, does that mean his pop career will take a backseat? “Not at all. My new pop album is ready, and in all probability, it will be released by Musicurry, which is also a record company,” smiles Mandar.
Adinath too is coming into his own. He was the brain behind the launch of Lata Eu De Parfum, a scent in the name of his aunt Lata Mangeshkar, and now he is a partner in Musicurry. Says Adinath, “I also sing, and some of my songs, which I had sung at concerts were released by HMV and Sony Music. My solo album will be out soon.”
How much has the Mangeshkar family helped in the site? “The basic collection of music on the site has been acquired from them,” says Adinath, “After all,60 per cent of Indian music has been recorded by the Mangeshkars .”
In the end, we ask the duo the reason behind naming
the site Musicurry. “The popular Indian food is curry, and abroad curry
is synonymous with India,” Mandar explains. Adinath adds, “And
entertainment, of which music forms a major part, is the real spice of
India.”
Salma Khatib