Goa radio claims national record by airing live band IANS[ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2004 03:45:34 PM ] PANAJI: The radio station here claims to have made history by hosting a pop band live on air, providing entertainment to an in-house audience as well as people across this state.
"This is the first time such an event has taken place in India," RJ (radio jockey) Savio of All India Radio (AIR) Panaji, the successor to the colonial Portuguese-run Emissora Goa and Radio Goa said. On Friday night, the local band Alcatraaz - named after the former high-security US prison - kicked off the first in a series of planned live concerts from the radio station. Bandleader Jude Mascarenhas explained the band's odd name, saying: "Music is like a prison. Once you're in there, you can't get out. I tried to leave the band twice or thrice myself." Savio and his colleague Bambino said that with Goa's multitude of Western music bands, the station could have a number of shows. Programmes have been lined up for the next four fortnights. "But we have at least 12 good quality bands (in Goa) and dozens of smaller groups here," said a radio station official. Now part of the nationwide All India Radio network, this rebuilt station is a successor to a prominent South Asian station. In days when the rest of Indian broadcasting was turning puritanical - and looked down even on popular Hindi film music - the Portuguese-run radio station at the hilltop locale of Altinho in a town then called Pangim attracted listeners from far and wide. Radio Ceylon became a hit on the South Asian airwaves only later, and as some critics note, it was the populist-broadcasting policies of a Goa then ruled by a Portuguese dictator that drew attention to the talent of top singers like Lata Mangueshkar, whose family incidentally hails from this state. This weekend, AIR FM Rainbow became the first Indian radio station to host a live music band, rocking right out of its studios. AIR said once a fortnight, Goa's best bands would be invited to perform in its "Nite of the Fortnight" shows in a specially designed Western music auditorium. FM radio has been growing in Goa and first got a boost in the early 1990s from Mumbai-based private players. Younger talent and market pressures have pushed the largely state-funded AIR into being more conscious of local tastes, rather than being dogmatic about languages and style. Two private radio stations, which were supposed to be set up in Goa, have not yet materialised. But new attempts to marry commercial sponsors with local tastes might help to somewhat recoup part of the sheen lost by a station that has considerable gaps of silence between broadcasts, and has sometimes been charged with being pedantic about what it airs. Station director B D Mazumdar praised Goans for "knowing music, loving music, and creating music". Noted fusion drummer "Bondo" (whose real name is Joseph Ballarmio Fernandes) was chief guest at Friday's concert. "This is the place where I started my (musical) life," said a wistful Bondo, whose sobriquet means an empty coconut in the local Konkani language. He narrated how he got a chance to perform on radio while still in school, and how the influences of the tabla and harmonium led him to experiment with Indian classical music too. >From indiatimes.com Regds. & 73's Mukesh Kumar Muzaffarpur INDIA> ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- World Radio TV Handbook 2005 is coming out. Preorder yours and support open communications for DXers: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823077942/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt