How a House Concert Works & my U.S. House Concert Experiences

Hanging out the the gang post the SFO house concert

One of the coolest and largely untapped options for bands (and singer-songwriters in particular) are house concerts. This is mainly a concept from the West and barring a few sporadic concerts in the country, the concept still hasn't quite gained as much popularity in India. What I like best about house concerts is it's D-I-Y approach. As an artist if you want your music to reach out to people in new cities, you don't need to rely on venues for getting a gig..set it up yourself and just go play!   Read on to learn more house concerts and how to set up your own..

What's a house concert?

A house concert - (the name is quite self explanatory really) is a concert in someone's house. The "someone" could be a friend/an acquaintance or just a fan that loves your music.
At these concerts the people that attend, come exclusively to listen to you. It provides a more intimate setting for your music. I would highly recommend this setting for singer-songwriters that like a conversational format to their performance and whose sound setup is simple.

How does it work?

Matthew and Sam buying CD's at the SFO house concert

Depending on your host's level of comfort, house concerts could be by invitation only to a closed group of select friends( yours and the host's) or open to anyone that would like to attend.
Sound and gear is generally brought by the artist or friends (or hired if you don't have a choice). Light snacks and refreshments are provided by the host/artist or you could have a potluck format where everyone can bring food to share after the concert and have your own after-party. Entry to these concerts is mostly free and concerts are promoted on social media groups and by e-mail. At these concerts, the artist typically makes money from the sale of CD’s and merchandise and donations from the audiences. 

My U.S. house concert experiences in pictures 

At the house concert at aunt Meera's(in green jacket) 

On my US. Tour this summer I experienced both types of house concerts . The first one was a concert cum pool party at my aunt Meera Kaul's beautiful home in Menlo Park, California .We invited a closed guest list of 70 people, her friends, family & my fans and friends in California.

We had a stage by the pool, a minimal sound setup and drinks and snacks for the guests. A CD corner and guest book was setup on the side. We even had a little stall with a few kids selling lemonade and energy bars to raise funds for Nepal. Thanks Meera and everyone that came!

Performing my set at the stage near the pool

Me with Sonia Rao, an L.A. based artist  

Casper the doggie welcoming guests

Old friends and new

Arjun and Mythili

Abhishek and his beautiful family

Meera and me with Casper

My next house concert was in Portland, Oregon. This was an example of a house concert where I didn't know my host earlier but reached out to them via the internet.

Group hug- Deva, Bruce and Mary-Ann

I was introduced to my host Deva Gordon (leftmost in the picture) by another lovely generous Portlandier I reached out to online, Bruce Bartlett(center). I hosted a workshop at Bruce's earlier in May and he suggested we do the concert at his friend Deva's home. He asked Deva and she warmly agreed to be host for the evening. So here we were, doing my first house concert in Portland, U.S.A!

Deva's lavender home

The minute I set my eyes on Deva's home, I fell in love with it. I mean seriously..a lavender home with pretty lights and flowers outside..How much cuter can it get really! If a house reflects the people who live in it then I would say that Deva's home described her perfectly. She was incredibly warm and nice.

Setting up the CD display and guest book

 Bruce got an amplifier, microphone stand, mics and mixer from his home.We set up quickly and finished soundcheck. 

Soundchecking - Processor run through

Setting up the stage

Lets get this show started

 Pretty soon the crowd trickled in,  and made themselves comfortable at the little parlour in the back.

We had asked the guests to get some food to share with the others.  My sister got olives, some cheese and orange juice and Deva made some chia and coconut pudding .

I introduced myself and started playing

We took a break after the first set to interact with the guests and get some food into our hungry bellies!

Free hugs!

After eating Deva's yummy chia pudding

Playing my second set

Albert and his friend

After the quick break, I played my second set and taught the audience the words of a few songs so they could sing along. I love getting people to sing along with me:)

Thanking everyone that came and posing for group pictures post the gig

Some of the guests bought CD's and others made donations. It was really encouraging to see music from across the shores being appreciated in America as well.

  

My sister and me

I also happen to have the best sister in the world who took all these pictures & drove me to the concert. Thank you sis!

I'll be back next year USA.
Thank you for having me. It's been an honour.

Thanks for coming folks 

All in all house concerts are definitely something you should try as an independent artist. Get started today! Good luck and let me know how your concert's went in the comments section below.
           

Grammy winning Indian artist Ricky Kej shares his views on the indie scene

One of my life goals is to win a Grammy for my country (someday!) , so you can imagine my excitement when I read about India's big win at the 57th Grammy awards by an indie artist ."Winds of Samsara" by Bangalore based indie composer Ricky Kej and South African flautist Wouter Kellerman won the Grammy award for the 'Best New Age Album '. For someone who's not an Indian classical musician and is not working in Bollywood to have achieved this feat is HUGE! I had to talk to this guy ! I managed to get a phone interview with Ricky to get his insights and advice to other indie musicians on the scene. We talked about the indie scene, copyrighting music, how Bollywood is dominating the Indian scene, distributing music and more.Read on...

Ricky Kej and Wouter Kellerman -Grammy winners for Best New Age Album "Winds of Samsara" 

Me: Congratulations on your win Ricky! It's a proud moment for India.What were some memorable moments at the Grammies?Any behind the scenes stuff you'd like to share?
Ricky: Thank you. It was very memorable and exciting as you can imagine. The first person who congratulated me backstage was Hans Zimmer.There were a lot of famous people Katy Perry, Sam Smith, Beyonce & Jay-Z that I saw in the audience. You can check out the Grammy acceptance speech on YouTube(below).

                         Ricky Kej and Wouter Kellerman - Grammy acceptance speech and reaction

Me: That's Fantastic! So tell us a little about how you started your music career and some highlights along the way..
Ricky: I would be a part of bands in college . After college I started making jingles for commercials and for the radio. I realised when I started creating my own music that to keep it undiluted (from Bollywood influences) I needed to look for audiences outside India. My music is predominantly Indian and I work with musicians here but my audiences are outside India.I travelled extensively to foreign countries to find my audiences. I would attend music conferences, music concerts, meet other musicians, record labels, distributors.I would find artists that have a similar sound to mine and see how to reach out to their audiences. The last 7-8 years I have found lot of success doing that.

Me:  So how did you meet your collaborator Wouter ?Was it on one of your travels?

Dream Team- Ricky and Wouter

Ricky: I had seen Wouter performing at the FIFA closing ceremony in Africa where he played with Shakira. I was a big fan of his work. He had also heard my album "Mesmerising Flute" before and liked my work. We met in L.A. and discussed working together. I had written a song about Gandhi and he had written about Mandela. We worked on each others songs , he adding flute parts to my song 'The Mahatma' and I added Indian parts to his music and we created "Winds of Samsara" together.

Me: So Winds of Samsara was an independent album.How did you release worldwide? Was there any indie label involved?
Ricky: The album was an Indian release but it was distributed all over the world. We had separate distributors in America ,Europe , India & Australia . Although it's an indie release , we tied up with a lot of partners and distributors from  across the world. We were on Billboard for the top 12 weeks and one of the highest selling New Age Albums in America .We were also the highest played album on radio in America ( #1 on world radio charts for a month)

Me:  Thats quite an achievement. So how do you get your songs to play on radios abroad? Do you have to actively promote it or does it get picked up by the radios?
Ricky: We contacted radio stations with our CD's directly and they liked the music and played it. It's all about people listening to it on the radio, liking it and purchasing it. At the end of the day, without having a good album and music nothing can come out of only marketing.We put our hearts and souls into our music, spent two years making it , travelled all over the world & collaborated with more than 120 musicians on the album. It was a very uncompromised approach to making music as an art.We made sure that it was exactly the vision we had in mind. Since it was an independent album you're not answerable to anybody but yourself.

Me: You mentioned earlier that the album was made was according to your vision. What was that vision ?
Ricky: I wanted to make music from the heart. 99% of the music that sells in India is music for Bollywood. It's almost like an assembly line way of producing music where the music director describes what he wants ,the lyrics writer comes in and then the programmer, playback singer etc add their parts. It's not any one persons vision. If it's not music that comes from the heart it can be very popular music but it is also music that is forgotten easily.  Ultimately even though Bollywood music is highly downloaded , the music caters to only the Indian diaspora abroad and is unable to cater to the Western audience.There are very few Indians who break that cultural barrier. Pt. Ravi Shankar  for example decided he doesn't want to live in India anymore and Anoushka Shankar who reached out to audiences who are non-Indian in origin. She doesn't live here too because anything non-Bollywood doesn't work in India..for many reasons..the major reason being radio and television will not play her music even though she has an audience here.

Me: Don't you think however that the Indie scene is changing in our country, with channels such as MTV Indies and VH1 airing indie songs and platforms such as OKlisten and ArtistsAloud distributing independent music?
Ricky: I disagree. The scene is getting worse. In the early 2000's a lot of Indie musicians were coming out like Adnan Sami, Shaan and Agnee and their videos would play on TV. Now you hardly see anybody and if you do people ask "Who is this person"?
Right now the industry here has reached a stage where if you're a composer the first question that somebody asks you is "Which films have you composed for ?" and if you're a singer then it's "Which films have you sung playback for?" Everything is associated with the film industry.We have music awards and 90% of them are film awards. People want to see Bollywood celebrities in the audience else T.V. channels don't pick up shows for airtime. Awards ceremonies in the USA(Grammy) Canada(JUNO),South Africa (SAWA) and others are based entirely on the music.There are only a sprinkling of movie stars in the audience. A country like America ..their whole history is chronicled through music .When Adele and Sam Smith broke up with their boyfriends they wrote albums about it..these are real things that people connect with.
I definitely didn't want to go the Bollywood route because if I make one song thats a hit I don't want people to associate that with who I am as a personality.

Me: You haven't composed for Bollywood but you have composed for a few Kannada films and released music with Universal. Did you have to compromise on your style of making music for any of these ventures?
Ricky : I released some albums with EMI . The head of EMI at the time Suresh, already liked my music a lot so he asked me to compose pieces that were based on the music I was already making . I made about 21-30 songs for them and they didn't request for any changes when I gave them the masters. They would only change the titles of some of the songs and the song order according to how they wanted to market it.That was ok with me as they are the experts in marketing and my music was untouched.All three Kannada films I did were with a very visionary director who I enjoyed working with and who let me retain my musical style.

Me: There's a big debate amongst independent musicians on whether to stay indie (given the resources we have at our disposal today) or associate with a label. What's been your experience with both?
Ricky: It's very important to remain an independent musician nowadays. You have to own the rights to your own music. In the case of EMI, they gave me a production fee to create the album and a percentage of the sales. The EMI head had a vision to look outside Bollywood. I also did work for Universal in USA and so was not a newcomer. EMI contacted me because I was already established in the instrumental music industry

Me: Most of the music channels like Vh1 are playing pop and other mainstream stuff..Where do other genres like New Age ,Metal,Jazz etc get heard by consumers?
Ricky: Consumers that are into other genres of music know exactly where to look for that kind of music. Be it Metal, Jazz, World music there are specific radio stations, cable networks and channels that will play these genres of music in America and the consumers will know where to find it. These are niche genres and consumers know that they won't find it on network television. In India we don't have these channels yet. The only option here is Itunes.

Me: Where can Indians discover music from niche genres such as yours to listen to? Online radios? Itunes channels?
Ricky: Social media is the best bet. In America, it's on radio. In India there are no dedicated radio stations that play anything other than film industry music, so discovery is almost impossible here.

Me: In India, many indie musicians are now looking at making music a full time career.What are some ways to make it a sustainable career choice?
Ricky:  If you're an indie musician it's important to have perseverance and patience. I think it's very important NOT to have a day job .If you do you're not being faithful to either of your professions . You'll never have enough time to do your music, you never have enough time to network.You need time to rehearse, meet other musicians and collaborate. Having a day job is a major handicap and your music career will never be successful.

Me: I think the main problem people have leaving their day jobs for music is assurance of a basic salary to meet living expenses..where will the money come from?
Ricky: There are sacrifices you have to make. It depends on how badly you want to make it in your career. There will be times when you will have no money at all. If you've not started a family yet, sometimes even that needs to be sacrificed.You have to see what is more important to you and what you are more driven about. Drive and discipline are extremely important for a musician. An engineer studies for 4 years and then gets a job ; a musician expects to start making money the next day! Thats not going to happen.You need to have a music education, start off with low paying gigs, move up the ladder,then as you get famous you make more money.
At the end of the day a lot of people use creativity as an excuse for laziness.You have to be far more disciplined than you would ever be in a day job.
I've been doing this for 16 years. I studied dentistry but decided to do music. Imagine if I had left after 4 years saying nothing is happening... I would have never won a Grammy.

Me: A musicians life is full of highs and lows. What motivated you through life's lows?
Ricky: I would write music about it. I would use even those moments to keep making music.

Me: Some independent artists were approached by a music company in Mumbai to sell them their songs. What do you think about an artist selling their songs to other people (Bollywood/other composers)?
Ricky: You can make songs for other people but the intellectual property rights for those will always be yours. It's illegal for someone to pay you X amount of money for your songs and own the intellectual property rights.There is a law passed in India against that. You can sue the company if it specifies in the contract that they will own the IPR of the song.

Me: That's a very informative tip for a lot of indie musicians. How did you copyright your music to protect it?
Ricky: You  don't need to copyright your music , you need to register your songs with IPRS in India   ( http://www.iprs.org/cms/). I registered my songs with an organization called BMI ( http://www.bmi.com/) in the US (for US citizens only). It's completely free of cost.Whenever people put it on Radio,TV, or use the song online BMI collects the money on the artists behalf. When I signed up with them , the very next day they were collecting money from the last 10 years for my music

Me:  What are some ways more Indian musicians can get their music heard globally?
Ricky: You have to travel to meet people, collaborators and other musicians in different countries.You also have to use social media. I may be completely wrong but it's next to impossible to make a living as an independent musician in India.You can live here and make your music here but you should get revenues from outside India. India is still not the best environment for an independent musician because sales are really dismal in India due to it's focus on Bollywood.Piracy is also very high here.If I'm speaking to someone about my album in a foreign country, they would preview it on Itunes and then buy it. Here people ask me "Could you share the Mp3's with me on my pendrive?" No one looks at music here as a commodity they have to pay for.  Bollywood doesn't care about piracy because music for them is a means of marketing their movie; their profits come from ticket sales and not as much from music sales.As a result there is a culture around free content being available online for download . Ultimately this affects the income of independent artists as well.

Me: Should people even make physical albums anymore or just sell their music digitally?Are albums on their way out?
Ricky: Physical albums will always be important. It's a very easy way to purchase music if people are in a store or to give your music to a promoter.It's also something you can touch, feel and gift wrap as a present to someone. Digital is the future. As houses will become smaller, having a CD collection will be a hassle.


Me: Where do you think the music scene in India is headed?
Ricky:  It's headed more towards the film industry. There will always be bursts of independent movements in India but the movie industry is here to stay.


Me: Whats your advice to independent musicians from India that would like to follow their passion ?
Ricky: Look outwards. They will have to make it big in other countries. India is not the place to be for independent music. If you want to be an independent musician here you will have to be a part of the movie industry. You have to be extremely perseverant, find mentors in the industry and truly believe in your music to succeed as an independent artist.


Me:What are your future plans?
Ricky: I've received validation for my kind of music and I am going to continue to make it to whoever wants to listen to it..in India or abroad. If India wants to listen to it I would be thrilled because everybody wants recognition in their own country. I have a fan following in China, Austrailia and the USA so I'm happy to keep catering to them too.

Me: Thank you Ricky for your insights and for inspiring a lot of indie musicians to dream big.
Ricky: Thank you!

I hope this interview helped you with some insights into the music industry and the Indian music scene. If you have any questions do type them in the comments section below. We would be happy to answer them! Do share the article with any musician friends you know. Knowledge is power.

P.s. Oh and if you liked the blog could you follow it please :) Ok bye!

The Manchester United Cup Song

What do you do when you're home alone with a take-out container before the Manchester United Liverpool match? Make a song of course! ;)
This is a tribute song to my favourite football team Manchester United and all the Manchester United fans across the world. Don't miss the bloopers at the end of the video;)
I  re-wrote my own lyrics to Anna Kendrick's "The Cup song"  as a tribute to my favourite team.

Sing along with the lyrics below:

We've got our ticket for the top of the league,
Chelsea can be on their way,
We've got a super team & we've got Van Haal's dream,
We're gonna get him his first trophy what'd you say

Chorus: We're going strong, we're going strong,
The whole world is cheering on,
We've got Adnan doing his best,
Persie , Rooney and the rest,
Hey!I can't name you all in this song

We got the devil and an Angel by our side,
He's the best buy of the season,
We beat the Spurs 3-0, we're celebrating our heros,
Soon the cup will be another reason..

We're going strong, we're going strong,
The whole world is cheering on,
We've got Mata doing his best,
Persie , Rooney and the rest,
Hey!I can't name you all in this song

We're going strong, we're going strong,
The whole world is cheering on,
We've got Falcao doing his best,
Persie , Rooney and the rest,
There ain't much that can go wrong..

Enjoy the song and do post your comments on what you think of it.Cheerio!

The 6 Best Grammy 2015 Performances that you must watch

The Grammies 2015 just happened! Yaay! The biggest musical awards night that celebrates great talent across the globe. To summarize, Taylor Swift didn’t win anything, Sam Smith ruled the Grammies with the most wins, Kanye almost interrupted Becks “Album of the Year” win but luckily changed his mind , there were some awesome performances and some very socially relevant acceptance speeches.

We also had 2 winners from India..double Yaay! Ricky Kej (and Wouter Kellerman) won Best New Age Album for “Winds of Samsara” and Neela Vaswaani for “I am Malala” the audio book.

For those of you that missed watching, I’ve picked out my favourite 6 performances of the night you must not miss! Read on.

1>       ACDC (“Rock or Bust” , “Highway to Hell”)

The opening act at the Grammies showed us that no matter how old you get some music can never age! ACDC opened the night with an explosive performance of “Rock or Bust” ,followed by their evergreen hit “Highway to Hell” that had Katy Perry ,Lady Gaga and others nodding along in sync with Angus Young’s guitar. What a great start to the Grammies! I’m an ACDC fan and was singing along with wild abandon as I watched them on TV. It’s so refreshing to listen to some good rock music in recent times because bands aren’t really doing that kind of music anymore.  If you’re a fan of classic rock like I am, you’ll love this. Check out ACDC’s performance above ..you’ll be blown away.

     

2>  Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (“Cheek to Cheek”)

  Many of us haven’t heard Lady Gaga’s “real    voice”..because of the heavily processed dance  music that overpowers her vocals most of the time.  I assure you that when you do get the opportunity  to "really hear her sing", you’ll be  pleasantly  surprised. The lady has an amazing set  of pipes!  At the Grammies, she sang “Cheek to  Cheek” , a  beautiful jazzy duet with Tony  Bennett (which  won them a Grammy for the 'Best Traditional Pop  Vocal Performance') . Her voice was smoother  than a glass of premium scotch.  Before  critics/haters start writing this off as a one - off  performance, she proved her mettle again at the  Oscars with her tribute to the evergreen Sound of    Music soundtrack, that had even Julie Andrews in  tears. Lady Gaga, you never cease to amaze us.

 Watch the performance the crowd wouldn’t stop    going “gaga” about !

3>  Miranda Lambert (“Little Red Wagon”)

 I’ve never considered myself much of a country music loving person but Miranda Lambert’s performance made me reevaluate my opinion. I was glued to the screen till the very end of her performance. Blake Shelton’s wife can sure hold her own on the stage..Her rendition of her song “Little Red Wagon” was brilliant. It came as no surprise after that performance that she took home 2 Grammies that night for Best Country album and Best Country Song as Blake Shelton looked on with pride. Pretty interesting stuff..Gotta start listening to some more country music.

4>  Sam Smith and Mary J Blige (“Stay With Me”)

 There’s something very honest and innocent about   Sam Smith. I liked what he said in his Grammy  acceptance speech ,” I was making terrible music    when I was trying to get people to listen to me..but  it was only when I started being true to myself that  they finally heard”. When you’re true to your art  you create musical pieces that touch the soul. That  is exactly what Sam Smith did with his music  flooring the Grammy jury, taking home the most  coveted Grammy’s of the night for Best new  Artist, Song of the Year, Record of the Year,Best  Pop Vocal Album. His rendition of  “Stay with  Me” with the legendary Mary J Blige was soulful  and honest..just like the man he appears to be.

5>  Sia (“Chandelier”)

After years of writing hit songs for other singers     ( Beyonce, Rihanna, Britney & David Guetta to name a few ) the wonderfully talented Sia is finally getting her due. Unlike most attention seeking artists, Sia is somebody that shies away from the public eye..She prefers to let her music do the talking. 

Kriestan Wig and Maddie Ziglar danced and emoted her song "Chandelier" on stage, while the singer herself faced a wall as she sang; her back turned to the audience.

An unusual but refreshing change.

I think Chandelier is one of Sia's best works..and technically a very challenging song to sing.

Listen to her Grammy performance here.

6>  John Legend and Common(“Glory”)

 There’s a reason his last name is Legend. I hold this man in such high regard. I wish I could be even half as good a musician as John Legend. Not only does he write great songs, but his live performances are incredibly spot on. Maybe it’s because “Glory” has such a  personal significance to him and all that Martin Luther King has fought for that helped him sing with such strong emotion. The fight for equal rights still continues..You could feel the message of hope , the strength of his words and the power of conviction  as he sang. At the Oscars again, Legend had the audience in tears, overwhelmed with emotion. Music can do that to you..Music is a gift..and John Legend must’ve been a good kid because he’s really been truly blessed with an amazing ability to inspire with his voice.

I couldn't find a link to his Grammy performance so I've added a link to the song..It's worth a listen.

Which were your favourite Grammy performances? Let me know in the comments section below:)