The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘Rock has its own following’

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Monday, Oct 06, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘Rock has its own following’

Yogendra Kalavalapalli

A tête-À-tête with Sivamani on music genres, TV shows and concerts

-PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

Rocking on: Renowned percussionist Sivamani.

HYDERABAD: “Youth always listen to rock no matter where they are and it has its own following,” exclaims renowned percussionist Sivamani. And in case you think it is because of the recent success of movies like “Rock On”, he disagrees.

“It is not because of a movie that craze for a particular genre of music increases. It has been there for quite sometime. Rock music rocks in India now and most popular music genre is heavy metal,” he declares. Although he is yet to catch up with the Farhan Akhtar starrer, Sivamani who was in the city to perform at a youth festival, as he has been performing “shows all the time”, he did listen to some tidbits on TV and radio. He also points out to the Shankar directed “Boys” which too had a music band as the centre theme had fantastic music. “Boys had everything from rock, punk, grooves and more,” he reminds. He has been on stage performing since 1976, “thanks to SP sir (S.P. Balasubramanium) and the last time I had performed at the college here was in 2004,” he remembers and is very appreciative of the crowd. He is also supportive of the unearthing of music talent through TV shows as many youngsters get lot of coverage in the media. “When I started off, there was no media, no TV. It was quite a struggle,” he says and feels competition in talent hunting brings out the best and whatever pressures one faces on stage is a “personal thing”.

The Chennai-based musician is presently headed to Mysore to perform for the Dasara festivities.

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