The Washington Post Story

Well, within three months of Blue Frog, Washington Post carries a story on Blue Frog. Well, Mahesh Mathai is NOT a Bollywood film director and the sound engoneers are from London, NOT LA. Rest is for you to read.

Time Zones: Friday Night at a Mumbai Hot Spot
Where the Glitterati Go to Listen, Hip-Hop Meets Indian Classical
Gallery


By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 11, 2008; Page A14
MUMBAI It's 10:30 on a Friday night and already a big, breathless crowd is trying to get into a former warehouse here. Inside is the Blue Frog, one of this city's few live music venues, which six nights a week hosts a stream of international rock and hip-hop acts that often fuse their sounds with Indian classical music.
People who make it through the door squeeze up to the bar. Apple martinis, cranberry flirtinis, cosmos and mojitos are all on offer, the usual libation lineup on the globalized lounge scene.
Nearby there's bright white pod seating, surrounded with glowing blue lights. Positioned around the stage, each pod looks something like a giant lily pad tinged in blue. Patrons are left to imagine the blue frog that might be resting on it.
Those lucky enough to score a pod -- heroes and heroines from Bollywood films, models and modelizers, plus a few literati -- settle in for the evening. They eye the crowd. But this is not a place where people come just to see and be seen. They come to listen.
Around them beats one of India's most powerful sound systems. Concert-size speakers are bolted to the rafters. The off-white walls are bubbled, as if beach balls were trying to squeeze through, the contours cutting the acoustic bounce that can muddy the music.
A sound engineer from Los Angeles designed the system, and high fidelity extends from the nightclub to the recording studios next door, which produce some of the up-and-coming acts that take the stage here.
Pushing through the crowd at 10:46 is Mahesh Mathai, a popular Bollywood filmmaker who co-founded the three-month-old club, along with a few musicians, a restaurateur and an MBA.
Mathai, who sports a sleek Caesar haircut, delivers a quick double-kiss hello to a pretty female friend. Then, raising his voice to be heard above the din, he explains that the club is "every boy's dream. . . . We wanted music to be the soul of the club. Everyone in Bombay thought it was time for a place that broke all the cliches of listening to classical Indian music in a conference hall. We wanted our sound to be fresh, to break down global boundaries."
As India's economy rises, it seems, so does the quality of its music scene.
The Blue Frog provides visual stimulation, too. On giant video screens suspended above the stage are streaming psychedelic montages of animated dancing babies, 1960s-style light-show shapes pulsating to the beat and cartoon-like figures rocking out with air guitars.
Since this is India, where people love to eat when they drink, there's a full kitchen with an award-winning chef, dishing up plate after plate of chi-chi foods -- ricotta and tangerine tortellini pot stickers with saffron aioli, perhaps, or duck breast with maple, mustard and coffee marinade.
Sucking down a cold beer and biting into some sweet chicken wings, Shiram Misra, 32, sits in one of the pods, which hold five to 10 people and are positioned so that the stage is always visible over the heads of others.
"The place is stunning and the food is a hit. But this place has music at its heart," said Misra, who does marketing for a liquor company. "We were so desperate for this in India, to find a place that really centers around the acoustics. It's a gift to India and anyone who appreciates sound."
At 11:15, the evening's live band explodes onto the stage. It's a six-man Austrian hip-hop group called Bauchklang, which might be translated as "tummy tones." They have no instruments.
They do bass with ultra-fast roars from the gut, they whistle, they blow out puffs of air -- all the time holding microphones close to their lips. They make keyboard sounds with blips and burps and mouth clicks. The group's latest CD describes one member as "mouth percussion," another as "human beatbox."
All of the sounds are amplified; the bass makes the whole room tremble. Clubgoers, in awe, pour onto the dance floor. Everyone is grooving and moving.
But the highlight of the night comes at 11:45, when classical Indian crooner Shilpa Rao, who sings for Bollywood movies, joins the band onstage. The resulting blend of hip-hop sounds and her velvety voice is smooth and magical.
Soon another Indian artist joins the Austrians to imitate the Indian tabla drum with his mouth. Tak, dada, tak, tak. The Austrians add their own beats. The crowd cheers, camera phones click, cocktails are polished off.
"We are in Bombay, the new India. Why not have this kind of club?" exclaimed Sarah Jane, one of the country's several Miss Indias. "When we hear the music of young India we feel more alive."
Outside, just after midnight, the line is growing longer, with the young Indians bobbing their heads to the beat filtering out.

ends

I bet there'll be many more international media coverage on the Frog!