Jam & host

Jam & host
With the launch of a new jam room in Goregaon, here’s a round up of pads where budding music talent should head to.

Cotton press studio

If you want to jam inside an iconic warehouse in Mumbai’s mill district where international acts such as Ed Sheeran, Bombay Bicycle Club and Mutemath have jammed, Cotton Press Studio is the right place for you. The studio was started in 2011 by Rohan Ramanna and members of the erstwhile rock band, Something Relevant (Tanmay Bhattacherjee, Jehangir Jehangir, Stuart DaCosta and Aalok Padhye). Side note: Their current avatar is Hindi indie rock band, Mauj Maharaja. Serious musicians should look at the studio, equipped with top-of-the-line gear, for not just jamming, but also recording material. “This is our office, we do most of our recording and production here; the jam room is just one of the added facilities,” says Bhattacherjee. Other artistes that frequent the studio are Blackstratblues’ Warren Mendonsa and Nicholson.
Elphinstone Road. Open from 10 am to 8 pm. Rs 1,000 per hour. Visit: www.cottonpressstudio.com.

Pickle practice pad

It was one bitter experience after another that led musician Anirudh Desai to open his own jam room in 2011. “Few years ago, I was part of a band that was called Vicious Circle, and didn’t particularly have good experiences at a couple of jam rooms in the city,” says Desai. “I was also transitioning from composing to recording, so it made sense to open one, so that I could interact more with other musicians, who would essentially be my target audience.” Pickle sees a nice mix of metal bands and Bollywood artistes. It’s quite possible that you may catch metal acts like Providence, The Minerva Conduct and Gutslit, followed by playback singers Rekha Bhardwaj or Mohit Chauhan, all rehearsing here on the same day.
Malad. Open 24 hours. Rs 300 per hour. Call: 9769863331.

That studio

“I was tired of lugging close to 60 kgs of equipment for a three-hour jam,” says Rahul Hariharan, co-owner of That Studio and drummer for popular metal band Bhayanak Maut. Originally, Hariharan had envisioned a private rehearsal place for himself. It was only when he encountered Aakash Kelkar, his future partner, that he realised that opening a jam room had commercial potential. That Studio opened its doors in 2012, and since then it has seen a wide range of artistes and bands rehearsing, including Karsh Kale Collective, Pangea, Vasuda Sharma, Blakc and Bollywood music composer, Pritam. The Sion space also doubles up as a full-fledged studio, replete with a massive drum kit, mics for a variety of instruments and two engineers ready to help. “We are also opening another space in Chembur, called That Other Studio, which will be solely reserved for jams.”, Hariharan adds.
Sion. Open 24 hours. Rs 500 per hour. Call: 65665544. That Other Studio in Chembur will open in two weeks. Rs 300 per hour. Visit: www.facebook.com/studiothat.

The warehouse jamroom

Arjun Kanungo is a man who likes to be a jack of all trades. The singeractor-composer-musician started his studio Promethean in 2009. Over time, it sprawled from a one room studio to a many headed beast. “Gradually, we ended up owning most of the floor. Each room performs a different function, from video editing to recording”, explains Kanungo. “Warehouse is an offshoot of Promethean, but is an independent entity”. Apart from Kanungo, artistes that come to jam here range from Bollywood singers Arijit Singh and Neeti Mohan to metal/rock bands like Orion and The Lightyears Explode.
Malad. Open 24 hours. Rs 300 per hour, Rs 200 (between 2 am and 7 am). Call: 9833660400.

3rd step music

Popularly referred to as ‘The Jam Room’, the space was started by brothers Caleb and Jordan Veigas, five years ago. “As is often the case, we needed space to jam (Jordan was the bassist of prog metal band Reverse Polarity), so we converted our room into a jam pad”, says Caleb. “Other musicians that we knew kept turning up at our house to jam, for lack of better alternatives, and that’s how this started.”

A year after launching their Bandra jam room, which sees Bollywood biggies like Vishal Dadlani and Farhan Akhtar frequenting, they opened one in Juhu, followed by Oshiwara and Chembur. Bandra, Juhu, Oshiwara and Chembur. Open 24 hours. Rs 150 to Rs 400. Call: 9892409379.


NEW KID ON THE BLOCK


Akhroma gets their know-how imported from Dubai, where two of its partners, Alexander D’Cunha and Wilson Lewis, have been in the business of setting up recording studios for the last 15 years. However, the main man here is yesteryear’s hard rock band Sabre Tooth’s drummer, Glenford Terence. “We might be the partners, but this man runs the show”, says Harold Pereira, one of the other partners along with Wilburn Lewis. Aside of good acoustics, “the pad is packed with other facilities like an editing suite for both audio and video,” he adds. An early regular is guitarist Adam Avil’s band Pralay.
Akhroma, Goregaon. Open 24 hours. Rs 425 an hour. Students get special discounts. Call: 9820059359.