Right from the 1960s, India’s music culture grew out of a handful of cities, one of them being the erstwhile Calcutta. The City of Joy gave us Indian music’s finest legends including S.D. Burman, and later his son R.D. Burman, while also setting the stage for India’s jazz and rock bands, which were born in its clubs and auditoriums.
Names like The Cavaliers, The Great Bear, High, and, of course, Moheener Ghoraguli, gained steady prominence, as did jazz voices like Pam Crain and Usha Uthup, among others.
Old bands morphed into new ones, and old movements blended into new experiments, much like they did in the rest of the world. This eventually led to the rise of Bangla rock bands like Krosswindz, Fossils, Cactus, Lakkhichhara, as well as more English-focused independent rock acts like Skinny Alley. A few years into the new millennium, Kolkata’s imprint on the Indian indie scene grew even louder. Bands like Underground Authority, Chronic Xorn, the Supersonics, the Ganesh Talkies, What Escapes Me, The Bodhisattwa Trio, Parekh & Singh set the tone for the era, while more recent names like Pelican Shuffles and Easy Riders have followed suit. Private clubs, some still running since colonial times, have also long been hubs for live music, though often behind closed doors, reserved for members and the comfort of cover bands.
With that brief history for context, we fast-forward several decades to the present. It’s safe to say that what is now Kolkata continues to be alive with music, though its audience doesn’t always keep pace. For our new series, The Music Map, which traces the pulse of a city through its sound, we spoke to a few promoters, artists, and others to understand their vision for music in Kolkata.
Jazz Forever at Skinny Mo’s
Skinny Mo’s Jazz Club co-founder Nishit Arora—who also gave indie music a shot in the arm in the 2010s with gig series Jamsteady—says Kolkata’s music culture is in “quite an exciting phase.” He says, “There’s energy, intent and collaboration across genres, especially within the indie and jazz spaces. You’ll find live music almost every day of the week now. Much of it still leans on covers, but the fact that it’s live and consistent is a big shift from just a few years ago.”
More intimate gig settings mean that Kolkata may still be working with smaller numbers in terms of turnout—of around 100 to 300 attendees—compared to other cities, but it’s still doing business. Skinny Mo’s promises live music every Friday and Saturday night, with a listening party every Wednesday.
The challenge that Arora notes about keeping a long-term vision for a niche music venue is about “staying fresh and creative while keeping costs under control.” He has his solutions in place too. “We’ve had to think beyond just the music lineup. For example, one of the things that worked really well for us was flying in a different horn player from Thailand every month to play with the local jazz band. It brought in something new each time and pushed the local musicians to grow through that kind of collaboration,” he says.
Cizzy Brings Hip-Hop to a Storied Venue
Hip-hop continues to make its way into mainstream consciousness in India, and while Kolkata hasn’t produced as many hitmakers, it still boasts consistent artists like Cizzy, MC Headshot, Archiesman Kundu, and several others.
Tavern-behind-Trincas—which was started in 1972 after refurbishing what used to be the laundry room of the famed venue Trincas—is now hosting Bengali live music every day of the week. Anchored by Cizzy hosting cypher sessions every Thursday as part of his long-running Cypher Projekt Kolkata series, the rapper also performs with the band Banglar Thek. In April, Banglar Thek hosted a Block Party at Princeton Club, a mainstay venue, and packed in about 300 people, with the lineup also including rising rappers like Ronbale.
Keen on creating a new sound—something that stays true to Cizzy’s roots as a producer before he became a rapper—he says there’s plenty of voices trying to break new ground. One challenge, however, remains. “It’s not like there is a lack of opportunities, per se, but there is a huge economic gap. The money game is entirely different compared to some other cities, like Delhi,” Cizzy points out.
Dreadhammer, Mustang and More: Kolkata’s Metal Faithful
The underground spirit of metal in Kolkata has never been fettered, rooted in the DIY ethos of bands-turned-organizers. Often smashing together massive lineups of bands, both extreme and accessible among metal subgenres, gig series like The Abomination and Threatfest have been going strong at venues like TopCat CCU as well as at auditoriums like Mohit Moitra Mancha.
If it’s been about building communities, Kolkata metalheads seem to have found a way to keep the gigs going monthly. “The community never gets the spotlight it really deserves, but it refuses to die,” says guitarist Rishav Bhattacharya from thrash metal band Dreadhammer, who is also part of heavy metal band Mustang. The latter recently headed out to Germany to play at the Keep It True festival in April, joining the list of Indian metal bands who are looking overseas for more shows on the regular. Bhattacharya adds, “While the Indian metal crowd keeps growing, we are very excited about the future; we also believe exposure to an international audience is very important in the long run.”
Alongside fellow bands like Survival Through Sufferings, Fleshcrave, and Fire in the Rodeo, there’s a sonic buffet of acts. Bhattacharya echoes what many independent artists say in India today about playing music, especially metal: it is not a sustainable career choice. But bands like Mustang and Dreadhammer think of gigs and international tour plans as an investment in their growth and experience.
He acknowledges that within the Kolkata metal community, it hasn’t all been roses between artists. Bhattacharya says, “There are some factors such as internal conflicts, social media battles and ego wars between different metal event organizers and as someone who has been part of this space for a long time there is a sense of negativity, animosity, lack of harmony, brotherhood and respect among some of the people in the community which has often stunted the possible growth. The sooner the city can move forward from petty issues and focus on the bigger goal, the better it will be for all of us here.”
Dek Bass to the Globe
While raves are supposedly moving to burger restaurant outlets and coffee shops, U.K.-based DJ-producer Pablo Dutta was already ahead of the curve by setting up a Dek Bass Soundsystem and performing a roadshow-style set in a village in West Bengal earlier this year. Comprising U.K. bass flips of popular Indian songs and more, the Kolkata-origin artist was adapting the locally-popular Dek Bass culture in Bengal, where DIY sound systems (called Bangla Box) unleash earth-shaking sounds on the streets.
For Dutta, it was about bringing a local subculture to the front, while adding his own spin. He explains about Dek Bass, “They have these competitions between villages, where the audio is played from cassettes and the rattling bass of the speakers creates that raw energy. I wanted to experience that myself and also introduce a brand new sound to them, which they took really, really well.”
While Dutta—who is also a hip-hop artist and founded the short-lived collective Khaos Kartel— acknowledges there’s always been room for the traditional Rabindra Sangeet in Kolkata, but now electronic music has taken a few steps ahead of live music.
To that end, clubs like Miss Ginko have regular DJ-producers on the lineup, as does Park Street Social, filling the gap once dominated by clubs like Aqua in The Park hotel.
Free School Street Records Keep the Legacy Alive
Kolkata record label owner Aveek Chatterjee has been watching live music right from the 1980s, when he was an adolescent, catching the likes of Mumbai rock favorites Rock Machine (now Indus Creed), Shillong rock band The Great Society, and the city’s own heroes High.
He recalls, “I could see that the bands in Calcutta, they used to easily fill the auditoriums, 700-800 seaters also. I have seen rock concerts at Netaji Indoor Stadium, which featured Krosswindz and Indus Creed, and it was at least 75 percent full. So these days, unfortunately, we cannot even imagine these kinds of shows.” One reason he cites is the disappearance of sponsors for local English rock music.
His Free School Street Records label has been releasing legacy music on vinyl—from Louis Banks with Braz Gonsalves and Pam Crain to The Savages to Parikrama and Susmit Bose. In 2022, he released a newer act on vinyl, Kolkata blues act The Arinjoy Trio’s self-titled debut album. Printing 250 copies on the back of the trio playing Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, the LP was sold out by the end of 2023, gaining orders from India and abroad.
Still, Chatterjee is keen to lean on more legacy acts for his future LP releases, including veteran rocker Gary Lawyer. “The other part that I can play is in connecting bands [from Kolkata] to different promoters,” he says.
Chatterjee says a key mover in Kolkata’s live music space can be British-era established private clubs like The Tollygunge Club, The British Club, Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, among others, who can open their doors to a wider variety of bands playing original music instead of just cover acts. “They have the funds, and they do promote and sponsor these kinds of events,” he says.
The Bottom Line
In addition to longstanding venues like Someplace Else, newer clubs like AMPM [whose ethos and decor are inspired by British-era clubs] have also been putting Kolkata music on the calendars for a couple of years now, hosting everything from jazz to singer-songwriters to electronic music. Park Street Social, too, adds to the increasing multi-genre programming that the city hadn’t seen before.
Arora, for his part, says, “My larger vision for live music in Calcutta is that the city becomes a true cultural hub again, one that sets the tone for music innovation in the country. That said, we’re still far from a truly thriving or sustainable scene. Ticket sales are difficult unless it’s a familiar act. Indie musicians still struggle to earn consistently. The economics haven’t caught up with the creativity.”
Mumbai-based, Kolkata-bred drummer and percussionist Sambit Chatterjee currently plays for the likes of post-rock band Aswekeepsearching, metallers What Escapes Me, and veteran guitarist Amyt Datta’s Electric Power Quartet. He’s also been going back to the city to build the Kolkata Drum Festival with his father, veteran tabla and fusion artist Subhen Chatterjee.
Taking place in 2023 and 2025, Chatterjee has a more realistic approach to where things stand in Kolkata. “What’s killing Calcutta is the outflux, a brain drain of musicians leaving the city because they can’t make a living there,” he says. In time, he hopes that the city spawns “new fans, normal people” instead of just musicians attending each other’s gigs. He says, “My vision is one where there are more startups, more breweries, more spaces, and, in the trickle-down effect, you’ll get more people coming to gigs and more gigs.”