Bangalore club djs on radio

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Date:14/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2004/08/14/stories/2004081400480300.htm Metro Plus Bangalore Chennai

The party partners are back

The two biggest party animals in town reunite with the first-ever independent radio show dedicated to club music

ROHIT BARKER and DJ Ivan are two names that spell "party" to any young 'n' restless Bangalorean. Having the ex-RJ and the country's best DJ at a club is a sureshot way of ensuring a combination of the wildest music and crowds partying like the world is going to end tomorrow. Besides being favourite Page Three personalities, Rohit and Ivan created the first-ever dance music show on radio which had a successful run for two years before the station changed its priorities. After a hiatus lasting a year and a half, the duo have come together to create the first-ever independent radio show in the country.

Buying time

The unique thing about Hot Mix is that the guys purchase airspace frequency by the hour to beam their show, which features the latest tracks on the international club scene. They air Hot Mix on FM Rainbow, All India Radio, between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. every Saturday on 101.3 FM. Ivan explains: "We pay AIR for one-hour slots where we are allowed to have three minutes of commercial break slots per hour. We would hopefully recover our investment by attractive a sufficient number of advertisers."

Rohit adds: "More than the money, we want to do something for the clubbing population of Bangalore city. The dance capital of India deserves at least one exclusive dance music show, and since Ivan and I know exactly what they are looking for on Saturday nights, we are confident of striking the right chord with them."

But why FM Rainbow and not any other FM or satellite radio station. Whatever happened to the "coolness quotient" of the stations? "People have this misconception that it's niche music that we play on Hot Mix, which is completely wrong. We are here to create an atmosphere to gear you up for that Saturday night party. Anybody listening to the show, whether he/she is 14 or 40, is guaranteed to get energised and ready to hit the club to unwind after a week's hard work," says Rohit. "Let me tell you frankly, I may play every night at a pub for a whole week and still not be able reach out to half the number of people who are tuning in to one episode of the show. At the end of the day, it's not the station, but the music that matters," adds Ivan.

Savvy crowd

What sort of dance music impresses the Bangalore audience? Rohit says: "Bangalore is the only place in the country where people are savvy about the various genres of dance music, be it trance or house or underground, but the city freaks out on hip-hop and any recent hip-hop track is sure to fill the dance floor." Ivan adds: "Right now, a track called "Hotel" by R. Kelly is big in Bangalore, but my favourites would be a track called "Flashdance" by Deep Dish, that has this infectious underground house flavour. I'm just back after a tour of Dubai and when I played this track at one of the music stores there, I was overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to procure that record." He adds that Bhangra is gaining great popularity at an international level, and artistes such as Rishi Rich, who incorporate Bhangra with other genres of music, are drawing the crowds.

So, how has the response to the new show been? "Hot Mix is just a few weeks old and we already have our first sponsor. The number of SMSs and calls on our response systems have been phenomenal, and once we make the interaction systems more compatible, we hope to incorporate listener's suggestions on the show. In short, the response has been as high as the BPM levels of the music we play," they say in unison.

A. VISHNU

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