Jamsteady is Back with a Bang
Jamsteady is back again on Fridays at TopCat, giving a much needed boost to Kolkata’s music scene
Kolkata’s dwindling music scene is about to get a huge boost as regular concerts are going to be back on the calendar. Jamsteady is under the works to be started anew every Friday at TopCat, Off Beat CCU.
The next concert on 14th June hosts two young and upcoming bands – Pelican Shuffles and Murphy’s Paradox. The former is a rock band while the latter has more singer-songwriter leanings. An absolutely new band, this is Murphy’s Paradox first live show. They also plan to release an EP soon.
Earlier, Jamsteady was a steady spot at Princeton Club in south Kolkata. Every Friday saw the hippest and weirdest people congregate at the venue for the love of listening to original music by independent artists – local, national and international. Patrons grooved to the music while sipping drinks or having a smoke in the outside zone.
Murphy’s Paradox
After a stint of around five years where a model of people paying to watch gigs (the way it should be, unlike film music preaching that one can get it for free) ran successfully in a disappointingly miser city, it was shut down by club authorities to move onto economically greener pastures of sell-out film music nights. This was in late 2016.
Now in 2019, with the help of Meghdut Roy Chowdhury, Nishit Arora, director of Smoke Inc. and Jamsteady, can finally attempt to bring Jamsteady back to regular gigging sphere. TopCat is the ideal place since it has been built for the purpose of performance. It has a big stage and a expansive area in front. Basically, a lot of space for both the artist and crowd and a killer sound system, designed for the experience of a concert.
But the venue’s dynamics allow much more to brew. From comedy nights and dance face offs to pop up flea markets and pub theatre, TopCat is soon becoming the homing point for all things independent and cultural in the city.
The erstwhile Landmark Hotel has been converted into a new-age multi-purpose building with a restaurant ‘Momo I Am’ on the ground floor, the gastro pub TopCat on the 1st floor, while the rest of the building has been converted into a hostel for travellers, tourists and all kinds of folks.
Other upcoming events are TopCat Comedy Hour featuring Ritabrata Dass, Amrita Chanda and Rivu Ganguly on 15th June. 30th June will see the venue put its dramatic cap on with the play ‘Harlesden High Street’ being held there.
July is scheduled for a biggie with TopCat’s Mentor Series being helmed by the legendary Amyt Datta for a two day musical workshop on 13-14 July. The areas taught will include
- Art of Sound Checking
- Stage Etiquette
- Understanding Dynamics within a Band/Learning to Play with a Band
- Writing/Producing Music for Live Gigs
Officially launched on 10th March with the launch of the third album of The Bodhisattwa Trio – ‘The Grey Album’, TopCat has already hosted acts like Tajdar Junaid, What Escapes Me, Sitar Metal, Pota o Morudyan, Pulpy Shilpy, MC Manmeet Kaur and Plastic Parvati.
With Fridays going to be jazzier from now on, one can only hope the scene will get bigger and better.
