New Indian Indie Radio Station To Go Online

Floated by students from IIT Mumbai, Be The Change Radio will showcase music by Indian bands

By Sharin Bhatti | News & Updates July 09, 2012

Bored of pop-oriented programming on Indian radio stations, a group of friends from IIT Mumbai have started an online radio station to showcase and catalogue music by Indian bands. Called Be The Change Radio (BC Radio), the online station will go live on July 15^th. Listeners can log on to listen to live streams, podcasts featuring interviews with bands and organizers, and create their own playlists as well.

“The station will start off by playing three genre-based playlists encompassing rock, jazz and electronica,” says Kastub Pandey, a final year BTech Chemical Engineering student of IIT Mumbai. The station will change the order of the songs based on their popularity. Pandey, a co-founder of BC Radio set up the station along with fellow students, Dhruv Joshi, Saurabh Agarwal and Kritin Joshi. The four have been organizing the music competition, Livewire, at Mood Indigo, the annual festival at IIT Mumbai and are also part of a college rock band named Greenwood.

Dhruv, Kastub, Saurabh and Kritin (clockwise from top left)

The current catalogue of artists includes music by bands like Parikrama, Something Relevant, Demonic Resurrection, Skyharbor, Noiseware, Swarathma, Baiju Dharmajan and Them Clones. The idea, Pandey says, was born to bring Indian rock to the masses. “No Indian band has their music catalogued for radio. The only people who ever hear of them are the ones who consciously go and look for these bands online or at gigs.” Pandey further adds that the radio station will offer a platform for both streaming and discovery of new music by Indian bands.

Whether BC Radio will be able to provide the listener a unique music experience remains to be seen since venues such as Blue Frog and Opus have their own audio streaming channels on their websites where they play music by various artists who have performed there. Websites like Grooveshark, SoundCloud, Bandcamp and thesixtyone also have streaming plug ins where music is classified according to mood and genre. “We are aiming at helping listeners discover new music according to the stuff they listen to. If you say Demonic Resurrection, then we will recommend similar sounding Indian artists we think you might like,” says Pandey.

Besides streaming shows and music, Pandey and his team at BC Radio also plan to organize events at various music-friendly venues across the country. Last week, BC Radio live streamed a dummy playlist at Le Rock Café, Bengaluru. Pandey adds that the live streams will become a consistent feature. “The country is more ready now than it has ever been for live music and we want to cash in on that,” says Pandey.

Be The Change Radio will be available here