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Music artwork has just begun to emerge in the country. Sleeves, flyers, banners and printed setlists are lending artists and their music a compelling visual appeal, connecting audiences with their favourite bands, and linking pop and culture. Sunday MiD DAY captures the dawn of a pop art movement

The gig rose above the run-of-the-mill club act and hurtled across poetic punk and smouldering jazz. Suman Sridhar's diminutive frame belied her powerful, spunky pipes. Her partner and collaborator Jeet Thayil strutted his funky virtuosity, firing up the show with his verse and growling vocals. If you missed it, you didn't just miss a good gig. You also missed electronica act Shaa'ir+Func's artful plot to woo audiences to their show.

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u00a0Singer/songwriter Monica Dogra of Shaa'ir+Func snaked in and out of groups of people gathered at Mumbai club Blue Frog, handing out sunshine yellow flyers inked with what looked like a drag queen, to get the buzz going around her show last week. Dogra inspired a first as far as gig promotions go. "We wanted to go old school and hand out flyers as is the case with underground parties," says Dogra.

Louiz Banks, the man anointed by Mumbai's music fraternity to pave the road ahead for jazz, was also part of an artwork this month -- a programme schedule in fact -- to celebrate the music of American composer Cole Porter. The retrospective gig was produced by Carlton Braganza, who owns Opus, one of Bengaluru's most well-known music venues. Braganza admits that artwork has been a tradition since Opus opened its doors seven years ago. "We have a wall at Opus, where an artist's poster or artwork goes up every time he performs here -- there's everybody from Spyro Gyra to Pentagram up there."
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Of course, sleeve art has had a long history -- it has been around in America since the late 1930s. The 60s exploded with psychedelic (read LSD-influenced) covers: Cream's Disraeli Gears being one of the most memorable ones. There are many potential candidates for the top spot including the iconic Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band designed by the legendary Sir Peter Blake. It's only as recently as five years ago that bands have begun exploiting its potential in India. Mumbai rock band Zero had an old man smoking a pipe on the cover of its 2005 album Procrastination. A bird is seen nesting in the old man's beard, a bone, forgotten by a dog perhaps is tangled up, and some weeds sprout out of it, suggesting the time that went by, as the band procrastinated on the album's release. "I don't know where the image of the old man who hadn't shaved for years, popped up from, but it matched theu00a0 band's character," says Sameer Kulavoor, illustrator and design director of Bombay Duck Designs, who designed the cover.

Kulavoor, a diehard Pearl Jam fan takes inspiration from the Seattle band's album artwork. "It was obscure poster art that didn't directly connect to the music and that appeals to me rather than having photos of the band on the cover; unless you are U2 and need to have Bono on it," says Kulavoor. This year, Mumbai band Something Relevant's album, Feels Good 2B Live was released with a striking black and white cover depicting the chaos and madness of Mumbai, also designed by Kulavoor.

Bengaluru band Thermal & A Quarter was one of the first to get itself a logo in 1999. "It took us three years to figure what we wanted. It helped us formulate all the design on our website, posters and merchandise. People identify the band with that logo," says Bruce Lee Mani, the band's lead guitarist.

Three years ago, folk rock musician and vocalist Raghu Dixit maxed younger brother Vasu's design school credentials to create miniature-inspired album art that were never-before-seen on an Indian album inlay. "All thanks to Vishal-Shekhar and Vijay Nair, who allowed me to go ahead with the 24-page album inlay," says Dixit, of the artwork that became a thematic expression of Dixit's music, "A lot of artists have ranted that they don't have funds to pull off artwork or their label is just not interested."

In fact, the roots of early music pop art can be traced to Freedom Jam, one of the oldest music festivals in the city. Says Siddhartha Patnaik, Freedom Jam's co-founder, who also designed most of their posters, "I call the Freedom Jam poster design an accidental one. Most of the musicians who performed were grungy, which is why we came up with the hand-drawn logo." says Patnaik, who recalls "scribbling" the 'Freedom Jam No Bread' logo back in 1997 with co-founder Geetha and Gopal Navale's kids while sitting inside the car in the middle of bustling Brigade Road. "Those were the early days of event managers who wanted to show off their Corel Draw and Photoshop skills. Our logo stood out and caught the attention of the owner of Pico's, perhaps because it was so unusual."

Pondicherry-based Patnaik moved away from software and turned to bandes dessinees, the traditional French comicbook art that he grew up on. Pop art for independent musicians has come a full circle and may just be the oldest weapon in the age of new media.

George Mathen
Who? Drummer for Bangalore post rock band Lounge Piranha and graphic artist
Log onto: https://www.georgemathen.com/

Works
Include sexing up the interiors of Ghetto with rockstar graffiti, artwork for Lounge Piranha's 2008 debut Going Nowhere and Moonward, a graphic novel published by Chennai-based publishing house Blaft.

Influences
Sheer psychedelia. Guns N' Roses and Metallica album covers when growing up. "The pages of my notebook were divided and measured. My trip was to copy album covers so that I could paste them onto cassette covers so that they looked like the originals. I drew with a ballpoint pen. The tapes of course had the ripped off material." Mathen soon graduated to painting 7 ft x 8 ft murals at Malhar, the annual cultural festival at St. Xavier's college. "I just painted these massive faces in silver onto black cloth. Santana was easy to draw. As were Morrison, Marley and Lennon," recalls Mathen, who had his eyes set on Ghetto, the only dive club that Mumbai boasted of in the 90s. He learnt his ropes at Ghetto - using spray guns and spray paint. "Everyone from college hung out there. I painted post 1 am and had to rush to college by 7.30 am, smelling of paint," says Mathen, who made enough to pay his hostel bills and earned a lifetime of free beers at Ghetto after this assignment. Working at a tattoo parlour at Flora Fountain further honed his skills. "It was a part-time job. My first tattoo assignment was for this massive guy who wanted me to black out a girl's name on his chest. The name was written on a scroll that ran across a heart," he says.

For Lounge Piranha's band logo, he admits referring to Salvadore Dali's Mae West, the wood and satin sofa inspired by actress Mae West's lips and commissioned by Edward James.

Theory on art
Undefined by parameters. "I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I'm not trained in art. The 'artist' tag hasu00a0 just sunk in." Mathen is redefining how corporates view art elevating it above the status of a product. "I do some extremely commercial art. Clients treat me as an artist and not as a service provider. I suggest changes which they have been open to." So you'll find his work not hidden behind logos and banners but covering entire walls or on laptop sleeves even.

Tamagna Ghosh
Who? IIT Kharagpur grad turned marketing manager, who moved to Mumbai a little over a year ago. Also an avid music photographer. Find Ghosh on rockyourhami.com

Works
Ghosh who took up music artwork six months ago is yet to publish his work. He uses oil, acrylic, charcoal and watercolours to document his favourite bands and artists at work. He's done portraits of artistsu00a0 Raghu Dixit, Rahul Ram (Indian Ocean) among others.

Influences
His favourite artists -- Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, DreamTheater and Bob Dylan. Ghosh often tunes into the artist's music as he works the canvas. "Sometimes, I spend 20 days on au00a0 canvas," he says, "It's always art or a gig after office." Ghosh, a hardcore classic rock fan credits the The Art Of Classic Rock, Rob Roth's magnum opus on rock memorabilia including tour posters, original merchandise and everything a rock lover would give an arm for, for his newfound interest in music artwork. "I picked it up just a couple of months ago and was blown away," says the 29 year-old. Ghosh grew familiar with the rock circuit during his IIT Kharagpur days. "I was involved with the rock fest (Wildfire) back then and have been in touch with musicians since. "I think music art is a big value addition for fans. I've been talking to some bands about this as well."

Theory on art
Ghosh who has an art degree loves the finger-blending technique to get the skin tone right. "I've seen a lot of digital art around but there's not much of music pop art on canvasses or in oil," says Ghosh.

Saloni Sinha
Who? Metalhead from Pune. Post graduate student at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Works
The 23 year-old says, "I somehow relate well to metal as my art is on similar lines and kind of dark." Sinha has already won over the Indian metal circuit having worked with bands from the North East including Itanagar band Alien Gods.

Influences
Sinha draws from works of artists such as Paul Gustave Dor, the celebrated 19th century French artist and sculptor, American graphic artist Mark Riddick who's also known for his work with death and goth metal bands and filmmaker Tim Burton. Sinha like most other artists has been drawn to visual art since childhood and specialised in graphics as a part of her Communication Design course from Pune's Symbiosis Institute of Design.

Theory on art
While Sinha begins working in pencil and ink, she uses Corel Draw and Photoshop to digitally enhance the drawings. "I make sure I listen to the band's music before conceptualising the artwork," she offers. She's currently working on the cover of death metal band Alien Gods' album Lunar-Blackened Death, Assam death metal act Xongram's Shades of Retribution and Mumbai death metal band Blood Meridien's Elements of Brutality.u00a0 "Some bands are particular about what they want on their cover while most of them give me full freedom. Till now, all the bands and artists have been positive."

Kunal Lodhia
Who? Toronto-based mechanical engineer turned artist who moved to Mumbai last year. Co-founder of the artists' collective called We The People Are Ready, that was set up last year. Find Lodhia aka Engineer Bhai on wethepeopleareready.com.

Works
Include some artwork for Zenzi and the flyer for Shaa'ir+Func's Grime Disco Riot show at Club Madness held last week

Influences
American journalist-turned-graphic novelist and cartoonist Joe Sacco who has award-winning works such as Palestine to his name. UK caricaturist Ralph Steadman who gained cult status working along with gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. "I always drew caricatures," says Lodhia, "Mechanical engineering combined art and engineering together in a way because there was a lot of sketching involved." Lodhia, who is most comfortable with the pen and ink medium found a release in caricature art when he worked on a gas plant in Saudi Arabia. "It was a restricted environment for artists, so I got more inspired. I kept all these sketches under my keyboard and took them home on Friday to work on," adds the 27 year-old artist who moved to painting canvas shoes as a hobby. When Lodhia moved to India last year, he was encouraged by the music artwork including posters that the Delhi-based Bass Foundation had plastered across popular nightspots in Goa. In Mumbai though, he noticed the absence of any artwork.

Theory on art
"I've never done it for money. I'd like to turn my drawings into toys." Although Lodhia does plan to launch a new range of Tees with his drawings on them.

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Looking for free art?
If your iTunes library is filled with blanks for album covers, this should fix it. You can add album art to songs and also automatically fill in album details. The free download will also remove duplicate songs from your library.
Log onto tidysongs.com

Controversial album art
Everyone from Roger Waters to David Bowie have been rapped for covers involving nudity, hip hop star Kanye West is the latest to be slammed for a nude cover. West's latest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy which is slated to release next week, has been illustrated by George Condo, and shows a nude Kanye gripping a bottle while being straddled by a naked, winged woman. "Banned in the USA!!! They don't want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix!" West tweeted last week. The Phoenix is the name of a lead character in West's upcoming film Runaway.