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: http://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.