Open to all: Karachi’s musicians to have a new home
Waqas Almas’s state-of-the-art music performance venue will not charge artists for concerts
With the yet-to-be-named venue, Almas hopes to bring artists together and encourage cross-genre collaborations. PHOTO: PUBLICITY
LAHORE:
Musicians in Karachi could soon have a new home for themselves. While T2F was once their go-to place for mini concerts and jamming sessions, things were no longer the same, following the assassination of its founder Sabeen Mahmud. Fortunately, T2F will soon be joined by another such venue for music enthusiasts.
Music producer Waqas Almas is working on Karachi’s first open-to-all music performance venue at the Business Executive Center in Clifton. The place has previously hosted stand-up comedy acts like Auratnaak and Lol Waalay and they now hope to evolve it into a state-of- the-art live performance venue.
A point Almas drives home is that his company was the first to monetise music in Pakistan by putting tracks out as caller tunes. “This is a joint project between Kueball, the advertising agency lending their marketing expertise, and myself, bringing forth my musical know-how,” he said about the yet-to-be-named place.
“We tried to get music and artists from different places of Pakistan and got them covered,” said the former I AM KARACHI festival programming manager about his stint with the event. “We are carrying forward the same sentiment here. It’s easy to provide a place where artists can come and play music but it’s rather rare to pay out performance royalties to copyright owners,” he added.
As a marketing aficionado, Almas knows a thing or two about promoting oneself as an artist. The last time we saw him was as a speaker at a Lahore Music Meet (LMM) session titled, ‘Marketing Yourself as a Musician.’ Since 2011, he has been working on monetising music for veteran and new musicians such as the Mekaal Hasan Band, Jimmy Khan and Komal Rizvi, along with other indie bands.
According to Almas, unless royalties are paid to artists and their music is taken forward, things will not be sustainable for them. “We have musical equipment, a space and everything a musician needs for their performance. We urge artists to come forward themselves. In a nutshell, the project aims to provide them with a digital and physical presence.”
A point to note is that the artists will not be paying Almas and his partners for using the location. “There are already a lot of places that can be rented out in Karachi and none of them are viable because an artist’s expenses for a live concert are very heavy. It’s never profitable for them,” he said. “The revenue they generate will be divided between them and us.”
Almas suggested that there are two ways to monetise music, either through platforms such as YouTube or by corporate sponsorships. The former, many artists might already be doing. “We want to create a platform where they perform and come for collaborative sessions, especially unexpected ones like say, between a qawaal and a rock band. That’s when brands automatically get interested.”
Almas hopes that besides weekly gigs, these collaborations will help artists digitise and monetise whatever they create by having their work released as a compilation album on Patari.
It seems that those involved already have their heart in the right place but only time will tell how successful Almas’s venture is. While he and his team ponder over a name for it, they have already lined up a qawwali night for mid-October and hope to bring Sounds of Kolachi, jazz bands and even sitar recitals to the fore, thereafter.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2016.
Musicians in Karachi could soon have a new home for themselves. While T2F was once their go-to place for mini concerts and jamming sessions, things were no longer the same, following the assassination of its founder Sabeen Mahmud. Fortunately, T2F will soon be joined by another such venue for music enthusiasts.
Music producer Waqas Almas is working on Karachi’s first open-to-all music performance venue at the Business Executive Center in Clifton. The place has previously hosted stand-up comedy acts like Auratnaak and Lol Waalay and they now hope to evolve it into a state-of- the-art live performance venue.
A point Almas drives home is that his company was the first to monetise music in Pakistan by putting tracks out as caller tunes. “This is a joint project between Kueball, the advertising agency lending their marketing expertise, and myself, bringing forth my musical know-how,” he said about the yet-to-be-named place.
“We tried to get music and artists from different places of Pakistan and got them covered,” said the former I AM KARACHI festival programming manager about his stint with the event. “We are carrying forward the same sentiment here. It’s easy to provide a place where artists can come and play music but it’s rather rare to pay out performance royalties to copyright owners,” he added.
As a marketing aficionado, Almas knows a thing or two about promoting oneself as an artist. The last time we saw him was as a speaker at a Lahore Music Meet (LMM) session titled, ‘Marketing Yourself as a Musician.’ Since 2011, he has been working on monetising music for veteran and new musicians such as the Mekaal Hasan Band, Jimmy Khan and Komal Rizvi, along with other indie bands.
According to Almas, unless royalties are paid to artists and their music is taken forward, things will not be sustainable for them. “We have musical equipment, a space and everything a musician needs for their performance. We urge artists to come forward themselves. In a nutshell, the project aims to provide them with a digital and physical presence.”
A point to note is that the artists will not be paying Almas and his partners for using the location. “There are already a lot of places that can be rented out in Karachi and none of them are viable because an artist’s expenses for a live concert are very heavy. It’s never profitable for them,” he said. “The revenue they generate will be divided between them and us.”
Almas suggested that there are two ways to monetise music, either through platforms such as YouTube or by corporate sponsorships. The former, many artists might already be doing. “We want to create a platform where they perform and come for collaborative sessions, especially unexpected ones like say, between a qawaal and a rock band. That’s when brands automatically get interested.”
Almas hopes that besides weekly gigs, these collaborations will help artists digitise and monetise whatever they create by having their work released as a compilation album on Patari.
It seems that those involved already have their heart in the right place but only time will tell how successful Almas’s venture is. While he and his team ponder over a name for it, they have already lined up a qawwali night for mid-October and hope to bring Sounds of Kolachi, jazz bands and even sitar recitals to the fore, thereafter.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2016.