Announcement: The Live the Scene Project

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The Live The Scene Project is this new project that we throw to the world today, cause the word launch is too formal and restrictive for a project like this. It aims to create a common platform for indie music related photos and videos in India. An online gallery of sorts.
We’ve been toying with this idea ever since that promotional video we had made last year. Which video? This one:.
It’s a non-commercial venture completely funded by dfuse.in as of now. It’s more about documenting this revolution of sorts that surrounds us, just so 5 years from now we can sit back and well, live the scene.
So go ahead, take a look at http://livethescene.in

Anurag’s photo thing…

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We loved the fact that the media considered carrying articles or snippets about Anurag’s exhibition. It’s a huge honour and I would like to thank everybody who helped out on Anurag’s behalf. Here are a few that we found:

Of Flesh and Blood: Exhibit by Student Photographer Anurag Banerjee (TheTossedSalad.com)

Of Flesh and Blood (TimesCity.com)

ShowStealers-Exhibition (Indian Express)

DNA:

I would also like to thank everyone who dropped in for the exhibition. A huge thanks to Mrs.Milinda Natu for being there to support Anurag. Today is the last day of the exhibition. Do drop by if you are in Pune. It would mean a lot to Anurag and all of us at dfuse.in.  

 

 

Print is not dead but we won’t print and other stories.

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In this one year of our existence as an online magazine, we have been asked numerous times as to why we don’t have a print issue.

It’s simple. We don’t want one.

It’s not about the money but it’s about the viability of such a thing. India remains as one of the only places on the face of this planet where print is still growing thanks to the low rate of Internet users. But then again India has a billion people- therefore the low number of internet users is still a high number.

And why the hell would you try to break into the print medium and fight competition that is backed by billion dollar media houses? The inter-web is way more democratic on that front  and that’s why this is the present and this is our future.

We might explore avenues such as e-book distribution and application based content distribution in the future- we are an internet enterprise at the end of the day.

If we were to go to print it would be like an airline selling off their planes to start a train business or let’s say a road transport business (since we are in India and the railways are government owned)

Makes sense? Well to me it did. At least most of it.

 

 

One year and counting…

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Words cannot even begin to describe the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes at dfuse.in. Tempers run high (mostly between the editors), deadlines are almost never met, hookahs are knocked over but Fasoos Rolls and/or chinese food is always ordered which makes everyone shut up.

dfuse.in is powered by noodles. 

In a previous post, Aniket (the dogfather) talks about how we have to prove ourselves constantly. We aren’t generating content out satisfy the mainstream pseudo intellectuals out there. dfuse.in won’t appeal to your average college bumpkin who uses the internet just to check his/her facebook notifications. We want to poke the inner you that is screaming out to be different. The one who wants to stand out of the crowd and be recognized and truly appreciated for who you truly are. I just realized I sound like one of self help Robin Sharma/self help gurus.

But besides the whole Ferrari monk mumbo jumbo, most of the staff are involved in a lot of other projects besides trying to maintain the ridiculous 90% attendance criteria our college demands. But we still manage to find the time in between all the movie shoots, band projects,photography and MUN-ing. We try to apply whatever we learn and unlearn in our academic lives, to this entity which I hope one day will be the epitome of all things awesome.

dfuse.in turns ONE today and I’ve never been more proud of the people who are involved behind the scenes.

 

 

Thank you

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For the panic and scare,
For a moment to spare,
For the fun and gossips,
For the endless insane trips,
For the bitching and the snares,
For the immense love and care,
All I have for this while,
Is a ‘thank you’ and a smile.

And you best be happy with that!

Of Awesomeness and censorship.

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Censorship is the first word that needs to be banned. Sounds funny right? Well that’s what the situation has become today. FUNNY.

Firstly there was Kapil Sibal going all out taking down “anti-government” material off social networking sites. However the larger problem that we as internet users will face is probably hours away from hitting us. And yes we can blame the Americans for this one.SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] and it’s similarly worded sister act P(ROTECT)IPA[Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011] that’s doing the rounds in the American senate can challenge the existence of websites such as dfuse.in.

No Mr.American Senator we don’t put out torrent links or other “illegal” stuff but we still think what you call illegal is just another episode of The Mentalist or Sherlock. Screw that, that can be still considered illegal; somebody really needs to explain to them that images that are used by website do not need to  follow these corporate backed IP laws- there exists something called fair-usage policy on every valid copyright and this normally involves using low-res images that cannot be reproduced for profit.

If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States. And websites like dfuse.in which are co-hosted on numerous servers some of which are American servers will face direct consequences. Legislation that censors free speech and affects growth will poison the internet to a slow but steady death.

We decided against blacking out our site (at the end of the day we are an Indian site with a limited number of American users- and it’s the Americans again who can actually do something about this)- but we are hell proud that biggies like Wikipedia and Reddit are doing so.

We strongly condemn such action by the governments of so-called free democracies. Such legislations and the way Mr.Sibal handled social media just reflects how they love China. I mean, China at least admits that they love censorship.

In other news, we were featured in the Pune edition of Indian Express, here’s a cutout:

A huge thank you to everybody who believed in us.

Proving yourself and other stories.

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Last night Lipi(for new comers-she is also the co-owner of dfuse.in) and I spoke for a long time. The highlight about our conversation being the ignorance of the people that surround us. Keeping aside the snide remarks some of our classmates throw at us(if you are reading this, you know who you are), we  face this dilemma of having to prove ourselves constantly.

Just because you aren’t aware of something doesn’t mean you can talk shit. Firstly you make the mistake of comparing your blog to dfuse.in. Your blog is your personal space. Why would you be so cheap and compare it to dfuse.in.
dfuse.in (and not dfuse or diffuse or whatever you might read it as) is not a blog. It’s a god damn internet magazine. Oh I am sorry you do not know what that means, do you?

Only those few souls who have walked this path will know how hard it is to run an independent (and I mean completely independent) media outlet. Yes we do reviews of books of a certain publishing house; but we do them honestly and with transparency. We do promote them but then you won’t pay our hosting bills will you?

And just for the record we pay for the gigs we don’t attend as reporters of dfuse.in (forgetting the fact that I work at one such venue, that has nothing to do with this).

Also as policy we don’t send an army of people for a gig. We send one journo and one photo-dude. And on a completely unrelated note for petes/krishna/the ones who can’t be named and all that sake stop using the flash- buy a better lens or alternate lighting accessories. 

A new year.

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Yes we all know it’s 2011. And no I won’t be lame here and wish you.
I don’t really know how I feel today.

There have been two major things that happened today.

1.dfuse.in for the first time in it’s 2 and half year (or 11 months?) history saw an article being written about it.( http://openspaceindia.org/express/articles-essays/having-our-say-youth-portals.html)

2.One of the reasons why I believed in voicing my opinions (which later led to dfuse.in) bid farewell to our realm of happenings, Amit Saigal , the founder and editor of Rock Street Journal is no longer among us.

He started RSJ when I was 2 years of age and when I was old enough to read RSJ; I realized that the man was way ahead of his times. He liked doing things differently and he redefined the norms of alternative music in our country.

I dunno if he created the scene – but he sure did make it accessible to those who call themselves a part of it. Anyone who has been introduced to Indian alternative music before the whole bunch of internet scene nazis and neo nazis  (including us) came about, RSJ was the biggest source of information if not the only one.

I remember picking up RSJ when I wanted to buy a Rolling Stone (after having read a few vintage issues at a library)  in 2004 only to realize that there wasn’t any. RSJ, often called a cheap rip-off, is what I took home. Rip-Off? Of what?

Alternative music journalism itself is a niche and not so well paying activity. There is no chance of a rip-off in a market where competition doesn’t exist. It was only much later that Rolling Stone and the likes came around (some went packing).

Papa Rock as he was fondly called, still remains a very important figure in my head. I just saw him in photos (I did meet him much later at a GIR) and it was his long locks and free-willing charisma that stuck on.

India isn’t completely aware of what and who it lost today. May his soul rest in peace.

Image courtesy: Rock Street Journal | https://www.facebook.com/rsjonline