It's easy to see why The Vinyl Records is the most sought after band these days. With their energetic upbeat tunes coupled with some great lyrics and a few fantastic music videos, all it takes is one listen and their tracks will automatically travel to the top of your playlist.
A four piece girl band based out in Delhi, The Vinyl Records was formed when Mithy Tatak, drummer, Minam Teseng, bassist and Banu Jini guitarist all from Arunachal Pradesh and who were studying together began jamming up. The final touch came when Cheyyrian Bark from Assam joined them as the lead vocalist and keytarist in January 2011.
“ The name The Vinyl Records was suggested by a friend and since our music is influenced by 70s and 80s with a retro vibe to it, we felt that the name fit perfectly,” says Tatak. After debuting at MTV India's F1 Rocks show in 2011, there was no turning back.
“ In the initial years there were more challenges as we were new to scene and still learning our instruments. But over time we began to understand the music scene better and learnt a lot of things. For instance, we realised that it is not just about learning an instrument and writing songs and performing, you need to consistently keep performing to stay in form,” reveals Tatak. Also, being an all girl rock band, Tatak admits that they have had to face a lot of gender stereotyping, but they don't let any of it bother them.
Over the last five years, the band has been winning over people everywhere with their amazing songs like Ready Steady Go, Whims, The Vibe etc and have also performed at premium concerts like Ziro Festival of Music, Puma Loves Vinyl, The LOUDEST Gig in Delhi etc.
“ One of out most memorable performances was at the Red Bull Music Academy Weekender in Stockholm where we performed alongside Maria Anderson from Sahara Hotnights. We are big fans of the band and used to cover their songs initially,” reveals Tatak. Some of their other music inspirations include CSS, Joan Jett, The Clash, The Strokes and the B-52’s.
“If you want to break through the independent music scene then you need to have original music. But it all depends on the audience you are catering for it .If it is just commercial audience than you have to do covers,” says Tatak. And while their band is ample proof of the vast pool of talent in Arunachal Pradesh, Tatak states that the music scene there still has a lot of catching up to do. “ Its still in the intial stage but there are a lot of festivals coming up now and local organisations are also helping to promote upcoming bands. In another five years the music here will get really big,” she reckons.
Their upcoming Goa show will be their third in the state having last performed here at the India Bike Week and The VANS New Wave Musicfest in 2014. And the band has a treat in store for Goans. “ For our show we will be performing some of the songs from out upcoming album which will be out in the next couple of months. Apart from that we will perform a mix of old and new songs too,” says Tatak, adding that they are very excited to be back here after a whole year.
