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Grammy-winning producer mentors local indie bands
Legendary music producer Steve Lillywhite is in Jakarta to polish four local bands for the Guinness Amplify Mentor Sessions music competition
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L
egendary music producer Steve Lillywhite is in Jakarta to polish four local bands for the Guinness Amplify Mentor Sessions music competition.
In the spotlight are two Bandung-based groups; garage rockers Radioaktif and Brit-pop rockers Elinor; the all-woman group Go!Go!JiLL from Surabaya, East Java; and Japanese-style rockers HoneybeaT.
A jury including Musica Studio managing director Gumilang Ramadhan, owner Indrawati Widjaja, Lillywhite and music critic Adib Hidayat will pick a winner from the four finalists, which were selected from 30 semifinalists culled from 200 applicants.
The program ends on Friday, with the winning band getting its single produced by Lillywhite and released by Musica Studio.
'All these four different styles of music just show that Indonesia has a rich musical culture,' Lillywhite, who has won five Grammys in his 40 years in the music industry, said at Musica Studio on Tuesday.
'I'm looking for originality. I'm ambitious. If we can find an artist who will be good internationally, that'll be great.'
The mentoring sessions, which ran from Nov. 24 to 28, covered publishing, copyrights, artist-management, social media ' as well songwriting and musicality. Giring from Nidji band and d'Masiv also spoke.
Adib Hidayat said that the mentoring session made the competition one of a kind. 'It will surely provide more [info] in a short time to the selected bands,' he said.
Go!Go!JiLL vocalist and guitarist Bimby Sukma Dewi said that the competition proved that local bands could make it globally. 'To have quality time with Steve, the producer of our band's idol, 30 Seconds to Mars, is already a big prize,' she said.
Lillywhite, 59, has worked on over 500 albums, including those of U2, The Rolling Stones, Phish, The Talking Heads, Jason Mraz and Indonesian band NOAH, among many others.
'Only one will go to the next round, but there is no really winning ' because you go to the next round, you go to the studio with me. It's just the beginning,' Lilywhite said.
Guinness' brand manager in Indonesia, Erwin Ruffin, said that the firm had been supporting the nation's music industry over the past five years. 'I hope the other three bands will keep going on making music we can all appreciate,' he said.
Singles of the three finalists and 26 semifinalists will be available for free download via Zimbalam in December, according to Guinness.
Indrawati said that Musica Studio would have something in store for the semifinalists. 'We will not let such talents go to waste,' she said.
