Melomania describes a passion for music, drawing from the Latin word “melos” meaning ‘song’. The Melomanic Sessions, also known as Melo, are absolutely about a passion for music. For nearly five years running, five passionate people have been able to bring consistent and steadily growing crowds of like-minded people together every two months to just play and hear good music – purely unintentionally. This is how.
They Identified A Gap And Went To Work On It
Asela Perera and Chrisantha “CC” de Silva, both musicians, had over three years been looking for the kind of event at which they could recreate the “jamming-out-at-home” feel. They wanted a space where the music was “consistently good”, and they could relax and listen to, as well as play acoustic pieces. Along the way, Kavya Galle Kankanamge, a medical school graduate who also loved to sing, brought them an opportunity to raise funds for a patient suffering from a rare medical condition. They teamed up with composer and Commonwealth Music Ambassador Natasha Senanayake and decided to create what they wanted themselves, and support a cause. Malisha Andrahennadi later joined the team to help organize. “Good quality music” is the only criteria for a business model that is not a business model, but is still very steadily shaping an internally sustainable community.
“Music came first,” de Silva says simply. “Nothing else was planned.”
This is their only standard, which they keep pushing. Since March 2015, every performer must also play at least one original piece of music. If you don’t write original music, you don’t qualify.
They Ignored The Glitter
Entertainment is good business as long as you’ve got a strong brand. Melo has a strong brand that is immediately identifiable, and the team is very aware of the fact that “if you monetize what we’re doing, it will probably be worth a lot”. But their focus is on strengthening the community around original acoustic music, not making a profit. Since about a year ago, de Silva has been getting sponsorship offers from some of Sri Lanka’s big players in a variety of industries. He has turned most of these down because they are bigger brands that don’t align with Melo vision. There is no ticket to Melo. Anyone can walk in for a minimum donation of Rs300, and anyone who can’t afford it can walk in for free. Whatever profits they make get split up between the artists who performed that night.
They Let The Baby Grow Itself
“We just did things that felt normal and easy,” Perera sums up, “we were really not thinking long-term”.
A few weeks after the first fundraiser, someone asked them when the next session was. So they had 23 more. When some regulars went abroad and started missing the sessions, they started live-streaming and putting the session bootlegs on SoundCloud.
They have never worried about a crowd. So much so that they don’t advertise to strangers, but use Facebook and word of mouth to keep people informed. De Silva is clear that they want “purely social, organic growth and likeminded people”.
[pullquote]“We just did things that felt normal and easy, we were really not thinking long term.” Asela Perera[/pullquote]
They Kept Doing What Worked
In 2011, a poster was necessary to create a passable Facebook event page. The doctor drew a twisted guitar and cassette tape on Paintbrush, and typed in the event details. That worked. They made a video and sang “so people knew we could”, de Silva clarifies, smug. That worked too.
So they kept making posters and videos. The posters are now pro because sessions are crowded with artistically inclined people, including professional artists and graphic designers.
Melo sessions never had a stage. The first happened against the backdrop of a brick wall at the Warehouse Project in Maradana, with people strewn around on couches and bean bags. They added fairy lights and banned alcohol to keep it cozy and intimate.
“Maradana is a bit of a journey for anyone, but people were coming,” Perera points out. “That meant something.”
When Warehouse management was taken over, Melo had to move, and finding a venue that could balance intimacy and capacity remains a problem. So they are gypsies now, in open spaces, gardens and warehouses. They take the bean bags and fairy lights with them, and the crowds follow.
The point of the Melomanic Sessions has become to sustain its core: a community that nurtures locally produced acoustic music. A few months ago, the organizers took the next logical step forward to establish Melomanic Records. For now, it’s only a small studio at the back of Perera’s house. “The equipment is good enough to get the job done,” he says.
“The point is to help people get their music out there,” de Silva explains, “to create a culture of listening to local music and be a stepping stone for artists we believe in.”
The plan is to release a single at every session, make it available for free streaming and online purchase. The potential is to make history for Sri Lanka’s music industry.