Tuhin Mehta

Tuhin Mehta has been in Indian dance music for thirty-four years — and most people know almost none of it. He was one half of Brute Force, the duo (with Shane Mendonsa) that ended up on Gareth Emery's debut album Northern Lights — a record that went to number one on the US iTunes dance chart. He co-founded Go:Madras, one of the longest-running independent festivals this country has managed to keep alive. He held a five-year Sunday residency at Fuga in Bangalore with Submerge, played Sunburn in 2008 on Carl Cox's stage, and returned in 2010 in front of twenty-eight thousand people.

It started at twelve, in Madras, playing his father's records at family parties — a first paid gig of ₹500 at thirteen, a jeweller's day job running alongside the night one, and a life that somehow also made room for a black belt, national-level shooting and paintball for India. Part 1 is the origin and the scene: Madras in the nineties, when there were two clubs and a discotheque; Brute Force and 'Brutal By Birth'; the track 'Arrival' that found its way onto a number-one album; what five years of Sundays at Fuga actually teaches you; the hard question of whether Fuga cost Bangalore its house scene — and how Go:Madras began with ₹3,000 and a dinner, and was never even meant to be a festival.

This is Part 1 of two. Part 2 covers the other half — nineteen years inside AlphaTheta, the CDJ-3000X, 157 mixes without missing a month, and what three decades of loud rooms does to your ears.

The VIC Fix is hosted by DJ VIC — an international DJ and producer who performs at weddings, corporate events and festivals across India, staged as a signature audio-visual show.