New content at Rock in China

Today we added a few new bands from the emo rock genre to our wiki. First of all the Tookoo-drive King-Size China 2 compilation and its related band Flip Side, From Next In and Psycho Candy. Surprise surprise, one of the bands on the compilation is Xi’an-originated new metal / emo rock band Pulse.

I came across Pulse at the end of 2003 in the Bella Bar in Xi’an after a show which blew me away (my first rock show in China). Afterwards we drank a little, talked, played drinking games and joined the whole underground scene towards the Muslim Street of Xi’an, eating till late nite. Pulse drummer at that time, Hao Yi Yang (Allen) became a friend of mine that time and I still have their demo record in the Rock in China collection…

Further additions are related to those bands, such as Flip Side’ record Never ending journey.

And, we updated the Band Forming Timeline and went through our artists list to make sure we have all bands added that have a forming date verified.

– Azchael

Poptastic Conversation China (VA) – reviewed

The compilation “Poptastic Conversation” was released in 2008 by German record label Fly Fast Records, which is basically consisting of the people behind the documentary Beijing Bubbles, and therefore it should not astonish anyone that Beijing Bubbles heroes Joyside and Sand, besides The Honeys, The Pancakes, My Little Airport, PK 14 and Car-sick Cars, sing their songs on the record (in German!). A good selection of underground bands from China and Hongkong. What is more astonishing is the selection of German bands participating: Die Ärzte, Wir sind Helden and Die Sterne are singing in their songs in Chinese.

In total 19 songs plus an additional CD with a German and a Chinese language course by respectable publishing house PONS and the Goethe Institute surplus a informative booklet / book with German/Chinese texts, explanations, photos and lyrics are offering not just a pleasent experience for one’s ears, but also an hour worthwile of information about the German-Chinese cultural experiences of exchange students, the Chinese underground music scene and the German one. Most songs can be categorized to punk, pop rock or pop music. There are no experimental songs or heavy metal songs on the record, which is certainly due to the fact that a criterium for the band and song selection had been the clearness of vocals and lyrics, as the CD definitely can be seen as an approach to foster the intercultural and interlanguage exchange (with the Goethe Institute as a sponsor of the record). An approach which has been also taken when Fly Fast Records introduced Joyside to the German punk audience and toured with them.

The quality of the songs is overall excellent and the lyrics, both Chinese and German, well recorded and understandable (which as both German songs and Chinese songs are not sung by native speakers, is quite an effort sometimes). Due to the nature of the songs, it is perfectly applicable for being listened to in the background (e.g. office or at home) or to push up the volume and bring the tune up on a party (e.g. “Junge / Er Zi” by Die Ärzte). There are no major rhythm breaks or style breaks on the record, so that you can go from one song to the next without having to fear to destroy the atmosphere. A well balanced record and a must for every German student and Chinese student, for it offers lyrics in both languages and thereby a well-sound (listening) experience to get a grasp of how the other culture is thinking.

– Azchael

UnderGroundGround online! (Original Chinese texts)

With the approval of author Yan Jun, we have on the one hand made the book “UnderGroundGround” (2002) available for download and also added it online for direct reading in its Original Chinese language.

A few articles I’d like to point out:

• Iron Blood or Robber Sweat: Looking back at Ten Years Rock (铁血或盗汗——追忆十年摇滚（代序）)
• Tree Village Declaration (树村声明)

1+ Event Series of Yan Jun online

In the words of Yan Jun:

1+ is a series aimed at identifying talented young artists and bringing their work to wider attention, both in Beijing and internationally. It will focus mainly on showcasing the work of local artists from the underground rock, experimental, electronica, impovisation and other genres. The series will also include artists from other cities and countries who, whether they are just visiting or plan to spend an extended period of time in Beijing, are part of our music ecology.The 1+ format is designed to take advantage of the fast growing new music scene in Beijing and the willingness of local artists to experiment with and mix genres. As Beijing continues its rapid development as an international new music experiment factory, various backgrounds and influences meet in the Beijing music scenes to generate new sounds and vibrations that are often difficult to categorize and hard to define…

Start since June of 2006.

Ended in 2007’s Spring.

Read more and get the complete lineup and posters …

The female role in rock, a statement by Jiang Xin / Jessica

Jiang Xin aka Jessica, a friend of Ding Wu, Zhang Ju and Dou Wei, who has started to play rock in the late 80s, has given an interesting statement about the role of feminism in rock. Every now and then, the question of female rock artists and how they are accepted socially and within the rock scene pops up. I think Hang on the Box are the most interviewed and stated band in that regard (e.g. in Beijing Bubbles, etc.). So what Qian Wang discussed with Jessica should not remain hidden in his PhD thesis (download the pdf):

“In the early 1990s, I never thought about the gender issue. All the music I listened to was made by male rockers. Consequently, I unconsciously tried to play rock like a male rocker. Even when I was making the first album in 1995, I still had not realised my problem. Later, I started to listen to female rockers’ music, like Janis Joplin and Alanis Morissette, I sensed the difference between male and female rockers’ music, and realised that I needed my gender identity. I am a woman, not a man. I thus purposely wrote some lyrics in my second album <May> to stress my female identity.” – Interview with Jessica by Qian Wang (July/August 2005)

Further information:

W. Qian (2007). The Crisis of Chinese Rock in the mid-1990s: Weakness in Form or Weakness in Content. Page 266. University of Liverpool.

Yaogun.com on Jessica: http://yaogun.com/artist/woman/jiangxin.htm (Japanese)

Ordnance – Rock City China Tour 2008

Metal band Ordnance is also preparing their metal China tour this year. From November 14th to December 28th they can rock and thrash all over China. Check out their schedule …

Spring Autumn China Tour 2008

Legendary metal band Spring Autumn (around former Tang Dynasty guitarist Kaiser Kuo) is approaching their China tour this month and next. From November 15th to December 3rd they gonna rock places from Lanzhou to Guangzhou. Check out their schedule …

About the Waterland Kwanyin series

There are people that make noise music, those that listen to noise music, those that understand it and those that have no clue why people invest so much time into something that does not even sound a little bit melodic. Since the days of Zwölftonmusik, the opinions on avantgards and nowadays so called noise (without the “… music”) are going into contrasting directions.

In Beijing, China, noise is having its own scene with one of their major highlights every year the Mini Midi festival, organized by Yan Jun. Another regular event, which happens every week, is the Waterland Kwanyin series. Organizing events in Beijing for such a specific music genre is really difficult, but doing it already for more than 2 years on a regular basis is extraordinary (regardless of the genre of the music). Therefore we are just now adding more information on the Waterland Kwanyin series and writing down the event index. Starting in 2008 and going back in time…

More information:

http://www.subjam.org/archives/category/wk

http://www.yanjun.org/Live_Recording/index.html

http://www.sands-zine.com/articoli.php?id=2768

– Azchael

PS: I crossed the word “music”, for I learnt in our interview with Junky Cao of Torturing Nurse, that noise is not associatable with rhythm and melody, which I would call music.

One of the most comprehensive avantgarde music blogs: Yan Jun

Former poet, music critic, organizer, curator and avantgarde/noise music&sound specialist Yan Jun is also a pretty tough and busy blogger adding at least a post per day to his blog 芥末日记.

Content follows the Creative Commons:”non-commercial, signed, can not be modified” license model (note: license translated with Google Translate)

Definitely worth checking out…

Found in the web: Review by Barbara Mittler on “China’s New Voices”

Having started off another web browsing search for information on Chinese rock, I came across the Resource Pages of the Ohio State University. Kirk Denton of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures has not only collected numerous bibliographical references on Chinese rock, including Rock in China, but has also archived several reviews and articles on their webpage.

One of these articles is the review of Nimrod Baranovitch’s book “China’s New Voices: Popular Music,Ethnicity, Gender and Politics, 1978-1997″, released in 2003, and reviewed by Barbara Mittler, herself Professor of the Institute of Sinology at the University of Heidelberg, in 2004. I know Prof. Mittler from our cooperation on the Rock in China collection, which is going to be added to the university’s resource pool in near future.

With the words of Barbara Mittler:

This book is a must-read for anyone working in the field of Chinese cultural studies as well as for those specialized in Chinese political culture and Chinese contemporary history and society. The book provides an exciting and insightful account of the popular music scene in the last twenty years of the twentieth century, yet it does much more. By providing comparisons to many cultural and socio-political fields apart from popular music, Nimrod Baranovitch gives an accurate and useful overview of Chinese popular culture during this period. His book contains discussions ranging from Roots Literature (xiangtu wenxue) to fifth generation film, from Obscure Poetry (menglongshi) to cultural manifestations of Chinese nationalism. It also provides much food for thought on issues such as ethnicity, gender, and contemporary cultural politics, by regarding all of these through the prism of popular music that, as the author aptly puts it “both mirrors and shapes society and culture as they change” (3). As Cui Jian put it, “Music will never deceive you.” In spite of its obvious importance in people’s lives, however, music remains a marginal topic in the discipline of Chinese studies. By making the connections to other forms of popular culture explicit, the book confirms once more how important it is to break restrictive boundaries and to integrate the study of Chinese music into the study of Chinese culture and society in general. [Read more ...]

We have added an article page about the review on our Rock in China wiki

– Azchael