Boys Climbing Ropes return - and so do we (once)

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Oh no.

When I started my notes for this I saw that the final official Boys Climbing Ropes show "The Last Waltz" was June 2012. Five years ago. Writing this, it doesn't seem that long ago. Feels like an age. The music gods decreed that all significant acts will one day reform and play a festival and now the same can be said of legendary Shanghai act Boys Climbing Ropes.

The original line up will play Splitworks Concrete and Grass Festival the weekend of September 16th two days from now.

Here is my round up article on the significance and legacy of the band.

So, me and Jake went to the Splitworks office with Little Punk and Devin Gallery from the band and, together with Splitworks DaBoss Archie Hamilton, had a nostalgic conversation on the band's history, the blog and the music scene back in the 00s. It's essential knowledge and it's here, embedded below:

One year off, ten years on

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subs old days
Pictured: Kang Mao and Zhu Lei playing with Subs around 2005

This month marks a year off for this blog. During which time I've done some thinking. It is also late 2014, making it about ten years since the Shanghai music scene, the band scene, got going properly in the downtown area. 

Just to throw in all the info, I've been here continuously from 2001 and hanging around the band scene since about 2003. I just didn't start writing about it until the spring of 2008. 

What prompted me to write about this was a recent quote from Dostav Dixit of Splitworks, who used to run Vox in Wuhan for a time. He mentioned that 2004-2007 is starting to emerge as a kind of golden time for China bands. I started to think about if there was any real difference in amount and quality of local bands with local members. Then I realised there wasn't ... and that this simple fact was very revealing. There should be a difference: there should be a lot more now. 

After that golden age was cemented, by very simple things such as the existence of venues and rehearsal spaces that were affordable/viable for locals without tons of money, we came to the dubious period of 2007-2009. Actually, the scene went on much the same at first, but the roots of 2009 were appearing in 2007. Across this time, the following things started to come into play:

Involvement of brands and ad agencies
Brand/mall/corporate shows and festivals as a model
Bringing over more foreign touring acts
Large and sudden influx of ex-pats, audience or otherwise

All of these came with issues and impacts. In a smaller scene, it was immediately apparent that their activities were not adding to the scene but replacing things in the scene. What's interesting though, in the case of the first three areas I mention, the people involved went out of their way to claim that their activities would help local bands and the scene develop - and they argued that this was a sincere part of their intentions. I could go on and give examples but it's all moot now ...

E-mailing update / Happy New Year

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ExistentialRoddyThe blog is still on haitus.

Happy everything everybody. Just putting an update here. Although the blog has been inactive for a while now, I still get mails. I'm happy to help out with some stuff, unable with some other stuff ...

... but if I reply it's going to be from my personal mail. It's a Hotmail account and due to the nature of the blog mails I receive, the replies will usually have links or attachments. 

First time mail from a free webmail account, including attachments or links = junk mail folder. That's what I have been learning.

So mail away ... but check your junk folder later.

Photo: James's Manhattan room. We all miss you.


2013 hiatus

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crop hk gaze
Oh it's that time again.

Oh shit time flies I don't wanna die Not so long ago, I took a break from the blog and other stuff in order to push through and get a first draft done of a novel. It was across the first half of 2011 and the book made it out at the end of the year.

My Shanghai-set novel on Amazon (cheap)

After a long period of fucking about on three new ideas, I've picked one and have to get on with it. The last one needed six months off the blog and most other net stuff, it was about 210 pages. This one is more than double that length and way more involved. 

I dunno, it/me is not important and we've got a bunch of other blogs and sites doing stuff now. But according to the stats we got up over 15 000 individual IPs a month ago, so if you are one of the people who has been reading: thanks very much. 

Chaos Mind in Japan / Fearless EP

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chaos japan
Metal news. Two long running Shanghai metal bands:


... have some major news between them. 

Fearless have an EP out that collects all their original material that you have heard at the shows of the past couple of years. It includes the excellent track Lord of Twilight. Go to the band page linked above and scroll down to the mp3 player.

Chaos Mind have recently been to Japan to play in the Summer Sonic festival there. You can now go to their Douban blog and read a full account of the trip with loads of pictures - here it is - it's all in Mandarin though, of course. Looking at the festival map and seeing the 'Seaside Village' campsite, is a harsh reminder of the state of festivals here still. Anyway check it out. 

Death To Giants / Japandroids live @ Yuyintang

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japandroids flyer
Saturday night and off to Yuyintang for the much anticipated Japandroids show, put on by promoters Splitworks. I got advance tickets, which always feels weird for YYT, as there was a big buzz about the show. And yup it was completely sold out by nine.

Japandroids (Canada)

This show started a bit earlier than most, before I had finished work for that day in fact, so I arrived at the very end of HIMDONG's set. Sorry guys.

Well, YYT was sold out and packed with many people who would not normally come down for local bands, people who are often pretty shitty to the non 'name acts.' Good job then, that along came Death to Giants and slayed everyone. They confidently and expertly ripped through the now familiar set, starting on a war footing with Bigongbijing. The duo did their thing, using only drums and a bass guitar but delivering a masterclass on how to fill space and control dynamics. With a full house to play to, there was also a great raw edge to the proceedings. The set ended with a new, kinda novelty song based around the Family Mart jingle. It was funny, and come on ... it's been four years since 2009 brought along a sudden, shocking influx of ex-pats that took it from 'some' to 'omnipresent' in Shanghai - someone had to do a song about convenience store beers at one point.

The blog has had an upturn of readers lately so it's worth pointing out that I don't usually review the visiting international acts. It's outside of the blog's remit. I should start by saying that Japandroids did a professional job and all their fans really liked the show. They sold the place out and it was a success.  But, I personally was a bit disappointed - my own fault. I had spent the week in a weird state that doesn't quite fit the exact definition of either cognitive dissonance or double think. Let me explain. I had checked out their stuff on the page, so I knew what the songs were like, but at the same time knowing they were a two piece drum/guitar combo with the name 'Japandroids' I was expecting to get something experimental or different. In fact their material is very standard North American folk or blues rock type stuff at heart with the lyrics taking us into near Springsteen territory at times. 

The first two lo-fi modern duos that come to mind in the Shanghai scene are Death to Giants and Pairs. As discussed, DtG use time signatures and overlapping runs to control a wide range of dynamics, mixing in sudden bursts of pounding metal and also delicate vocal harmonies. Pairs blast the air around with a wave of fuzzy noise and punk energy, the guitar chops you into pieces while Xiao Zhong shouts at you with a mix of despair and unconcealed contempt. Torturing Nurse take you into the frontiers of extreme noise, The Other jam reverb soaked loops, Twos smooth layer on layer to create an electronic post-rock landscape. I guess, in the USA scene terms I'm more Lightning Bolt and less The Black Keys? 

Festivals: more competition nonsense

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jlangmead
Image: click for large version

I've already written a piece on local advertisers and their role in the scene here, focusing on Vice/Virtue and it's an issue close to my heart. But then something coincidental happened. After reblogging a point made by Twin Horizon and using Jlangmead's cartoon (pictured), my band received an offer to participate in exactly the same kind of thing.

Recap: a disturbing new trend around the world is the use of design competitions to not pay artists. The cartoon sums it up perfectly. The world of advertising and PR is a rabbit hole of denial and insular thinking and the whole concept has started to be applied even without dressing it up. Local designer Kaine Lv, also singer in my band, recently started work on a project that was attained after presenting her professional portfolio and going through stringent background checks. She was then told mid-way into the work, that the boss wanted to check new designers so he had more than one person working on the same project - and would choose the best one (and only pay that one.)

So. 

On Saturday, my band Astrofuck played our first long set. I organised a night at Yuyintang and we had an hour of material to choose from, we played forty-five minutes (plus banter etc). It all went great, we had a fun time and I felt we successfully showed we could plan and perform a longer set. This was, it seemed, immediately borne out. As soon as we got off stage, we were approached to play the Xi An Festival (Shanghai). They have permanent grounds down by the new Xu Hui river park and Cui Jian will headline this year. This will be the second year and they have sponsors and everything. Now, actually, I'm not a big festival person and there are many issues ... but I admit to being a bit excited, and it felt like validation of the step up we were trying to make.

And then ...

We went out back to discuss the details and exchange contacts but another story unfolded. The guy explained that the festival had a sponsored Weibo account and that we should use our own Weibo account to make posts there and show our vids and blogs etc. Then, they would 'see who was most popular with the fans' out of the invited bands and choose winners who would then get to play on the bill with Cui Jian. He looked at me and Elsa with an expression that said, 'that's so exciting for you, right?' I asked him to tell me what the deal would then be if you played, but he avoided the question. Finally I said that we'd have to discuss it as a band so could he e-mail me the whole thing in writing, including the dates and pay for if we ended up playing etc. of course, the e-mail hasn't arrived. He left reassuring us that we should first get involved in the Weibo event and go from there.

Where to start? This festival is holding an online event to market itself and its sponsors and is asking bands to put all their stuff there for free, to attract interest to their site and event, to bring in the bands' fan base, and then maybe you will be selected to play and get paid for it. It's basically the same thing as the art comp issue. Also, the really sick thing was wrapping it up in the implication that we should be happy to do that because we get to play on the same bill as 'X big headliner'. Like we are good enough to be on their site and play the festival, but not enough to deserve professional respect.

Let's be clear: the free stuff posted at their Weibo is being used by them for a professional, big-money-making, fully sponsored event. It is being used to make money. Also, local bands spend one or two years on average to get good, all on their own dollar and part-time. Their original material is their work. At our show there were four acts and everyone killed. I would say that HIMDONG blew the stage up. But the festival rep only approached us so here's what I'm assuming: he saw our set and thought we were good enough to play the Xi An Festival - or at least cool enough to be in their online event ... so, if we are good enough to play your for-profit high profile event THEN BOOK US and pay us fairly. 

I suppose what really makes this behavior sting is how it's always wrapped up in the language of respect. I mean the whole industry. They talk of cool bands, 'creatives' and supporting local talent etc. But they in fact treat bands and artists poorly. At best they pay a poor percentage of the project's overall profits or budget and expect to be praised for providing the opportunity to work for a big name, or for paying over slave wages local rates. Not paying at all is the new low, how could you go lower? As long as people participate in all this BS, the longer it will go on. We should at least be vocal about it and not let these a-holes feel comfortable about what they are doing.

Videos: Astrofuck live in Yuyintang

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Warning: this is my band, lack of objectivity alert.

Some media is coming in from Saturday's show. Here are two and half tracks from Astrofuck's set, available in Tudou (China) or Youtube. I say half, because Love is Shit had a mid way break for computer hijinks, we kept the moment in because it's quite funny. Also, you can hear Chris Ginn at the start, pleading for a shorter song length. Did he use telekinesis to get his wish? 

Dog Fucker's Manual tudou youtube
Love Is Shit tudou youtube
Five Kuai Bullet tudou youtube



Thanks everyone, show non-review

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picnic video
Warning: this is about a show that I organised and also played in. Total conflict of interest and you should be aware of this while reading my positive comments.

Thanks to everyone who came down to the Love is Colder than Death show on Saturday night. And thanks to the acts:

Himdong
Astrofuck
The Other
Tzu Sing

To be honest, I was worried that we were putting on an event at the exact quietest time of the scene calendar, in a heat wave and on the same night as several big music events - but also hoped that being different to all those other events would see us right. In the end we got a great turnout with some local fans even getting in before official doors open time so that Tzu Sing just kept playing on from the end of his check. 

Everyone did a great job. Tzu Sing set the atmosphere well and threw in some different stuff, that delighted me but that I'm under loose agreement not to talk about. It's related to one of our favourite 80s movies. The Other built on their last YYT set and added a video projection to the proceedings. I can't really comment on our set, Astrofuck, I guess. We did some new and never played live before tracks, they all seemed to go down fine and I really enjoyed myself. 

The real hit of the night came from Hua Jiao / HIMDONG. Everyone knows that Dong Heimu is a real talent on the scene, but since moving here from Xi'an he has struggled to get a stable line up and is always having to adapt his style. This time he came with a full band and ripped through some amazing post-punk tracks with stylistic hints of China scene post-punk and no wave acts in there such as The Fallacy, 8 Eye Spy and PK14. 

There's some recordings and clips on the way ... and hopefully a follow up night not too far away. 

1984: New album from PK14

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1984cover
Beijing based band PK14 have released their new album. Let's start with the links:

Stream or buy at Maybe Mars' Bandcamp page right here

Listen to the album at the Chinese language site Douban right here

1984 is their fifth official full album. Together with the side projects, production work and the general influence of frontman Yang Haisong, PK14 are perhaps the most important band in the China scene. This album represents a serious work by serious artists whose development can be tracked across a series of excellent releases. They transcend simple genre conventions and have produced a work of real depth, in a sound and style that is their own.

The album is on the Maybe Mars label, was recorded at Chicago's Electric Audio with Steve Albini and produced by long term collaborator Henrik Oja.

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