Results tagged “Dovetail Joints” from Jake Newby

UPDATE, Sep 17: In addition to K.E. and Five Pence, it now seems that October Capricorn (picture below) and Anchor have withdrawn from the GBOB. Sam Dust of YYT has stated that October Capricorn will not be taking part while Anchor's drummer has explained, "after we said we'd enter we discovered that we had to pay to take part. Originally we were just going to play and hadn't realised we had to pay a fee. We're no longer participating in this competition."

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Anyone who's suffering from Battle of the Bands fatigue out there, I feel your pain. And yet, here I am, stealing Elaine's headline and taking up more space on the interwebs about them. I know, I'm part of the problem.

So why bring these competitions up again? A couple of reasons: first, Dan Shapiro has offered "Another Look at that Pepsi Battle of the Bands" over on his blog at CityWeekend (go read it here); second, the Global Battle of the Bands that I mentioned before here, has been taking a bit of stick on Douban of late.

Dan makes some interesting points in his piece and argues that the exposure the bands receive is far greater than that for bands who remain underground and gig at mid-sized venues. He admits that the sticking point is the sacrifices a band may have to make in terms of their artistic vision, but argues that sticking with an indie label doesn't mean you get a carte blanche artistically either:

"Of course, mainstream labels may limit artistic control; singing with an indie label should ensure your band receives complete creative license. But wait, in Shanghai, singing with a local label means you may have to change your sound, your style, your hair (Little Nature) and even your band name (MOMO / Happy Strings), in order to fit the target demographic."

This is a fair point in regard to Soma - they have changed the artists they've taken on board. Andy wrote a while back about the changes to Momo's appearance and when I interviewed lead singer Ding Jia nearly a year ago I asked her about why the band had changed their sound so dramatically and she simply said "because we signed with the label." She didn't bat an eyelid.

No, not that one. Not that one either. This one. Starting next month, the Global Battle of the Bands competition is holding heats in Shenzhen, Beijing, Hong Kong and in Shanghai on September 27th. There'll then be a China final in Hong Kong before the winners from China are flown to London for the big finale where they have the chance of winning $100,000 and "global promotion". This will be the competition's second year here.

If it passed you by last year, don't worry, you weren't the only one. The competition suffered from being held in The Melting Pot down on Taikang Lu and from being on a Sunday night. The bands who competed were Lan Cao, The Mushrooms, Momo, Dovetail Joints, Little Nature and Guitou Hunter. This being The Melting Pot, the crowd was largely indifferent and the eventual winners were Dovetail Joints, who just edged out The Mushrooms.

This year, though it's still on a Sunday, it'll be at Yuyintang, hopefully ensuring a crowd more interested in music than dice rattling. That, after all, is what the event is all about according to Chris B, National Director of GBOB China. Although she doesn't mention anyone by name, she is perhaps also mindful of some other recent band competitions when she says

"We're looking for real bands who play real music, not because they are good looking, can dance or can be a good TV star! Playing real music, whatever age, whatever genre. Also at the event, the audience votes count for 25%, so if a band is popular their fans can make a difference. All those working on GBOB China are musicians themselves, we know how hard it is to get our bands and our music recognition, this is a way of doing it."