Results tagged “Miniless” from Jake Newby

Last night saw another of the Mini E showcases at Yuyintang. Mini E is the electronic spin off of the Miniless label. They were behind Sun Ye's excellent Trash Can album and feature a number of local electronic artists on their books. These days, they're mostly headed up by Zister of Confirm-X who has started organising regular showcases for the acts. There was one about a month ago on a Thursday night and there'll be one at Not Me in early July as well fronted by Sun Ye.

I went to the one a month ago or so and really enjoyed it. Here's what I wrote back then. Last night's event was a similar story really - the music was great, but the turn out was disappointing. Numbers were similar to the last one, but that was on a Thursday and on a Friday night you'd expect more. It did pick up a bit toward the end with the dancefloor filling up a little, but it still wasn't as busy as it should have been. Maybe the venue is part of the problem, it's debatable how suitable YYT is for these kind of shows. Not Me seems like a more suitable venue so maybe it'll go down better there.

Hopefully that one will be more of a success. The Mini E collective are doing some great things and producing some really good music - they just need more people to take notice. They also need the local crowd to appreciate local artists instead of just going to these megaclubs with DJ Whoever who is number whatever on such and such DJ list. That stuff is pish. Mini E aren't.

Here's a few links to some of the artists on Mini-E so you can listen yourself:

Sun Ye
Confirm-X
CDGE

I didn't get to see as much of the Mini-E showcase at YYT last night as I would have liked. I had good reasons though. First off, I got there late because I went to see Ho-Tom The Conqueror playing at Fanfare earlier on in the evening. Tom's a good friend of mine, but luckily he doesn't suck - in fact, he's really good - so I can recommend his shows with a clear conscience. Seriously, he has some great songs and last night he punctuated them with some spoken word stuff. It was really good. He was followed by 周勇 who also seemed like a really strong performer. Unfortunately, I only caught one of his songs as I wanted to head to YYT. Fortunately, you can catch them both in action at next week's New Faces Underground show at Yuyintang on Wednesday. Here's the details.

Remember when 696 Livehouse opened down on Weihai Lu? Don't worry if you don't, it was a pretty short-lived residency. Opened under the Live Bar name in July, it was all over less than six months later. But now they're back.

Andy and I have spoken/written before about the search for a new Shanghai sound, or at least the attempts to shake off the cheesy rock label handed the city in the late '90s and early '00s. One emerging sound is emo, as Andy has written here. Definitely check out the FAF video here too, it's a corker. If you like what you see/hear, you can download the track for free off their Douban page. 

For real this time.

Back in late September, I said that the new Muscle Snog album - their first and possibly last studio long player - was due out on October 1st. It was, I wasn't lying. Trouble is, there were some problems with the ability to print the artwork and the CDs got held up at the factory. Same thing happened with 8 Eye Spy's record. It was frustrating.

But the latest word from Maybe Mars (both records were produced via the Maybe Noise label - a collaboration between the Beijing lot and Miniless) is that Mind Shop is being shipped to distribution points right about now and that 8 Eye Spy's album will be out this week too. That means you can soon get your grubby little hands on them right here in Shanghai. Brilliant. You'll find them at the usual places: Shanghai Tattoo down at the Cool Docks and 2049 (300, Guoding Lu, near Wujiaochang). Given that neither of these places are the easiest to get to (unless you're a student at Fudan or work at Kebabs on the Grill), you might want to call ahead to check they have them before you set out.

And these are a couple of records you are definitely going to want to buy. Don't believe me? Check out the new recording of Happy Dreamer on a Sad Bed that Muscle Snog just put up on their Douban artist page. Try the other tracks on for size too. You'll like them. For a taste of what 8 Eye Spy have to offer, hit up their MySpace. 

Muscle Snog's first (and possibly last) studio album is set to be released at the beginning of October. I can't wait. For a little bit about Muscle Snog, you can go here for the interview I did with Mai Mai and Vivien a while back. You can see the tracklisting here and hear a couple of the songs here.

This is what Miniless' Han Han has to say about the record:

"There is no doubt that this album is a milestone in rock and roll. Or, that is to say, I think this is the best record by a Chinese band until now.

Time will verify this statement - wait and see."

A couple of years ago Muscle Snog's Meng Noize album, recorded live at 4Live, confirmed them as one of the leading experimental rock groups in Shanghai. The group - comprised of Mai Mai, Vivien Fan, 33, Zhong Ke and Xiong Mao (Panda) - were all excellent musicians in their own right with their own side projects and other bands. This meant that when they were together, Muscle Snog gave fantastic performances, but getting them all on the same stage at the same time was difficult. Nevertheless, this year the band have been recording a full studio album thanks to the Miniless/Maybe Mars collaboration. So, they must be back together and ready to reclaim their mantle as one of Shanghai's most interesting bands right? Err, not quite. Indeed, from what Mai Mai and Vivien say, this record is far from a new beginning and instead may signal the end of Muscle Snog.

>>> You must get asked this all the time, but Muscle Snog - what's that name about?

VF: When we first started, Muscle Snog was just me and Mai Mai. He asked me if I wanted to be in a band and I said I did. He said I could choose the name and I came up with two for him to choose from: Muscle Cat and Crystal Snog. He thought about it, then said let's call ourselves Muscle Snog and I just thought 'genius'!

>>> How did you guys meet?

VF: Back in 2005 when we were both at university, he was in a band called Pillow Walker and he was looking for a keyboard player. At that time we had a mutual friend who told me about this and I decided to try it out. I was also in a band at my university at the time, but it was just a cover band. I spoke to Mai Mai and the other band members online and we got on really well so I went to see one of their rehearsals. After I'd seen them rehearse a few times, they broke up and nothing really happened, but I kept in touch with them online. Then one day in 2006, Mai Mai asked me if I wanted to form a band, like I say, and I told him I did. After a while we found a guitarist, Panda, and then we started practising. We had our first performance on March 9th 2007 at Live Bar.
　　
>>> How do you guys write your songs?

VF: Most of the songs are written by Mai Mai. He'll record something at home first and then send it to us to listen to. Then we'll meet up and practise it and we'll play around with our own parts a bit.

MM: We write songs in lots of different ways really. Some of them take a long time and are really seriously written, some are just pure nonsense, some are just chaos. 

Sun Ye (孙晔), former guitarist with The Fuck'ndrolls and Sonnet, is currently in Boojii. But he also does his own solo stuff on the Miniless-E label (the electronic/dance offshoot of the Miniless label). His debut record Trash Can is a beautifully kaleidoscopic album featuring collaborations with B6 and JJ (who together are IGO) and a couple of tracks with vocals from Sheena Du of Hard Queen. It's a great record and recently I asked him about it, his solo work and his job making music for computer games.

>>> You've played in an indie rock band, a punk band, are now in a post-rock band and are making your own electronic music. Is there any kind of music you don't like?

I pretty much like all types of music, I don't exclude anything. I go along with the idea that there are only two types of music in the world: good music and rubbish music. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Middle-Eastern music and Armenian folk music. I've always liked folk music to be honest - when I was at university, a friend brought me a tape of 12 Muqam music from Xinjiang and I just feel like folk music is the most natural thing.

I also bought a CD of ancient Chinese music recently. My generation of Chinese are a generation who are used to the influence of Western culture and maybe it's because recent years have seen a number of political and cultural conflicts between West and East, or maybe it's because as I get older the Eastern feeling in me gets stronger, but I really like this CD. I feel like there's so much we can learn from ancient Chinese music.  

In terms of rock, I've also started listening again to 1970s progressive rock - Yes and King Crimson's earlier records. That stuff is well structured and full of interesting material.

>>> How did Trash Can come about?

After I left Sonnet, I spent a lot of time playing around making my own music - stuff that really interested me. Trash Can is the accumulated result of that period of time so there's no specific or clear cut genre running throughout the record. It's kind of like a bowl of Oden [the Japanese noodle dish] where I've just thrown a whole bunch of things into it and out of it has come something which proves to myself that I'm not just a guitarist, not just tied to one type of music. Of course, I know that what I've made isn't good enough, that's why I've called it Trash Can - you could also say it's a slightly self-mocking title.

>>> Is making your own record something you've wanted to do for a while?

Yeah. I remember when I was in Sonnet, we had introductions to each member of the band on our website and mine was "guitarist. His ultimate goal is to make a solo record with rubbish sound quality".

I spent Saturday afternoon with Lu Chen and Mei Er of Top Floor Circus. They're filming a music video for the hilarious alternative Expo anthem 上海欢迎你 (Shanghai Welcomes You). It's a play on the Beijing Olympic theme 北京欢迎您 and is full of great lines. You can listen to the song here (it's already had over 10,000 plays) and read the full lyrics (in Chinese) here. Here's a quick translation of a few of lines to give you an idea:

上海欢迎你 欢迎来买东西
Shanghai welcomes you, welcomes you to come buy things
千万不要忘记带上人民币
Don't forget to bring millions of yuan
上海欢迎你 奥运会有什么了不起
Shanghai welcomes you, what was so great about the Olympics?
让我们在世博会相聚
Let Expo bring us together
上海欢迎你 欢迎来买东西
Shanghai welcomes you, welcomes you to come buy things
我们没有文化但是有人民币
We don't have any culture, but we've got Renminbi

Last time I witnessed a music video shoot for a local band, it was Pinkberry making an MV for their Pinkberry Song. There was a director, a crew, fancy lighting and camera set ups and quality sound equipment for playback of the song. Saturday involved Lu Chen, Mei Er and I walking around town meeting various friends of theirs and Mei Er catching their lines on a handheld camcorder. If they needed prompting by hearing the song, Lu Chen found the appropriate bit on Mei Er's iPod. It was great fun.

Talking to Sacco and Sophia last night (in between their time on the wheels of steel) they told me about a new website they were launching with Hans from Miniless. Like the regular DJ night at Not Me, it's called Heart Attack and is basically them posting up their favourite tracks and albums and giving recommendations on what they're listening to at the moment. It's still early days, but selections so far have included PK14's How Majestic is the Night, Pixies' Debaser and Holland, 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel - all great tunes. Sacco, Sophia and Hans certainly know what they're talking about when it comes to indie rock so it'll be interesting to see what other picks they come out with along the way.

The site is bilingual with the same content going up in Chinese and in English and, though they're just getting going, there'll be a whole load more stuff coming to the site in the next few weeks. One of the most interesting things that they're looking to do with it is to produce regular podcasts to complement the MP3 posts. When these start, they'll certainly be something to listen out for.

The website is here so add it to your bookmarks and check it regularly.

Louis Yu is a DJ on the University of Victoria's student radio station who recently started producing a show called 夏日的实验 (Summer Experiment) - a Mandarin language show about indie rock music. In the past, Louis has interviewed head of Splitworks Archie Hamilton and former Shanghai music scenester Aric S Queen. In the latest episode of his show, Louis speaks to Miniless Records head honcho and front man for Lava|Ox|Sea and Duck Fight Goose Han Han/Hans.

Han Han is a fascinating guy (you can read my interview with him from a month ago here) and on Louis' show he talks some more about Lava|Ox|Sea and indie music. In addition to playing Concrete Avalanche from the outstanding LOS album Next Episode:Lord Smart VS Dr Jin, Louis also rounds out the show with another Miniless pick, this time Fading Horizon's Bloody Square. You can listen to the whole show and Louis' interview with Han Han, by going here and downloading mp3. Just a reminder: the show is in Mandarin.