Results tagged “elaine chow” from Andy Best

Not so long ago I read a post by Dan Shapiro about The Factory's proposed model for signing bands and producing music. I then wrote this post about it.

The basic idea is that they are underwritten by an ad agency and create in-house solely to pitch material for use in jingles etc. I'm not down with that. Well, it's OK if you want to be a professional jingle writer/corporate shill. Just be honest about it.

So today over at Shanghaiist, Elaine Chow reports that they will close shop for a while. She's references this post at their own house blog. They say:

I'd love to speculate on stuff like evil and karma but to be fair Factory does all kinds of stuff in a large complex and I'm pretty sure that their hiccup has little to do with their music making model. 

Well at least it gave us that pretentious quote. Made me smile this morning.

In a recent post, Elaine Chow at Shanghaiist linked an AFP story that called out Chinese rock as being toothless because it wasn't political.

I felt the article was shallow and had a number of conceits and dodgy premises. It held China to standards not present in The West and falsely imagined a past where China had an independent scene that was political motivated.

My post is buried now but there have been some thoughtful comments which I would like to re-present here. Thanks to those who contributed.

The discussion comes after the jump ... enjoy.

So, when it comes to diversity alt-media site Shanghaiist had all but died an un-PC slasher movie death. But recently they've got a new editor, Elaine Chow, who is writing about local music. 

Before we go on, I'm blogging this article by Elaine Modern Chinese rockers staying far away from politics. And, Elaine herself is blogging this piece from AFP Chinese rockers enjoy revival - without the politics. As always, read the originals before taking my word for things.

The main thrust of the articles is that Chinese rock and punk bands are not overtly political and the implication is that they are therefor missing something. This is one of the big two double standards in scene reporting. The first one is that Chinese bands are better if they are more Chinese, whatever that means. This one is that Chinese punk bands should all be complaining about the government. 

I'd love to give some commentary on the AFP article but I can't really detect any sort of real through point to it. The only interesting thing is that Elaine Chow throws in the line:

Of course, it's a complete myth that all punk and rock bands in 'The West' are political - that is, singing overtly about about activism and government policy. For every Propagandhi (my faves) there's a Ramones. And how political are the Rolling Stones? What do these writers think political actually means anyway? 

The Subs sing about resisting authority and songs like Ha from We Haven't Entered The 21st Century talk about failed development policy and environmental damage. The music scene in Shanghai is full of bands whose lifestyles, visual styles and music are completely unacceptable by the Xinhua standard for national TV and distribution. The problem here is the AFP source article which is just writing to fulfill a common shallow type or double standard that crops up all the time. Not to mention writing up a commentary basically writing off all Chinese rock and punk bands as being shallow.

I notice there's a bunch of gig/blog regulars cropping up in the pics, perhaps you recognize yourself in my little montage below? No me, I'm afraid, although Abe Deyo posted one of me in the Demerit mosh on Facebook. Good catch, I was only in there for two songs.

Quick comment. That Elaine knows how to tag her blog posts correctly. There are a number of different phrases and word you can choose to describe the scene ... she happens to go with shanghai music scene and shanghai underground. Yup, the blog category name and the Youtube channel name. Is this a Google ranking throw down? Seriously though, it's good to see someone at Sha-iist covering shows again. This blog is watching you, mwa ha ha.