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.
I don't want to give away too much, but it looks like the video will be
a "celebration" of the city with people singing their bits in front of
"places that represent Shanghai", as Lu Chen put it. This photo is from
the Bank of Shanghai on Nanjing Xi Lu (note the suspicious Bao An
looking on in the background). I'm not sure if the video will be ready
in time for their concert at the weekend or not, but I can't wait to see it.
Something else I can't wait for is the release of the new Top Floor Circus t-shirts that they're currently making. I got a sneak peek at the three designs: 上海不欢迎你, 我人品很差, and 超级马桶. Hit those links to see the different t-shirts. The tees are being made by local designers The Thing who will also sell the first one, while the others will be sold by TFC themselves. The samples they had looked great and, once a few small design things have been sorted out, the t-shirts should be on sale in the next couple of weeks or so.
So what are Muscle Snog doing in the title of this post? Well, for one I like alliteration, but it's mostly because one of the people who was filmed for the music video was Vivien, who does vocals/synthesiser in the band. She also has a great side project in The Curry Soap if you want to check that out. Anyway, she confirmed that Muscle Snog's Mind Shop album, a co-production between Miniless and Maybe Mars' new Maybe Noise label, is good to go and should be out before the end of the month. You can see a full track listing here and can hear a couple of the songs here. This is definitely a record to be excited about.
Something else I can't wait for is the release of the new Top Floor Circus t-shirts that they're currently making. I got a sneak peek at the three designs: 上海不欢迎你, 我人品很差, and 超级马桶. Hit those links to see the different t-shirts. The tees are being made by local designers The Thing who will also sell the first one, while the others will be sold by TFC themselves. The samples they had looked great and, once a few small design things have been sorted out, the t-shirts should be on sale in the next couple of weeks or so.
So what are Muscle Snog doing in the title of this post? Well, for one I like alliteration, but it's mostly because one of the people who was filmed for the music video was Vivien, who does vocals/synthesiser in the band. She also has a great side project in The Curry Soap if you want to check that out. Anyway, she confirmed that Muscle Snog's Mind Shop album, a co-production between Miniless and Maybe Mars' new Maybe Noise label, is good to go and should be out before the end of the month. You can see a full track listing here and can hear a couple of the songs here. This is definitely a record to be excited about.
That does sound like a fun afternoon. I'm excited to see the video too. I'm listening to 上海欢迎你 right now and having a good laugh.
Hey, I thought you'd get a kick out of this article. A laugh for a laugh I guess.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/aug/04/turning-japanese-china-shanghai-scene
Thanks for that link Suzy - I read The Guardian a lot and often look at their Music section, but I'd missed that so thanks for pointing it out. I'm going to post on it later today in fact...
Thanks again!