https://www.cluas.com/indie-music RSS feeds for CLUAS Irish Indie Music 60 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3778/Jess-Meider-A-Beijing-Star#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3778 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3778&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3778/Jess-Meider-A-Beijing-Star One of my favourite Beijing-based musicians, Jess Meider is great listening, just guitar and a great soulful voice that dips in and out on smartly penned numbers she’s put together in hang-outs down Beijing’s old hutong alleyways. She was down there the other night, at Yuggong Yishan to play some of her new songs. Take a listen to my favourite, So Simple, a simple acoustic job like the title suggests, on her Myspace page.   I often wonder why Beijing, for all its traffic grid-lock and ugly high rises, is such a magnet for creative westerners, who find form here. From small-town America, Meider teaches yoga in the daytime and plays gigs at night, and on Sunday afternoon jazz in several bands around town. This Berklee School graduate became a founder member of Junglecat when she moved to Beijing to learn Mandarin. Another one of those great Beijing experiences/existences and it’ll be worth going to her next gig, on August 26 at Luce Café, in hutong-land, Gulou.More ... Mark Godfrey Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:17:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3778 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3779/Gigs-For-A-Black-Man-in-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3779 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3779&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3779/Gigs-For-A-Black-Man-in-Beijing There’s opportunities for a “black man” on China’s live music scene, according to several ads appearing in recent editions of The Beijinger. The ads, which were placed by TaipingYang Eight, an agency that arranges gigs for ‘world’ music performers across China, promises RMB500 (less than EUR50) per gig and travel outside Beijing and China.                                                      Good work if you can get it: a car show in China Now EUR50 a gig isn’t a fortune but if there’s a visa and housing involved – as is often offered by Chinese employers – it might be okay work for a travelling musician. Aside from the ‘positive discrimination’ overtones of the ad – Chinese people have referred to Europeans, not maliciously, as ‘big noses’ and Russians as ‘old hairies’ – but rather the circuit that the successful applicant will find himself on: token foreigner playing supermarket openings, restaturants and beer festivals around China, with stops to play provincial TV shows. I’ll be looking out for TaipingYang Eight. Anyway, if you’re interested here it is: http://www.thebeijinger.com/classifieds/2009/08/11/Great-opportunities-for-Africa-black-man-Musicians-and-Singers-1  More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:50:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3779 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3780/Kazakh-Music-in-London#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3780 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3780&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3780/Kazakh-Music-in-London  I spent a great few hours in London lately at the School of Oriental & African Studies on Russell Square. I’d seen a note about the onsite Brunei Gallery’s show on Kazakh carpet making – or rather, felt carpet making by ethnic Kazakhs in Mongolia. Small in scale and excellently explained and curated, complete with yurt, the exhibition also opened my eyes to the work being done at SOAS on Central Asian music. Leaflets at the Brunei alerted me to a new double CD of Kazakh music produced by the School. It’s a collection of masters of Central Asian instruments like the dombra. But they’ve also found performers of the pobyz, “the two-stringed fiddle with shamanic roots” and the sybyzghy, an open-ended flute “amplified by a vocal drone.” The 44-track collection is intended as a musical journey across vast, sparsely populated Kazakhstan. Hence the qobyz tunes were picked up in the country’s southern and central plains while there’s “virtuoso” dombra playing from eastern and western settlements on the steppe, as the vast grasslands are known. I was happy that the Kazakh embassy in London seems to have pitched in with SOAS and the Art & Humanities Research Council to release the collection, which I’m dying to hear in its entirety. That’s good to see, because the totalitarian regimes who’ve run most central Asian states for decades have never been renowned for their preservation of traditional local culture, certainly not during the USSR years of Russification.  You can buy the CD at the SOAS bookshop, nextdoor to the Brunei Gallery. More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:19:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3780 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3781/Beijing-Punk-T-Shirt#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3781 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3781&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3781/Beijing-Punk-T-Shirt If you have US$20 to spend on some chinoserie, you could do worse than a t-shirt by Plastered, a UK-owned design house in Beijing that's thrived as a cottage industry-sized producer of t-shirts bearing images of local iconic brands (like local cheap spirits maker ErGouTou) and old signage. The firm, whose shop in the old-city neighbourhood of Nanluoguxiang, was inundated with Olympics tourists this time last year, will likely do well with its t-shirt boasting the name and doodles of PK14, one of the most enduing of Sino-Swedish joint ventures and long-term staple of the local punk scene.     More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:18:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3781 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3782/Irans-Bob-Dylan-Wanted-For-Blasphemy#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3782 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3782&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3782/Irans-Bob-Dylan-Wanted-For-Blasphemy Here's one I saw recently on Radio Free Europe's Iran news site: Iranian singer Mohsen Namjoo has been found guilty of "disrespecting religious sanctities" for his use of Koranic verses in a song and sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. Although Namjoo, 32, apologized for the song a few months ago, some say his open support for the "green" movement around presidential candidate Mir Hossein Musavi and his appearance at opposition rallies abroad led to his being sentenced to prison. Namjoo was classically trained in Tehran music academies and excelled at the setar before teaching himself guitar. Along the way he encountered the blues, and that’s where the Dylan comparisons began. "I regret my self-censorship and condescension for all these years, like many others who do the same," Namjoo, who lives in Vienna, told the BBC. The Western press's championing of him as the voice of dissent won't have helped his cause. I’m tired of seeing musicians of any alternative style being postered as the voices of a generation, or the voices of protest. It happens every few years in China, where rock musicians love publicity but generally shun any chance of confrontation with the rule-alone Communist Party here. Is it fair to hang all these expectations on musicians, particularly since the media in question in all cases I've seen have rarely if ever written about the musician before or after putting them on the cover as China's/Iran's great Dylanesque hope?  More ... Mark Godfrey Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:53:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3782 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3783/Chinas-Praerie-Music#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3783 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3783&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3783/Chinas-Praerie-Music If you get a chance take a look and a listen: Eurasianet, a portal studying Central Asian political and social issues, has posted a great piece of reportage on the state-sanctioned revivial of folk music in Xinjiang province, the majority Turkic-muslim province in the news lately after riots between ethnic Uyghur natives and Han Chinese residents. Reporter Anne Laure Py did a good job crossing the region to track the revival of the dombra-driven folk songs among local Kazakh and Kyrgyz communities. Ethnically close to the Uyghurs these communities crossed in and out of China and their ethnic homelands to avoid the various raths of Stalin and Mao, neither of whom had much time for cultural diversity or preservation. It's very interesting to listen to Zhouji, a Han Chinese ethnomusicologist with genuine respect and affection for the songs of these original nomads. A presence right through the multimedia project, he looks the part, with the Gerry Garica-grey goatee and long hair you don't often get on a Chinese academic. There's plenty of characters, and great music in the online series, so take a look. Dombra tunes are making a comeback in China's muslim westMore ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:02:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3783 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3784/Chinese-Media-Freer-Than-You-Think#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3784 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3784&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3784/Chinese-Media-Freer-Than-You-Think Funny that this week, when local and international press if full of the riots in Xinjiang, I read an article by Tian Wei, a presenter on China Central TV’s English channel, about China getting a raw deal from the western press – which, she claims, is incapable of being impartial in reports on China. Tian suggests China’s media, flush with government money lately, needs to sharpen up how it presents its story. Nothing though about what it says. I wonder if better writing or video editing can make any difference when you’re running a government press release pretty much verbatim – as internationally-focused Chinese media like China Daily regularly do when the issue is a sensitive one for the Politburo. Some of the screeds pointed towards the Dalai Lama are neither well written, balanced, or news. But then sometimes I’m surprised at how far titles like China Daily do go – and I don’t doubt their journalists would like to go farther. Like the piece the other day about the ‘shang fang,’ protestors who travel to Beijing from provincial towns to air grieviances against often-corrupt local officials. The piece was softly critical of the local cadres for sending minders to ‘escort’ protestors during their time in Beijing. Local governors regularly send thugs to intimidate the protestors into not embarrassing them before higher authorities. Mild stuff perhaps, but very interesting and I think if local media can continue pushing the envelope Chinese media will read a whole lot better in five or ten year’s time. It’s as much about substance as style, Tian Wei.More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:09:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3784 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3785/Chinese-Jackson-Bio-Written-in-Two-Days#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3785 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3785&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3785/Chinese-Jackson-Bio-Written-in-Two-Days There’s someone happy in China today. Book shops around Beijing yesterday prominently displayed a Chinese-language biography of Michael Jackson written just in time for his funeral. Seeing Yuan signs, a local publishing house contracted a book out of two local music journalists who wrote for two days and nights to complete a biography of Michael Jackson. See the full story in the China Daily. The deceased singer was a star in China – though not as big as Kenny G or John Denver – and may have toured in the country had he lived: word had it Jackson was signed for a gig at the ‘bird’s nest’ National Stadium (but then that rumour has gone out about everyone from U2 to Madonna. There’s been criticism of the effort but given the quality of all but China’s select quality press, I fear that like much local writing it will be long winded, flowery rubbish churned out to fill space.  More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:01:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3785 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3786/Playing-Franz-Ferdinand-in-Tehran#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3786 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3786&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3786/Playing-Franz-Ferdinand-in-Tehran In Iran in 2006 I made the acquaintence of band leader Raam E - I never worked out his full name and wouldn't write it here in any case. Raam was fanatically into Brit bands like the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand - the latter's work he perfected and played with his own group around town. I've not been able to track him down lately - last I heard he got a tour in west-coast USA in 2008 via friends met on CouchSurfing, that brilliant website bringing travel-minded friends together worldwide. But I've been thinking of him while reading an article in the South China Morning Post about two musicians featured in an underground film - aren't all interesting Iranian films - shown at Cannes this year. The film is No One Knows About Persian Cats, the filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi (yes, boyfriend of recently released US journalist Roxana Saberi, who co-scripted the film), and the musicians Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koshanejad. The duo, girl and guy respectively, fled Iran for London, using fake passports. I'm always telling people that Iran is my favourite travel destination: the culture, the history, the friendly people who invite you for tea and talk about the world for hours. There's plenty of great modern art and design happening in Iran, but, as the SCMP article suggested, it's gotten much harder to make alternative art under the Ahmadinejad regime. For example, women can't sing solo in public, and those who can are leaving the country. Sounds awfully like pre and post 1989 China. I'm going to try once again to get in touch with Raam and hear how it's been, playing Franz Ferdinand in Tehran.More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:06:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3786 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3787/Xiao-He-Release-Big-Night-For-Beijing-Folkies#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3787 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3787&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3787/Xiao-He-Release-Big-Night-For-Beijing-Folkies I'm looking forward to tomorrow night at D-22: a release party for the latest by Xiao He, one of the most enduring names in Chinese folk and art rock. Less ostentatious and written-up than their indie and punk counterparts, China's folk musicians fall between those who consciously ape westerners like Bob Dylan in their work, and those who mine for influences the native folk singing traditions of rural China, a style that was particularly popular in the early years of the Communist regime which took power in 1949: tales of peasant struggles, these are the stuff of Woody Guthrie but without guitar accompaniment.  Busker/recording artist Yang Yi, a friend of Xiao He, has turned out tunes that draw much on the local traditions but he also borrows heavily, one of his songs instrumentally a near carbon copy of Dylan's The Times They Are A Changing. His guitar work with Beijing's veteran art rockers Glamorous Pharmacy - which also released an album this year - travels in Europe have made Xiao He far more an avant-gardist - songs like Macerata posted on MySpace sample sheep bleats and horns. Which ought to make tomorrow night's get together at D22 very interesting.  More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:54:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3787 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3788/Zee-Avi-Malaysia-Does-Morrissey#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3788 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3788&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3788/Zee-Avi-Malaysia-Does-Morrissey Recently on NPR’s All Songs Considered I got acquainted with Zee Avi, a Malaysian folkie whose cover of the Smiths' First of the Gang to Die I've since listened to a dozen times. It's maybe because I'm not well enough acquainted enough with the local scene to appreciate its treasures, but from what I've seen Malaysia is a fairly conformist land of malls and pop, a larger and slightly poorer version of neighbouring Singapore. As universal as she is impossible to categorise musically, Zee Avi, 23, grew up in a middle class family in Malaysia's westerly territory of Bornep, famous for its jungles. She taught herself guitar amid the jungle tranquil, far from the high-rise tropical capital, Kuala Lumpur. After school in KL however Zee Avi went off to study fashion design in London. Her rise to a deal with a US indie label is remarkable: back home after her London time, Zee began posting fooling-around videos of her and guitar, performing self-composed songs like Honey Bee. An online following led all the way to Raconteurs drummer Patrick Keeler, who recommended her to Brushfire Records, the label owned by Jack Johnson. Now Zee Avi is on tour in the US, opening for Pete Yorn.   I'm listening to her on MySpace, since Youtube remains blocked in China music fans here can't follow her and similar phenomena there.  More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:01:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3788 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3789/Tibetan-Star-Takes-Japan#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3789 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3789&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3789/Tibetan-Star-Takes-Japan Alan Dawa Dolma is her name, a mouthful for a pop star. But this ethnic Tibetan - from China's southwestern Sichuan province bordering Tibet - has become the most successful Chinese artist in the lucrative Japanese popular music market. She got to number three in the Oricon weekly charts - the Japanese music-sales-statistics-collecting equivalent of Billboard - with her 9th single since moving to Japan in 2007: 'Kuon No Kawa.' The uber-urbanised Japanese have a penchant for ethnic fare and travel to remote territories.  Maybe that helped Alan Dawa to win a 2006 audition of 40,000 hopeful Chinese artists by Japan's Avex Trax label. The Japanese have taken to artists playing the erhu, a mournful Chinese fiddle. Alan Dawa was a child prodigy of the instrument and has since mastered the piano, though the songs she's recorded, mostly written by Japanese producers, are mainstream smiley pop affairs.   A devout Buddhist, Alan, as she's known is also practised at the traditional Tibetan wail, a demanding high-pitched style synonymous with Tibet. The tunes are used to sell goods in mainland China, where Tibet in the popular mindset is a mystical, pure-aired Chinese province. Recently I've spotted posh Beijing hotel the Opposite House using Ban Ya Ka La, toiletries marketed in a Tibetan style but made in Shanghai, and only the latest in a wave of cash-ins on Tibetan themed products in China.More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:18:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3789 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3790/China-Central-TV-Culture-Show-A-New-Low#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3790 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3790&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3790/China-Central-TV-Culture-Show-A-New-Low I'd not watched it in several months but yesterday evening's Culture Express on China Central TV (CCTV) 9 - the English channel - was as poor as anything I've seen broadcast in China. Bland, cheap and lacking much in the way of genuine culture, the half hour show's longest item was a report on Cameron Diaz getting her star on the Hollywood walk of fame. No word of Michael Jackson't death: It didn't seem to matter that the rest of the world was mourning the death of a pop star. But most galling is that the show seems to ignore all of the interesting things - there are many - happening in Chinese traditional and modern arts. The show's amateurish graphics and boring scripts suggest either laziness or lack of money. Strange that it would be the latter, given the huge sums of government money being spent on international-looking English media to burnish China's image.  More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:24:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3790 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3791/Sounds-Like-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3791 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3791&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3791/Sounds-Like-Beijing The BBC is currently running a Save Our Sounds series, which collects sounds from around the world that have died out or will die out. There's two great collections I've been listening to, and often go back to: Soundscape China, and Released in 2007 on Kwan Yin records, a Beijing-based label that leans heavily to electronic product, Soundscape China is hard to find - Jeanneau is frustrated by the efforts of local distributors and sells most of his fantastic, rewardingly eccentric recordings abroad.   I've not seen Sounds of Beijing on sale in Beijing - apart from some obviously freebie copies being flogged by the knowledgeable secondhand CD sellers who hang around the Dashanzi/798 art zone on weekends. A man who's put out albums crafted from his recordings of animal and human life around the world - he's also done the oil rigs of Azerbaijan - Cusack keeps a day job at the Communications College tied to the University of the Arts in London but has juggled roles in various avant garde musical outfits.     More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:15:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3791 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3792/A-Beijing-Rent#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3792 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3792&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3792/A-Beijing-Rent I’ve just come back from a look at That Night We Play Music, a play in the unlikely surrounds of the People’s Liberation Army Theatre in north Beijing. I went to see Xie Tianxiao and his mate Wan Xiaoli, the main draws in the play which was presented by the pair’s Beijing-based music label Thirteenth Month. Impressario  Lu Zhongqiang, who runs Thirteenth Month, introduced the drama as a parody of lip-synching singers and "arrogant big-shots" i.e. Hong Kong bubble gum pop stars and their managers, who command all the best slots on Chinese TV and advertising rotas. The main star was undoubtedly Xie, who in various past lives has tried to emulate (successfully) Jimmi Hendrix and Thom Yorke in both material and appearance. His pals and peers Zhang Chu, and Qiu Ye, founder of rock band Zi Yue, also made cameos in the play, which was worth going to see for Xie’s playing and to two-finger the Mandopop establishment which rule China’s music scene. But this was no masterpiece of stage crafting. I’ll wait for Xie’s next album/gig. See Xie's best Hendrix impersonation, and artwork for the last album he recorded with his band, Cold Blooded Animal: More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:34:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3792 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3793/Asias-Best-Music-Store#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3793 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3793&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3793/Asias-Best-Music-Store I spent an evening in Tom Lee’s music shop in Hong Kong lately. Easy to find – the punk kids loitering outside - and a joy to peruse, the shop is half a century selling musical instruments, sheet music and classes in the depths of Kowloon, Hong Kong’s densely populated entertainment district. Wedged in among the dim sum restaurants, Tom Lee’s Cameron St store in Tsim Sha Tsui opened in 1953. The store and another  are today the company’s show rooms among the firm’s 20 outlets across Hong Kong. Interestingly they’ve also gone global, building out from a showroom in Vancouver to 9 stores accross Canada. There's also a Tom Lee's in Macau. It’ll be very interesting to see if they open up in mainland China: the many, mostly tiny, music shops in Gulou district down in Beijing’s historic quarter would all fit into Tom’s Lee’s two-storey premises.     John Lee, CEO of Tom Lee's music (thanks to HK Chamber of Commerce for pic) I've written before here about China being the world's number one maker of entry-level instruments - and, increasingly, professional level gear too. Tom Lee's takes advantage of its China links in shipping cheap, quality gear into North America. Aside from the bilingual (English and Cantonese) signage and heritage - lots of collector-only guitar framed and mounted on the wall – Tom Lee’s has what most mainland stores lack: a vast product range, and knowledge of the product. That’s not to say that the stores in Gulou aren’t friendly and learning fast: they are. But how enjoyable to wander around Tom Lee’s for a few hours.  More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:52:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3793 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3794/Yu-Tian-Beijings-Subway-Troubador#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3794 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3794&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3794/Yu-Tian-Beijings-Subway-Troubador When I heard, saw Yu Tian playing an underground passageway in downtown Beijing I easily parted with the RMB20 (EUR1,90) for his self CD. His easy strumming and sad songs about love lost and whacky observations on China’s social development. The soft, sad voice and Morrisey-esque literariness both mean he’ll never be a big star in China. Stars here become stars by smiling when they bop about stage singing upbeat pop.  Tunes like 'Ke Yu Bu Ke Qin' (Possible to Meet But Can't Beg For It) suggest a Bob Dylan fan but there's a much softer voice here, less political lyrics and a dreamy delivery that suggest a poet who's picked up a guitar to accompany musings under a willow tree in a Beijing park. If you're ever down at the computer marts in Chaoyangmen on a weekend, you'll usually find Yu in the subteranean passageway linking the BuyNow centre with the other side of the crazy highway (though it's called a 'street') that runs through this neighbourhood in high rise Chaoyang district.    More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:46:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3794 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3795/Tibetan-Guitars#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3795 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3795&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3795/Tibetan-Guitars It might be hard to play but the danyen is worth learning.  Sounds like a banjo, three double strings. American broadcaster NPR did a lovely piece on street players who pluck the instrument on the streetside in Lhasa and Tibet's other few sizeable towns. It sounds like the blues, said NPR reporter Jack Chance. And it surely does, strummed to songs about farming, yak herding, lost love and occupation of the last five six decades. I spent an hour with grubby old men and defiant-faced youths on the streets surrounding the Jokhang temple, Lhasa's main prayer retreat. My photo below comes from a book about Tibet's dying crafts (much of the tourist baubles sold in Tibet are made in India or Nepal) was published in a book produced by the Dropenling craft centre in Lhasa. Showcase of the Tibetan Crafts Initiative, which protects local craftwork, the Dropenling sells danyens in various states for ornamentation from US$100. Sales are brisk, say staff - tourists like them for mantlepieces back home. Young nationalistic Tibetans meanwhile have taken to the banjo-like acoustic sounds of this lovely instrument to keep and show their traditions in a wave of a Mando-pop and Canto-pop from the Chinese lowlands.   More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:57:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3795 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3796/A-Lester-Bangs-for-Chinese-Rock#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3796 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3796&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3796/A-Lester-Bangs-for-Chinese-Rock Ian Sherman, the Lester Bangs of Chinese rock. So was he described in an invitation to a memorial do for Ian Sherman, music critic for the (English) Beijing edition of Time Out magazine. I was away on June 5 but there was reporedly a big turn out at a Dos Kollegas gig organised by Tag Team Records, for which Sherman wrote pithy press releases and band bios. There aren’t many following China’s rock/indie music scene who can write as well as Sherman could. One was an acquaintence and Sherman contemporary at Time Out, now a financial journalist at the China Economic Quarterly. There's also the writing musician-impressario, Jon Campbell, and wit/columnist Kaiser Kuo, a veteran of the local rock scene of even greater vintage (he played guitar in breakthrough 1980s/90s metal band Tang Dynasty). Other than that rock writers in Beijing tend to be students who become enamoured by local bands during a passing-through time here. Sherman wrote with verve and passion and knowledge and without putting the boot in when a CD was rubbish, as many are among the avalanche of records which started to come out of local studios in the early 2000s. I’m currently trying to read the local back issues of InMusic and Rolling Stone – it’s slow work, given frequent recourse to my Chinese-English dictionary.More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:19:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3796 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3797/Youtube-blocked-in-China-watch-the-local-clones#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3797 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3797&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3797/Youtube-blocked-in-China-watch-the-local-clones The joys of Youtube have been denied lately in China - government didn't want any huamn rights themed videos showing  up in the a year of anniversaries like June 4: 20 years since the 1989 Tiananmen bloodbath. This may not be such a problem: China afterall has copied youtube: most slavishly in youku.com and Tudou.com is a less blatantly copied local video sharing site. But neither is a great alternative to the original, I discovered with an experiment seeking video content for Bruce Springsteen. It's harder to navigate when your Chinese is scrappy -as is mine - but such is the similarity to youtube that it's only a matter of clicking where you'd normally click on youtube pages. Like youku, you get a lot of music videos, and the odd TV and film clip. I also found a string of videos uploaded by a real Chinese Springsteen fan - unlike Dylan or the Stones the Boss isn't a big name in China. But what the Chinese copycats lack is the sheer variety of music served up on Youtube. There's none of the videos from mobile phones and cameras at one-off concerts. But that's foreign (Western) music. Type in Carsick Cars, the name of China's best indie act of the last five years into the youku/tudou search engines and you get a trove of rare footage, concert clips and fan-edited videos. So they're not the place to go for western rock and pop, but youku and tudou are good outlets for local rock music - and for improving one's Chinese language skills. Given that October will bring the big party for the Party - 60 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China - I expect to see a lot more blockages of Youtube. I'll keep an eye on the local clones.More ... Mark Godfrey Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:17:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3797 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3798/Burmese-Guitar-Craftsman#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3798 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3798&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3798/Burmese-Guitar-Craftsman It’s the first time I ever bought a guitar in the same workshop it was made in. Well today I bought a US$30 from craftsman Mr Lay Lwin. In his 60s and dressed in the traditional wrap-around biyin 'skirt' that most Burmese men wear, Lay Lwin is chairman of Sein Shwe Lwin Guitar Garden, on Anawrahta road in the bustling Kyauktada township in downtown Yangon/Rangoon. The shop was a welcome detour in the downpour that blanketed the city for most of the day – this is rainy season. What got me was Lay’s smiling demeanour and loving attention with which he showed me each guitar. The US$30 price tag was also a clincher: prices fluctuate according to whether he’s using plastic or steel tuning gears, or if the strings and frets are steel or a cheaper alloy mix. The top of the soundbox is pine, the sides plywood. It’s not surprising most of the country is still covered in forestry, that Burma would make guitars. Problem is much of that wood is being slashed by or for Chinese timber companies, who often pay off local officials to turn a blind eye as they drive their loot over the border into China’s Yunnan province. Still, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper earlier this week editorialized on the need to grow trees so the air can be clean and the country green, as if hardwood trees they’ve allowed to be chopped can be replaced overnight.  More ... Mark Godfrey Sat, 30 May 2009 07:26:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3798 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3799/Cluas-in-Rangoon#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3799 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3799&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3799/Cluas-in-Rangoon Beijing Beat is in Burma this week, just as the country’s most famous citizen, Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial. There’s lots of well-armed police and military out on patrol, but this is no dour nation. The music shops, and there are plenty, sell guitar chord books and stacks of CDs and DVDs of local artists. Chinese pop is big in Burma. Staff sung along to Mandopop megahits while I was getting my hair cut at the East Boys hair salon on Seik Kan Tha Street A five minute walk away, three helpful attendants at the Man Thiri music shop – they produce and distribute CDs, VCDs and tapes as well as DVDs –  when I asked them for their best local folk and Burmese rock CDs plucked me out a work by harpist Haing Win Maung, and this by local hip hop/rocker Alex: Live at Inya Lake. The local official press is farcically out of touch – the regime’s greetings to Azerbaijani leaders for that country’s national day made the page one lead yesterday – but there are plenty of chances to get alternative views in Rangoon/Yangon. There’s the paper boy selling Thailand’s The Nation on the street near my hotel, and then, in the hotel lobby, the staff watching satellite TV coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, piped in by the country’s opposition in exile in Norway. That seems to be Burma: a very, friendly, nuanced kind of place. Badly run, unnecessarily impoverished, but also full of surprises. Number one for me was how it makes a good first impression: the new international airport in Rangoon is smart, glass and chrome and attentive, friendly staff. Nothing at all as chaotic as my recent experience flying into Dhaka, in neighbouring Bangladesh. But then nowhere do you hear chaotic Bangladesh’s multiplicity of voices, and debate. I’m looking forward to checking out the live music scene, particularly the Lazy Club, where apparently aforementioned rocker Alex regularly plays.More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 28 May 2009 17:08:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3799 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3800/Yerboli-Kazakh-Folk-Star-in-China#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3800 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3800&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3800/Yerboli-Kazakh-Folk-Star-in-China A couple of months ago I was in Guangzhou, that sprawling capital of concrete and spaghetti junctions and home to the Canton Fair. Like Shenzhen, the other big city in Guangdong province, home to the largest concentration of factories in the world, Guangdong is about commerce and being as successful as Hong Kong, which is technically part of Guangdong (once Canton). More suprised was I to find a flowering of musical talent and record labels (like Starsing). My favourite guangdong sound is dombra (a stringed central Asian guitar-like instrument) playing singer Yerboli, an ethnic Kazakh from China's far west, who's moved about the country's richer cities playing in bars and at Han Chinese banquets. Thanks to That's PRD magazine for drawing my attention with their complimentary article timed with the release of Yerboli's article on Old Heaven Records in Shenzhen. Listen to him on myspace.More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 08 May 2009 13:41:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3800 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3801/Indonesias-guitar-heroes#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3801 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3801&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3801/Indonesias-guitar-heroes   Indonesia’s record industry is in tapes. Everyone in the city of Bandung on Java seems to own or aspire to a guitar. A local music scene leans heavily to soft, poppy rock. Local favourites East Station play something like the Cardigans. Young Indonesians are faultlessly fashionable, hip to the tail-piped jeans and a lot of Indie hair dos. There’s an awful lot of bootleg music product hawked on the streets of every major Indonesian city, CDs in flimsy soft packing sold for EUR0.50. Guitars are cheap – Yamaha manufactures locally, sells its entry level acoustics for about EUR40 at the Gramedia chain store in Jakarta malls. There’s a 50-50 break down between folk and classical guitars – the Bandung bands seem to play both. Indonesia is a very tolerant muslim nation – the most populous in the world. Bandung’s guitar heroes pedal their tunes under the minaret of Bandung’s main mosque – which at night is almost eclipsed by a giant Dunkin Donuts sign. The tolerance was explained in a song, translated for me, by a clove-cigarette smoking bandman: “Indonesians go to Saudi Arabia for haji, but the Arabs coming the other way to play around with local women.” Jemaah islamiah seems very far away indeed. Have a listen to one of my favourite Indonesian bands, Dewa 19, on Myspace.   More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 04 May 2009 06:33:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3801 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3802/Oasis-in-the-PRC#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3802 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3802&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3802/Oasis-in-the-PRC Oasis will play in Beijing on April 3 - at the Capital Gymnasium, not the Worker’s Gymnasium as preferred by Kylie and Kayne West. It’s not clear what the band’s reasons for coming are but they shouldn’t have high expectations, nor hopes of making money. Their arrival hopefully marks the end of a long period of paranoia in China’s Department of Culture which issues performance licenses: pro-Tibetan chants by Bjork at her Shanghai show last year annoyed the bureaucrats, already worried about blemishes to China’s Olympics year.  I can’t see how Oasis will make any money off this tour, considering the band has never had the cachet of Suede or Sonic Youth among China’s tiny rock community. Granted, those two groups solidified their local reputation by actually coming and playing here. Ticket prices range from RMB200 to RMB1600: 20 to 160 Euros. I reckon there’ll be tickets for RMB50 – five Euros – on sale outside the venue on the night. The band’s tour China: April 3rd, 2009 - Beijing Capital Gym April 5th, 2009 - Shangai Grand Stage April 7th, 2009 - Hong Kong AsiaWorld Arena  More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:05:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3802 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3803/The-Other-China-Music-Blogs#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3803 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3803&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3803/The-Other-China-Music-Blogs Venture capital is pouring nicely into China’s music scene. See Chinese ringtones specialists Hurray earlier this year spending US$3 million on a 61% stake in Taiwan's Seed Music Group Limited. But will those big deals stop, now that pension funds won’t be so easy to hand cash over to the VCs? The man who knows a lot about these things, Ed Peto runs events managers Red T Music and writes a fine blog, OutIndustry. Heck, in researching this blog I've gotten bogged down in the other blogs out there on the China music scene. I like both http://www.music2dot0.com/ and China Music Radar. There are others out there too, mostly started by foreigners living in China. The best English-language blog written by a local Chinese fan - and likely the best of all the blogs on Chinese rock, Rock In China. I've come to the conclusion that they're all snazzier looking than Beijing Beat but that many of them, especially the expat-authored blogs, seem to blur out after a few fantastic entries and then go silent for a few weeks, then a few months. I'll have to meet some of the folks behind these. More on the VC later: I'm meeting Modern Sky next week.More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:39:22 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3803 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3804/Rocking-Dalian#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3804 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3804&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3804/Rocking-Dalian I’m in Dalian to Queen Sea big shark, lovely pace with Where Are all the passengers until we suddenly move up a serious change of gear and tempo. My new favourite China sound is the The Guai, listened to at Yugong Yishan the other night. I’ve been looking for them online. More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:54:35 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3804 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3805/A-Community-Theatre-For-Chinas-Rockers#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3805 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3805&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3805/A-Community-Theatre-For-Chinas-Rockers I was wondering where the Glamorous Pharmacy CD release party was. Now I know: The band, famous in China for its its theatrical stage moves, played their new tunes for an audience of intimates at the Penghao Theatre is a badly needed café theatre on Dongmianhua Hutong, just off the Nanluoguxiang bar strip. A courtyard, roofed, adjacent to a comfortable café-restaurant, the Penghao was also a perfect venue for I heart Shakespeare, a selection of the Bard’s words peformed by expat and local amateur actors. To avoid being knocked over by car or man since the Naluoguxiang area’s been invaded by retro shops and camera swaying tourists I don’t go down that way anymore: hwo this place changed in 2 years – which is probably why I didn’t see the theatre. All the state media attention in China tends to go to huge vanity projects like the egg shaped National Theatre near Tienanmen Square, designed by French architect Paul Andreu. Nearly every city has one of these outsized but infrequently used cultural venues, or is copying one of the famous theatres of the world (knock-offs of the Sydney Opera House abound in China’s interior cities). Not a lot happens at these places as government cash tends to be reserved for state-run troupes the likes of which did the Olympic Games opening ceremony. These state-paid performers are rarely fountains of fresh new theatrical ideas. Which is all the more reason why the country needs the like of the Penghao. More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:19:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3805 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3806/Why-Filipino-Bar-Bands-Rule-in-China#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3806 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3806&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3806/Why-Filipino-Bar-Bands-Rule-in-China I understand why Filipino musicians are so in demand as minstrels for hire in hotels and bars around China. International hotels like them because Chinese audiences and western musicians don’t always gel well: Chinese performers, I've seen are usually shy in front of expatriate audiences, who in turn often don’t know if they're supposed to boo a bad performance and usually can't communicate with performers they like. Those thoughts were confirmed for me during a chat with Alvaro Rottenberg, general manager of the Kempinski in Shenyang, an auto-making city in China’s north. Rottenberg hires a Filipino band to entertain a mostly Chinese clientele at the hotel Paulaner-themed bar. Another Filipino band plays five sets a night in an Irish-themed bar at the Holiday Inn down the road in this BMW-making town, which freezes to -25C on December nights. Bar bands from the tropical Philippines - also staples in Dubai hotels - look Asian, speak English and understand what westerners like to hear. In China they’re also usually able to sing a bunch of Chinese songs that sound passable enough to please Chinese customers. Why not Chinese musicians? Because they don’t have enough of an English-language repertoire, says Rottenberg. Filipinos by comparison are often praised as human jukeboxes, capable of switching from Green Day to Glen Campbell, as the clientele requires. Granted they've usually got the words filed away in plastic-sheet binders, which they flip through as the night and the requests progress. More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:25:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3806 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3807/China-A-Pirates-Market-Again#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3807 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3807&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3807/China-A-Pirates-Market-Again There’s a lot of talk about fakes being back on China’s streets because of the global economic slump. I’m not so sure. First of all, the economic slow down isn’t so apparent in China, which has a lot more growing to do. It may be more to do with Mp3s and the fact that gadget-friendly Chinese, who never really got used to tapes or CDs in the way that music geeks spend hours poring through the content in a Dublin or a New York music shop. China has had pirates and stores of counterfeit product for as long as it has had CDs and DVDs. And now that its easier for local music fans to load up for free from the Internet, they’re not even bothering to pay RMB10 – a euro – for the pirated CDs they used to buy. I got to thinking about this the other night when pedaling home through the Sanlitun bar area. In 2003 on most street corners here there was plenty of pirated product to be had by itinerant salesmen setting up shop atop a cardboard box. They’ve all disappeared, as have the characters who beat a nightly circuit of local bars with suitcases of RMB5 (EUR0.50) CDs and RMB7 (EUR0.70) DVDs – for economy and easier carrying packed in soft plastic packaging rather than the elaborate casings you get in local shops – which also sell counterfeits. The latter have survived, though in lesser numbers and some, like my local audiovisual store, sell genuine product now. Open till 11 every night, the store is located right opposite a police station, so the owners are obviously law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.More ... Mark Godfrey Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:22:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3807 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3808/Sub-41-Coming-to-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3808 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3808&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3808/Sub-41-Coming-to-Beijing Beijing indie specialists Pilot Records will bring Sub 41 and progressive metallers Symphony X to China in 2009. The label's own charges AK47 and Reflector put in some great shows in the second half of this year, says label founder Zeng Yu. So too his hard-rocking signees Honeygun. Sub 41 will travel to Beijing in April. “We won’t make money but it will be a wonderful chance to draw more and more Chinese to rock music,” says Zeng, his usual likeable and proselytizing self. Pilot is bringing in the big guns because they want to have maximum impact on first-time concert goers.  More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:54:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3808 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3809/Moshcn-Another-Facebook-Clone#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3809 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3809&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3809/Moshcn-Another-Facebook-Clone Things have been going well over at MOSH.cn -the rock-oriented social networking site went from 200,000 to 400,000 members in six months. We’re getting 500 new members a day, the website's friendly content director Mr Wang told me the other day. The firm behind te site, essentially the hobby of a group of Chinese financial veterans, has tweaking features of the site, like user privacy, but Mosh seems to be abandoning the student rock fans it vowed to serve. That the site’s target is “white collar professionals” is clear from the frequency and comfort with which he uses the term during our latest chat. Rather than link up local alternative music fans, the site now wants to become a ‘platform for young people.” Sounds familiar. Also, users can also “sort their friends into groups.” So how is that any different from Facebook and its many Chinese clones? Well, there’s a forum, that allows users to connect and comment on concerts and exhibitions they’ve seen or have calendar-ed. The biggest traffic on the site recently was drummed by the 10th anniversary of the Goethe Institute – lots of local professionals go there to learn German, still perceived to be a useful tongue, given the supremacy of German brands like Volkswagen over local competition. The Goethe has courted locals by flying in German bands like Massive Tone. Mosh is as secretive as ever about how they make money: “some from tickets sales and some from advertising” is the best the Mosh man Mr Wang would offer. Another hint at where Mosh's priorities lie: the middle class-targetted advertising for cars and consumer goods on the site. The site sells tickets for concerts and discounts tickets for certain venues, like the Star Live. Mosh personnel hand out the site's distinctively colourful "We Mosh!" stickers at gigs which it co-promotes. More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:26:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3809 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/149/Manic-Street-Preachers-live-in-Hong-Kong#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=149 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=149&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/149/Manic-Street-Preachers-live-in-Hong-Kong Manic Street Preachers (live in Hong Kong) Review Snapshot: Great show, but why didn't the avowed socialists come play Red China? The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10 Full Review: Opening with Motorcycle Emptiness, the Manics made the best of a bad turnout in Hong Kong to deliver a stash of their hits and a cover of Nirvana’s Penny Royal Tea. The new and the old, Autumn Song and Faster came early on, followed by that solid cover of Rihanna’s Umbrella, which has become a staple of their live set on this tour. It’s strange that the supposedly socialist Manic Street Preachers came to Hong Kong, the most capitalistic piece of land in Asia, rather than north to Beijing? The Chinese capital’s gritty soul and priceless layers of bittersweet history and colourful characters reads like a Manics songbook. Maybe it's because they're scared of bumping into their old collaborator Kylie Minogue - she got a mention during the Hong Kong set - has been in these parts lately. Or maybe it’s because, whatever their protestations, the Manics’ fanbase has now graduated, married and become the 30-something office jockey, a creature found in abundance in Hong Kong’s skyscrapers. Down in Kowloon Bay, the HiTech Star is a hall in a mall. I should’ve expected it but the Hong kong convention centre address is a bit misleading; cake shops, Cantonese cuisine and karaoke all abound in this place. Taking the elevator to the fifth floor for the balcony seats, I was shown inside with the usual Hong Kong friendly efficiency. That can be annoying: a security man politely kept us back from the glass barrier - not becuase it was dangerously crowded up there, but because we'd smudge the glass by getting too close. There were plenty of disinterested faces in the sparse balcony crowd, lots of quizzical locals who didn’t know the songs and were obviously along for a look. It got better when I moved downstairs for Masses Against the Classes. A HK$50 (EUR5) pint of Carlsberg in hand I strolled up to the second barrier from the stage and watched the rest of the show with a local fan who appeared like he really wanted to look like Richey Edwards and complained at the end that the band didn’t play Kevin Carter. The Manics trio is now buffeted by several travelling musicians, one of whom, introduced by James Dean Bradfield as “Mr London Irish Sean Reed" played some lovely saxophone on Ocean Spray. The acoustic playing of “Mr London Irish” number two, Wayne Murray, seemed a bit mechanical at times. Bradfield excused any propensity to falsetto on him having a cold, but all was forgiven when the frontman took the acoustic guitar himself for a heart-rending Black Flowers, introduced as “one of Richey Edward’s finest lyrics.” Nicky Wire's comparatively conservative wardrobe for the night - a white suit - may have been chosen to fit the sterile surrounds. Real fans might have been thin on the ground, but everyone moved to Bradfield's "cerebral drinking song," Design for Life. Suit jacked slung over shoulder, the gwailos (local slang for foreigners)  let a screech of recognition for Everything Must Go, introduced as “from the cool days of Britpop.” Raised beer tumbler in the air and neckties loosened, they were having a good time by the time the houselights went on, after a glorious Send Away the Tigers. I went home happy I got great value for my HK$440 (EUR44) ticket and the airfare from Beijing. Next time I hope the Welsh communists will come up north to visit their lapsed brethern. Mark Godfrey More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:29:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:149 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3810/Full-House-for-Kylie-in-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3810 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3810&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3810/Full-House-for-Kylie-in-Beijing   Well done to Kylie Minogue for filling the part of the Worker’s Gymnasium she was allowed to fill: the unfortunate positioning of the stage meant there were two large chunks of seats off limits to the crowd. Why couldn’t she have set up an in-the-round stage? It would have perfectly suited this old socialist amphitheatre, its outer façade encrusted with the figures of heroic athletes. This was a lovely venue for the Olympic boxing events in August, but it hasn't been getting great reviews as a music venue - judging by the complaints of Kanye West fans who were here to see their man perform a few weeks ago.   Curious about who and how many showed up, I had decided that RMB60 – six euros – was all I was willing to burn on a ticket for Kylie. After circling the main gate a few times and many offers a tout bad-humouredly handed over his RMB1,300 ticket for my price. There were plenty of touts with tickets outside but it’s always thus: VIP tickets handed out for free by organizers to local bigshots and police. That’s why there was a atmosphere-less, all-seated VIP section plonked in front of the stage, helping to kill the buzz the Kylie’s in definitely capable of creating. A good turnout – the vast majority of whom were local – indeed, but there was a lot of uniniterested police and old men sitting beside me in a so-called VIP seat. I’d love to know how much box office money Kylie had going home with her.     The choice of venue was unfortunate because apart from lashings of stiff-backed police and silly all-seated-crowd rule, the stadiums heavy lighting doesn’t suit a show like this. It was way too bright in there! That suited last time I was here, to see Ireland’s Olympian boxers in action: the place was packed and the atmosphere electric. On leaving, past the merchandising stalls with RMB100 t-shirts and RMB80 posters (copies were selling outside for RMB20) It was interesting to see how dog-eared the Olympic venues are starting to look, only a few months after the Games. Indifferent maintenance has allowed lots of scratches and dents to appear. Strangely there’s no commemorative plaque to remind concert goers of what happened here in the summer of 2008. I felt the same about the velodrome way out in Laoshan when I went there a few weeks ago for an equestrian convention.   More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:18:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3810 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3811/Music-Dies-for-Chinese-CD-Makers#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3811 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3811&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3811/Music-Dies-for-Chinese-CD-Makers   China has made music accessible by making stereos, MP3 players and amps cheaply for global brands. It's done the same for musical instruments. Several But now the music may be about to die away. The past three months have seen the demise of a lot of Chinese firms making audio equipment and electronics which the Western world no longer wants to buy. The Chinese manufacturers never made a fortune because they'd licensed the technology from western firms or were doing Original Enterprise Manufacturing (OEM), business jargon for making something for a customer which then sticks their own logo on it.  Factory boss Mr Tang (he prefers not to give his full name), says his Hongshang International Industrial Co says sales of his MP3 and MP4 players have dropped 30%. HongShang relies on exports for 80% of business. One consolidation is that prices are not affected. It’d be impossible for prices to come down more says Tang: his 2.4 inch-screen Mp3 players are among the cheapest on the market.  The crisis has delayed his plans to shift away from doing OEM for American brands like Emerson and Element, to making Mp3s under his own company name. “The risk is too much, we’d have to invest a lot of money in marketing which we don’t have right now.” One of China's top makers of CDs, Ke Lan Digital Corporation hasn’t been badly burnt - yet - because it sells its CDs in the Middle East and South Asia. Sales director Ms Peng says the firm is more worried about falling CD prices. A CD cost RMB0.7 in January but sells for RMB0.5 "at most" now. That’s because of a flood of factories into the business, and the ongoing stampede from CDs to Internet downloads. The firm exports 50% of output but will look increasingly to domestic sales, says Peng. A lot of local firms which started making cheap transistor radios have moved on to higher-value products. But not everyone who’s moved upmarket has stayed above water. Sales are down by almost 30% but prices are up 10% says Mr Yuan Ling from Yi Da Shi Electronics in Shenzhen. He says the hi-fi maker has held steady because exports to Europe, which account for 98% of output, are too high value for the competition hence the firm has been able to hold onto comparatively high prices: up to US$150 for a hi-fi. The firm will begin to target the domestic market in 2009, Yuan Ling tells Beijing Beat, because he sees untapped potential in China's growing middle class. These are three firms that have survived, but for how long? That will probably depend on how long any global recession lasts. But spare a thought for these companies, they've made it cheaper for the rest of us to listen to, and play, music.   More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:57:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3811 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3812/Chinas-Sad-Singledom#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3812 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3812&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3812/Chinas-Sad-Singledom I meant to put this up before now, one of the sharper observations by ever-sharp China observing research group Access Asia in one of their recent weekly newsletters. If you think the Western world suffers from materialism, see what marketing executives are doing to China, creating a day for the country’s singles (men, mostly): on November 11 China's single men can give each other cards says Access Asia:  “To compete with the glutinous and embarrassing mess that is Valentine's Day, Chinese youth now has Bachelor's Day. This is the day when all China's sad men, who can't get a girlfriend because the gender split is so skewed, or because they simply don't consume in the prescribed way shown in the adverts, will get to do whatever bachelors do when they are feeling a bit lonely. A possible marketing opportunity for the disposable paper products manufacturers, perhaps? Chosen to be on this day because four "1s" represents singledom (apparently), it is unlikely to be made an official holiday, as with Valentine's Day, but it will probably develop into a marketing opportunity for someone. Hallmark cards will no doubt find ways to get Mr. Nofriends to buy himself a card celebrating his solitude, whilst we suspect the fast-fat industry will see potential in promotions of special sad-singleton meals, to help these lonely hearts get fatter, spottier and even further removed from a position of attracting a mate.” I know plenty who fit into the above sad-but-true description, the kind of people who rather talk on msn than taking a call. Most are Internet introverts who spend their spare (and some working) time in the virtual world. No wonder they're single. China’s massive Internet usage rates (though still low as a % of population, compared to the US) are often used touted as proof of the country’s economic development – and constantly cited in the powerpoint presentations of people who run e-commerce sites or who want to sell something on one of them. Trouble is, in 99% of the times I’ve visited an Internet café in China 99% of the users were playing computer games, or using chat programmes. China's social life is shifting online. Of a group of 20 locals, of all ages, who I teach English to on Saturdays only two know their next door neighbours. Another friend who edits copy at 6,000-staff China Radio International out in Babaoshan, says that workers, once they’ve eaten, come back from their dorms (it’s common in many state-run organizations to live in the compounds) and go online till it’s time to sleep. Evading boredom maybe, but how the hell do they meet a partner? Welcome to ever more individualistic China. Marketing executives ought to be happy, they’ve been long enough convincing locals to be individual and consume to be happy. Belated happy Single’s Day.     More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:03:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3812 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3813/Irishmans-Blues-in-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3813 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3813&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3813/Irishmans-Blues-in-Beijing One of the albums I’m most enjoying listening to is Drinking Alone, the debut CD from Beijing blues band Black Cat Bone. I like the signature track, having found it on the band’s MySpace site, as it’s belted out by an Irishman in Beijing, Des McGarry, who looks and sounds the part of seasoned blues man. Wrapped in some of the smartest artwork you’ll find on any Christmas market, the album met the press on Saturday night at the Yugong Yishan club. The band commandeered and loaded onto a local tri-cart for a rollick through Beijing’s alleyways for the black and white artwork photos. We'll hear more from Des on Beijing Beat in the coming days. I'm particularly curious to hear where the band will distribute this album, since Beijing's thousands of CD shops sell mostly pirated pop and junked stock clearences from the European CD shops.   More ... Mark Godfrey Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:42:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3813 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3814/Chinese-School-Seeks-Drums-Guitars#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3814 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3814&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3814/Chinese-School-Seeks-Drums-Guitars   Beijing Beat is back after some time on the road, out of China. Before we go into the bars, bootlegs and Chinese CDs that we usually write about, here's something more important: if anyone's got instruments they don't need Beijing Beat knows some Chinese kids who'd be delighted to play them. The Dandelion School was set up in 2005 with a mission of “Access to quality education for migrant children.” The inspiration behind the school, Chinese-American artist Lily Yeh is keen that the kids can indulge their artistic as well as their academic talents, hence the Dandelion seeks (new and used) musical instruments and art supplies. The dandelion is located in Shou Bao Zhuang village in Daxing village, the industrial-heavy suburb of Beijing that’s home to a lot of the migrant workers who’ve built the city’s new skyscrapers, stadiums and subways. Because of China’s registration system children accompanying their parents to Beijing are not allowed access to city schools. So, if you’ve got some sounds you don’t need, or you’ve given up guitar, now you know of a home for your old instruments. Contact us (just hit Comment) if you want to help.More ... Mark Godfrey Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:39:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3814 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3815/Chinas-Car-Stupidity#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3815 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3815&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3815/Chinas-Car-Stupidity     I'm sick of having to walk out into the traffic on any traffic-clogged Beijing street. That's because the city's footpaths are now for cars. Yes, the country's middle class, rushing out to buy four wheels (bicycles are for losers) without thinking about where to park them. Hence walking home recently I had a couple park their new silver saloon right in front of me, on the footpath I was using. When I'm cycling they take the bike lane (not enough lanes in the typical four-lane Beijing artery). It's all down to marketing and a stupid middle class vulnerability to consumption/marketing, while those of us who don't drive choke in their smoke. Few people have put it better than those market analysts at Access Asia, who email out a pithy weekly review of what's topical and what's hot and what's not in China's consumer and media markets. The Resistible Rise of the Deadly Steel Box Yes, we mean cars. Those annoying things that pollute and destroy the earth, kill both their owners and innocent people in large numbers and have contributed more to the destruction of any sense of civilised public manners in Chinese cities than any other single factor (the principle of "I've got a steel box on wheels, so I always get right of way" is now universal it seems). The adverse effects on life that the car has brought are legion in cities where planners have rolled over and accepted the car as king. In Beijing, vastly wide Pyongyang-like boulevards are devoted to the car, while old ladies scramble to cross the road in time as the planners have elevated traffic flow (or lack of) above pedestrians. In Shanghai, the principle of parking anywhere and blocking the pavements is accepted as more old ladies are forced to flee before the green man turns red rather too quickly. Uncivilised, community-destroying, asthma-inducing and depressing.   So, good news then that car sales have tanked. Excellent! As we've argued countless times before, the answer to the problem of cars in China is to tax them off the streets, and to gnore any right wing bollix about the illusory personal freedom a car brings. We need higher gas charges, higher road taxes, congestion charging, raised parking fees and anything else that basically gets cars off the roads. Along with that, we need serious police prosecution of bad and arrogant driving, rather than the current kowtowing to drivers that goes on, especially if the badge is deemed "VIP" - whatever that means. That's our view - rant over. Nobody cares about our view, of course, and they all still want cars, so why have car sales tanked?   Listening to a few presentations recently from the pro-car and car manufacturers lobby, they're floundering a bit at present. They like to say it's the gas price hike in June (and it is, a wee bit), number plate prices (a wee bit too), but hate to talk about other factors. What are those other factors? Well, some are just obvious: lots of people who want cars simply haven't got anywhere to park them; others can't yet afford them. But the major reason right now is that clever Chinese consumers know that, with sales gone south and inventory building to past record levels, prices will have to be slashed. More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:24:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3815 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3816/Bringing-Jazz-to-Chinas-Masses#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3816 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3816&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3816/Bringing-Jazz-to-Chinas-Masses A hint at how badly the Olympics crushed the local live music scene, Peter Scherr and his group Headache hasn’t played Beijing since last December. The jazz musician and concert planner call off three shows set for the Chinese capital summer. The Games “really interfered with the projects he’d planned for summer. Now, “pleased to see that things are getting back to normal again,” he’s got “a lot of plans to do more performing in China.”   Shut out of Beijing, Scherr and crew however found good gigs in China’s southerly cities, a sign that there’s plenty more space to play China, even for left-of-field jazz. In Guangzhou, two hours by train from Hong Kong, the Scherr-guided Joe Rosenberg Quartet played two nights at Loft345 for two nights – the music was extremely well received by both the drinking crowd and the more earnest young student crowd which “seemed to really groove on our strange, strategic improvisations. Scherr praises for that a “wonderful Parisian drummer Edward Perraud, who truly puts on an amazing show.”   In nearby Shenzhen the band played at "the beautiful huge new version" of local club C-Union, owned by artist Teng Fei who told Scherr "repeatedly that he is very serious about turning it into a top music venue.” In Shanghai, Scherr's charges played at Yu Yin Tang, “really a rock club” – since he felt his music was a “bit too left-of-center” for the audience at local jazz club JZ. A nice crowd, “really good technical staff” and “very nice people” means he’s going to bring his projects back to Yu Yin Tang again soon.   It’s taken him a few years of footwork to build up a network of venues and promoters. His strategy for the future is find more cities that are within a short drive of each other. “That will be a big help in keeping expenses down.” Some cities yielded sponsorship, elsewhere he’s relied on ticket sales. ”Of course I would like to have more sponsors." Scherr has hired a local assistant, David Wang, to help him drum up more contacts and sponsorship on the mainland. But he keeps his goals modest. “My goal is to break even on my shows. Until I get more well-known, I don't think I will be able to make a profit. I try to keep my losses to a minimum. It's a challenge.”   Scheduling can be tricky. “With a typical project, the first step is to fix a time period when all the artists are available. Then I contact venues and try to set a schedule that makes for efficient traveling. It's a bit of a complicated dance, because some places prefer to have shows during the week, so as not to disturb the weekend drinking crowd, and others prefer shows on the weekends.”   Crowds are mainly locals with several expats. “But as we get to cities other than the major eastern cities, the audiences are almost all local.” Are local fans very knowledgeable of jazz? “Well, I'm not playing jazz per-se, it's 'Creative Music' so we are free to play far outside the expectations of the mainstream jazz fans. Local audiences approach the music as a new experience. "They are perhaps not versed in the language of jazz or the avant garde or whatever, but they are very interested in music, and are thrilled to hear something new. In many cases I get reactions like 'this is the first time I've heard improvisational music, and I find it really exciting, fascinating, colorful etc.' This is the great joy of bringing Creative Music to the mainland audiences.”   Similarly, artists have been amazed at the audience reactions. “Once we do a concert, they understand my interest in bringing creative music to China. Organizational challenges and financial remain big issues in mainland China. “Also just maintaining energy and good humor on what can be some pretty intense traveling schedules.” Logistics can be tricky too: Trying to balance the ideal of carrying as little gear as possible with the need to have the right instruments for the performance. Scherr has tried to pare down the instrument loads. “I feel strongly that the musicians, if they are comfortable with their instruments, will play better.” Hence a set of band instruments is kept in storage in Guangzhou for mainland gigs.   See www.peterscherr.com and join his mailing list.  More ... Mark Godfrey Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:30:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3816 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3817/How-to-China-As-a-Foreign-Musician#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3817 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3817&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3817/How-to-China-As-a-Foreign-Musician Known all over the cool southwesterly province of Yunnan, the Kunming-based Tribal Moons is a fine example of how to be successful on China’s music scene. It’s a long haul but ultimately better for China and for the musicians than those prohibitively expensive tours by foreign artists like Air, which charge a revolting RMB700 for their club show in Beijing lately. Live here: A very cosmopolitan group of blues rockers bases itself in Kunming - several members teach at the local university, the Triball Moons, having polished their act and made their name here (and in Yunnan backpacking havens like Lijiang and Dali), stretched itself with mini-tours of easy-to-get-to cities like Chengdu, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Be sustainable: After a few years gigging in Kunming “we're pretty wired into the scene” says Lundemo. Be local: Tribal Moons drummer Ma Tu, a local, knows everyone in the music business here including all the bands, clubs and agents. Another band member studied Chinese in Kunming so knows the large population of foreign students studying in the city. A computer-savvy guitarist meanwhile does all the band’s graphics and posters. Hand Out A CD: There are decent local studios to do the job and it gives fans and possible future club owners something to remember you by. Tribal Moons hope to have a CD in the bag by mid October. “It’s gotta get done,” says band man John Lundemo. Don’t get ahead of yourself: the Tribal Moons picks off a bunch of cities at a time, plays them and then goes back a few months later, having made their name, and contacts. While the band has gotten acquainted with agents around China it’s doing it for itself for now. Tribal Moons is revving up for a Psychedelic Carnival set for October 17th at the Uprock Club in Kunming at the Uprock club. It’ll be the first rockgig in what’s nominally a DJ and dance club, so we'll be the first live band to play there and it opens up a new venue here. Lundemo and co are also lucky in that Kunming has a well-updated English language bible, www.GoKunming.com, which gives the low-down on the local news.     More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:22:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3817 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3818/CD-Piracy-Worse-in-China-Or-Russia#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3818 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3818&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3818/CD-Piracy-Worse-in-China-Or-Russia Sure, most of the audiovisual product in even the smallest Chinese city is 80% bootlegged. But leaving the numbers aside - 1.3 billion people will buy more of the stuff - it appears that worse offenders in the whole CD piracy problem may be the Russians. I remember a couple of years ago travelling through central Asia and finding dozens of traders in the capital city department store (invariably called Zum) selling collections of MP3s on CD, the product having been shipped in from Russia. Well they're still at it. Zum in Odessa, the black sea port in southern Ukraine where I found myself this week, sells collections of big name artists' albums for about EUR3.50 each. That's 11 albums - most of Pink Floyd's back catalogue on the "Pink Floyd Diamond Collection' CD I examined. Manufactured in Russia, according to the salesgirl, each collection is packaged in generic, rather tacky artwork. Chinese counterfeiters tend to reproduce single albums - including copying the packaging to exacting detail - and sell each for about EUR1.60 each. 11 albums would cost considerably more the Chinese way. It's hard to know who'd doing more harm but on numbers the Russians are selling more knocked-off music cheaper.     More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:31:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3818 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3819/Is-Flamenco-Chinese#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3819 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3819&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3819/Is-Flamenco-Chinese I’ve been trying to work out how and why the Uyghurs - a 20-million strong people (or 'minority' in official China speak) in western China have produced a string of groups playing Beijing bars– got so good at flamenco guitar. Way over West in Kashgar a dusty old city near the Pakistan border, a long-haired gangly guitarist called Askar rules (there’s also Arken). Did he simply copy the Gypsy Kings and set off the craze, or does it run deeper? Askar’s 2001 album, the populist Tilag (Blessing) was recorded in both Chinese and Uyghur languages and mixes both flamenco guitars and the local traditional sounds.  But what is this Chinese man doing playing virtuoso flamenco? This whole town on the western frontier seems to specialize in Flamenco. There are teenagers standing in doorways who don’t need much encouragement to start plucking away. Two more who we met dueled for an hour, each trying to best the other and seeking our judgement to decide the duel. These aren’t any ordinary Chinese of course. This is Xinjiang, home to the Uyghur people, who have a lot more in common with the Turks than they do with the Han, China’s majority ethnicity group. Flamenco comes from the Arab conquest of Spain – it was Arabs who gave the music to Spain, not vice versa. Arabs came east too and brought Islam to groups like the Uyghurs, who (like Tibet) only came under direct Chinese control in the last century. There’s a big selection of CDs of the local stars in the windows of little shops selling shampoo and cola which dot this old city of baked earth. Out on its margins a vast new Chinese city of concrete and tiles has its own KTV (karaoke) bars and larger CD shops which itzy bitzy Mandopop that’s as heavy on sythesisers as the local’s music is on guitar. It’s more ironic then that the best of the locals head to karaoke-drenched cities to make their living. Arken plays a series of bars in Beijing and Shanghai. Several other troupes stay on the road and some have moved to America. A combination playing the Saddle Cantina bar in Beijing is a mix of Uyghur and Han Chinese as well as a Uyghur émigré returned from the US. Andalusia, the home of flamenco, after all takes its name from the Moroccan Arabs who once ruled here: it was Al-Andalus to them. The songs are pure Arab lyric poetry and the “ay-ay-ay” call that interjects songs comes from “ya a-in” or ‘oh eye” the call of Arab beggars. Flamenco isn’t the only music in Xinjiang. Local popular music draws on influences from ethnically close Turkey and geographically close Pakistan. There’s also the technology and the synthesizers and drumbeats from Mandarin pop. China’s audiovisual counterfeiting industry means there’s cheap access to western sounds. Two local metal bands, Taklimakan (after the oil-rich desert which occupies a huge chunk of the region) and Riwayat, Darwish meanwhile takes their sounds from Central Asia since they’re Uyghurs based in Kazakhstan. There’s a lot left unsaid in Uyghur songs, which tell of a people subjugated. Rather like Irish poetry during Penal Law days. Social themes such as labour and heroin addiction among local youths juices the words of Sirliq tuman or Secret Mist by Abdullah Aldurehim, drawing melody from sufi ritual songs and words by composer Yasin Mukhpul. Local composers are figures of authority, writes Dr Rachel Harris, a musicologist at the School for Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London who I hope to talk to soon.  Dutar or lute players sing more allegorical songs: Omarjan Alim from Yili Valley sings in his Mehman the Guest “I invited a guest into my home… invited him to sit in the place of honour…but my guest hasn’t left, now he’s made my house his own.” On the other extreme, a Madonna wannabe from Hotan, Aytalan sings about fun and hinted sex, usually a big taboo in these parts. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it all, and seek a long chat with David Mitchell, a musicologist and all-round instrumentalist who plays in Panjir, the most experimental, and arguably accomplished proponents of Uyghur music. This multinational and multi-instrumental grouping has blended the Uyghur’s music with jazz and flamenco in all-out jamming sessions and on a CD. The best place to watch Panjir is the Stone Boat, literally a stone boat built to amuse members of the imperial court on forays to Beijing’s ancient Ritan Park. Today the Stone Boat bar/café is an in place for expatriate journalists and Sinologists, and its most ‘in’ band is Panjir, which performs on a small stage that juts into the lake water. The mystery deepens. More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:11:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3819 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3820/Air-Play-in-Beijing#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3820 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3820&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3820/Air-Play-in-Beijing The traffic and the haze are back to normal and now the foreign rocers are back too - an outburst by Bjork and a squeeze on visas kept a lot of people away. French electro rockers Air are first into the fray, coming to Beijing's Yugong Yishan tonight. How the hell can anyone afford the RMB700 you pay at the door to get in – 500 in advance? Local bricklayers and assembly line workers don't earn that in a month. Yugong Yishan didn’t charge anything for the one year birthday of their new venue, when the owners’ friends, the likes of Mickey Zhang and Meiwenti Sound came by to say a fairly electronic happy 'birthday to you.' I'm really keen to see how many people show up. Alternatively, you can have a good night of local rock for RMB30 (EUR3) at D-22 or Dos Kollegas.    More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:56:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3820 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3821/Cafes-As-CD-Distributors-For-China#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3821 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3821&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3821/Cafes-As-CD-Distributors-For-China On a trip through the Balkans and Eastern Europe lately I’ve been impressed by the café culture (and the coffee) – and in Sofia by a sweet little deal between Onda, a local café chain, and world music specialists PutoMayo. Onda’s store on Angel Kanchev, a busy downtown thoroughfare, is hung with the label’s attractive wall hangings and the in-house speakers of course rotate Puto Mayo records. Puto Mayo is a New York-based label which specializes in world music: best selling titles include Arabic Groove and Latin Lounge. Café culture is more rooted in Bulgaria of course than it is in China but the Sculpting in Time chain in Beijing have done this kind of deal with Modern Sky records and it seemed to work really well: the label's CDs are displayed prominently near the till in Sculpting in Time stores.  Starbucks raised eyebrows when it did a distribution deal with artists including Paul McCarthy. That deal in retrospect makes perfect sense. Coffee culture is taking off in China and since the country seems to love the chain-store approach to everything – hence the success of Starbucks, KFC et al for whom China is the number 1 growth market – it would seem logical to distribute CDs through chains like Blenz, Pacific Coffee, homegrown brand UBC, and Starbucks. So what's holding the deals back? PutoMayo in Onda, a cafe in SofiaMore ... Mark Godfrey Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:00:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3821 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3822/Music-China-Trade-Fair-October#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3822 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3822&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3822/Music-China-Trade-Fair-October   On a recent visit back home I was impressed by how many rural Irish businesses are travelling to China to buy or sell wares. Well, there'll be lots more foreign brands and musicians, at Music China, Asia’s leading event for the music products sector will bring together suppliers, distributors, dealers, musicians and artists from all over the world when it takes place from 9 – 12 October at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. 1,100 exhibitors at the show will come from 22 countries and regions, and will include pavilions from Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Taiwan and the UK. Some big name brands are coming to introduce their instruments to the Asian market – they want to sell, not necessarily manufacture here.   Period Piano will display a rare antique Pleyel piano – the kind preferred by Chopin - manufactured in Paris in 1839 and restored to full playing condition after being discovered in an old French chateau. Wealthy Chinese are invited to the company’s pavilioin to make “a sound exactly as Chopin himself would have played.”  German-based Warwick is inviting bassist TM Stevens to their stall to show off their “extremely limited edition’ Streamer LX LTD 2008 bass, a “beautiful and precise” instrument. Warwick will also show the newest version of the Framus Panthera model, the Panthera Classic Custom.   This year there'll be loads more drums at Music China. World-famous cymbal-maker Zildjian will show their new ReZoTM Crash cymbals, part of the Custom series that was developed with the assistance of legendary drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. Zildjian will also invite jazz drummer Bill Stewart to introduce its new cymbals. Another endorsee, the "innovative, cutting-edge" drummer Marco Minnemann will be performing on their stand throughout the show.   Sponsored by Remo, Music China will have a Drum Circle for the first time in 2008, allowing visitors to the show to get involved in music making, even if they’re not musicians. Facilitated by the talented Kumi Masunaga, a professional percussionist and drum tutor, the Drum Circle will take place in the outdoor area outside halls E5 and E6. People sit or stand in a circle and each are given a percussion instrument of some kind. The facilitator leads from the centre of the circle, and improvised rhythms are created; music is made in the moment. It is not a drum class and it is doesn’t follow any cultural-specific rhythms, it is completely free-form. Thus there is no audience – everyone is part of the performance!   Most useful for the export-minded Chinese instrument makers, US-based music trade body NAMM will return to Music China this year after two very successful sessions in 2006 and 2007. Betty Heywood, NAMM’s Director of International Affairs will moderate the sessions, which will include a big issue panels, a Chinese retailer forum and eight general seminars. Topics and speakers include:   “The Impact of Weakening Economies on the Global MI Industry” – panel discussion featuring Huang Weilin of Guangzhou Pearl River Piano, Jon Gold of Fender, Werner Husmann of Steinway & Sons, Joe Lamond of NAMM, Wu Hsieh of KHS, and Cheng Jian Tong of Roland. (In English & Chinese). “Survival and Development – A Closer Look at the Chinese MI Retail Business” – CMIA Retailer Forum, featuring Zhou Baoqing of Changchun Xinwei Piano, Huang Maoqiang of Sichuan Shengyin Music Co., Liu Weiming of Tianmu Music Co., Zhu Wenyu of Bestfriend Music Co., Zeng Zemin of Beijing Hsinghai Piano Group, and Zhou Wenhua of Gibson China. John Lee of Tom Lee Music will talk on the “Challenges and Opportunities for Musical Instrument Business in China Today” while there's another talk - “How to Tap Into the Leisure Market by Creating Musical and Cultural Activities in Your Community”  -by Mo Beiqian of QingdaoHaiyun Musical Instruments    More ... Mark Godfrey Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:28:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3822 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3823/PETA-Protecting-Animal-Rights-In-China#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3823 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3823&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3823/PETA-Protecting-Animal-Rights-In-China Lately, during the 29th Olympic Games, animal rights action group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Asia-Pacific (PETA) went around the city checking out “healthy, humane” restaurant options in china’s capital. Not easy, given that the Chinese brag about eating everything with four legs and its back to the sun, besides tables.” Dog and donkey meat are easily found in Beijing: vast suburban dog markets are often blamed for supplying back street butchers on quieter days. Seeing shivering kittens, puppies and even ducklings for sale on the streetside in Beijing’s commercial areas I know this is not the most animal-friendly country in the world. To show there are better dining options than bull’s testicles (available in many Beijing eateries) PETA selected three city vegetarian restaurants and ranked them gold, silver and bronze. Its number one choice was what it says is China's oldest Buddhist vegetarian restaurant: Godly Vegetarian at No. 58 Qianmen Street, which specializes in dishes like King Kong Huo Fang (stewed mock pork), sweet-and-sour mock ribs and fish, lion's head (mock meatballs) and preserved leafy vegetable steamed stuffed bun. Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant took PETA’s silver ranking: run by Tibetan monks who use only natural organic ingredients to make creatively named dishes such as "hot tears fill the eyes glazed noodles" and "countenance of mercy, words of love stir-fry." Third ranked is Still Thoughts, a newer establishment inside the Meijuan Hotel in an old-town laneway. PETA claims an increasing number of world-class athletes are chucking cholesterol-packed meat and dairy products from their diets including former track-and-field star Carl Lewis, winner of nine Olympic and eight World Championship gold medals. In Beijing to push the organisation’s operations here – it’s not clear if he’s actually managed to open an office - PETA's Jason Baker asks “who needs heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity, which are all linked to meat consumption?” More interesting than the ranking is PETA’s activism in mainland China, which is sensitive to criticism of its animal (not just human) rights standards lest it effect its ambitions to become a regional champion of the clinical trials and cosmetics testing industries: testing new products against nasty things like toxicity. It’s very hard to get anyone in either government or industry to go on the record on this subject this summer. Partly because a new EU law outlawing sales of animal-tested cosmetics coming into force next year will make it very hard for cosmetics made in China (which makes testing on animals compulsory for cosmetics sold in the country) to be marketed in the EU. PETA, which has for some years had a presence in more liberal Hong Kong, has been trying to engage the Chinese government, to at least make conditions at testing labs better. We wish them well, but they’ve got their work cut out for them in China. I’m also looking forward to trying some of Still Thoughts’ spicy mock-pork intestines dry pot and shredded veggie duck pancakes. More ... Mark Godfrey Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:55:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3823 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3824/Vietnam-Agent-Orange-Victims-Go-to-Court#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3824 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3824&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3824/Vietnam-Agent-Orange-Victims-Go-to-Court   I’ve been both touched and engrossed by the interviews I’m doing as time allows lately for the Irish Times, on the continued suffering of millions of Vietnamese who came into contact with Agent Orange during and since the war that finished, more or less, in 1975. These are the civilians and fighters – and their children - who came in contact with the millions of barrels of this nasty dioxin sprayed on Vietnam to burn jungle vegetation and make the flushing out of Vietcong guerillas easier.   In Hanoi the reconciliation between US and Vietnam is complete, judging by the noisy group of adopters clutching Vietnamese babies at the Thang Long water puppet theatre on Dinh Tien Hoang Street. Couples from Florida to Nebraska rock the wiry haired babies to silence while the dragons, frogs and ducks are dragged along the water by puppet masters concealed behind a curtain while musicians play scores on traditional gong drums and reed flutes.   But behind the smiles for American civilians there’s a battle to get US chemicals companies like Dow and Monsanto (which manufactured Agent Orange) to compensate more than 3 million Vietnamese living with the after affects. The local the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) has been a fighting a class action law suit against the chemical companies all this year in American courtrooms: when Judge Jack Weinstein ruled against them in the Brooklyn District Court they went to the Court of Appeals – rejected again – and now place their hopes in a Supreme Court ruling expected in October.   Trouble is time is running out for many of the victims. Certainly for Dang Hong Nhut, who remembers skin rashes and diarrohea when fighting in southeast Vietnam. These were followed by numerous miscarriages in 1973 and 1975 before in 1977 she gave birth to a deformed still-born child. Her husband, also exposed to Agent Orange, died of intestinal cancer in 1999. She’s since then had intestinal and thyroid tumours removed to avoid succumbing to cancer herself.   Locals aren’t the only ones seeking justice. US veterans who were in battlefields sprayed with agent orange now work with VAVA. One of those I talked to, an Irish American veteran called Bernie Duff led a volunteer team in orange t-shirts from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi to raise funds and awareness about the ongoing after-affects of agent orange. Parachuted into Vietnam as a 19 year old soldier, Duff developed skin cancer caused by being under planeloads of dioxin-heavy agent orange.   This year in Quang Binh province he recalls visiting a homestead that lost 12 of 15 family members to the after-effects of Agent Orange. Support has been forthcoming from NGOs worldwide. Veterans from Australia, New Zealand and south Korean – who in Cold War solidarity fought alongside the Americans in Vietnam – are also seeking compensation. The Koreans lately won a case against the chemical companies that made Agent Orange, but its unlikely to be enforced.   American politicians gave into years of veteran activism in 1991 to pass the Agent Orange Act which, while never acknowledging that Agent Orange was responsible for their ailments, ensures that the illnesses are seen as service related and hence covered by veteran healthcare.   But the Act makes it very hard for the children of veterans to be covered. This is very significant since Agent Orange syndrome has tragically manifested itself in the mangled torsos and oversized heads of millions of Vietnamese kids. The only illness covered by US veteran cover is spina bifida. The trouble is it may not manifest itself till much later. Here’s what Duff says: “It has gone on without anyone doing anything for so long that it is way overdue for someone to do something now.”More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:28:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3824 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3825/Rock-Back-in-Beijing-As-Olympics-Close#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3825 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3825&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3825/Rock-Back-in-Beijing-As-Olympics-Close After a month of nothing, Beijing’s live rock music scene is back. Hopefully. Saturday night, August 23, “against many odds” say organisers, several of Beijing’s finest will take the stage at Dos Kolegas for a night titled the ‘Goodbye Summer Blowout.’ Dos Kolegas has been a ghost of its usual self the past month due to a blanket ban on live shows where drink is sold – a police precaution feared such alternative bars and tunes would be a magnet to pesky alternative types prone to protesting. It’s impressive that 2 Kolegas got the go ahead in advance of the Closing Ceremonies but then orgainsers behind the show is the irrepressible Tag Team Records blowout at 2 Kolegas. Bands to play: RandomK(e), Lonely China Day, Arrows Made of Desire, Fire Balloon. Another dynamo behind these gigs is percussionist and promoter Jon Campbell – he’s in both Black Cat Bone and Random K – whose YGTwo Productions brings a lot of gigs to China. There’s two more shows on August 30, one at Mao Live and the other at 2 Kolegas –the latter featuring blues stalwarts Black Cat Bone.More ... Mark Godfrey Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:02:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3825 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3826/The-Perils-of-PR-in-the-Chinese-Press#Comments 0 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=36&ModuleID=728&ArticleID=3826 https://www.cluas.com:443/indie-music/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=3826&PortalID=0&TabID=36 https://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Home/ID/3826/The-Perils-of-PR-in-the-Chinese-Press There’s no end to the number of newspapers and magazines in China I thought while picking up the People’s Railway Daily the other day on the 30 minute new bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing south station. It’s type face and design suggest it’s done as a contract publishing job by the People’s Daily for the country’s railway company, also a giant state-owned operation. The contents were dull: lots about engines, engine oil and soporific speeches by railway management officials. There’s a lifestyle section though and I figured it’d be receptive to some tastily written public relations pieces for Beijing GAA Club (of which I'm media officer): a bunch of foreign men and women playing a funny kind of football in the Chinese capital would make for a nice light hearted lifestyle kind of piece. So back in the office I contacted the editorial department. When we finally ascertained who’d be in charge of the lifestyle pages – there were four journalists with claims to that – I got the distinct impression that what mattered most was not the quality of the words – my Chinese colleague was going to translate that – or the photos, but rather what kind of gift we’d be offering. After humming and hawing on the Chinese side we got to the nub: RMB200 (about EUR20) would get us the coverage, another 100 would get us more space. Now that puts me in a dilemma: pay the cash and get coverage or be moralistic about it. PR companies in China as a rule slip RMB200 to journalists attending press conferences – they call it “travel allowance” and without it you’ll get no journalists (who have also expect a souvenir and a meal from publicity-mad western companies mad for market share here). But by handing over the cash like this you’ll get a bland reproduction of your press release. Chinese newspapers are a boring read because their wordy, flowery articles, devoid of detail or critical analysis have often been paid for. If noone reads the article why bother paying to place one in the first place. Our dilemma was however easily solved: Beijing GAA doesn’t have the money to pay for articles.   More ... Mark Godfrey Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:51:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:3826