The Austin Tea Syndicate: If you dig through all the tealeaves, local Nathan Davis is inspired by and promotes Taiwan’s independent art scene
After eight years of traversing Asia, Davis brought back tea knowledge, the first Taiwanese band to perform at SXSW and a passion to keep the region’s art and music culture alive
(Austin, TX)- On Saturday, I joined Nathan Davis and eight other Austin locals at the 'Urban Tearoom' to contribute to the progressive dialogue (Click here to view the preview post if you'd like to catch up).
Below- Our group's shoes gathered outside our makeshift tearoom at The Daily Juice in Austin on Sat.
Photo above 'Instagrammed' by Nathan Davis
Above and below-The Daily Juice in Austin, Texas. Temporary home of the 'Urban Tearoom' By Cali Bock
Daily Juice customer candid
Above- Come in, come in. Anyone's welcome in the tearoom at The Daily Juice
Davis generously poured our nine-member group 10-year-old Pu'er, a tea only produced in Yunnan , a province in Southeastern China.
Above and below- Davis steeps the Pu'er tea - click here to define- a third time, effectively drawing out its robust flavor.
It was earthy, steeped correctly, - I didn't know there was such an imperative, at least '3-steep' process to extract the leaves' prime flavor- and I also learned that to get a brick- one pound- of Pu'er imported to America, it'll run you about $1,000.
Read for yourself, Nathan previewed the loot we sampled Saturday on Facebook last week:
After sampling the Pu'er, we discussed its complexity, much like wine.
I grabbed descriptive snippets as the group chatted about and sipped on the expensive leaves:
Above- Yunnan province, Southeastern China, sole home of Pu'er tea - Wikipedia
Most importantly, Davis used tea and also Sufi music to spark our table's intrigue and dialogue concerning the East as we lounged on pillows, laughed, crouched and even meditated.
Below- University of Texas neuroscience graduate student Sucharit Katyal and guest drummer Amlan take a break from playing and singing to enjoy some Oolong tea themselves
Local friends Nick (left) and Elliot (right) analyze the second steep of aged Oolong tea (pictured below)
"It has a slick quality," said Eric, after draining his cup.
Above- Davis peacefully clanged medicine bowls to give us the opportunity to level and ingest what we had learned as well as to meditate.
Above- Austin local Eric listens in quiet meditation as Sucharit sang ancient Indian love songs in his eery, nostalgic timber
"You have stolen my identity, by looking into my eyes.
After drinking the wine of love, you've made me crazy...
intoxicated by looking into your eyes."- 700-year-old Indian love song, performed by Sucharit
As the tea steamed, Sucharit Katyal (pictured above) accompanied himself with his harmonium, and his Radel digi 100, defined below.
"The Taalmala digi100 Plus digital tabla produces an amazingly realistic sound of the traditional tabla by utilizing the latest state-of-the-art sampler technology. It is a sophisticated instrument which not only plays 100 pre-set tabla thekas, but is capable of simulating a 'live accompaniment' effect, so that it can be even used in concerts." - -- Read more
Below- Alam and Davis join in with their drum cadences.
Above- Davis on the Djembe, a rope-tuned, skin-covered drum.
After eight years traversing Asia, Davis said he learned about tea organically as he wandered the streets, pulling up to random tables of elders sipping out of ‘gritty’ tea things. But he also became 'distracted' by a passion that originally, currently drives him to share his Chinese culture knowledge trove today: Taiwan’s fledging music scene.
Davis made history by not only introducing Austin and the United States, but the entire world to KbN -the first Taiwanese band ever- to perform live at
SXSW in 2008.
Snippet from archived article highlighting KbN (May 2008) from the Taipei Times:
Above- Bobo Chen, front left, Cheer Hsieh, front right, of KbN, with backing musicians, back row from left, Bob Moody, Jimmy Brettell, Nathan Davis and sound engineer Remi Huang, in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, May 17, 2008. Photo by Ron Brownlow
“When Cheer Hsieh (謝青翰) and Chet Liu (劉鎮) formed KbN (凱比鳥) in the late 1990s, they were just another group of guys with another punk band. Now, 10 years, several lineup changes and a major musical redirection later, the group made history when they played Saturday night at the Elysium club in Austin,...” – Click here for the full article.
The ‘Urban Teahouse Remix Project’: A work in progress
Davis' passion continues to pour into his current project today, ‘The Urban Teahouse Remix’, an electronic resampling of archival East Asian music with current studio recordings.
I’ll let Nathan Davis take it from here. I asked him to fill the gaps in my notes from Saturday, and he Facebook messaged me with a bit more than gap fillers.
Below is Davis’ story, straight from the tea ninja- in his own words- to you:
Urban Teahouse Remix Project: Resample, reinterpret East Asian music with modern digital tools, but remain true to its melodies, its roots
The project: "It's hard to sum it up in just a few lines, but basically it's been 'brewing' in my mind for quite some time. I've been working on blending many different aspects of Eastern and Western culture; ancient, modern etc.
I realized that in a time where there are so many electronic subgenres of ‘global’ music, there has yet to arise any true ventures into electronic resampling of East Asian music, and I don't mean ‘electronic sounding’ music, but utilizing modern digital tools for sampling and reinterpreting traditional East Asian sounds while remaining true to the essential aspects of its roots: the melodies, rhythms, etc.
Above and below- Davis -on his Djembe - jams Sufi music with Sucharit and Amlan.
'The Taichung Archives': 20-year-old Chinese folk music archives meet the modern studio, resampling
The samples come from what I'm calling 'The Taichung Archives', and they came from my good friend Alex Peng in Taichung, Taiwan. He used to be a well-established music producer in Taipei for radio, television and film before retiring.
We connected over the idea of the remix project because he had a similar vision several decades ago to do something similar in Taiwan.
Peng's vision led him to China, where he collected field samples of indigenous music from villages, and he also conducted studio recordings of traditional Chinese folk and traditional music.
He planned to create his own music from these samples, but just never got around to it.
When we connected, I told him that I wanted to do some studio recording with traditional musicians for the Urban Teahouse Remix Project, and he thought it would be easier just to help me create the project by passing along some samples from his extensive archive that he had already collected more than 20 years ago.
‘Scene’, not heard: Taiwan’s Indie art and music landscapes gain momentum without local, global support
As for the ‘independent arts and music scene’ in Taiwan I wouldn't say that it's nonexistent, just that it's extremely small and not very well supported.
Being from Austin, and having lived in Brighton, England, I was used to having tons of great independent arts, music, and events at my disposal, so I became very inclined to find ways to aid the budding scene in Taiwan.
This led me to bring the first Taiwanese band ever to SXSW in 2008.
The inspiration behind this was to help the independent music scene in Taiwan to grow by connecting with the rest of the world.
"They're basically starting this connection that will turn into something that's much bigger than themselves," said Nathan Davis, a Taipei-based musician who plays with KbN and organized their trip to Austin. "It's much bigger than just one band coming to play a show at South by Southwest."- Taipei Times Article, 2008
"But KbN's participation has added significance because the band is paving the way for other Taiwanese artists to play here in the future. A survey conducted by Austin
Koop Radio Station found the station's listeners want to hear more independent music from Asia. And SXSW organizers are keen on putting together a Taiwanese showcase next year."- Taipei Times Article, 2008
Above- KbN played the Elysium club in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night becoming the first Taiwanese band to perform at the South by Southwest music festival, March 17, 2008. Photo by Ron Brownlow
Shifting back to the ‘Urban Teahouse Remix Project’....
This project left me extremely exhausted because there's still not a lot of support for this scene from within Taiwan.
It's still going to be along time before things really sink in while the artists and society at large in Taiwan gain a true perspective from this and realize its significance on a long-term global scale.
While participating in the underground arts scene in Taiwan I was really longing for a connection with traditional culture, something that the younger generations in Taiwan and Asia are not very interested in anymore.
Most of my Taiwanese artist friends think of traditional music, tea culture and things like Chinese Medicine, Taichi and Qigong to be things for old people.
They would tell me," 你是老人！" (Nǐ shì lǎorén!)
Literally, "You're an old man!" Haha.
Some of my Taiwanese friends even experienced brewing traditional tea for the first time with me. Seriously!!
I'd often be told that my close friends were more American than me, and I was more Taiwanese than them. (Jokingly of course, as for sure this is not literally the case)
So while being involved with the independent arts scene in Taiwan, I was never truly fulfilled by any of it.
A true blend between the ancient and the modern was missing, and this is what I've always truly longed for.
I went there out of an interest in Chinese healing philosophy and ancient wisdom, but working on pop-culture with no depth distracted me.
This is where I draw my inspiration to create movements to bridge Eastern and Western culture.
The idea is not only to draw upon ancient wisdom to inspire modern progressive culture in the West, but also to re-inspire the youth in the East to rediscover their own past & truly embrace the culture from which they come as they continue on their path as a modern society.
Here's an article that details my first experiments in ‘Sound Art’ while in Asia....
Click here for full article, Sound Art: Like Music to Your Ears
"Davis - who has also played with KbN and visiting musicians like Austin, Texas and world music group Atash- will do an acoustic set using a Djembe hand drum and, possibly, a drum kit and/or some 'random objects.' He will improvise on the drums and run the beats through his Macbook Pro laptop computer. It's hard to describe exactly what this will sound like without using abstract words like 'textural,' 'dynamic' and 'Minimalist'."
"I guess it's [Sound Art's] like a lot of things," said Davis, who sat down for an interview Wednesday night at Salt Peanuts Cafe in the Shida (師大) neighborhood, where he deejays on Friday nights. "You probably really like it or you really don't."
"'I'm going to basically sample myself live,' said Davis, who performs under the name (Sounds) In Transition. "Most people who didn't know what it was would probably use the word 'weird' to describe it.'"
"So what is the uninitiated listener supposed to do?"
"'As lame and cliched as it sounds, I guess just experience this,' said Davis."- article
As far as timing and release of the Urban Teahouse Remix Project...
I'd love to say ideally it would be done in a few months, and it will be accompanied by some sort of evolving multimedia and interpretive live performance projects but in reality, I can't say for sure at this point.
I'd just say.... keep an eye out for it. ;{D
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