#smart beijing

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[alternativechina-blog]

Interview: Han Han, Duck Fight Goose

Duck Fight Goose, Shanghai's most established rock band, is drifting. A major phase ended when their longtime drummer Da Men and her husband Brad Ferguson, the band's former manager/live sound technician, moved to Austin, TX at the end of 2012. Since then, the core trio of guitarist Panda, bassist San San, and vocalist/guitar/synth fiddler Han Han has pivoted, moving more toward electronic sounds and integrating the by comparison jazzier rhythms of new drummer Jean Baptiste. The reconstituted Duck Fight Goose has played out a bit — they came to Beijing three times last year — but their first major trial starts this Friday at Yugong Yishan with the kickoff of the transcontinental China Drifting Festival. I talked to band leader Han Han about the lineup change, bringing Chinese rock abroad, "hard sci-fi," and how Shanghai is like a disintegrating tape loop:

[alternativechina-blog]

[Culture Bureau]: Zhang Shouwang

Zhang Shouwang, the soft-spoken leader of Beijing indie scene linchpins Carsick Cars and White+, doesn't need much of an introduction for anyone who's been half-seriously following the Chinese music scene at any point over the last seven years. His sunglassed visage — an homage to one of his heroes, Andy Warhol — has been in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, not to mention virtually every Chinese publication covering the rise of this country's emerging generation of cosmopolitan, middle-class youth and its new (sub)cultural elite. If you do want an introduction, though, this is probably your best bet. In fine Culture Bureau fashion, we start from the beginning. The following is cobbled together from two separate interviews, one done at a Gulou cafe in late 2011, the other last Sunday in Carsick Cars's practice room, where they were gearing up for Friday's album release show. 

[alternativechina-blog]

MP3 Monday: 14 for '14

MP3 Monday is a weekly SmartBeijing column, serving up MP3s from bands living and making music in China (or coming to China, or thinking about coming to China, or whatever). 

[alternativechina-blog]

[Culture Bureau]: Yang Haisong, PK14

The word "legend" easily attaches itself to any Beijing musician who manages to stay relevant for over a decade, but it's not the best word to describe Yang Haisong. The PK14 vocalist's famous stage energy is transparent and real. He's not some sunglasses-at-night, aloof stage siren. He doesn't exist in mythic space. He's a bedrock, a touchstone. As his own band has grown more and more popular, he's kept his energy steadfastly focused on tilling the soil, keeping the underground vital. PK14 has undoubtedly been canonized in the pantheon of Chinese Indie greats, but Haisong's personal influence runs much deeper than his band's. As a producer, he has worked tirelessly as a hands-on mentor to dozens of fledgling musicians from all over the country. As a musician, he's continually diversified his range, simultaneously writing, recording, producing, and touring multiple side and solo projects. As a person, he's grounded, humble, pragmatic, and patient. PK14 hits their next milestone in September, when they release 1984, their sixth studio album, and spread it far and wide on a 30+ city tour. The official Beijing release show isn't until October, but you can catch a more intimate glimpse of the new material next Tuesday at XP.  The following interview was conducted in two parts. I sat down with Haisong in November 2011 to nail down all the historical details and get the scoop on his then-new band After Argument and label, Share In Obstacles. He's kept going full speed since then, so I sat down with him the other day to catch up on his staggering output as a musician and producer over the last year and a half. Here's Yang Haisong on the Culture Bureau:

[alternativechina-blog]

MP3 Monday: Ben Ben

Today we take a look at Ben Ben, one of Beijing's more intriguing indie rock ciphers. Originally from Taiwan, Ben Ben represents this persistent phenomenon in which a musician moves to Beijing for its perceived musical manna, its mythical underground community, then quickly gets pretty disillusioned with the whole thing, then comes back because fuck it, it's really the only solid option. Actually most people who get burnt out on the music grind here just drop out entirely, but Ben Ben's kept at it. After three years of ping-ponging between Taipei and Beijing, writing songs and finding the right people to play them live and on record, she finally releases her latest, Sacrifice Mountain Hills, on Friday at Mao Livehouse. Here's a quick look at how she got to this point.

[alternativechina-blog]

MP3 Monday: Festival Dark Horses

So the big thing on the agenda for this forthcoming long weekend, of course, is the Music Festival. Two music festivals, actually. MIDI (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) and Strawberry battle it out from April 29-May 1, both sporting lineups heavily emphasizing local rock, punk, metal, folk, and electronic names that, at first glance, seem far too familiar to even the casual Beijing music watcher. But let's get real for a minute. You're not at the festival to see Hedgehog orSubs or Nova Heart again. Maybe you are, but that's secondary to just having a lark outdoors with your friends, smuggling warm Tsingtao's into a public park and laying on some grass while the sound waves roll over you. That said, here are a few lesser known entrants to this year's festival fray. A few dark horses, one of which literally sings about horses. Take the time out to patronize the side stages/early time slots to check out a few of the bands that might be headlining the future MIDIs and Strawberries.

[alternativechina-blog]

Rock and Mortar: Gulou's Indie Music Record Shop

For such a musically diverse city, there's a shocking lack of good record stores in Beijing. I mean the old-fashioned kind, where you can walk into a physical space and exchange paper currency for an object that contains songs. To be sure, if you stroll down Nanluoguxiang or Gulou Dong Dajie you'll enouncter no shortage of carbon copied, closet-sized CD shops populated by a certain breed of mop-headed youth trying to sling the same few disks to the emerging domestic hipster set. But if you make it all the way to the Drum Tower, you'll find a small brick and mortar operation propped up on its southwest corner that's a cut above the rest.