China Digital Times

China news tagged with: punk (10)

• Weekly Popcast: P.K. 14 and Carsick Cars

  

  During their visit to New York, members of Carsick Cars and PK14 talked to Ben Sisario of the New York Times for the weekly Popcast. Listen here (the recording first has an interview with Wale; the China interviews start after about five minutes).

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  • November 13, 2009 2:16 PM

• TimeOut New York: Carsick Cars + P.K.14

  

  With several Beijing bands on the Maybe Mars label about to begin a U.S. tour, the Chinese punk scene is getting a lot of press. Time Out New York tells New Yorkers what to expect when PK14 and Carsick Cars play in Brooklyn tomorrow:

  While this is not the first time Chinese bands have played New York, heightened awareness of Beijing’s scene means this is the first time bands from the Middle Kingdom are arriving with expectations, which makes this trip a potentially landmark event for a scene courting international respect. “Chinese musicians are certainly much more confident about the quality of their own scene than they have ever been,” says Maybe Mars founder Michael Pettis, a former New Yorker who also teaches economics at Beijing University. “For most of our musicians, New York is the center of the world.”

  Already, the three-year-old label and its flagship live venue, D-22, have attracted ink in numerous international publications. While much of the initial attention stemmed from Western interest in China’s counterculture, the caliber of musicianship and the experimental nature of these Beijing bands prompted some writers to admiringly liken the scene to that of downtown New York during the late ’70s and early ’80s. “China has no rock legacy that dictated the past and shaped the present,” Leijonhufvud says. “The kids are making their own sounds, and some really have an innovational knack for writing and performing without stigmas.”

  Read more about Carsick Cars and PK14 via CDT.

  Here’s Carsick Cars performing in Hong Kong:
  

  And PK14:
  

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  • November 4, 2009 9:48 PM

• Video: Beijing Punk

  

  A new documentary Beijing Punks by Australian filmmaker Shaun Jefford follows the underground music movement, which has also been documented recently by photographer Matthew Niederhauser. A trailer for the film:

  And a longer clip:
  

  And an interview with Jefford on SPIN Earth, in which he says, “Beijing remains for me the land of great music, kindred spirits and unspeakable hangovers”:

  How did you go about choosing the bands and music scene experts interviewed in the film?

  A Punk in China? Not the first association you make so a lot of it was me charmed by the punks and them laughing at me laughing at them. But what really cemented the friendship, I think, is that I am a writer and I am a lyric person. I chose bands whose lyrics I was interested in and who said things that rang true to my sense of truth. And there is a lot of strident truth being sung in Beijing, let me tell you.

  Demerit particularly is saying some heavy things, positive but heavy, punk and deep. The lead singer Spike has a hard core opinion in a police state. Songs like “Fight your Apathy”, “Voice of the People” and particularly “Live or Die” really make you think; “would I be singing this song and putting this CD out in China?” That takes brass balls. I really dig that Spike and Demerit are living the punk life and not just wearing it.

  More information and clips about the film can be seen on the Beijing Punk site.

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  • November 2, 2009 9:57 PM

• Interview with Matthew Niederhauser

  

  China Music Radar interviews Matthew Niederhauser, whose photography book Sound Kapital documents Beijing’s alternative rock scene:

  [AH]: … My issue with the Western media is this idea that they take something, and if it’s hot and exciting, they’ll blow it out of all proportion. People are now expecting Beijing to be this melting pot of dynamicity and creativity. That concerns me, because these bands are still working their asses off to live up to this hype.

  [MN]: That was also one of the things I’ve witnessed firsthand over the past two years. Seeing big sponsors get behind these bands, the international media attention. One of the things that drew me to this music in the first place is a sort of humbleness. They weren’t in a Brooklyn scene in New York that sucks. In some way it’s weird cause it’s a little bit early, especially looking at these younger bands playing college nights at D22 and other places. They still have to cut their chops for the next three or four years – I feel like they’re expecting some hype because they’re in Beijing and they’re in a band. Quite frankly, to sustain the Beijing music scene over the next few years there is going to have to be some new bands that step it up. I don’t think it’s gotten to the point where everything is being recycled, but it’s been reaching a zenith for a while.

  [AH]: For years and years in this tiny scene there was no money, no hype. There was none of this current posturing, “we’re worth this”. For me, it doesn’t seem that the Chinese public has developed a love for the bands as quickly as the bands have developed a love for themselves.

  [MN]: That’s the big thing that we’re going to see in the long run – the potential power in the Chinese scene is unlocking that domestic audience and acceptance.

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  • October 27, 2009 9:29 PM

• China’s Underground Punks

  

  The Economist’s More Intelligent Life blog looks at punk rock, Beijing style and a new book of photos of the movement’s major players, Sound Kapital: Beijing’s Music Underground (Powerhouse Books):

  Just as the 100 Club and CBGB fostered punk movements in London and New York City, Beijing’s D-22 nightclub serves as the epicentre for its burgeoning alternative music scene. Michael Pettis, a Peking University professor who was once a fixture in New York’s East Village, founded the dive bar three years ago. Though the idea of an “underground scene” is often associated with punk, D-22’s small stage hosts a variety of acts, from glam rock to experimental electronic, classic rock ‘n’ roll and Mongolian folk music. Many bands have hard-rocking frontwomen in the vein of Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; some sing in both Chinese and English. All eschew the country’s mainstream affection for saccharine pop.

  “Sound Kapital: Beijing’s Music Underground” captures the scene in a collection of band portraits culled from thousands of photos taken in D-22’s basement over two years. The style, humour and energy of these subjects are both authentic and familiar. These kids have quite a bit to rebel against.

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  • October 20, 2009 2:22 PM

• Hanggai: Chinese Punk Looks To The Past

  

  NPR profiles singer Ilchi, a former punk rocker who has returned to his Inner Mongolian roots and traditional folk music:

  The otherworldly sound of throat singing echoes through a small Beijing cafe. Singer Ilchi is producing two sounds at the same time. Just 28, he’s already undergone a musical odyssey. Once the leader of the punk band T9, he raged in profanity-laden songs about the frustration of modern life. But his direction changed, and he now serves as one of the leading forces pushing a folk-music revival.

  “I felt we modern people need to understand more about our past,” Ilchi says.

  For Ilchi, that means a pilgrimage into his own past. An ethnic Mongolian, he was born in Inner Mongolia, which is part of China. But he moved with his family to Beijing at the age of 12. Three years ago, on a journey of musical self-exploration, he returned to Inner Mongolia. There, he learned the traditional art of throat singing, and searched for old folk songs in danger of being lost. He started to write his own music for his band Hanggai, including a song about his tobshuur, a two-stringed Mongolian banjo.

  Watch a Hanggai Promo Video:
  

  And footage from the Shetland Folk Festival 2008:
  

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  • November 11, 2008 10:00 PM

• No Such Thing as ‘Made in China’

  

  In the Guardian, Alice Xin Liu writes about the universality of youth culture and says its existence in China should no longer have shock value for visitors:

  Public displays of affection can be awkward. Snogging lesbian teenagers on the Beijing subway may be something one wants to take a photo of and put on a social network site for the world to see. But the reality is you see this kind of thing in any big city in the world. Does the fact that this happened in Beijing make it more shocking, because of the conservatism and strict social control in China? Such a view is what gives Beijing its “gawk factor”, which basically means that a westerner in China, especially the parachute tourists, will take a sight like this and stare more than on the streets of, say, Berlin. But when will Beijing lose its “gawk factor”?

  First time visitors from the west, if they decide to attend a rock concert in Beijing, Shanghai or Wuhan, may have a similar reaction, lavishing it with praise such as, “This is wonderful, for China!”, “I thought the communist regime, the autocracy and the repression couldn’t produce rock or punk!” or, “This is amazing and they’re singing about Zhongnanhai!”

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  • October 10, 2008 12:01 PM

• Liberated Punks Accelerate China’s Musical Evolution

  

  Wired interviews the maker of a new documentary about the Chinese punk scene:

  From Pigface and Ministry to PiL and Killing Joke, drummer Martin Atkins has pounded the skins for some very loud punks. But he didn’t realize that China’s underground sound would throw him into a time machine and dial it back to the ’70s and ’80s, when bands were pushing the envelope on conventional rock and not really caring how you felt about it.

  Atkins shot 80 hours of video from his 2006 trip into Asia’s 21st century powerhouse, and chopped it down into the recently released documentary Sixteen Days in China. Listening Post caught up with him to talk about China’s greatest bands you’ve never heard and more.

  Watch a trailer for the film:

  » Read more
  • September 14, 2008 9:32 PM

• Song: She Lost Faith by PK14

  

  

  The last time I saw PK14 in Beijing was the summer of 2006 before I came to Berkeley. I was chatting with the band’s singer, Yang Haisong (杨海崧), in front of the bar Two Good Friends (两个好朋友酒吧) at the auto cinema on Xiaoyun Road. Haisong wore his old pair of black-rimmed glasses and sat on a chair, looking relaxed. I told him I was moving to Berkeley. His eyes narrowed and smiled behind his glasses, and he said, “I like UCLA and I want to go there someday.” Then I noticed he was actually in a T-shirt with the characters for UCLA. I forgot if he mentioned Bob Dylan or not when explaining why he likes UCLA. That is the way he is, often keeping low-key, a bit shy in public and not trying to convince anyone.

  His band, PK14’s music is different from other rock bands. There is passion mixed with a bit of intellectual politeness and cleanliness. Other bands’ music is more vibrating, loud and trying to create a kind of blast. Interestingly, Haisong is perhaps the Chinese rock singer in Beijing who speaks the best English, but his band never writes or sings their songs in English, while others like to use Chinglish or mix English with Chinese in their songs. Maybe it’s because Haisong is from Nanjing, a modest historical town. I don’t know his other band members that well. Drummer Jonathan is from Sweden, one of few foreigners playing in a Beijing-based band. The whole band plays so well together, making themselves one of the top rock and roll bands in Beijing. Almost all their songs and music sound really great so far. They are also one of the few Chinese bands to have played in Northern Europe. My favorite is their album White Paper (白皮书). Today we’ll listen to a song, She Lost Faith, from their old album”Who, who, who…” The lyrics of the song are interesting, reminding me of the classic question: Do Chinese people have faith? Music from Lost.fm, Lyrics from Modernsky.com. Click the button to listen: