chaile 拆了

This month's That's Beijing features a trio of articles about the history and future of Beijing's music scene.

Kaiser Kuo and editor Jerry Chan start with Old School: "The people and players who helped launch a scene."

Once upon a time (and not so long ago) there was no live music scene in Beijing: no smoky live houses, no leather-clad metal boys, no blue-haired punks, not so much as one Filipino cover band. It was Peking Opera, the Yellow River Concerto, the guy in the park with the erhu, or nothing.

Next is an interesting roundtable discussion with musicians, managers, and others involved in the business. Most of the discussion centers on what's wrong with the scene; fingers are pointed at the bands' creativity, fans' unwillingness to pay, and record companies. Wang Yuqi, guitarist for Second Hand Rose, Muma, and Zhang Chu gets it right, I think:

On the difficulties of performing:

I find that there is a lot of live music in Beijing, but there are few good live music events. It's a mess. People who go to watch live music have high hopes for the event, and if it isn't organized well, people will give up watching. Bands shouldn't play music at random. Both bands and their companies should have a plan for the performance - but nobody has a clear idea of what a really good stage performance is. I believe that if you play music well, you'll have a large audience.

I agree. I don't have a stake in the shows here, in any sense; I'm just a fan. But it's hard to evangelize when shows are cancelled or changed without notice (I'm looking at you, Get Lucky), there's little to no promotion, and the lineups are haphazard.

The recurring theme of the conversation is numbers: how can we (those of us that care about the music) get more people interested? Is there any way we can get those kids at the University show to come out to Wuming Gaodi?

Last, Jon Campbell (an awfully nice guy, by the way) writes a follow-up to their selection of 2003's best bands, looking at what Ruins, Second Hand Rose, Long Kuan, and others are up to these days.

All are excellent reads, and the print version has some great photography.

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I'm thrilled that City Weekend is talking about SUBS; they're on of Beijing's best bands, and they have an explosive live show. A huge factor in that is Kang Mao, their ferocious singer.

But come on, couldn't at least one person look at the article first and say, "That's not Kang Mao, that's a Beijing Opera singer"?

For future reference, here's the real Kang Mao:

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Jeremy posted this on Danwei some time ago, but I never linked to it. Cui Jian has an animated video (using flash) for his new song, Mr. Red. It's quite fun. Sort of a cross between South Park and Super Mario.

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Thanks to a helpful pointer from FM3, my Google-fu has improved, and I can tell you a bit more about the tonight's headlining artist:

• CDRK has many recordings.
• CDRK has one mp3/ogg for download from an upcoming album.
• CDRK has a livejournal.

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Something to read on a Thursday night or Friday morning:

• Live Music Lowdown: Paul Kendall writes about the Beijing band Ziyo.
• Gangstalean: That's Beijing editor Jerry Chan's blog about music, iPods, and everything else.
• The Four Represents: Beijing-based Jon Campbell writes about music in Beijing for PopMatters. (via the absolutely essential Danwei)

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