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.

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.

[Culture Bureau]: Nevin Domer

When I first moved to Beijing in 2009, I was eager to get plugged in to the local music scene. It took about thirty seconds for me to be pointed in the direction of Nevin Domer, who was then the booking manager at legendary venue D-22 and COO at local indie label Maybe Mars. Nevin was my spirit guide for my first year in Beijing, when I was working a real job. Afterwards he became sort of my boss, when I took over booking duties for him at D-22. Not long thereafter, he launched Genjing Records, his vinyl-only passion project, which has a ton of events coming up in the next few weeks. I’d write more in this intro but I am literally maxing out the total number of characters I can input into this box. This interview is really, really long. Grab a six pack:

Death And Rebirth Of A Beijing Livehouse - A Talk With Josh Feola

Mandarin folk artist and bandleader/guitarist for Beijing rock band Amazing Insurance Salesmen Zhang Si’an (aka Jean Sebastien Hery) sat down with Josh Feola for MusicDish*China. From D-22’s death to its rebirth as XP, his online platform Pangbianr and views on the evolving Beijing scene, Josh illustrates how despite his short stay thus far in Beijing, he’s carved an important role building its local music industry.

MP3 Monday: Huan Qing

Good afternoon. That AQI high enough for you? Nothing better to do right now than stay at home, don a mask, burn some incense, close your eyes, and pretend you’re in rustic Yunnan, where the air is always often clean and the dope grows wild.

Today we visit long-time Dali resident Huan Qing, a veteran Chinese ethnic folk explorer and — to keep last week’s fire burning — pioneer of an original strain of experimental electronic music.

[Culture Bureau]: Kaiser Kuo

Late last year I sat down with Baidu International Communications Director/Sinica podcast co-founder/pioneering Beijing longhair Kaiser Kuo for what turned out to be a very long conversation about life and music in the capital, and how it’s all evolved over the last few decades. Read on to learn about Kaiser’s views on the history, the good, the bad, and the “aesthetically very ugly” components of our beloved/often quite frustrating music scene.

…And by long conversation, I mean loooooong conversation. You might have to take a few runs at this one. Fair warning.

100 Flowers: Introduction
The genesis of underground Chinese music, 1986-1999

This is the beginning. The man in the video above is Cui Jian (pr. tsway jyen), ‘Old Cui,’ the axeman said to have single-handedly created Chinese rock ‘n’ roll. As China’s political climate thawed in the economic opening of the post-Mao 1980s, its government slowly warmed to the possibility of adapting homegrown pop music to the task of normalizing Chinese culture internationally.

100 Flowers: Yan Jun
The godfather of Chinese experimental music

“To speak of ‘experimentation’ in China means to discuss it literally: Every single person in the entire country experiments daily and tries out new things. This is particularly true of the last decade. In pre-Olympic Beijing any street, building, restaurant, store, company or regulation could be transformed or even disappear at any given moment. The Nike advertising slogan ‘Everything Is Possible’ reflects the spirit of these times.”

So writes Yan Jun, the de facto godfather of Chinese experimental music.

Interview: Chui Wan

The four-piece experimental rock group, Chui Wan, has earned quite the reputation in the past years for their exotic, funky, psychedelic, borderline-schizophrenic music. Before their show this weekend opening for Snapline, I was able to ask their members - Yan Yulong (vocals/guitar/keyboard), Liu Xinyu (guitar), Wu Qiong (bass/vocals) and Josh Feola (drums), a few questions to get a better sense of what exactly is going on in their heads’. 

Snapline - “She” / “Part of Solution”

The Beijing trio Snapline formed in 2005, when they were studying science and engineering at the city’s most elite universities. They initially grouped themselves with Carsick Cars, The Gar, and White into the “No Beijing” movement, cribbing the influential New York no-wave LP title for a 2CD compilation and short tour that year. While their peers went on to buff the most abrasive elements of their sound into more or less palatable forms of noise rock and post-punk, Snapline earned a reputation for uncompromising, often alienating live shows. Their 2007 debut, Party Is Over, Pornostar, showcases a brazen mix of minor-chord melodies, industrial fuzz waves, motorik drum machine propulsion and percussive guitar shreds, all backgrounded by vocalist Chen Xi’s surreal lyrics ontologically probing the bleak postmodern Beijing landscape.

Sally Can’t Dance: Inside China’s Blossoming Music Underground

There’s something brewing in Beijing’s underground music venues. For the past two decades, the country’s music scene has been sprouting experimental, DIY, and indie roots, giving form to an avant-garde music scene that is continuously producing interesting, avant-garde work that, while still mostly underground, is doing much to introduce genre-bending, risk-taking techniques into the country’s musical output.

And while they still have much work to do in order to make the scene sustainable, they’ve got their sights set on exporting their sound out West. One of the major supporters of the music development is Chinese experimental music festival Sally Can’t Dance, which took place in Beijing this past weekend, and is one of the only music festivals showcasing the experimental music scene on a national scale. Founded in 2008, the 2012 edition of the two-day festival was curated by Josh Feola, the founder of Beijing indie music platform Pangbianr, and Zhu Wenbo, organizer of Zoomin’ Night, an influential weekly Beijing showcase.

The Creators Project chatted with Josh Feola about his experience curating this year’s festival, and how he envisions the future of the experimental music scene in China.