The Yaogun Diaries, part 5

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Milk@Coffee

Moving even farther astray from the punkish side of Chinese rock, we find this band, known sometimes by the Chinese version of their name, 牛奶@咖啡 (niúnǎi kāfēi) with the @ often not pronounced. I suppose you could say they’re not a rock band at all (see below for their own take on the question), but I have a pretty broad definition of rock. To pick a Western genre for them, I would probably choose “indie pop” but I don’t regard anything including the word “indie” as an actual genre. They are basically the duo of Fu Yan (富妍), known as Kiki, singing and 格非 (Ge Fei) on keyboards, guitar, programming, and so on. In a live setting other players are added to fill out the sound.

Their first album was called 燃烧吧！小宇宙 (ránshāo ba! xiǎo yǔzhòu), officially translated as Burn! My Cosmos, and came out in 2005.
I really enjoy this happy music, which reminds me of some of the Japanese bands I like. Here’s a track for you to get the idea.

“Lasia”

This song, called “Lasia” actually garnered them some success in China, apparently hitting #3 on some kind of chart (I can’t find documentation of this, just a reference on Baidu).

There’s also a fun video for the title track of the album:

The first time I saw them live was at the Beijing Pop Festival in September of 2007. You can read my original post here.
By the end of the set, they had a whole bunch of extra people on the stage dancing and singing the chorus of a song that wasn’t on the CD; even then I knew enough Chinese to make out the title “Wo bushi rock ‘n’ roll” which means “I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll” – ironic since it was the most rock oriented tune they played.
The next time I saw them live was in a much more controlled setting, MAO Livehouse, in July of 2008 as part of a “girls’ night” featuring all female-led performances. While I didn’t write a review of the show, I did post some pictures. Here’s another one:
I found myself grinning like an idiot pretty much throughout their set. Kiki is so charismatic, cheerful, and cute you would have to be a real grouch to dislike her. There was a charming bit where she brought out a sequined top hat and a sparkly cane to do a little dance. The hat later ended up on the guitarist.

I even took some video of their final number.

Later in 2008 they released their second album, which has the happy title of 越长大越孤单, More Grown up, More Lonely.
When I got it, I was very happy to see it had the song I remembered from their festival performance. 我不是 Rock ‘n’ Roll (I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll).

“I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll”

About the same time as the CD came out I saw them again, this time at the Modern Sky Festival. Again, they got only a few photos instead of a full review.
It was a really fun performance, what with the pirate hat and bubble machines and all, and the crowd was so big I couldn’t get anywhere near the stage. This was by far the biggest stage I’ve seen them on, and they had a great time. The backing band was a little different, featuring a female keyboard player to fill in while Ge Fei concentrated on guitar.

In addition to their own CD releases, Milk@Coffee was involved in an interesting little project put together by Modern Sky Records: a CD for children called 星猫 (xīng māo Star Cat).
I hope this project is successful – it will be great to have a generation of kids exposed to music other than sappy pop.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Milk@Coffee

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

Beijing rock scrapbook, volume 3

Here's another installment in my series of photos from live music shows in Beijing. These are all from Day 3 of the Modern Sky Festival, 2 October 2008. Two of the bands I saw, 33 Dao and Cold Fairyland, warrant posts of their own, so this one is a grab-bag of the other bands.

Wu Zhuoling
Note the camera guy on stage right in the face of a performer. He did this all day, sometimes standing directly in front of the person. I have a bunch of pictures where he was blocking my view. In addition to playing guitar and singing, she also played kalimba and harmonica.

The Linga

Carsick CarsThe Cars played on the mainstage outdoors, and I couldn't get very close.
Milk@Coffee
Pirate hats: always in fashion.
When they turn on the bubble machine, you know you're having fun.

Ourself Beside Me
But when the bubbles come on for a band like this one, you have to wonder.
OBM played a really short set. Milk@Coffee ran over time, so they started late, but even so they finished early. I've heard they hate to be photographed, so maybe they were mad about the camera guy being in their faces all the time.
Still, their version of "Interstellar Overdrive" was cool. I wonder how many people in the audience knew it was a Pink Floyd tune.

Beijing rock scrapbook, volume 1

There are quite a few more local music shows I’ve been to that I don’t have time to write full reviews of, so I’ll just present some of the best photos.

2008.06.21 D-22

Arrows Made of Desire
Linga (林伽)
Lonely China Day (寂寞夏日)

2008.06.27 2 Kolegas

Easygoing (?)
Nuclear (?)
Buyi (布衣)
Unknown

2008.07.05 MAO Livehouse

Mimi Liang
Dong Jiajia (董佳佳)
Shuangchengji (双橙纪)
PLQQ (漂亮亲戚)
Milk@Coffee (牛奶@咖啡)
More to come!

Beijing Pop Festival day two

I had hoped to see Hedgehog, but once again I was slow getting started, so I missed all of their 11am set except the last tune. When they vacated the main stage, I went over to the second stage. When I got there, something called “Play the Hits” was going on. As far as I could make out, it was a contest between bands. Each act played two songs, one of which always seemed to be Green Day’s “Wake Me up When September Ends.” The winner was Happy Monkey, and I also saw a bit of The Reason. As I was walking up, I’m pretty sure I heard a female singer, but I don’t know what band that might have been.
I hung around the second stage for Milk@Coffee, who were really good, in spite of a little technical difficulty. They play a kind of bouncy, lush, pop-rock style, and started out their set as a two-piece: the female singer and a keyboard player with a laptop, which handled the programmed bass, drums and backing vocals, plus some guitar. In the middle of one song, the keyboard player got so animated in his playing that he knocked the laptop over and the backing music cut out. While they were straightening that out, a real drummer and bass player came out. They finished their set as a full band. I particularly remember a great tune called “Wo bushi rock ‘n’ roll.”
Next I headed over to the main stage for Brain Failure.
They were surprisingly good, reminded me of the Clash with a bit of Green Day thrown in.
Thin Man was up next, and didn’t really do much for me. They were loud and jumped around a lot, but nothing grabbed me.
Ra:IN was a huge disappointment. This all-instrumental Japanese band started out their set with a big pounding-riff tune that had the climactic feel of a closing song, including the big cliché rock ending and much dramatic posing. Then they played another song that was essentially the same with a slightly different riff. It’s as if you took all the stock moves of rock showmanship and strung them together without bothering about the tedious music part of it. They could just as well have been an air band.
Marky Ramone started the big evening portion of the program with what was basically a Ramones tribute band. I knew this was what to expect, but it was still kind of lame. The lead singer, whom I called Wolfgang Ramone because of his heavy accent, had the look of a real Ramone, but his voice just wasn’t right for the songs. But it’s hard to avoid being sucked in by these catchy, stupid songs. The crowd was loving it for the most part, with much jumping around and singing along. I saw a slight altercation between some fans climbing up on the security fence and the uniformed security guards. The fans in question were not Chinese. Things over on that side of the stage apparently kept escalating, and we saw a couple of fans carried away by the guards. These fans were Chinese.
Cui Jian was up next. I’ve got several of his albums, and generally like them. it seems that although he hasn’t had any hit albums in China in a long time, he still stands as the only real icon of Chinese rock (he’s often called the Springsteen of China, but I wouldn’t press that comparison too far). During the setup, I was encouraged to see both a drum kit and a large percussion platform that included a large traditional drum and a big gong. Once the show started, I definitely was not disappointed. The percussion really made the show, with the big drum providing impressive thunderous beats. I recognized several of the songs, and the larger part of the 10,000+ in attendance were singing along.

And for the festival’s big finale, we had Nine Inch Nails. The change of stage took quite a while – we had heard that NIN brought something like 15 tons of equipment, and we could see that they brought their entire road crew. (Incidentally, this means that almost certainly the band chose to spend their own money to appear here, since the festival could not possibly have paid for them to bring all that.) Those of us who have seen big production, high-tech rock shows could tell we were in for a treat; I expect a lot of the local attendees, while they seemed to be familiar with the band’s music (I saw lots of T-shirts), probably had no idea what they were in for. I’m not a huge fan of the band, but I’ve seen them before (when they toured with David Bowie), and knew that they can be entertaining. I was not disappointed. First of all, it was incredibly loud, but very clean sound with noticeable stereo separation, which is amazing for an outdoor setting. The light show started out all stark white lights flashing more or less randomly in rapid succession, not at all following the movements of the musicians, just a barrage of flashes and shadows. Eventually, there were blues and greens added in, and finally the reds and oranges showed up a little later.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the show came a little past halfway. The stage went dark for a long time, and there were strange electronic noises from the stage. I could see that parts of the light rigging had moved. Then suddenly at stage level there were three green pillars like some kind of electronic display, and Trent Reznor, the guitarist, and the keyboardist stood in front of them with laptop computers on stands. Pardon me for not remembering what song it was, but the effect was pretty darn cool. There was a curtain of LED lights behind them. For the next song, the LEDs suddenly burst into blinding white light, with the musicians silhouetted against them. Nice!

They played for an hour and a half or so, and by the end I was pretty much numb and exhausted. And in desperate need of a restroom! It was impossible to get a taxi outside the park, so I ended up walking almost halfway home before finding one. All in all, quite a weekend, and I still haven’t caught up on my sleep four days later.

And again, I finish with some random shots from throughout the day.