The CLUAS Archive: 1998 - 2011

18

The Other China Music Blogs

Mark Godfrey posted on December 18, 2008 08:39

Venture capital is pouring nicely into China’s music scene. See Chinese ringtones specialists Hurray earlier this year spending US$3 million on a 61% stake in Taiwan's Seed Music Group Limited. But will those big deals stop, now that pension funds won’t be so easy to hand cash over to the VCs? The man who knows a lot about these things, Ed Peto runs events managers Red T Music and writes a fine blog, OutIndustry.

Heck, in researching this blog I've gotten bogged down in the other blogs out there on the China music scene. I like both http://www.music2dot0.com/ and China Music Radar. There are others out there too, mostly started by foreigners living in China. The best English-language blog written by a local Chinese fan - and likely the best of all the blogs on Chinese rock, Rock In China.

I've come to the conclusion that they're all snazzier looking than Beijing Beat but that many of them, especially the expat-authored blogs, seem to blur out after a few fantastic entries and then go silent for a few weeks, then a few months. I'll have to meet some of the folks behind these. More on the VC later: I'm meeting Modern Sky next week.


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17

Rocking Dalian

Mark Godfrey posted on December 17, 2008 18:54

I’m in Dalian to

Queen Sea big shark, lovely pace with Where Are all the passengers until we suddenly move up a serious change of gear and tempo. My new favourite China sound is the The Guai, listened to at Yugong Yishan the other night. I’ve been looking for them online.

Black Cat Bone
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16

A Community Theatre For China's Rockers

Mark Godfrey posted on December 16, 2008 09:19
I was wondering where the Glamorous Pharmacy CD release party was. Now I know: The band, famous in China for its its theatrical stage moves, played their new tunes for an audience of intimates at the Penghao Theatre is a badly needed café theatre on Dongmianhua Hutong, just off the Nanluoguxiang bar strip. A courtyard, roofed, adjacent to a comfortable café-restaurant, the Penghao was also a perfect venue for I heart Shakespeare, a selection of the Bard’s words peformed by expat and local amateur actors.
To avoid being knocked over by car or man since the Naluoguxiang area’s been invaded by retro shops and camera swaying tourists I don’t go down that way anymore: hwo this place changed in 2 years – which is probably why I didn’t see the theatre. All the state media attention in China tends to go to huge vanity projects like the egg shaped National Theatre near Tienanmen Square, designed by French architect Paul Andreu.
Nearly every city has one of these outsized but infrequently used cultural venues, or is copying one of the famous theatres of the world (knock-offs of the Sydney Opera House abound in China’s interior cities). Not a lot happens at these places as government cash tends to be reserved for state-run troupes the likes of which did the Olympic Games opening ceremony. These state-paid performers are rarely fountains of fresh new theatrical ideas. Which is all the more reason why the country needs the like of the Penghao.

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15

Interview with New Amusement

Niamh Madden posted on December 15, 2008 08:44
A quick Q&A session with Dublin band New Amusement Who or what has been the biggest influence on New Amusement's sound? Well when we started Brian and I were obsessed with At the Dri...

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15

Why Filipino Bar Bands Rule in China

Mark Godfrey posted on December 15, 2008 07:25

I understand why Filipino musicians are so in demand as minstrels for hire in hotels and bars around China. International hotels like them because Chinese audiences and western musicians don’t always gel well: Chinese performers, I've seen are usually shy in front of expatriate audiences, who in turn often don’t know if they're supposed to boo a bad performance and usually can't communicate with performers they like.

Those thoughts were confirmed for me during a chat with Alvaro Rottenberg, general manager of the Kempinski in Shenyang, an auto-making city in China’s north. Rottenberg hires a Filipino band to entertain a mostly Chinese clientele at the hotel Paulaner-themed bar. Another Filipino band plays five sets a night in an Irish-themed bar at the Holiday Inn down the road in this BMW-making town, which freezes to -25C on December nights.

Bar bands from the tropical Philippines - also staples in Dubai hotels - look Asian, speak English and understand what westerners like to hear. In China they’re also usually able to sing a bunch of Chinese songs that sound passable enough to please Chinese customers. Why not Chinese musicians? Because they don’t have enough of an English-language repertoire, says Rottenberg. Filipinos by comparison are often praised as human jukeboxes, capable of switching from Green Day to Glen Campbell, as the clientele requires. Granted they've usually got the words filed away in plastic-sheet binders, which they flip through as the night and the requests progress.

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15

Jaff of the Futureheads

Sig Doherty posted on December 15, 2008 03:40
Jaff of the Futureheads
The Futureheads bass player on life post-major label... Sig Doherty recently caught up with Jaff, the bass wielding heartbeat of English post punkster’s the Futureheads midway through their ...

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14

Sound Waves: Albums of 2008 & Year End Review

Rev Jules posted on December 14, 2008 19:00

Title: Black Ice

Artist: AC/DC

Essential Track: Rock 'n' Roll Train

 

Title: The Seldom Seen Kid

Artist: Elbow

Essential Track: Grounds for Divorce

 

Title: Viva la Vida

Artist: Coldplay

Essential Track: Strawberry Swing

 

Title: Pacific Ocean Blue

Artist: Dennis Wilson

Essential Track: River Song

 

Title: Oracular Spectacular

Artist: MGMT

Essential Track: Kids

 

Title: Everything that Happens will Happen Today

Artist: David Byrne / Brian Eno

Essential Track: One Fine Day

 

In other business...

Music Highlight of 2008: Glen Hansard's Oscar Win for 'Falling Slowly'

Music Lowlight of 2008 (tie): X Factor releasing 'Hallelujah' / Sigur Ros' latest album

Music TV Highlight of 2008 #1: FUR TV

Music TV Highlight of 2008 #2: Jay - Z at Glastonbury

Music TV Lowlight of 2008 #1: Zhang Yimou's choice and use of music in the opening & closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

Music Surprise of 2008 #1: 'Chinese Democracy' wasn't the dog everyone predicted it would be

Music Surprise of 2008 #2: Fleet Foxes are not as good as everybody claims

The Sound Waves 'Rumour of the Year': That surfers either want to buy or have the cash to buy holiday homes, as if !

The Sound Waves 'Culture Trend of the Year': i-Pod Envy 3.0, if you don't have an i-Phone, you are nobody, apparently.

The Sound Waves 'Mystery of 2008'; How did McDonalds know we were going back to 1981 in their adverts?

 

 

 

 

 


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14

China: A Pirate's Market Again?

Mark Godfrey posted on December 14, 2008 07:22
There’s a lot of talk about fakes being back on China’s streets because of the global economic slump. I’m not so sure. First of all, the economic slow down isn’t so apparent in China, which has a lot more growing to do. It may be more to do with Mp3s and the fact that gadget-friendly Chinese, who never really got used to tapes or CDs in the way that music geeks spend hours poring through the content in a Dublin or a New York music shop. China has had pirates and stores of counterfeit product for as long as it has had CDs and DVDs. And now that its easier for local music fans to load up for free from the Internet, they’re not even bothering to pay RMB10 – a euro – for the pirated CDs they used to buy. I got to thinking about this the other night when pedaling home through the Sanlitun bar area. In 2003 on most street corners here there was plenty of pirated product to be had by itinerant salesmen setting up shop atop a cardboard box. They’ve all disappeared, as have the characters who beat a nightly circuit of local bars with suitcases of RMB5 (EUR0.50) CDs and RMB7 (EUR0.70) DVDs – for economy and easier carrying packed in soft plastic packaging rather than the elaborate casings you get in local shops – which also sell counterfeits. The latter have survived, though in lesser numbers and some, like my local audiovisual store, sell genuine product now. Open till 11 every night, the store is located right opposite a police station, so the owners are obviously law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.

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12

Carly Sings, Paris swoons

Aidan Curran posted on December 12, 2008 18:00

Like selling the proverbial sand to the proverbial Arabs, Carly Sings (below right) has released her album of Paris-flavoured pop in France. 'The Glove Thief' is available on import in FNAC, the country's biggest chain of record stores. (They also sell books, computers and other home entertainment stuff.)

Carly SingsThe first big review for 'The Glove Thief' came in this week's issue of top-selling music and culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles. Though their reviews don't carry ratings à la CLUAS, Les Inrocks are clearly intrigued by Carly and impressed by her album.

Intrigued, because the reviewer calls her "une fluette" (a slight, fragile person), a pretty Irishwoman with a sexy accent and a crystalline voice. (We won't dispute that.) Impressed, because the final verdict is that 'The Glove Thief' is "un écrin précieux propre à embaumer l'âme pour au moins quelques semaines" - "a precious jewellery box to soothe the soul for at least a few weeks" (our translation).

Why not read the review in French and correct us on our translations? Or, perhaps lessfun but more soothing to the soul, listen to some tunes from Carly Sings' MySpace page and watch the video for 'Apple Tree':


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12

Tony Christie 'Made in Sheffield'

Anthony Morrissey posted on December 12, 2008 09:48
Tony Christie 'Made in Sheffield'
A review of Tony Christie's album 'Made in Sheffield' Review Snapshot: Medallion man steps out of comfort zone, and covers the Arctic Monkeys. "Made in Sheffield " is uneasy ...

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Nuggets from our archive

2004 - The CLUAS Reviews of Erin McKeown's album 'Grand'. There was the positive review of the album (by Cormac Looney) and the entertainingly negative review (by Jules Jackson). These two reviews being the finest manifestations of what became affectionately known, around these parts at least, as the 'McKeown wars'.