Archie Hamilton, MD of Split Works (Shanghai and Beijing based concert promoters) gets a full page in the UK’s Telegraph. Expounding on the difficulties of growing a music industry in such a new territory, it’s worth a quick skim.
Check out the full article HERE, and check out Archie speaking in person at TEDxShanghai this weekend at the DCC. Split Works are bringing Jeff Lang and Xiao He to TEDx to provide challenging conversation through music. Good times.
[disclaimer: Split Works manage the China Music Radar site]
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Posted in Chinese Bands, Music Industry discussion, Western Bands, china music, split works, yue festival
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Tagged archie hamilton, britain, jeff lang, split works, ted, tedxshanghai, telegraph, xiao he
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Lantern, the Beijing based venue by the indefatigable Acupuncture crew, has gone the way of White Rabbit. Both Lantern and the second incarnation of White Rabbit opened around the same time in the same block of Sanlitun, hoping to attract some of the late night party people in that late night party area. Unfortunately, as with much of late night China, people are looking more for a drink and some company rather than the quality of music on offer. As a result, punters would often baulk at paying entry and go somewhere else.
This was not, however, the root of the problem. Apparently, a neighboring KTV has muscled in and appropriated the space. Acupuncture will continue doing events and shows at House, the new lounge concept of Mix Club.
Let’s hope the new Tresor venue (slated to open soon in Beijing) fares better than these two. More on that soon…
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Vice has a sister agency Virtue that scored a very serious and global campaign for Intel. The campaign uses a combination of Vice’s “creator” network and Virtue’s agency capabilities: this is a very zeitgeist way of advertising in this brave new world.
7 countries were targeted, and “creators” from each were interviewed. The resulting video segments can be found at the Creators’ Project online HQ. It’s a great idea and a lovely way for the brand to show off their product as the integral part of pretty much all creative processes these days. Branding is relatively light, with the point is to get people watching the videos with Intel receiving a halo effect from the Creator cool factor.
There have been cool, hipster parties all over the world as part of the project. The final, and biggest one of these has been reserved for Beijing – there will be a 3 day festival of art and music in the 798 creative space. However, aside from THIS coverage of a press conference, nothing has been confirmed, and the official website remains empty regarding details of this event – somewhat worrying with 18 days to go. Currently, the only artists certain to perform are the usual crop of Chinese bands (the same ones that will be playing at 700 other festivals across the October holiday period). There will be art from various high profile visual artists and “plans” to invite several international bands, but some more meat on the bone is needed before Intel see serious value from their investment here in China…
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Posted in Chinese Bands, Chinese Youth, brands
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Tagged 798, art, Beijing, China, creative, creators project, intel, meng jinhui, mira calyx, music, uva, vice
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We are sitting in the sweltering Manila heat watching jeepneys fly by and nursing a brutal 10 day hangover. 13 shows, 7 countries, 3 weeks. It was a marathon undertaking, but a step in the right direction. We will be posting video and photos when we sort through the 34GB of shoddy, handheld footage.
Back to our Shanghai desk tomorrow morning. Posting will return to something close to normal….
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Posting lite again. We are heading off on tour.
We are making a video tour diary for Sohu and for Canadian Music Week, so we will be sharing this with you as we travel.
Kisses
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Yesterday, the Chinese government declared that tomorrow, Sunday, would be a national day of mourning. All entertainment events (and if the last few days of mourning are anything to go by, all entertainment) have been cancelled. We have an event tomorrow. Fortunately it is not one of our own and is being paid for by someone else. Unfortunately, the event has to be cancelled, resulting in committed money being lost.
I understand, and commend the fact that the Chinese government is encouraging its citizens to spare thoughts and time for the victims of all the recent natural disasters, particularly the flooding in West China. We genuinely hope that the national day of mourning will draw attention to the plights of those affected and will raise money and charitable donations of food and shelter for the most needy.
But the cancellation of our event got us to thinking – what if we had had a big, self funded festival on this weekend? What if we had pledged multi-million RMB to putting on a two day event and flown in artists, committed sponsors and suppliers etc. to the cause. Well, we would have had to say goodbye to that money, in the process putting our company out of business. I wonder if the Chinese government is compensating any businesses like ours for losses incurred due to cancellation tomorrow. We imagine not.
In a country of huge population and geographical extremes, natural disasters will continue to wreak havoc on a regular basis. There will be many more days of mourning then, putting businesses at risk continuously. Are we being harsh, selfish? Or does the lack of flexibility in these announcements (why did they only give us 48 hours notice??) cause the business community serious harm? Perhaps rather than causing businesses to lose money, it would be better to have a national day of giving, asking businesses to contribute money to the various charitable causes.
Nobody said private business in this country was easy…..
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For those of you hoping to see the Concretes and Little Dragon in Hangzhou this weekend at the Big Love Festival, don’t hurry down. It’s officially postponed (most likely cancelled). It was being organized by the same people as inMusic, so it might be a fierce case of fatigue after that fest 2 weeks ago.
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The inMusic festival has suffered over it’s short life span from many of the teething problems that music festivals have to endure. In this article (HERE), ex-Beijinger music editor Wang Ge tells his story of tour managing veteran UK rock band Killing Joke to the Mongolian grasslands and back. It’s a bit funny and a bit tragic, quite honestly.
at about 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, the British concert veterans put on a kick-ass show in the paralyzing cold for a 500-strong die-hard Chinese crowd
It’s been seven hours on the road, during which time I’ve listened to endless complaints, … The driver got lost, we sat through a major traffic jam at a tollgate, drove forever across the grasslands, slithered through a bog where we almost had to get out and push, and heard Coleman ask “HOW MUCH LONGER?” 11 times
A rule that we learned a long time ago – don’t try touring China on older, established bands unless they REALLY want to come, and even then, it’s a risk. The best line from the article was from one of the band members:
“It’s like the Czech Republic when it first came out of Communism,” Neven said to me while we were waiting at the hotel. “Everybody wants to do everything, but nobody knows how to do it. It’s a learning process.”
When applied to Chinese music festivals, never truer words spoken…
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Posted in China Music Festivals, International Artists, china music, government, live music
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Tagged inmusic festival, international bands, killing joke, live music, tour china, touring, zhangbei
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Jon Campbell is a stalwart of China’s music scene. He is writing a book about Rock in China. It will be published by the good people at Earnshaw Books. First draft is nearly complete according to Jon, so expect to see it adorning the shelves of on-and-offline bookshops by the end of the year. Anyway, we had heard from a few band friends that they were playing across the summer in Zhenjiang at a Midi organized series of events in the town square.
We knew that Jon had taken some bands there, so we asked him for a few words. He gave us a few thousand and here it is in all its glory…
Continue reading →
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Posted in China Music Festivals, Chinese Bands, government, sponsorship
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Tagged Beijing, black cat bone, government, hifi xijindu, jon campbell, midi music festival, music festival, sponsor, ygtwo, zhenjiang
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OK, so in the last week, there have been a slew of comments on our “Show of Lies” post way back in January. There are only two commenters, but they are certainly sticking the boot in.
Show of Peace is an initiative by the “social entrepreneur” Rick Garson. We were hugely skeptical when it was first announced and even more skeptical when Garson himself confirmed Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas for the event at a press conference. LG and the BEP’s subsequently confirmed there were no such confirmations.
The postponed date (October 10) is fast approaching and there have been no updates to the official site. However, the commenters have drawn attention to a new producer, Jacqueline Beaudette. Said commenter is less than complimentary about Jacqueline, but sure enough, her Facebook profile features a picture of the Show of Peace logo.
We suspect this one will run and run.
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