Hot off the heels of their successful US tour, Beijing based label Maybe Mars is sending 2 of its finest to Austin, TX for the iconic SXSW festival. PK14 and Carsick Cars will be making a pilgrimage to Texas next March to further push their right to stand side by side with the rest of the world’s up-and-coming musicians.
Check out the first 200 bands announced HERE.
Sweet! (and thanks to Jake for the heads up!)
We might actually have another SXSW announcement coming up very soon!
I saw that. Good for them, and am waiting to see which other Chinese bands pop up on the list.
Too bad the MM crew didn’t stick around NYC for another few weeks.
Pitchfork just announced that the remaining members of Velvet Underground will appear at the New York Public Library to discuss the band on Dec 8.
That would been like, ten thousand Chinese New Year mornings for those guys.
PK14 might have a chance, Carsick cars I don’t know man. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he’s not interested in Chinese indie but he knew his music so he follows carsick cars. when we talk about Chinese indie he’s like “oh right, Carsick cars (as now Carsick car is like the representation of Chinese indie now), man they’re awful, it’s so freakin fragmented, like the drum would be playing like a salsa beat and the guitar would be doing a rock song”
and I had nothing to come back with, I tend to agree, they’re not really a “listenable” band, they’re more like a “let’s not know how to play guitar but we’ll act snobby and hipster-ish so as to people don’t know we don’t know how to write songs” kind of band
Pat, I would have to say you and your friend’s opinions are a minority. I just watched Carsick Cars play over twelve shows across the east coast of the US and people flipped out for the music. They are really on a role right now, and if Shou Wang’s guitar skills go over your head, you might want want to go back to the drawing board. This past Sunday he also played solo at the closing concert for Performa 09 in the West Village and easily topped the other distinguished experimental performers on hand.
yeah whatever, “flipping out”, “blow your mind”….. so you say … my cousin Jimmy’s reggae band can blow your mind too, I just watched them playing in some dude’s basement and people were flipping out over their music. Jimmy’s guitar playing skill go over your head, you might want to go back to the drawing board…
I’ll believe it when I see a crowd in the US follow their career and support them, and live by their music without the over-hype and he-say-she-say
also I’m not talking about guitar playing skills, they’re literately not capable of writing a song, like verse-chorus, arrangement, structure…everything is 3 chords doodles (and I know everyone thinks Sonic Youth is like that but Sonic Youth’s expert on play on song structures).
Pat, I think what’s missing here is the fact that, hype or not, if you rely on other people to tell you how you should like your music, or how you should appreciate certain type of music by some arbitrary industry standards, then you’ll probably be better off with listening to market-proven acts than some bands like Carsick Cars, which frankly, when you look at them, are still just kids trying to find their own musical language.
@Pat: Dude, if you wanna see a decent Chinese band turning heads, take a look at Voodoo Kungfu. They should do a US tour man…
Maybe Chinese kids don’t want to rock, have you think about that, I mean there’s all these pushes of “rock in China”, rebelionism! punk! ….
and all we get is these kids imitating what they think is cool in the West.
I’ve heard a lot of really hopeful little gems from bedroom singer/song writers who post their little acoustic songs on douban. I mean these speaks to me more sincerely than Carsick car does. Or these artists whom used to play in punk bands, and now they’re all switching to electronica, and are making one-man music playing with drum machines and keyboards …. these are more interesting to me.
I mean I know it’s sort of an obvious choice, but who decided that indie music in China we’re pushing have to be “punk” or “rock”, Sweden have pure sugar pop, Japanese indie are the super cute or the super crazy …. I mean we let them be, where’s the organic aspect here …
@Pat: Check out Voodoo Kungfu, you will like them, they are different in more than one way…
The Voodoo Kungfu gig at MAO in December should be sweet.
@Pete: You will love them! With the words of Kaiser Kuo: These guys give me nightmares!
Something that might be of interest – Hong Kong’s annual “Music Matters” conference is having their own version of SXSW during the event. Hopefully this will be another viable outlets for indie bands since (usually) many major music executives are in attendance while hopefully attending the concerts – if they are not busy with the other beautiful delights that are always at these kind of events and in Hong Kong?!?!