Beijing band the Gar (Maybe Mars) have added a (rather disturbing) video to their tune 2 Mothers.
Great little track (we mean little in the best possible sense – it only runs 2 minutes 35). Watch for yourself
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Uagh, can you say Pearl Jam’s Do The Evolution
I think it’s a great video.
Pat, I wish you were at the Maybe Mars press conference last week where Mike Pettis gave an eloquent bitchslap to everyone who always mindlessly parrots “West v. China” comparison.
It’s a logical fallacy, he said. A disingenuous argument, considering no one smears British rock musicians for sounding “too American” or Japanese punk bands for ripping off their New York counterparts.
Brit pop/rock and Japanese punk have all been able to add in their own unique characteristic on top of their influences. on top of NY punk, Japan have been able to add in a sense of wackiness, strangeness, or craziness. That’s something NY punk was lacking. Bands like the boredom or OOIOO had been able to take their influence and add in something that is completely influenced by their surrounding and indicative of where they come from. Japan indie prides itself for being the ultra cute, ultra wacky, or the ultra crazy.
Same with Brit pop, compared to American pop, very very rarely would a British band will sound “American”, it is because Brit pop had been able to add in a sense of sleekness that is indicative of their environment (if you compare to what’s trendy in Britain right now, say, Florence and Machines, to what’s trendy in US right now, say, the volcano choir, VERY different) . I mean even with bands like Teenage Fanclub, which purposely sings in American accent, and whose later work is very influenced by American pop, they’ve been able to add in elements from their surrounding (EG: Songs from Northern Britain).
The same can be said about Canadian indie (ie: folk influenced, lumberjack music)
Which brings me to: where’s the element of surrounding in Chinese indie, where the part where the musician takes elements from where they come from. It is fine if you take influences from American music, but where’s that “extra” on top of it, something that’s “China”, that American music can’t do
I mean, everything is influenced by everything, everything takes from everything these days. of course I understand that. There havn’t been anything new since the Beatles
Chinese bands do add their own influences to the pot of rock and roll, which is global urban music.
If you can’t pick up on that, then you haven’t been paying attention. I guess that’s all I have to say, considering I’ve had this conversation countless times.
As an aside, I’m currently listening to the new Muscle Snog record “Mind Shop.”
It’s brilliant. Highly recommended to everyone. And they even cover the Beatles
a day in life is a weird song. i prefer their live album which released ed in 2007.
you know what, consider how closely I follow Chinese indie, much more closely than people out of China or outside of the Chinese indie scene, I’d say if I can’t pick up on “global urban music” then those people can’t pick it up either, so, have fun staying in your little cult of appriciation
@Pat: You leave nothing but negative comments on this board that offer very little insight and add nothing valuable to the dialogue about China’s music scene.
If you really have an ax to grind with Chinese bands, do it somewhere else, because the people frequenting this board aren’t likely to be influenced by your constant diatribes.
@Jeremy: Where can I pick up that live album? Is it still in print?
Video has been moved, by the way.
http://www.maybemars.org/videos/gar-final.mov
The same kinds of morons say the same things every time a new art scene emerges and never seem to worry that they always get it wrong. That’s the problem with knowing nothing of history. In the 1980s, the Japanses music scene, which Pat suddenly discovers is so Japanese, was heavily criticized and ridficuled for being so pathetically Western and not Japanese at all. In the 1960s the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were deried in the British press for merely playing American music, ratheer than creating an English music. In both cases it turns out the musicians were creating a new music based on American influences but the critics were too stupid to see it. The same is true today. In ten years, while the Pats of the world are busily disparaging the Vietnamese or whatever pioneers are then around they will be pointing knowingly to how the Chinese got it right.
Pete, every interesting scene was built by people who got it early and supported it like crazy. Every good scene also had to shrug off the whiners like Pat who were always too clever by half and too clueless to get it. I don’t believe all the stuff Pettis says about the importance of the Beijing scene, although I am a lot less skeptical now than I was one or two years ago, and I am sometimes annoyed by his in-your-face smarter-than-you thing, but I readily admit that if Beijing turns out in retrospect to have been a real center of new music, it will be thanks mainly to guys like him, who are always the first to defend the musicians and to give them bigger platforms. The whiners have always been a problem but never a really important one.
You know what, I’m allowed to criticize my own country’s music scene , what my OWN country’s musicians are doing. I say these things out of love, and frustration, with the hope that if I am being straight forward and point out the pink elephants in the room, people will at least recognize the existence of the pink elephant and we can fix it. The day I’m told I should speak my mind somewhere else, where? I’m in my own country speaking about the music in my country. Are you in your own country or speaking about the music in your country? I know this is kind of a cheap shot but the government in China can easily say the same thing to you “your little indie mumble jumble is not welcomed in China, you should take it somewhere else”. So, thanks for that.
Good luck writing in your English blog hoping that you’ll reach kids in China, the fact is if I go and speak to 20 kids in Chinese and get them into a band they’ve never heard of before, I’ve influenced 20 more kids than your “reports” written in English ever will. I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with kids who are into indie music on douban and the feeling is definately “the expats do their own things, and we do ours”. I’m not talking about the Chinese musician and regular scencesters you guys regularly hang out with of course, I’m talking about regular kids that shows interested in expanding their musical horizon, people you ultimately hope to get to but you won’t, cause you’re hanging out with the same old same old in your little circle thinking that you’re saving the world
As for the 1980′s Japanese music scene, at the time it was ridiculed , but also at the time it didn’t right away gain following outside Japan either, like it is now. As now Japanese indie is VERY Japan, as I stated, it took it’s time to develop into something great. So what, I’m not allow to point out the flaws as it is developing? I’m not allowed to say that a video is a copy of pearl jam’s video even though it is?
To the those of you who were so pathetically insulted by Pat’s comments;
I suggest you revisist the basic ideology of music CRITICISM. There. I said it. And in big capital letters: CRITICISM. Why does this word have to be percieved as such a negative entity? In the world of the arts, the word “criticism” assumes a role which is entirely different from its commonly associated connotation.
One of the fundamental principles of music criticism: Never state whether a piece is good or bad. Simply state what a piece IS.
This is precisely what Pat was attempting to do. In fact, he wasn’t quite referring to the music. For the most part, he was merely identifying a similarity in the VIDEO production of both pieces. Both pieces use a filming technique in which a virtually static drawing is given additional movement using dynamic frames. Pat was not trying to insinuate that one production infringed upon the intellectual property of another, nor was he trying to spark a debate on whether artistic cultures have the right to draw upon techniques developed in foreign countries. He was merely stating an OBJECTIVE FACT. For all the derogatory opinions which were directed at both parties, the one thing that cannot be denied is that both productions use the same filming technique. THAT, my friends, is where a true “critic” will direct their attention.
When highlighting the objective details of a piece of art, one is often said to be “critiquing” it. This approach is often misinterpreted as a cold, insentive attack on the original artist. But do not forget, a critic of the arts does not state whether a piece is good OR bad, a critic simply states what a piece IS. Naturally, there will be disagreements, however the true source of this particular disagreement was lost upon overly subjective commentary and personal vendettas. And I must admit, Pat is equally guilty in this regard. It is a shame the misunderstanding concerning his original comments sparked a debate which offered no focus toward the musical and cinematic details of the present productions.