Andy Best’s increasingly on-the-button blog drew us this morning to a little handbags among a couple of members of China’s tiny alternative music scene. We won’t go into the whys and wherefores, but you can read Andy’s analysis here. The Shanghaiist article has since been taken down, probably because it smacked of supposition based on rage.
The gist can still be picked up by the article on City Weekend which reads thus:
Last weekend we were lucky enough to catch both of Regurgitator’s shows, and while both were a lot of fun with good turnouts from expats there was a proportionately small number of Chinese. Which left us wondering….why didn’t New Pants, a Beijing band with huge local followings, tour with Regurgitator?
Regurgitator gave New Pants a massive break by bringing them to Australia to open on their ‘Blood and Spunk’ tour, an honor many Australian bands would have killed for. You would think that the band would be happy to return the favor. This seems not to be the case, with New Pants only opening at one Beijing show. New Pants might be working on a new record but that is a poor excuse for leaving Regurgitator without tour support that would have opened them up to a much larger local audience.
New Pants might think they are the cat’s meow but in reality they more closely resemble the byproducts of the orifice at the other end.
There is also another post by the same guy in the upcoming section of City Weekend, which is equally uncomplimentary:
Nov. 22nd
New Pants….actually after the diss they laid on Regurgitator we don’t recommend checking out these dusche bags unless you plan on throwing rotten tomatoes at the f*ckers.
This is one of the problems with our new blogging culture. Information gets around quickly (a good thing) but there is a lack of supervision and accountability (although the author does put his name to the Shanghaiist article). This often means that news is supplanted by gossip and very quickly, things can spiral out of control.
Had either of the articles been backed up by 3rd party quotes (for example from a record label or better the bands themselves), then it would have been fairer game. As it stands, it is just one person’s opinion and should be left as such.