Category Archives: western media

Creators Project Beijing lineup revealed

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Every fall, hordes of unwashed hipsters descend upon one of Beijing’s most venerable contemporary arts institutions for a weekend of beer- and whiskey-soaked revelry. Yes, we are talking about the one and only, Vice-curated Creators Project. They’ve just announced the preliminary schedule of the 2012 edition, and if we weren’t too busy scowling, judging, and keeping up appearances, we might be a little bit excited to see that James Murphy (the artist formally known as LCD Soundsystem) will be spinning a DJ set.

Joining him on the music side will be Real Estate, The Chromatics, CNdY, Duck Fight Goose and FM3. There will be art and design exhibits from Chris Milk, SuperUber, Vega Zaishi Wang, B6, Yang Yongliang and more. Intel and SocialPrint Studio will be manning a giant Instagram wall. Ever since setting up shop in Beijing prior to the first Creators Project in 2010, the Vice empire has steadily expanded its presence and radar on China youth, with Creators and music-discovery platform Noisey its two pillars. After a large injection of cash from new investors in early 2012, the Vice Media empire is poised to become a major player in the fight for attention from the young, hip Chinese consumer.

Duck Fight Goose at SxSW

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So, there were lots of Chinese bands at SxSW last week. Most seemed to think it somewhat of a pain

PANGBIANR:

In general the festival was a shitshow, such a grind, more work than passion. The more successful American bands sit smug on their rotting thrones while we just keep our noses to the grindstone and do what we do.

BRAD FERGUSON (harder to pick up, but self deprecating in the extreme)

[DAY2] Reactions were good from the few people who showed up for our set — mostly other bands who would play later in the day… [DAY4] The stage was set up in the parking lot, and there were only a couple of people there, but the band played well and we had a nice mid-afternoon lunch…

Still, Josh from Pangbianr has subsequently said that there were some good potential opportunities that might come out of it for the Chinese bands, but it definitely rings true with most of the things we’ve read about this year’s Sx. Overbranded, overdone and overpriced.

If you have access to Youtube, here is a video of one of DFG’s showcases. Enjoy:

Vice x Intel x Dell = Noisey

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In a follow up (or is it an addition – we don’t really know) to the Creators Project and Motherboard, Vice and their two main partners Intel and Dell have come up with Noisey, a music discovery platform. Featuring 2 bands from Beijing already (Birdstriking and 24 Hours), Noisey is about to launch officially with a party this weekend in, you guessed it, Beijing.

Noisey = Vice x Intel x Dell, Beijing launch

On a global basis, we are seeing more of these publisher, brand, editorial connections – immediately the Dazed and Swatch: Satellite Voices springs to mind. They definitely look good and serve a purpose. The only concern we would have is that significant and loyal fan bases take time to amass, and brand horizons don’t always tend to be that long. However, Vice in particular have done a good job in creating these long partnerships, which become stronger as time goes on. Get your ticket for the show by emailing beijing@noisey.com. You get PK14, Hedgehog and Offset: Spectacles for free – what could be better than that?

MIDI Festival

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Over at Beijing Daze, there is a small amount of doubt lingering over MIDI Festival 2011. Certainly we’ve heard a couple of reports that the sensitive spring that we are having might be putting spanners in the various MIDI works (and those of Strawberry too, truth be told). Of course, there were issues with nationalistic Japanese flag burning last October, something that the NY Times somewhat sensationally covered. We predicted this coverage might have repercussions, literally

Music Festivals in China are in no way a fait accompli – just because the government has been involved increasingly in the last couple of years, a single missive from the centre could put paid to festivals entirely. The first page of the article basically highlights every single anti authoritarian element of Midi in particular and seems to be excessively sensationalist. It strikes us that coverage like this might be a double edged sword for China’s festival industry.

In these Jazzy Mine times, perhaps the risks of backfire are just too great.

Fingers and toes crossed that the authorities don’t mess with the Beijing festivals again. Cancellations play havoc with the reputation of Chinese festivals both domestically and internationally.

Adam Wilkes (re)joins AEG

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Ten years is a long time in the music industry. A decade is almost unimaginable as a foreigner in China’s forbidding musical landscape. Adam Wilkes can point to being one of the only, if not the only Westerner to have done this kind of time here in China’s live music arena, and he has an impressive CV.

From hip-hop impresario pushing forward the talents of Andrew Ballen at Club Pegasus, to senior VP of AEG Live responsible for Asia, where he will be in charge of creating a viable Asian touring circuit for AEG’s roster of live entertainment, Adam has been intimately involved with almost every big company this site has admired from afar: a founding partner in China West (James Brown, Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce), Emma Entertainment (Linkin Park), Ticketmaster (Linkin Park #2, Celine Dion) and most recently 8th Round (the recent NBA game, Usher) he brings the maximum amount of big live event experience to AEG Live, who in our humble opinion are lucky to have him.

The Chinese promoter’s take on things

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Hans Ebert, HK based music industry stalwart and, let’s face it, the very definition of music industry cynicism, this morning produced a hypothetical conversation between a Chinese promoter and a Western artist. This is part of a longer article entitled “Swimming upstream and the Chinese music market“.

Our (possibly oversimplified) viewpoint is that Mr. Ebert views China’s music market (and most of the rest of the world’s music industry) with the jaded eye of the older school of industry executives, but he raises some interesting points on his blog and this is perhaps the best passage that we have read to date.

For the record, we have significantly more faith in the ability of the music industry to reinvent itself for a new generation, although we do realize that the old paradigm is long gone, and that whatever model emerges with be substantially smaller in monetary terms that what went before, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So without further ado:

What can you do for my artist?

Well, we can do all the marketing, the distribution, concerts, online marketing, sponsorship…

Great! How much can we hope to make?

Well, China is a huge market and there are more internet and mobile phone users here than anywhere…

Yes, so how does this work from a financial point of view?

Well, the key is promotion and we work with all the biggest media partners- China Mobile, Tencent, Baidu…

How much do they charge per download?

Well, this is all promotion, so first we start with streaming so consumers can get to know your new act…

I see…

We know China because we live here and we know all the key players. We use our superstar acts and give these to the media partners so they can in turn then promote the new artists- like your new artist.

Okay, but how long does this promotional period last? Do you do anything else?

Well, sponsorship, we know all the big sponsors.

Would they, however, want my artist? Do you have special sponsorship marketing people?

We have a big staff and offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangxhou and Hunan…

Okay, but how do you present a new artist to sponsors?

We know all the main media and we get all the new artists interviewed with the radio stations, MTV, Channel [V]…

So, where is the money? Concerts?

Yes, concerts are very big. Last week one of our artists sold out 40 concerts in 4 minutes.

Wow! Incredible!

Yes, this is now our focus- concerts- and also getting our artists to make movies!

But what about my artist? She’s still learning Mandarin. Can she tour any campuses?

What is camp?

No, campuses- you know, high-schools, universities..

Oh, yah, many internet users go to university and we will market to them…this is very good promotion.

Will you pay to bring my artist over to tour?

Er, we will look for a sponsor and make this a big promotional tour.

How much will they pay the artist?

No, no, this is promotion, so the sponsor will pay for all the flights and accommodation.

And what will be your commitment?

Promotion, marketing, we will promote your artist to the media…

:-)

Dylan

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We were quite quick on the uptake, announcing Dylan had plans to tour the region HERE.

However, we seem to have missed the fallout.  The Beijinger has done an excellent investigative job on the proposed tour, and you can read all about it HERE.

According to Sun MengJin, one of the foremost Western music champions here in China, Broker Bros were trying to mark up the Dylan shows by 60%.  Dylan’s Western agent was looking for US$250k a show, BBH were trying to onsell the shows for US$400k a pop.  According to the Beijinger’s translation of Mr. Sun

I mean, how money-driven can you be? Don’t they know about the international standard of maximum 15% for agent fees? 400,000 dollars for the 8,000 seated Shanghai Grand Stage, it’s impossible to make the money back by selling tickets. Those people are whistling ‘blowing in the wind’ while their black hearted money are also blowing with the shit out of their ass. FYI, there will be a day when Dylan is too old to sing.”

BBH have denied the claims and blamed the Shanghai Culture Bureau, who seem to get it in the neck every time there is a problem.

And this time, it’s Mojo

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More Western “analysis” of the local scene in China, this time courtesy of Mojo.

You can read it for yourself HERE.

Not many insights in there for those of us living in China, but of course, there is the ubiquitous “Beijing is the next hot thing”.  Perhaps it is, but for us, last weekend certainly didn’t feel like it.  100 people for Yufeimen’s CD launch at the Star Live and perhaps 200 people at the Queen Sea Big Shark, Casino Demon, new “Hedgehog” lite.  For all the sub zero temperatures, this points more to there being a REALLY long way to go….

As a postscript, we would like to RIP Hedgehog, who sadly are no more.  The bassist recently departed and now guitarist and drummer are taking on another guise.  A shame, as Hedgehog were one of the more promising bands from the Capital.

The Western Media and China

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The Western Media doesn’t need much of an invitation to comment on the burgeoning Chinese creative classes.  We have entertained in depth studies from all kinds of media – Rolling Stone, the Guardian, the New York Times, DJ Magazine, Wallpaper, Dazed and Confused, the list goes on and on.  However, this obsession has now reached new levels, with venerable institution Time Magazine devoting 2 pages to China’s experimental music scene.  You can read the article in full here.

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