Tag Archives: Converse

Weekend links and video roundup

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For your reading pleasure…

Damon Krukowski (Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi) Weighs In on the Great Streaming Music Debate:

Writing in Pitchfork, Damon Krukowski gives a thoughtful analysis of why he believes “Pandora and Spotify are divorced from music.” In response, blogger Shi Lei wrote a response on his website directly addressing Krukowski’s concerns. Both articles are smart, well-articulated and definitely worth a read, however they use Spotify and Pandora as their only examples (no Chinese equivalents). No matter how many pay-to-play services debut in China, suffice to say any given model (1Ting, 360buy, Wa3) is still far away from the consumer bases of Spotify, Pandora or Xiami.

Beijing Band Residence A Featured on Al-Jazeera

Beijing indie darlings and Radar favorites Residence A are gathering more and more buzz, if that’s even possible, at the end of a very fruitful year that saw them release their debut album, embark on a 30-city domestic tour, and bring down the house at Yuyintang with a rousing show during this year’s JUE | Music + Art festival.

Pairs’ Xiao Zhong Interviewed by SmartBeijing

Congratulations on your official launch, SmartBeijing! May your snark slowly infiltrate even the most earnest of Beijingren. Hot on the heels of last week’s revealing interview with Dan Shapiro of the Fever Machine, SmBj is back on the hunt with another soul-baring and bridge-burning dialogue with Xiao Zhong, drummer of Shanghai shitrock 2-piece Pairs and one of the music industry’s most interesting advocates.

Hangzhou’s The Tree Is One of Two Winners in Converse’s “New Noise” Campaign

Wooozy Sessions alumni The Tree are headed to New York’s Rubber Tracks studio to record after being named one of two winners in Converse China’s latest campaign “Searching for New Noise.” An online competition, Searching for New Noise enlisted young bands from all over the country to submit their music and videos to social networking platform Renren (equivalent to China’s Facebook) for other users to listen to and vote on their favourites. The top 5 finishers would embark on a 6-city Chinese tour, at the end of which 2 winners would be selected for the trip to New York and studio time.

Our Chinese-language music information site and blog Wooozy.cn invited The Tree to play in Shanghai in April of 2012 as part of their Wooozy Sessions, a series of concerts meant to highlight promising young bands from across the country who have not yet had the opportunity to play in Shanghai. With other alumni including Maybe Mars darlings Mr. Graceless, Chengdu pranksters Eat Alien’s Brain and Taipei/Beijing-based shoegaze power trio Skip Skip Ben Ben, the Wooozy Sessions has fast established itself as an early recogniser of domestic talent.

Check out a video of The Tree performing at Mao Live House Shanghai during the Searching for New Noise tour.

Converse More Noise

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It seems like Converse have picked up on the nascent noise scene coming out of Beijing and in particular Tongzhou’s “Raying Temple” collective and given a voice in the English media recently by the likes of Pangbianr.

Alongside a heavy commitment to skate (the relatively wholesome “Ni” campaign and the very much less wholesome “Thrasher” collaboration – see Beijing Daze for more on that), the upcoming Guozao tour showcases the more avant garde side of China’s music scene. Converse will put together a 5 city tour in DIY venues yet to be decided with 2 domestic artists and the US band HEALTH.

 

Music Matters 2011, our review.

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There is also a great review by Fernando Gros HERE, and you can see our tweets from the event in a previous post HERE.

China Music Radar recently attended the Music Matters 2011 as a media partner. This review comes to you courtesy of our Thai beach resort – we are good to you :-)

It was the fifth time for the Radar to attend but the first for this writer, who found it engaging and invigorating to have so many people (several hundred attendees) from the same industry in the same place at the same time. Everyone focused on an issue very dear to us: the music industry in Asia and how it is developing, how it should develop and how we can all work together to make things happen.

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Josh Feola of Pangbianr talks to Wooozy

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Last month, our sister site Wooozy (purveyor of all that is interesting and indie in music in Chinese) conducted and subsequently published this interview with Josh Feola of Beijing based blog Pangbianr (which is also a purveyor of all that is interesting and indie in music in both Chinese and English). They kindly allowed us to reprint – here is part 1.

Pangbianr talks to Wooozy Wooozy Speaks to Pangbianr

SXSW last month, you were on the SXSW tour with Carsick Cars as tour manager. Have you been to such big festivals before?

Just to clarify, I wasn’t exactly Carsick Cars’s tour manager. Their trip was sponsored by Converse and they were also supported by their label, Maybe Mars. Since I’m from Texas and I “grew up” in the independent music scene in San Antonio and Austin, I know a lot of people who organize more underground, independent shows during South by Southwest. I also knew Carsick Cars from living in Beijing and running pangbianr. So it was a good opportunity to help out the band by booking some more local shows for them during their trip to Austin. In general I don’t really like big music festivals, but South by Southwest is different. It’s like a music festival spread out across dozens of venues every day for almost a full week. I went to SXSW a few times while in high school but mostly just to see my friends’ bands and more off-the-radar shows at houses and small bars that the majority of fest-goers wouldn’t ever hear of.

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Converse x Maybe Mars x USA

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Yes, we like our multiplication signs here at the Radar.  We also like to follow the fortunes of Beijing label Maybe Mars and sneaker brand Converse.

So, we were excited to learn that Converse are taking their relationship with Chinese indie music out of China, by supporting the bands PK14, CarsickCars and AV Okubo on their tour to SXSW and the surroundings this month. Dates still aren’t confirmed, and Youku might be covering it.  It’s going to be interesting to see how the US receives Maybe Mars for the second time. We wish them luck!

Maybe Mars China Invasion

More Converse…

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Converse have been pretty busy over the last 18 months in Asia’s alt-music market.  First it was Converse Love Noise, then the Let’s Play campaign.

A couple of other snippets for your Friday afternoon enjoyment.  First, a Q&A with the Asia marketing director, Cheryl Calegari, HERE. Second, some info about a new “Zine” they are putting out on the Chinese underground. HERE.

They really are taking on China from a truly original position, and China seems to be loving it. Annual China sales of around US$150m is not to be sneezed at. Other marketeers take note.

Some UK press this time around

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Posting has been a bit light recently.  We’ve been on tour, and a very interesting tour it was too.  More later.

If you haven’t had your fill of Western media talking up the Chinese Rock Revolution, here is one more.  This time, Britain’s Telegraph has an angle on branding and youth culture.  Pepsi’s Voice of a New Generation is featured, as is Converse’s Love Noise, plus vignettes from Michael Pettis and Yang Haisong.

Enjoy it in full HERE.

Converse’s new “Let’s Play” campaign

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Crowd sourcing and UGC are the buzzwords around marketing initiatives these days. Since Trent Reznor opened up Ghosts to create a Youtube “Film Festival” in 2008, and Radiohead allowed anyone to remix their song Nude from core components around the same time, bands all over the globe have been trying to engage fans in all elements of the production process. The explosion of the tools and distribution methods online have allowed this to happen more easily and frequently, and most recently Imogen Heap received plaudits from all over when she invited all her fans to absorb themselves fully in the production of her latest album, a painstaking 2 years of communication that led to this little known indie artist amassing nearly a million followers on Twitter.

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Alternative Music and Brands working closely together

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As the Chinese music scene starts getting real legs, brands are taking a look beyond the heady world of pop, and working with real musicians.  It is a sign of the progress that has been made in recent years that the smart money is moving away from brand hoes like Wang Lee Hom and Shin, and moving towards less commercial musicians with longer shelf lives.

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