Tag Archives: kungfuology

Shanghai MESH review

Posted on by
Reply

A Quick Recap of Mesh Hub Day 2

Last week we mentioned the arrival of MESH in Shanghai, a weekend of parties and panel discussions focusing on the development of the electronic and hip hop scenes in China.

The big event on the schedule was Diplo at The Mixing Room on Saturday night. But somehow we couldn’t be convinced to schlep over to Pudong for that one. The next day we headed over to KIN to check out Day 2 of the “MESH HUB” talks.

We arrived to find that the sessions were running two hours behind schedule. Perhaps some of the planned speakers were a bit worse-for-the-wear after Diplo the previous night.

We caught most of the Demo Listening Session, in which we got to listen to some fresh new tracks from six or seven Shanghai-based artists, followed by feedback from a panel of four industry folks: Conrank (DJ/Producer), Gaz Williams  (Co-owner/promoter at Shelter), Jake Newby (Music Editor at Time Out Shanghai and Kungfuology.com), and Sondra Chaikin (CEO of Premiere Artists Group). Fred Hu from Acupuncture Records (who popped up on a different panel later in the day) and someone named Chunqi were also scheduled to be on the panel, but apparently didn’t make it.

First of all, big ups to all the artists who had the balls to put your demos on display for a room of 30-odd people. That must have been intimidating.

We like the concept of a listening/feedback session, and some of the panelists (most notably Conrank due to his production experience) were able to offer excellent, insightful feedback on a technical level. But the session would have been improved if the panelists had been able to listen to the tracks a few days in advance, instead of listening for the first time and trying to critique on the fly.

In the next session, “Hostess with the Mostess,” MESH organizer Jane Siesta interviewed a group of five promoters: Nikki Li (S.T.D.), Gaz Williams (Shelter/Uprooted Sunshine), Mark Elliot (JZ Music), and Elvis T. and Fred Hu, both of Acupuncture; both down from Beijing).  Here’s some key takeaways:

  • JZ’s Mark Elliot said that organizers of music festivals in China need to take the long view if they want their events to be profitable. Organisers can’t expect to make money from ticket sales alone; sponsorship is a necessary piece of the puzzle. And Mark pointed out that attracting sponsors takes time: Shanghai’s JZ Festival has been running for 7 years and has taken this long to solidify its reputation and start attracting some serious attention from brands. As Mark says: “The first year of running a festival, you need to proive to yourself that you’re able to pull it off. Then you need to prove this to artists. Ten to the government. And then finally to sponsors.”
  • Shelter’s Gaz Williams has the luxury of actually owning the venue where he promotes his events. Meaning that he can take a risk on booking lesser known acts, because he’s relying on the entire venue/bar for his income, not promotion alone
  • The panelists agreed that online promotion is trickier in China than in the West. Whereas in the West, Facebook is the clear dominant social platform, in China social media is more segmented, so promoters ignore Sina Weibo / Douban / Kaixin / Renren / etc. at their peril. Must spend time canvassing all the various online forums. Acupuncture’s Elvis T. emphasized that hosting regular events and keeping the content flowing online is an essential part of keeping a promoter top-of-mind for consumers.
  • Panelists also agreed that, compared to more developed music scenes, messaging to promote to a Shanghai audience doesn’t need to be so sophisticated. Most people care about being at the hot party of the weekend, regardless of what the music is like.
  • In a way, this means that promoters in Shanghai actually have quite a bit of freedom to get people excited about a relatively unknown artists. The lack of caring about who the artist is means that it may actually be easier in Shanghai (compared to, say, London) to get a swarm of people to turn out for an unknown artist, because here a promoter can “sell” punters on a sexy message/flyer design, instead of relying on the artist’s name alone.

So, MESH. In summation, it was a laudable, ambitious, and generally awesome undertaking, and one that could have had a bit more structure, but it’s a music industry conference and you know how we slobs are. We give the organizers a round of applause for starting the panels a mere two hours late, instead of four or five. Also, we got a cute little MESH tote bag with the price of admission! Looking forward to more meshiness in the future…

Feelgood hit of the winter

Posted on by
4

We told you yesterday in our ode to the Eagles that something had come to us, almost like a gift from St. Christmas, something that filled us with good cheer and hope for the year ahead. The story goes a little like this:

Local blogger and “scene” stalwart Andy Best (he does love the word scene, by the way) wrote an article reviewing the Expo. You can read his coherent and visceral “appreciation” in full over at Kungfuology. The main thrust was that Expo came and went without leaving much, if any of a cultural imprint on Shanghai. To most, it was an inconvenience (although we miss the clean air, which we are sure was a massive inconvenience to all the Jiangsu and Zhejiang factories forced to close for 6 months), and the culture that came in was restricted to people willing to brave the hoards, the distance, the hugeness. Finally, the price (tickets weren’t actually that cheap, when you consider the cost of a gig ticket). As an aside, the actual Shanghai music infrastructure almost ground to a halt – venues were booked solid with a succession of no-name bands from all over the world on a government dime, and local bands and crowds were left out in the cold, slowly losing the will to live. Our summary may be a little overdone – head to Andy’s article for more.

In any case, the most important part of the article was when Andy laid down a gauntlet. With all the money that brands and governments were spending, was anyone actually willing to make an investment in the local scene itself? He gave an example that in his eyes would genuinely make a difference to Shanghai’s musicians: would anyone put some money behind most vital party of Shanghai’s nascent infrastructure? The tireless and profitless work done by TianTian and co. over at the 0093 rehearsal rooms.

0093 Rehearsal Rooms, Shanghai

Continue reading →

Expo is over. Will you miss it?

Posted on by
2

OK, so the last 6 months have gone pretty quickly. One minute, Shanghai was opening the Expo, the next it was gone in a puff of concrete dust and renewed construction. Seriously. The blue skies that have beamed benevolently down on us for much of the last 6 months have pretty much gone immediately, leaving a pall of dust particles thick on the air.

We covered briefly the question of whether Expo was good for China’s nascent music industry or not HERE. We have to be honest though – we didn’t make it to the Expo site one single time (actually, we made it to the Puxi side once during the day for a site visit for an event that never happened, and once to see a band that we knew that were playing the concert hall there, but we never made it East-side to see the pavilions and the huge concrete behemoth.

Haibot - the end of Shanghai Expo

We have of course spoken to LOTS of people about their experiences. Some people have loved it, some people have made a LOT of money out of it (the amount spent on the event boggles the mind – much of it wasted in our opinion), but for the majority, it has passed by without much real impact. Honestly, aside from new infrastructure, we have hardly noticed its existence. A couple of people we know and admire have reviewed the Expo effect extensively and we would like to point you towards the Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore being interviewed by Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap HERE (a limp pillow bag of salad) and Andy Best at Kungfuology regretting the regression of the indiginous Shanghai music industry as a result. You can read his Orwellian point of view HERE.

The Expo itself was culturally shallow and showy and came at the cost of further crackdowns on the actual arts scene.

That’s not to say there aren’t positive reviews out there. We just haven’t read them yet. If you have, please point us in that direction.

[awesome image of Haibot courtesy of Shanghaiist's Halloween party]

What other people are writing about…

Posted on by
2

We have a LOT of browser windows open at the moment, talking about China’s independent music scene. And so it is that we thought we should put them all together for your viewing pleasure.

1. China Daily sticks its “journalistic” oar in on music festivals

China Daily is not reputed to be the most objective of sources. In THIS article, they report on Suzhou Holisland, interview Shen Lihui of Modern Sky and Liu Hongjie of InMusic (who expects 30,000 people this year) and also the Party Secretary of Zhangbei province (where InMusic has reportedly signed a 10 year partnership to run the festival) who admits to investing RMB3m in the festival.

Oh, and they put forward this Awesome Guitarist photo:

2. An interview with Modern Sky’s Shen Lihui

New kid on the block (expat newspaper – been around for 15 months now) the Global Times profiles Shen Lihui, boss man at Modern Sky.

3. HP is sponsoring the Communist Youth League.

We just thought this was too good not to put in here.

4. A comparison of comments between a Chinese and Western festival promoter

What makes a good music festival? Yu Hui of Suzhou’s festival (good sound, good artists, good marketing, satisfy audience) vs. Rick Farman of Bonnaroo (secure approvals, production, site operations, concessions).

5. Andy Best on why Douban’s news feed has gone

Making the Douban social network a MUCH lesser place to hang out, and a Guardian article explaining why the government might have had a hand in it.

6. Andy Best again on starting and running a DIY record label

Interestingly, Andy Best of Kungfuology fame started a new blog a while back. Indie Everything looks to our untrained eyes like a kind of training manual/ testing ground for how to do music-ey things all DIY style. Man, this promises to be a great resource for Chinese kids looking to start their own band, label, print t-shirts etc. Are you the patron saint of music Mr.B?

Some good news, some bad…

Posted on by
2

First the bad – we always like to get it over with first…

We received an email from Katrina from Free the Wax tonight saying that they were off to Italy for the next 12 months.  For those of you not familiar with FTW, they have been doublehandedly (in collaboration with everyone’s favorite Shanghai bomb hole, the Shelter) bringing the sounds of the LA experimental beats scene to China.  The likes of Samiyam, Nosaj Thing and the upcoming Gaslamp Killer have been breaths of fresh air in a Chinese music scene dominated by pop music.

Continue reading →