Dialogue of the Day: BBC grills Qin Gang
Spring Airlines wants to make flying even less comfortable
Xinhua to broadcast in European grocery stores
Music: Indie China Showcase at Yu Yin Tang
Interview: Carlton J. Smith celebrating American soul in Shanghai
It was inevitable. A week into the New Year and we are already saying goodbye to one of the city's few venues for underground bands. 4Live limped to a close last night after a year of struggling to make it promoting live music in the city of turntables (and laptops). Opening as a beacon of hope for those interested in the underground music scene the venue was plagued by internal management problems and an identity crisis that lead to its demise. Lucky for us that both Live Bar and Yuyintang are going strong with regular gigs, while Logo (despite a crap sound system) and the Dream Factory still hold random shows. Also rumored to be testing the live music waters is the Shelter. It seems that no matter how far under the ground you push it, the scene manages to survive.
In other news, we have heard rumors that the besides the vomit-inducing (in a really bad way) DJ Sasha, Smirnoff (thanks to Split works) will be bringing in UK rockers Hard-Fi for an event later this month. We hope this is true, because we honestly couldn't take a night of DJ Sasha even while loaded on cheap vodka drinks.
For anyone who will be in Hong Kong next week, we strongly recommend checking out the inaugural Clockenflap festival at the Cyperport. Besides a great lineup of HK bands the organizers are bringing over a bunch of exciting young British bands, including the Young Knives and Bizali. Film, animation and installation art will also be on display, giving festival goers an orgy of sonic and visual pleasures.
Nightwish with Skylark, two goth metal bands from Europe, are playing at Hong Kong Gymnasium on January 23rd. Seems local promoters can't get enough of this genre even with the pathetic turnouts at past concerts by other "well-known" European metal bands. Dream Theater, a metal band actually worth seeing, is skipping Shanghai in favor of Beijing for the China leg of their Asia tour on January 22nd. While Shanghai based promoters China West is back with Incubus in early March at the Yun Feng Theater.
(video of PK-14 at 4Live)
Abe Deyo is Shanghaiist's Music Editor. Email tips, recommendations, news and gossip about Shanghai's music scene to music at shanghaiist.com.
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The future of the scene will be with locally organised shows that are affordable to local audiences.
I forsee a messiah/slayer figure making a breakthrough only to have to face the state culture people ...
...finally, if the state are willling to let go a bit, especialy with students, it'll usher in a new era of independant record companies and venues ...
or perhaps it's just not the time yet and the messiah will be defeated, sending the scene into years of darkness...
Just like an episode of Buffy.
One things for sure, it's not likely that a lasting breakthrough will come from an ex-pat venture charging silly prices for drinks etc.
Yuyintang is hanging in there. Although the bizarre crowd difference between friday No Name and Saturday Carsick Cars spoke more about the organisation than the bands, I thought.
that's sad, and also pirates closed down, I really really liked Pirates! good music and cool gorgeous people.
really sad about this.
A successful scene needs three things:
1) Bands. Shanghai has less than 10 rock bands that can play 30 minutes of original music, and less than 5 that are worth paying money to see. Bringing bands from out of town or overseas costs money. Side note: A show where 100 people pay 30RMB cover to see a band from Beijing is a failure. For a 4-piece, 3000RMB barely covers hard seats on the slow train.
2) Venues. There are a few places in town to put on a show, but they all cost money (renting the space, renting equipment, paying staff, etc). Usually they try to sell drinks to make enough back to pay their rent, but live music audiences are notorious for not buying drinks at the bar. Average income per person at a rock show is around 20RMB, which depending on the price of drinks is between .66 and 1 beer per person. At Live Bar I sold beer for 10, and still averaged a little over 20 per person. Best night off the top of my head was around 50RMB per person at 4Live, which is about half the income of a bad DJ show. Which brings us to #3
3) Audience. The foreigners will complain about a 30RMB cover but they'll pay it, only to complain again about 30RMB drinks (same as every other bar in Shanghai). So they spend half the night walking back and forth to the Lawsons or Kedi to buy beer, then leave as soon as the band hits their last note. They'll get online and complain that the bars all discriminate against Chinese students, but what they don't know is that Chinese students don't want to go to bars. The young Chinese people who are interested in rock music do not buy drinks. Period. Even when the drinks are cheap. In general, they arrive early to find seats, then stay in those seats -- no dancing, no clapping, no movement until the show is over, then they go home. They're not cool or edgy or experimental. All they want is to see some hair metal wanking on a Sunday afternoon and be home and in bed by 9pm. I have a tendency to ramble on this subject, so I'll just sum it up as: Shanghai audiences don't support the bands or venues.
Conclusion: Few bands, few venues, few fans means no scene in Shanghai.
You're right there Brad. I've been going to gigs here since I arrived in 2001 and have seen all that.
That's why a breakthrough will only come with the development of the local fans - with their attitudes to gigs like you say. For that they need partisan subculture like back home - not mixed bag ex-pat 'scene' events. And certain freedoms too on the macro political level.
Also, the main reason for the student behaviour is their enforced sheltered lives and values that goes right up to the end of college. I know plenty of young students here who are just like those back home but they are a minority. Back home doesn't have curfews in university , for example.
Most shows I saw in the UK growing up were ticketed events at an 'empty' venue where the bar was an after thought. They were a simple matter of total ticket prices being more than over heads - which is just what you were talking about.
You also can't leave out the political aspect that kills off chances of high profile independent labels and music with edgy lyrics etc.
'Foreigners' who complain about paying 30 rmb to see a gig need a kick in the groin. And if they are trudging out to Kedi to get enough beers they need to acknowledge a certain life problem too.
Shopgirl
Pirates on Xingfu Lu? That was originally opened as 'Shuffle Bar' and had the whole large concrete post in the middle of the veiwing area thing going on. Not to mention a bar right in the same area where there didn't need to be. I didn't go in there after it was called Pirates so maybe it changed the layout a bit, except said post.
Even after my experiences at 4 Live I'm less cynical about live music in Shanghai. In fact I see a lot of positive developments happening.
See this, for example...
http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2597203
(disclaimer -- i wrote this article)
I also think that a place like 4 Live does have a chance to succeed, but it takes some real solid management.
And, just like mainstream pop stars in China have to seek revenue from places other than selling records, live music venues like this need to think beyond drinks -- selling merchandise like CDs and tshirts, or working with corporate sponsors. And, frankly, rock bands and their fans here need to stop acting like bitter disillusioned wankers and start dancing dammit.