Life

Playing loud 'n' proud

By Han Bingbin (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-14 07:59

Indie band Carsick Cars perform at last month's South by Southwest Festival in the United States. Photos Provided to China Daily

Some of Beijing's best-loved indie bands are making noise overseas, Han Bingbin reports.

If Beijing's current crop of indie groups can boast anything over their mainstream pop predecessors, it is the success they have enjoyed in attempts to export their sounds overseas. Although Chinese crooners have managed to stay at the top with domestic fans for decades, some newer bands are taking the scene to a whole new level.

The lineup for last month's highly influential South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in the United States featured two groups from the capital, with Carsick Cars making a welcome return and a debut performance from Queen Sea Big Shark.

Other musicians are also starting or have made extensive tours of Western countries, including at least 10 signed with Maybe Mars, one of the leading labels for Chinese indie bands.

"There are great changes taking place compared to last time when we were here in the US," said Fu Han, lead singer for Queen Sea Big Shark, whose show at Texas' SXSW was their first in the country since 2009. "It's different from the pure curiosity (US audiences showed) last time. People seriously watched us play and afterwards came up to say they like us. I would say they truly understand our music."

This development has come as little surprise to those involved. Most agree that not only does music transcend cultural barriers, but also the styles and performance of Chinese bands are so heavily influenced by Western acts that it is hard to tell them apart.

For example, the members of Carsick Cars - veterans of the Western music festival scene since frontman Zhang Shouwang was invited to record with New York composer Glen Branca in 2006 - are loyal fans of Sonic Youth, Suicide and Joy Division, while Queen Sea Big Shark draw much of their inspiration from The Ventures and The Human League.

However, it is these influences that have helped set the indie bands apart from China's mainstream pop stars.

Writing on Douban, one of China's largest online communities, reviewer Ding Huifeng explains that early mainland pop acts modeled themselves on their more technically advanced counterparts in Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, thanks to the Internet, those born after the 1980s were able to draw from Western musical styles.

And it is not just the sounds that have helped Western audiences identify with their music; what also helps is the fact bands like Carsick Cars and Queen Sea Big Shark write songs in English.

They may not be fluent, but their decision to sing in English has been an effective tool in attracting foreign audiences at clubs and bars across Beijing. Yet, it has not always gone down well with domestic fans.

"To use English or Chinese is just like a choice between whether to use piano or guitar," Zhang of Carsick Cars told METRO. "I'll make the choice according to what I want to express at that moment."

Both bands deny that language has been the largest factor that has helped them branch out overseas and reject the idea that they are "being fashionably international".

"Western audiences accept you only because you have good music. That has nothing to do with being so-called international," Zhang said.

"This description is such a Chinese characteristic," he added. "I never heard a foreign band labeled as international. The label is a sign of our national self-abasement, because for so many years our cultural exports have lagged far behind commodity exports."

Breaking into the big time

Apart from the music there is also a more prosaic factor that has helped these bands gain overseas attention, their companies' growing experience in overseas promotion, said Yang Haisong, vocalist of P.K.14 that played the SXSW last year and will tour Italy in May.

Sponsored by New Yorker Michael Pettis, boss of the D-22 bar in Beijing, Maybe Mars has from the very beginning had an international background to support overseas promotion. With distribution in both Australia and the US, the company has worked for years to make its bands known in the West.

"Sometimes it's hard for people in other countries to see why they should care about a Chinese band. We have to find ways to convince them to listen to the music and give the bands a chance, but once they do they are usually blown away by the quality and creativity of the bands coming out of China," said Nevin Domer, one of the founders of Maybe Mars and now the company's chief distributor in the US.

In addition to working with promoters in different countries, the company also works with foreign producers to gain attention and guarantee the quality of music.

"We have already worked with some top-notch foreign producers. Martin Atkins produced Snapline, 24 Hours and AV Okubo, Wharton Tiers produced the 2nd Carsick Cars album, Blixa Bargeld produced White, Brian Hardgroove produced Demerit and Mats Hammarstrom and Henrik Oja produced P.K.14," said Domer.

Modern Sky, Queen Sea Big Shark's company has applied a similar method. The company, which launched a US branch in 2007, recently invited US producer Fred Kevorkian, who has worked with the White Stripes and Iggy Pop, to master the new Hedgehog album, and US producer Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Ramones, Antony and The Johnsons) mixed the new album from Arms And Legs (a US artist signed to Modern Sky).

"In the next couple of years I believe you will see Chinese bands performing on the same level as big international bands from all over the world," said Domer.

"Definitely. There will be a few bands that really break-through," said Michael J. LoJudice, general manager of Modern Sky Entertainment USA.

However, there are concerns from some, mainly over the originality of the bands.

For Ding, the problem is how to get rid of the Western influence, create a voice that's typically their own and find a more intimate approach to domestic audiences.