One Day in May…

I was paging through my latest copy of “当代歌坛” (Modern Music Field), a magazine to which I subscribe, when I noticed a few bits of news I hadn’t yet run into online. That is to say, I’m sure they’re all online, and probably even old news to people who’ve not had all their free time overrun this fall with dissertation revisions and paper grading, but they were new to me. So here we go. (Note: no links, because these news items are all from a print magazine without an online edition.)

First, Leehom is planning a new album yet this year. Recalling how past news of his new albums has gone, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended up getting pushed back to early 2010, but the recording process is actually underway. He’s sticking with the “sinified rock” theme from the last album, something about which I have sort of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I like rock as a genre a hell of a lot more than the hip-hop and R&B that seems to dominate mainstream Mandopop. On the other hand, just thinking the words “rock” and “Leehom” together means that I will now return to humming “What’s wrong with me, wro-on-ong with meeeeee….” for the rest of my natural life, in spite of my past hopes that the influx of two new sodagreen albums might have actually gotten it out of my head. Alas, it was but a temporary fix. Like Cowboy Jay, Leehom has a bad habit of trying to do too much at once (though he’s not quite as bad about this as certain wannabe steer-wranglers), so the recording has been in the midst of movie filming, touring, and all kinds of other activities. So, I am left with a feeling of excitement tinged with apprehension.

On the bright side, the “coming soon” feature in my magazine has yet to feature Cowboy Jay, so there’s hope – hope that 2009 might be a Cowboy-free year. *Crosses fingers* （Okay, so I got curious and googled. His company says the songs are all written, but with movie promotions, filming in Hollywood and his plans for his latest restaurant, he hasn’t set a time to finish the album. If he really has found the time to write all the songs already, that should scare you – that implies the same lackadaisical attitude he’s been showing for the last few years. The mention of the restaurant just makes me laugh – there was a big news story this summer about health department inspections at one of his restaurants after patrons found cockroaches in the dining areas; at that time, he claimed he didn’t invest in the restaurants, they just use his name, something the media found contradictory to past reports at the time. Suddenly, they’re his again!)

Moving on. The magazine also has a “recent singles” section, where I learned that Crowd Lu has a new single out called “Oh Yeah.” Okay, I admit, I don’t love it. But there it is.

Also in singles news, Peng Tan has teamed up with Lao Lang, Xiao Wei, and Huang Shaofeng to make a single to benefit charity, “Big Kid (大孩子).” It’s about as unlike a group-created, group-sung charity single as it is possible to get – it’s the anti-”Hand in Hand,” which by itself is more than enough to appeal to me. Plus, Peng Tan. I love Peng Tan. (And await a new album from him….)

Fusion is getting some press, but it’s a good news/bad news kind of thing. They’ve got a featured interview in the magazine, which is great, but they seem to have no idea at all when their new album will drop, which is bad. They say it’s ready, but they have to listen to the company’s plan for them, which so far seems to consist of waiting to make sure just about anyone who liked or even heard their debut album has completely and totally forgotten they exist before actually putting out the album. But don’t worry boys, we’re keeping the hope alive.

There’s a big interview with sodagreen this month, which is not groundbreaking, but it was still a good read. When asked what the value is in spending all that money to record in London – and even what the difference is between that and their earlier albums when they had no money to spend – Xiao Wei (who, by the way, has officially replaced Jiakai in my mind as the stud of the band) (do people still call good-looking guys “studs”? It suddenly felt very 90s to use that term) had a diplomatic answer about the importance of getting fresh ideas from interactions with new places and people. He also noted that they’d all listened to the Beatles starting as kids, so of course there’s meaning in seeing some of their favorite artists’ stomping grounds. (Side note: my current beef with sodagreen is that they totally failed to look up my sister, an expat in England and devoted sodagreen fan, while they were there.)

A-gong noted that they were working with musicians in England that introduced them to new things, such as a Moog synthesizer, which he then learned to play. Jiakai was impressed by how much the British musicians drank – there was a bar below the studio, where they could often be found when not working.

Their next album will be recorded in Beijing, and so the interviewer wants to know if they’ll be chased down by fans and less able to come and go freely (unlike, say, London, where pretty much only my sister would happen to recognize them if she happened to be by that day) (I exaggerate; I’m sure there are sodagreen fans in England. Form a club, sis!). They noted that they won’t have to deal with that until “next year,” so no worries. Also, Jiakai joked that Xiao Wei will have lost so much weight no one will recognize him, and Qingfeng confidently noted that his hair will no longer be green then. (The interviewer was clearly hoping for orange for autumn, but Qingfeng makes no promises – not even that he won’t have shaved his entire head by then.)

On the topic of concerts, A-gong notes that some of his love for dance comes from being a huge fan of Madonna, but he admits that he does not have any particular talent for it. He does enjoy getting to dance with Jiakai in this concert, though when the interview asks if Jiakai is a sort of “dance disciple,” he answered that no, Jiakai is his female partner. Ha, I think that’s actually the one combination in cross-dressing we haven’t seen.

Qingfeng talked particularly about my much-loved “expat anthem,” “Head Home Early (早点回家).” He wrote this song for his grandmother and grandfather – it was inspired by a visit to them during Chinese New Year. He recalled that when he was younger, they lived on Li Mountain, so visiting them took a lot of time (and a bit of climbing, crossing a wood bridge). Every time they’d head back to see them – something they only managed once or twice a year – they’d see his grandmother’s face in the window, watching for them. It’s a lovely song, and as someone with a 92-year-old grandmother – not to mention parents, sister and extended family – that I only see a couple times a year, it speaks to me. And, of course, I can’t help but wonder from the video what Qingfeng’s grandmother thought of his bright pink hair.

Okay, one more fun fact: Qingfeng wrote songs for Eason Chan and A-mei this year; both were songs originally planned for the Vivaldi Project. Eason’s “Trouble Like This (这样一个麻烦)” was slated for the Fever album; the A-mei song is unnamed, but was planned for the Autumn album.

Okay, that was fun. And you can see why I like the magazine, in spite of the fact that this very issue had Fahrenheit on the front cover and S.H.E on the back. Just a warning: I have a million back issues of this magazine. I’ll try not to go overboard, though, with these link-less posts. I like links – they keep me honest.