One Day in May…

Mayday’s favorite football team, the New England Patriots, are on tonight (preseason, of course). So in honor of the occasion, I finally formatted this post of more Mayday NFL episodes. I don’t think I realized how many there were still to go! Well, now that it’s football season again – and less depressing than last year, because I get to watch it this year – I’ll finish watching the episodes. I first watched these a while ago, but I recall these three had me in tears, I was laughing so hard.

Episode 7 (12/31/09 – okay, did *anyone* watch this live? Even if you were home and watching tv, sodagreen and the Superband were on the Jiangsu Satellite Network New Year’s special):

Episode 8 (1/7/10):

Episode 9 (1/14/10):

Can I just say, these episodes are so random – and so rarely about actually how to play football – that they seem made for Mayday. Who knows if the boys are still trying to follow it, but if so, they should be happy – the Patriots are ahead now at the end of the 3rd quarter.

There’s something so fun about the random English in Chinese news articles. This Mayday-related article references DNA, Lady Gaga, someone called “A John,” a live DVD, and that something’s OK. Trying to fill in the gaps without reading the rest could be a little like Mad Libs.

In actuality, B’in Music artists Della Ding, Yen-j, Mayday and Rene Liu are all prepping for concerts. They’ve had joint photo shoots and rehearsals in preparation for the events beginning July 17, and of course the boys in Mayday are trying to get Della to call Rene “younger sister (師妹)” – something that’s terribly embarrassing for Della, as she might have entered the B’in Music family before Rene, but she’s definitely much newer to the music industry and should be the true “younger sister” in the relationship. Rene just finds it funny.

Della (Ding Dang) leads the way with a performance that challenges Lady Gaga (who apparently does not have a well-known Chinese name), Beyonce and Rihanna’s dance music performances. She’s been secretly practicing all kinds of moves, working with professional dance instructors, and enduring every hardship for the sake of the performance. Um, Lady Gaga? I always thought that if someone in the B’in Music label were to take her on, it would have to be Ashin. It just seems so logical to me, even if he didn’t really have the craziest outfit for the “Masquerade” video. If I could design a Gaga-esque costume for Ashin, though, I think it would be composed entirely of dangling denim suspenders… hundreds of them, developed into some sort of free-form denim suit with lots of dangly bits.

Yen-j has his own secret weapon: his coach is Masa. Masa likes his performances, and even had him over to watch DVDs of live performances of other famous artists to study up on how to be compelling on-stage. Perhaps the bassist is working up a little consulting business on the side for those gaps between albums and tours. Monster, meanwhile, has been teaching the US-raised Yen-j fun Taiwanese slang, thoroughly embarrassing the boy (or forcing him to act embarrassed; that’s a tough call).

Here the boys are promoting the sold-out Taichung concert, alongside discussing their latest commercial for Mass Mutual Mercuries (or whatever the company is called in English). In the spot, they are dreaming big about what they want: Ashin a home, Stone a car, Monster a recording studio, Masa to travel the world, and Guanyou a new baby. These are, one imagines, the major things that people save for, though I’d suspect the Mayday boys are mostly doing pretty well on attaining them. The real problem, however, is getting me to focus on that article, and not on Ashin’s dangling denim suspenders in the pictures. Oh, that the man had never started designing….

Speaking of advertising, Mayday has appeared in ten separate ads on either side of the Taiwan Strait just in the first half of this year along. But this article notes that of all the dreams in this latest ad, Monster’s is closest to the mark: the band has always invested part of its earnings back into the recording studio, typically by dividing earnings six ways (and leaving the sixth for the studio). Their long tenure in the studio that Rock Records helped them set up needs to come to an end at some point, if for no other reason than that Guanyou’s drumming is disturbing the neighbors.

Finally, when not designing pants that make me crazy, Ashin continues to work on his StayReal line; they are to be topping off the big Shanghai Modern Art exhibit last month with an appearance at the Taipei Toy Festival; though listed in this article as “StatReal,” Ashin and No2Good designed a series of dolls for the occasion.

You know, I said years ago that Ashin’s periodic playfulness with the press it at least partly responsible for the Masa and Fish rumors lingering as long as they did. Fish would deny, Masa would deny, then Ashin would hint otherwise, and we’d start a new cycle. Masa thought it was all behind him when the rumors came out that they’d broken up, then again when Fish got married. But the unstoppable force behind all this lingers: we still have Ashin.

At the Malaysia stop of the DNA tour, on the second encore, Ashin informed the crowd that the band had planned to playing the song “Can’t Hear,” which Ashin originally wrote for Fish Leong, but decided against it he worried about making Masa too unhappy. Masa’s reaction was a mix of laughter and, no doubt, a bit of frustration.

The band brought Ding Dang along to the concert (Ashin seems to have forgotten that he was once promoting rumors between Ding Dang and Monster), and she and Ashin sang “Embrace” together. They were supposedly standing close together while singing the romantic song, leading Ding Dang to get a big embarrassed, but she performed well nonetheless. She also sang her song, “I Love Him.” (Oh, and good news on the Ding Dang front: she appears to have changed her English name to “Della,” which is a HUGE improvement over her former English name, “Ring.” A-ding-ding.)

It had been two years since the band had visited Malaysia last, so there were worries that they’d be unfamiliar to the audience, but the fans proved them wrong. Moreover, they promised Ashin they’d still be going to see Mayday ten years from now. In his speeches to the crowd, Ashin kept calling everything and everyone happy; for example, “Mayday is happy, because all of you are happy, so I’m also happy, thanks everyone for giving us happiness!” Ashin needs to beef up his vocabulary; maybe he can listen to books on tape while he’s out jogging this summer.

On the standard, lengthy adventure through “Love-ing,” the crowd’s noise level seemed to die down; the reporter attributes this to the fact that they’d been shouting all through the concert and were getting tired. I maintain that the whole world just might, at long last, be getting tired of that song. But Ashin joked with them, “You’ve all changed, your sound has quieted, your enthusiasm has waned, our ages have increased, we head for home much earlier… does everyone want to go home?” That brought the noise level back up, as fans made clear they were not ready for the show to end. End it did, however, after around three hours. It was a little shorter than Hong Kong, but hey – that’s longer than the Mainland China shows I’ve attended.

I wish, though, that someone had taped Masa in the dressing room after the show; I’d love to hear what he had to say about Ashin’s latest shenanigans.

Hey, remember when I had a blog? Just kidding. I’ve been working and traveling so much lately and not spending so much time on the internet that I haven’t caught up with Mandopop in a while. I still have a bunch of Mayday-NFL episodes to watch, too, though I’m almost glad to have left them until now. That way, during the long, cold winter (figuratively; my part of China was up to 62 degrees today) before football training camps or even the draft, there will be something football-related to watch. See, I have a plan.

So, what news is there to report, anyway? Well, not so much, but let’s have it nonetheless.

Mayday will be celebrating May Day with a concert on my birthday (ahem – May 2) this year at the Beijing Worker’s Stadium. Hmm, dilemma. Do I wander up there for it? The last time I spent my birthday in Beijing, I went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs and ended up somewhat disappointed that of the 20 helium balloon sellers outside, not one was selling dinosaur-shaped balloons. In fact, I’ve never had a dinosaur-shaped balloon, though I look at every opportunity. *sniff* (Wait, did I read the article? Why am I writing about dinosaur balloons?) (Side note: for being a band loved by the student set, their concert tickets are getting impressively expensive; the close seats on this one are around US$200; the cheapest seats are still US$37… and this is, after all, still China – you would assume the average student’s purchasing power is at least a little lower than in the US.) The Beijing concert is not a DNA performance – they’ve done that already – but an entirely new concert set. In order to preserve its uniqueness, they’ve abandoned the idea of adding a Shanghai show as well. Just Beijing. As for the choice of the Worker’s Stadium, the band is working its way up in Beijing stadiums – not going straight for the big one, but just trying to go a step at a time into larger and larger venues.

Ashin stepped out and directed a video for labelmates Magic Power recently; it starred a Japanese adult video star (苍井空 – googling, I get “Sora Aoi,” though having no idea who she is, I can’t say if that is right or not). The choice of an adult video star caused some online controversy, though of course, as some note, at least they aren’t actually filming such things – it’s just a music video. Magic Power’s singer bravely noted that he’s seen some of her films and she’s a real talent; in keeping with his traditional terror of the female sex, Ashin made no response and fled questions at the first opportunity, leaving a stunned media in the wake. To which, naturally, I reply: stunned? Seriously? Have you not read a single story you’ve written about the guy over the years?

On the heels of that incident, here’s another interesting claim: Mayday doesn’t get affected by hot women. (The context was originally whether they were competing with the hot girls for the audience’s attention.) Um, maybe some of them don’t. I’m looking at you, oh clueless lead singer. Don’t you think that as Ashin is claiming that they’re past the age where they’re easily turned on by such sights, Monster is looking like he really does NOT agree? Stone, meanwhile, is looking like he’s going to bust out laughing. There’s a guy who probably does not use his spare time when his gorgeous wife is around playing video games. He even shakes his head a bit at the end. Masa handles being repeatedly asked to comment on Fish’s wedding quite well; he says he ran into her in Beijing at an awards ceremony and told her congratulations, noting how obvious it was that she was very happy.

Ding Dang will hold her first solo concert in May in Taipei; when you think about it, it’s a pretty impressive step for a girl from Zhejiang; how many mainland artists have actually held solo concerts in Taiwan? Not *that* many, I’d bet.

The multi-part, multi-country wedding festivities for Fish Leong are now underway; while home for the new year, she and her groom held a reception in Kuala Lumpur. They both joked that part of her appeal to her new husband was her cooking ability; she teased him that his suit might be a little tight now, but in the future he’d be wearing size XXL. The Taipei reception (which will include guests like David Tao and, of course, Mayday) will be held next month.

I took a little time this holiday weekend to catch up on Mayday’s NFL adventures, still ongoing every Thursday night on CCTV-5 at a little past my bedtime.

Episode 4, which I watched here:

Episode 5, seen here:

Yeah, Ashin: don’t quit your day job. Guanyou is a much better drummer.

Episode 6, seen here:

I wonder if they’ll broadcast it this week? It seems unlikely many people will be watching this instead of the New Year’s specials. Well, I’ll check on it anyway.

…which was actually two weeks ago, when I was in Korea. The next episode was a week ago, when I was celebrating Thanksgiving with my visiting mom. But here we are at week 3 of Mayday’s NFL adventure for CCTV-5.

Just to catch up, though:

Here is Episode one. Highlights include:

Episode two is here. Some highlights:

I had not realized that the three most important institutions in the United States were the White House, NASA, and NFL Headquarters. I’m not saying I disagree.

So tonight, for the first time, I’m watching live! Here are my thoughts as I watch:

This show is definitely worth the wait; I’m already looking forward to next week.

By the way, just a helpful update for anyone trying to follow Mayday’s example and get into American football: we’re at week thirteen in the season, and the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints are both still undefeated. Third in the league, however, are my very own Minnesota Vikings, with a 10 and 1 record. (See, Mayday? That’s better than the Patriots – New England is only 7 and 4!) Amazingly, I’ve learned to let go of my resentment for Brett Favre, something made easier by how well he’s playing, though I nonetheless remain hopelessly devoted to Adrian Peterson. As all people of good sense are, of course.

Because we haven’t had one of those in a while, and because I have a lot of grading to do.

And frankly, because I just like news digests. I should do them more often, really I should. Somewhere along the line I got into the habit of writing longer posts that make me update less often because I don’t have time to write long posts. If you look at the archives for July 2006, however, those posts are short. Really short. And still perfectly acceptable.

But I digress.

First and foremost, will B’in Music please refrain from trying to make Ding Dang into Jolin? This sort of song frankly does not suit her. Another song on the album, “I love him (我愛他)” is a much better fit. Demonstrating that they can have good marketing when they want to, the latter is also the theme song for the currently-airing soaper “Next Stop, Happiness (下一站幸福),” starring Vanness Wu. On the off-chance that you don’t hang on my every word, I would like to remind you that I have a definite soft spot for Vanness – who, whoops, it seems is now going by “Van Ness.” He is my one soft spot in the entire world of Taiwanese boybandiness. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, yes: we can all agree that “Meteor Garden” was one of the only really watchable Taiwanese soap operas in the last ten years. Sure it was about five episodes and four new melodramas too long, but they all are, and this one was at least more realistic about interpersonal relationships and full of funny language puns suitable to Mandarin study. But more importantly, don’t forget this. As I always say, never miss an opportunity to link to the sweaty shirtless boxing, no matter how roundabout a path one has to take to get there.

Wait, Ding Dang who? That’s right, we were talking about one intrepid singer and her sadly mismanaged career. Of course, I just ordered her album, so again: it might all be a plot, and if so, it’s working. The new album mixes a wide variety of styles and features not only the duet with Ashin (ugh) but also a duet with Wakin Chau, which is two duets too many in my book. But then, I suppose I do not go to karaoke enough to be considered an average Mandopop customer. Anyway, I’ve decided Ding Dang gets her own category. I’ve have to go through and mark old posts later.

In other news, Fish Leong’s fiancee swears she’s not pregnant, explaining to the media that they’ve even reported on her drinking – how could she do that when she’s pregnant? True, but still, not something I really need to know about, you know, either way. They had wanted to get married in the Philippines in January, but given the typhoon destruction, they moved it to May and perhaps Guam.

If you’ve been getting worried about Mayday getting big ideas and insisting on fancy gourmet meals every night, I wouldn’t just yet. After the Taipei concerts, Masa and Ashin met at a local cheap, all night Teppanyaki place for dinner. Ashin got there first, ordered, and immediately started eating; Masa followed and started eating as soon as he sat down. The two didn’t seem to talk or look at each other, just ate like pigs (sorry, but come on) for about fifteen minutes; when they were done, they finally started talking. Stone, Guanyou and Monster had better things to do with their respective families. If you want to feel sorta slimy about the whole thing, follow the link for several paparazzi pics of the event.

There’s a better summary of the Nanjing concert here, though don’t get too excited about that first picture with Guanyou looking like his shirt is coming off (would people get excited about that?) (poor Guanyou, that was kind of a mean question. Apologies) – they were playing with controlling crowd noise. I can affirm that it was only Monster who lost his shirt all night. Really.

Evan Yo (蔡旻佑) has a new album coming out, and Masa contributed a song called “Candy Rock.”Love is Right (愛是對的).” [Edit: thanks for the correction, inkblueraindrops!] Hmm, I’m going to have to remember to check for that one; I’m curious about Masa’s compositions. And concerned about his hair, but that’s a different issue.

Okay, this is a slam: Power Station is prepping for an upcoming concert in Shanghai. They said that in terms of the competition with the next generation rock band, Mayday, they actually really like the simplicity and ease of their songs. They claim their manager keeps asking why they can’t be more like Mayday and write “simple” songs. Ouch. Maybe they’ve been listening too “Love-ING” too much and forgot Mayday has other songs?

Last weekend Mayday was in Foshan (in Guangdong) for a concert, and here’s a picture of Monster once again, shirtless. I’m starting to think he might be doing this voluntarily, even without crowd encouragement. Their own songs, others’ songs, new songs, old songs, played live they all became Mayday songs… haha, just kidding. The concert reports all appear original this time. The band practiced some Foshan kung-fu and Ashin attempted to speak some Cantonese, and a good time was had by all.

Next stop: Chongqing on Halloween. That’s for Mayday, of course. My next stop is the sodagreen concert in Shanghai this weekend. I’m getting excited for it!