Archive for October, 2009

Throwing the yellow flag at NFL China

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Delay of game; five yard penalty. And forward progress toward the goal of getting new NFL fans in China is stalled indefinitely.

All the news reports said that Mayday’s NFL show would start on October 29, but looking at the CCTV-5 viewing schedule, the evening was filled with professional snooker (seriously, who watches billiards on t.v.?) and reruns of past gymnastics competitions. The NFL might have had great confidence in their ability to sell the sport in China with Mayday on board, but they were not confident enough to buy primetime airtime. Instead, the only NFL-related program started at midnight – technically on the 30th, really.

Dutiful fans of the band planed planned* to stay up. If the baidu “tieba” threads are any indication, the timing knocked out a huge chunk of the audience – lots of college dorms shut off power by 11:30 to save energy, and younger fans had parents who balked at letting kids stay up that late on a school night… and have it not be for homework. But for the people who could watch, they waited with excitement (I confess that I only caught it because I was still up at 11:50 and thought “might as well stay up.” I had planned to go to bed and just watch it online the next day).

The program started with a roundup of the Week 6 game highlights, complete with explanations of why plays were important, how they worked, and slow-motion reruns showing how they came together. Lots of commentary. About fifteen minutes into the half-hour show, I noticed that music in the background was switching between Mayday’s “Jump!” “Sun Wu Kong,” and “Stubbornness.” (The last of which might not sound to you like a good football soundtrack, but the lyrics certainly capture the attitudes of fans sticking with their teams through tough times. Needless to say, as a Vikings fan I relate to it, but “stubbornness” has to pretty much sum up those who still support Detroit after they became the first team in NFL history to go a whole season without winning a game last year.)

After about a half hour of game highlights backed by Mayday music… it was over. On to tennis. “What…..?” asked Mayday fans all across China. “Wait… what?” their friends replied.

Looking at the Baidu thread for the program, which lit up with activity after it was over, I’d have to conclude that if NFL China was trying to use Mayday to convert music fans into football fans, the whole project just took a giant step back. “Without Mayday in the program, who would watch this?” one person wondered. Another promised never to forgive the NFL/CCTV-5 for forcing fans to wait up for a program that didn’t deliver the promised goods. Many frustrated remarks that the organizers were trying to trick them into watching the program – because who else would bother to watch such a program at such an hour? Not a lot of nice things to say about the NFL there. (Now to be fair, some who woke up this morning, having missed the excitement, will not go seek out the program to hear the background music, with decidedly lowered expectations.)

I actually enjoyed watching the highlights, even though I already knew how the games came out, because there was some nice footage of the Vikings against the Ravens (a game we almost lost – a missed field goal in the last 2 seconds ensured our victory). But I do have to admit I could have done without the extended slow-motion replay explaining how the Baltimore player got through not one, not two, but three Vikings defensive backs without any of the Vikings managing to touch him. *shakes head* No wonder the Vikings lost this past Sunday. Defense!

So, when will the program that Mayday recorded in September be airing? Dunno. Your guess is as good as mine at this point. And having been faked out once, any defensive line worth its salt won’t fall for the same trick on the very next play (right, Minnesota? RIGHT?!?), so don’t expect there to be a lot of Mayday fans watching next week to see if it’s any different. NFL China, your season is off to a shaky start.

[Edit: *Lol, Smokey - no, no late night woodworking for me, anyway.]

Posted in Mayday | 10 Comments »

The Greening of Shanghai

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Since we have the fantastically thorough concert report from V, I’m not even going to attempt to do something similar here. Actually, though, I couldn’t have been that thorough if I wanted to: if I had tried to keep track of the songs they sang, I would have failed. Miserably.

There are probably a few reasons for that. First of all, my copy of Fever finally arrived after a month-long wait on Monday – two days after the concert. Being a well-behaved fan, or perhaps just being of a different generation than the post-90 kids, I don’t download albums unless I can do it legally (and pay for it), and my internet can be a little too intermittent to stream, not to mention few of the streaming sites like macs. So I went into the concert on Saturday not having heard anything but the song “Fever” off the new album. Add that to the fact that I only know a few of the Daylight of Spring songs by name, and the fact that they covered a few songs I’d never heard before, and you’d have a pretty scanty concert report.

So… why haven’t I memorized all of Daylight yet? An interesting question. In part, I have to point back my original concern that four albums in two years is too much even for a band as great as sodagreen. While I enjoyed listening to Daylight, and ended up with a few songs I really like, it’s not Incomparable Beauty. It’s not really trying to be, of course, but there aren’t as many of the songs that just floor you, like “City (城市), “This Day (這天),” or “The Moon Haunts in the Daytime (白日出沒的月球)” did for me. Though of course, I’ve been referring to “Head Home Early (早點回家)” – the English translation there does NOT quite capture the Chinese – as the “expat anthem” all summer, and it will be my first posted translation off this album when I do my next round of posting. I guess you could say I liked the album, but was not bowled over by it. The other reason is that I bought a lot of new music this year, and this album didn’t claw its way to the top of the stack that often.

But luckily, not knowing the two centerpiece albums of the concert in no way impede one’s enjoyment of a sodagreen show. Now, to get the obligatory comparisons out to the way, so we can focus on the show itself:

  • 1. The usual comparison between this year’s Shanghai concert and last year’s. There were lots of little differences – the venue, my seat, the song list – but the biggest noticeable difference was the energy level in the crowd. Last year we sat through the whole concert – much to my dismay, we even sat through “Temporarily Out of Control” when *clearly* we should have been dancing along with A-gong. I think the only times anyone stood was during “Frequency” and the very end of the encore. In part, that was the songlist – I guess no one is going to stand up just to sway along with the music. This year, the Fever album had introduced more fast songs that required more than just a foot tap – more like full body bebopping.
  • 2. The necessary comparison with the Mayday show two weeks ago. First of all, comparisons between these two acts make even less sense to me than the endless Leehom vs. Cowboy Jay debates or the impressively long-lasting arguments over the Shin Band and Mayday. The reason for this is that aside from being two self-composing bands from Taiwan, they don’t have that much in common. Not only do they share a lot of fans, but I’d guess that for many of us, their music appeals to us in different ways. This year, sodagreen had a lot more pizazz, props and the like, more like a Mayday show, though both bands do put performing the music above the rest of it. (Not quite like A-yue - who didn’t so much as change clothes, much less bother with props – but far better than Leehom, who is practically all gimmicks.) But whereas a huge part of sodagreen live is Qingfeng’s on-stage persona and witty banter, Mayday is decidedly not about talk (which tends to be short and trite). And where the Mayday concert is constantly on your feet, pushing toward the front, the sodagreen crowd was slightly better behaved. The good news is that if you like either’s music, you’ll love the live performance. And that’s probably where the comparison should stop.

    • Now, on to this particular sodagreen concert. The first surprise for me (not apparently having read the Taipei reports that closely) was that the first voice we heard singing was Xinyi, not Qingfeng. She has a lovely voice, and it is clear why she would do so much backup on the albums (truth be told, her voice probably blends better with Qingfeng’s than any of the guys’ voices do). Then, of course, you have Qingfeng with the pink hair and the antlers. The best part of that, I think, is that even if you hadn’t heard about it, hadn’t seen pictures beforehand, if you know Qingfeng, seeing him come out in pink hair and antlers is not a “what the hell…” moment, but just a regular old “ah! Qingfeng!” moment. He could wander onstage in a full-body gorilla suit and you’d just think, “damn, I knew I should have brought a banana.”

    (more…)

    Posted in Sodagreen | 5 Comments »

    Sodagreen in Shanghai

    Sunday, October 25th, 2009

    Last night, sodagreen rocked Shanghai. Like, really rocked. The concert was amazing, and my plan is to combine my thoughts on the concert with a summary of some of the news reports about Beijing and Shanghai in the next day or two.

    In the meantime, however, I went to the concert with current Shanghai resident V, who has written up a fantastic (and incredibly detailed) concert review on her blog. She’s also got what is to date the only existing picture of me with my sodahair. :D

    [Edit: I walked into class at eight o'clock this morning and my students showed me pictures of me in my green hair they'd found online. As it turns out, what happens in Shanghai doesn't necessarily stay in Shanghai....]

    Posted in Sodagreen | 7 Comments »

    A New News Digest!

    Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

    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!

    Posted in Ding Dang, Mayday | 7 Comments »

    Mainland Indie Rock bands touring the US

    Sunday, October 11th, 2009

    Wow, more great music touring news. First, a confession: Hedgehog and several other artists from the largest Chinese indie rock label, Modern Sky, toured the US in September. I saw the news about it, then got all tied up with heading back to China from my summer stateside and completely forgot to post about it. But here’s my big chance at redemption.

    The second largest indie rock label on the mainland, Maybe Mars, is sponsoring a tour of five of its leading acts: P.K.14, Carsick Cars, Xiao He, White, and Snapline. The tour locations include DC, New York, Philly, Chapel Hill, and Chicago, among others. The full list, with info on the tour and the bands (and links to legal album downloads, so even if you don’t get to see them, you can hear them) is at this website. They’ve left space up on the list of shows, and my bet is that they’ll probably be confirming some West Coast dates as well after the tour starts in November.

    I’ve written about P.K. 14 a few times, most notably here. I have their last three albums and have really enjoyed City Weather Sailing lately (which is on the download list at the site above). These boys are native Nanjingers, which probably endears them to me further, as that’s the city in China I identify with the most. I tease the locals that it’s because I spent so much time in Taipei and can feel the 中华民国 (ROC) influence. Responses to that joke tend to be mixed.

    As I recall, Carsick Cars has also had a successful tour in Europe before, so it’s cool that they’re hitting the U.S. I have their self-titled album, which is something I put on when I need something high-energy. The descriptions at the tour site – plus the music samples – can do a much better job introducing them than I can, other than to say that if I was back in the US, I’d be at one of these shows. No question.

    Update: This is cool – Carsick Cars, P.K.14, Snapline, Xiao He – their music can all be found on iTunes and Amazon for downloading. I’m sure White can too, but that’s a harder search. I like that they’re making it easier for international audiences to support these artists!

    Posted in Mainland China Bands | 4 Comments »

    Won Fu on the West Coast

    Saturday, October 10th, 2009

    Just in case you missed this comment, I wanted to note that Taiwanese band Won Fu, which plays 60′s style pop rock, is going to be visiting several destinations in Washington, Oregon and California over the course of the next month. Follow the link for the full schedule and some samples of their music.

    It’s always good news when a Taiwanese band tours in the U.S., and this one is known for crazy fun shows. I’ve never had the privilege myself, but I hear it’s impossible to hear them live and not walk out with a smile on your face. :D

    Posted in Mandopop | 3 Comments »

    Journalistic Integrity

    Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

    I was reading along in this account of the Nanjing DNA concert last night, sorta nodding along with the comments about high technology and why DNA, when I reached this part of the last paragraph:

    而主唱阿信则带动乐队演唱了《终结孤单》、《恒星的恒心》、《乱世浮生》、《恋爱ing》等经典歌曲，还有写给梁静茹等其他歌手的《燕尾蝶》、《听不到》等。自己的歌，别人的歌，新歌，旧歌，到了现场都成了五月天的歌。到了《知足》、《倔强》、《温柔》、《最重要的小事》等保留曲目时更是全场合唱。

    Wait, was this person at the same concert as me? I sure didn’t hear Mayday sing “Loneliness Terminator,” “Star of Perseverence,” “Life is Troubled Times,” “Swallowtail Butterfly,” or “Can’t Hear.” (I did, as noted, hear “Love-ing….”) Then that whole “their own songs, other people’s songs, new songs, old songs” bit sounded really familiar.

    And it should: it was copied from this report of the Harbin DNA concert:

    主唱阿信带动乐队,演唱了经典歌曲《终结孤单》、《恒星的恒心》、《乱世浮生》、《恋爱ing》等,还有写给梁静茹的《燕尾蝶》、《听不到》。自己的歌, 别人的歌,新歌,旧歌,到了现场都成了五月天的歌,几乎每首歌都是万人大合唱,荧光棒和着震撼的音乐声叫喊声,几乎要把哈尔滨国际会展体育中心体育馆的屋顶掀开。

    I didn’t notice this when I blogged about Harbin (I even complimented the plagiarized writing! For shame). But of course, that’s obviously the wrong song list for this tour. And so that story can’t be the original source of the quote.

    And it’s not. The language seems to date from the Final Home tour in 2005:

    五月天不僅演唱了歌迷們耳熟能詳的經典歌曲「終結孤單」、「恒星的恒心」、「而我知道」等，還有五月天演唱會必唱歌曲「志明與春嬌」，新專輯的「知足」、「牙關」「戀愛ing」等，還有寫給別人的歌曲「燕尾蝶」、「聽不到」，Energy「放手」，自己的歌，別人的歌，新歌，舊歌，到了現場都變成了五月天的歌，幾乎每首歌都是萬人大合唱，螢光棒和著震撼的音樂聲叫喊聲，場面頗為壯觀。

    And that might not be the original source, just the oldest reference a very cursory search turned up. It looks like newspapers around China have been copying the old song lists and descriptions into reports on Mayday concerts throughout the country ever since, with no reference to what was actually going on at the shows. I guess now when news reports get things really, really wrong, we have a whole new explanation for why.

    Posted in Mandopop, Mayday | 2 Comments »

    Nanjing and I Explore Our DNA

    Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

    The first thing I learned last night is that it is every man for himself at a mainland Mayday concert. Maybe that’s true everywhere but Toronto; I have no experience with it in Taipei or Singapore or L.A. But within minutes of the concert starting, the girls in front of me were standing on their chairs because people had crowded three deep into the narrow aisle in front of their seats (no doubt people who bought the cheap tickets and were delighted the ushers weren’t checking – I always get the impression that I’m pretty much the only person at concerts who finds their assigned seat and – *gasp* – actually paid full price for it. I have not yet learned to game the system, clearly).

    The aisles down to the rows of seats in the stadium were filled with people, though every fifteen minutes or so the police would come and force them to clear the aisle, which meant they’d crowd into the row where people were standing. There was pushing, shoving, and people getting bonked on the nose with large blue lightsticks everywhere you looked. It was easily the most chaotic concert I’ve been to in China (number seven for me), and to date, it is the only one where everyone stood before it started and stayed on their feet all the way through. Needless to say, the bedlam was very rock and roll.

    I’m reminded of a conversation had here after Toronto Jump: yes, Merry/Virginia, this IS a rock band.

    Of course, if there was any lingering doubt at all on that point, the opening set cleared it up quite nicely, with “Moto Rock,” “Liver Busting,” “God of Gambling,” “Viva Love,” and “Hosee” all in rapid secession. Opening this way has the added advantage of giving Ashin a chance to warm up, get used to the earpiece, and go off-key a few times where it is easily drowned out by the noise of the music, saving his best efforts for later ballads. I was pleased to hear Ashin sing the real version of “Viva Love,” not the sanitized version created for the mainland; though maybe that was less a political statement and more just that they just couldn’t be bothered to change the subtitles on the screens. I was also glad that they just went ahead and sang the Hokkien songs without explanation or fake concern about whether the fans would know/understand the songs; at this point, they have to assume that most everyone has done their homework.

    (Confession: I let loose and enjoyed the concert, assuming that I could come home and cull the playlist from postings on past concerts. The Taipei show seems to be the right list, so I’ll use that for now and correct later if necessary. I know I could list everything they played; it’s the order that escapes me.)

    Kudos to B’in Music, by the way, for transporting the entire, complicated set to a “lesser” stop like Nanjing; I think we usually get a simplified version and the understanding that if you want to see the real thing, you should take the two-hour train ride to Shanghai.

    Mayday + Taxi take the stage.

    The next set of songs came post costume change, and I think after the taxi backdrop had been replaced with the giant white half globe. They slowed things down just a little, with “You’re Not Truly Happy,” “More Than Surviving, Less Than Living,” “Crazy World” [with part of “Migratory Bird” inserted in the middle], “The Apple,” “The Yet Unbroken Part of my Heart” (LOVE it!) and “Contentment.”
    (more…)

    Posted in Mayday | 5 Comments »

    soda-live in Taipei

    Sunday, October 4th, 2009

    Okay, think back in time a few weeks, and imagine you were among the thousands of dedicated sodafans who gathered to enjoy the band’s second appearance at the Taipei Arena. The band was as funny and clever as always, though in spite of all the laughs Qingfeng was still moved to tears at the end of the show. At one performance he read the special thanks name list at the end of the show, and stopped short over Will Lin’s name, recalling the important role the man has played in Qingfeng’s life. The singer also noted that the night before the first concert he was so nervous he couldn’t sleep, and so at 5:00 am he called Will, and the two chatted for two hours, the latter hour and a half of which Qingfeng cried through. (Suddenly, I have “It’s Alright to Cry” from Free to Be You and Me in my head. And I apologize if now you do as well.)

    Now, proving once and for all that whatever the relative merits of their guitar skills, Jiakai is just no where near as badass as Monster, I present this photo:

    Bumblebee Kay

    Apparently the first night he cross-dressed as Marilyn Monroe; the second night he was a bumblebee. In a pre-concert video, Xiao Wei and A-fu appeared to go from being a Parisian girl and a country girl to becoming Yang Yuhuan and Snow White, leaving the crowd laughing so hard they were gasping for breath.

    The concerts were in three parts: the key sections being “Daylight of Spring” and “Summer Fever,” with some fun thrown in between. There wasn’t much advance news on what it would be like so that fans could enjoy the surprises. This time they promised ahead of time not to go overtime (probably after paying all the fines last time), so they started the concert at 6:00 to be sure to get it all in, and didn’t go over.

    The band went through extensive rehearsals in the lead-up to the concert; A-gong missed some of these, because he was off separately practicing his dances. (Hmm, last time, I thought his dances looked decidedly unpracticed, and were all the better for it.) Qingfeng was asked if he’d wear red underwear for the concert (okay, what am I missing here? Is this some sodafan joke I haven’t heard?), but Qingfeng said that he is not accustomed to wearing colored underwear, but Jiakai has a preference for matching socks and underwear, but not knowing in advance how he’d coordinate, fans would just have to holler for information and the rest of the band can endeavor to supply it. Seriously, I do not feel strongly that I need to know the color of *anyone* in the band’s underwear on concert day or any other day, but then, from the sound of it, I’m in the minority among the fandom.

    The special guest for at least one show was Zee Avi, which is pretty cool. Other indie artists like Deserts Chang attended the performance. The band noted in pre-show press that they invited Mayday to the concert, but being busy with their own shows, it sounds like all Mayday managed to do was send flowers.

    (Side note: this picture from the concert has me contemplating whether I can work up a decent “Qingfeng” costume for Halloween. I suspect it all depends on the ability to get a pink or green wig.)

    Currently, the band is getting ready for the mainland leg of the tour, with a concert in Beijing on the 16th and Shanghai (yay!) on the 24th.

    Posted in Sodagreen | 7 Comments »