chinese punk, rock, indie, noise brought to you by D22!

[kabukiboy]

Located in the Wudaokou area (in the Haidian district), D-22 is a bar music club, and performance space dedicated to identifying and supporting talented young musicans and artists in Beijing, as well as inviting leading experimental musicans from the US, Japan, Europe and elsewhere to perform and collaborate with local musicians. The club has been designed with relaxed seating arrangements for up to 200 guests, an upstairs lounge and viewing space, and one of the best live music sound systems in China.

Besides regular performances most nights, the club acts as a workshop, music rehearsal space, and a center for local filmmakers. The partners involved in D-22 have previously run independent record labels in the US and China, managed a well-known music club in New York, curated performances at leading New York and Beijing venues, and written extensively in local and foreign periodicals about underground and experimental music in China. D-22 is not operated for profit and all revenues earned by the club are used to support the local music scene.

demerit

http://www.myspace.com/demeritamry

Pure punk, DEMERIT is China’s best street-punk band. Drawing inspiration from the early 80's comes a new breed of punk for this millennium. DEMERIT have been performing and touring all over China since 2004. Combining strong melodic punk-rock anthems with DIY attitude.

In 2004, out of a love for street-punk, Liyang(vocals/guitar) Xueyang(bass) and Zhangwei(drums)decided to form a band in the beer soaked streets of Qingdao. They played several shows including Qingdao’s 1st Beach Music Festival. Then after several line-up changes the band moved to Beijing and were joined by Zack, a drummer and prize-fighter from the US.

DEMERIT exploded like an atomic bomb at this period, they kept on rehearsing and playing dynamic shows establishing themselves as the best street-punk band in Beijing underground scene. On the 24th of December 2005 they performed at the 13 Club where their show was recorded and pressed to a Chinese punk compilation titled "Forming”.

Their debut "Never Say Die" was finished in April 2006. At this time Zack moved on to Japan to fight K2 and their fellow Zhensong took over on the drums. The band was booming by this time and shared the stage with international acts such as RUX(Korea), INSURGENT KID(Sweden) and the 4Sivits(Germany). They were invited to play at the prestigious MIDI music festival two years in a row and were interviewed by the Washington Post.

DEMERIT had been seeking a second guitarist to fill out their sound and on September of 2006 Huihui was added to the lineup. They joined up with Korea’s top punk band, Suck Stuff, for a full China tour named “Spirit of Rebellion” in April of 2007. DEMERIT has continued to improve their song writing through new material and recently astounded their audience with a powerfully arranged acoustic set.

Now the fully passionate and infectious band is on the road again. They hope meet up with like minded punks around the world playing clubs and DIY spaces, drinking, talking and sleeping on your floor.

hedgehog

http://www.myspace.com/hedgehogbeijing

When ZO BoX and ATOM met each other in January 2005 they decided to make a fantastic band named “HedgeHog”. These Beijing Boys&Girl who create simple, hooky songs have become the sexy point of the BigCity. And the record [HAPPY IDLE KID] which released in 2006 greatly hit the Chinese conservational Rock&Roll. In the spring of 2007 they make contract with ModernSky which is the most famous independent music company in china.Their first legal copy phonograph record [Noiseis Hit World] is being manufactured and plan to release at the end of June . "my youth seem so perfect against no time to lost !rock fucking crazy on the stage and make noise to hit the world!" Come on NoisePoP ! Come on Boys&Girl!

pk14

http://www.myspace.com/pk14

Since 1997, P.K.14 have been imbued with the same passion as a bunch of kids who've just formed their first band. Though a democratic self-managed outfit, singer Yang Haisong is described in alternative circles as the 'kernel' of the band, he's the only remaining member of P.K.14's original 1997 line-up, previous ones departed because of homesickness, serious illness, and a sex change.

P.K.14's lyrics are predominantly about China's disaffected urban youth. The titles may seem gloomy yet the songs beseech the listener and, as Yang explains, have elements of hope. Legend has it that Yang's worn the same pair of glasses he’s had since secondary school - perhaps they are what help him preserve his youthful worldview (the name P.K.14 is itself an abbreviation of Public Kingdom for Teens.)

Yang says he writes as a reminder to both himself, 'I need to oppose… and maintain a youthful attitude,' and his friends who 'need something to prove that what they're doing is right because they're living this sort of rotten life. The government tells people to live for money, a house, a car, a bigger house. More people are getting rich and more people getting poor. It's a bad situation. We are looking for meaning in a country that is changing so drastically.'

The musical gap between P.K.14 and their contemporaries in the West is becoming smaller. P.K.14 may sing in Chinese, but their pared down sound, explosive live sets and DIY passion need no translation. They are a band whose sound and energy reflects their audience, one that has more in common with The Meat Puppets than Mao.

joyside

http://www.myspace.com/joyside

On march of 2001, the band was formed in a dankish basement in the north of Beijing city. Aftre 3 years,the four lazy dizzy guys got their debut album released, it called "Drunk is Beautiful". Then Joyside had their first tour around China. The singer bianyuan called it a "rock'n'roll nightmare". The tour was amazing, was full of passion and chaos, fuddle and shout. All the videos were recorded by an American director Kevin Fritz who was on the whole tour with the band and later made those became a wonderful documentary about Joyside--"Wasted Orient". After years of innumerable spreeing and vomitting, the paranoias start to climb out of their beer barrels.They dig pure rock'n'roll, give great big kisses to devil, and run wild on the burning side. So far The Joyside had down 5 album and a film seens 2001. Which is (Joyside).(Everything sucks).(Drunk is beautiful).(Bitches of Rock'N"Roll-DEMO).(Bitches of Rock'N'Roll)and the film (wasted oreint) They are bitches of rock'n'roll, who are addicted to Dead Boys, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols and the Stooges. They are surviving young dudes from the old century. They are your modern human beings' nightmare makers.

fanzui xiangfa

http://www.myspace.com/fanzuixiangfa

We are Fanzui Xiangfa, the first DIY hardcore band that has emerged from China. We are here to provoke, to question and to make some noise.

torturing nurse

http://www.myspace.com/torturingnurse

analogue harshnoise group from Shanghai,China!

carsick cars

http://www.myspace.com/carsickcars

Car-sick Cars formed in March 2005 and performed for the first time at Beijing Institute of Technology in May 2005. Since then the band have played every major venue in Beijing as well as in Shanghai and Hangzhou.

In this short time Car-sick Cars have earned their reputation at the pinnacle of Beijing's live music scene, with their gigs riotous explosions of pent-up energy. There's a certain fearlessness to Car-sick Cars music, one that is born of the confidence of the talented: they are not afraid to write perfect, instantaneously catchy songs, and they are just as unafraid of detonating them midstream amid a howling wall of guitar noise. Live, this tendency towards violated beauty knows no bounds: anyone who was at D-22 in early December will remember the eleven minutes it took for Xiao Wang (already a veteran of Glenn Branca's guitar army at only 21) to move between the final primal teenage-kick howl of "COME ON!" on I Wanna Be Your Dog, to being sat dazed and bewildered on the floor, guitar unstrapped, shards of white noise spitting from his poor abused amp, wondering - just as the delirious audience was - what the fuck had just happened. Such ecstatic flights, such abandon, is rare these days, so get in on the ground floor and catch it while you can. As the graffiti in the D-22 toilets says, I Love My Mom, I Love My Country and I LOVE Carsick Cars. And you know graffiti never lies.

snapline

http://www.myspace.com/snapline

A taut bass, a jagged guitar, a cold and urgent voice; the insistent nervous rhythm of a drum loop: the nocturnal heartbeat of a particular kind of person. Maybe you know him; maybe you are her. He is the guy you see sometimes at the bar, one leg shaking to the music but with something holding him back, until at the end of the night he lets go with such abandon that it upsets the tasteful hipster decorum of the place; she is the passive, frustrated wallflower throwing off sparks, the one who no-one would suspect gets her kicks by writing love letters to basement killers doing life without parole. They would be perfect together, only they will never meet. The closest they will come is within the music, alone but defiant, called out against their will to dance again on life's Snapline. --Rob

rebuilding the rights of statues

http://www.myspace.com/rebuildingtherightsofstatues

Born in the shadow of post-Tiananmen nihilism, the collapse of state run industry and a desert that will someday swallow their city whole, Cut Off!, the first E.P. from pioneering Beijing-based post-punks Rebuilding the Rights of Statues delivers explosive, danceable, unsettling energy that leaves you unsure whether you want to take your clothes off and shake the spiders out, or go look for a rope, a closet and a copy of Iggy Pop's The Idiot.

This is visceral music built from the bones up, think ubermench rather than Frankenstein's monster: beautiful, brilliant and brooding.

Drummer Ma Hui's rhythms still hold the echo of the earthquake that wiped his birth city off the map in 1976, while Liu Min's irresistible bass lines and staccato, strangely sensual yelps make you remember why you first fell in love with Blonde Redhead. Standing over it all, Hua Dong's shattering vocals and addictive open-fisted guitar stitch the flesh to the muscle like some demented monkey king. Even legendary composer/producer Brian Eno was so blown away he stood in on guest keyboards (we couldnt even make this stuff up, seriously).

You ever play 'seven minutes in heaven'? Cut Off! is like that stretched out for half an hour: tangible sweat-soaked darkness, blood-pumping atmospherics

...and they never open the door.

white

http://www.myspace.com/whitebeijing

White was formed by Shou Wang and Shenggy in January 2006, and has quickly become one of the most acclaimed outfits in the Beijing new music scene. White's sound is ever evolving, spiralling outwards from the core stars of noise and minimalism to take in everything from the phase patterns of Steve Reich, Throbbing Gristle's aggressive electronic shimmer, Neubauten's rhythmic invention, and the gu zheng masters of Chinese classical music.

yan jun

http://www.myspace.com/yanjunyanjun

Yan Jun, sound artist and improviser. Well known as music critic, poet and organizer in Chinas indie music and sub-culture scene for years. Born in Lanzhou in 1973. BA in Chinese Language & Literature. Now lives and works in Beijing. Founder of Sub Jam and KwanYin labels. Founder of Tie Guan Yin (free-form electro-acoustic improvised project). Runs the Waterland Kwanyin weekly event for experimental/improvised music and sound art.

mafeisan

http://www.myspace.com/mafeisan

mafeisan was a kind of decoction that mixed by:

9g Chinese Azalea Flower,

3g jasmine root ,

30g Chinese angelica ,

0.9g calamus .

Aftertakes can makes one anaesthetize and insensitive. be the earliest anaesthetic which was invented by famous doctor Hua Tuo(145-208),it had lost already the longtime until the beginning of 2005,on which Yang Yang, Zhang Zhongshu and Mah Xiao began to reproduction it with the instruments like guitar,bass, drum, effects, Saxphone, trumpet, keyboard and so on, it will makes one get acceleration of center nerve signal conduction,and restraint anxiety, promotion adrenalin secretion while listening ,and promote the brain cell metabolism, andinitiates the thought reorganization in the strong strength sound wave, is the gospel for long life

hot and cold

http://www.myspace.com/hotandcoldmusic

Named after a Yangon restaurant, and Hot & Cold started as a megaphone 'n' bass jamming unit in January 2005. Their New Delhi basement experimental and exploratory sound placed them as direct forerunners of No New Delhi scene to follow. Screamed poetry, bass drone, saxophone, and sparse metronome and keyboard experiments were transcribed on the microphone of a mp3 player for feedback laden results. However, scholarly commitments caused the band to go on hiatus after releasing one ultra-limited cdr on the now defunct "Noodle Shop Records" (1 copy in total). Of course, most of it sounded like crap. Come late 2006, Hot & Cold reunited in Beijing, to open for White, an inspiration for cosmic noise duos everywhere. Some tracks were recorded in a slightly less no fi setting, and paths have been broken for future sound deconstructions...................

smzb

http://www.myspace.com/smzb

SMZB is founded in 1996, the fisrt punk band in WuHan, one of the earliest punk bands in China. The band had 3 members at first, they had been playing in some underground places for a long time. SMZB has experienced some member changings. By the end of 2002, it became a 4-member band untill 2005. The band keeps touring in China in those years, they made a Southeast Asia Tour in 2004 and a successful, also their first Europe Tour in 2005 with the help of Norway October Party Record. The band changed their guitar player and bass player, and added a flute&tin whistle player at the beginning of 2006, by now the band has 5 members... Their music style has changed a lot as well as their members changed. After all these changes, now they have their own certain style. SMZB will continue to produce their music, and definetly will do better than now... ... They will keep trying and trying, no matter what happend to them, happend to u, and happend to this world, they won't lost their faith in themselves. A lot of thanks to everyone who support SMZB!

angry jerks

http://www.myspace.com/angryjerks

The original Angry Jerks was formed by drummer Timma in 2000. Only 3 people were in the band after the first two months;due to laziness the guitar player quit the band. Then Timma found Gao feng by posting on the Xici. Gao became the signer of the band and wrote all the songs for the band. After half a year the bass player quit the band after 4 shows. After searching and changing bass players & guitar players they finally found Du wei as a second guitar player and Zhu xiaonan bass player.They went on tour together with SMZB the great fucking Wuhan Punk band. After the tour Timma got the VISA to America( after a few months in nyc he formed yo!scunt with a friend),so The Angry Jerks recorded their first album. Gaofeng's girlfriend became the bass player and Duwei became the drummer. Then another guitar player entered the picture, Gao song .They toured and began to record their second album. ....

the fuck'ndrolls

http://www.myspace.com/thefuckndrolls

The band formed in Auguest, 2006. It's called The Fuck'ndrolls and its former is the fuckenrolls. 8Fang and Ringo reformed it. They decided to play more things about Garage Punk!Garage is still carry on in ShangHai China! Come on,all of Garage guys!

the scoff

http://www.myspace.com/thescoff

nara

http://www.myspace.com/tandawa

fm3 buddha machine

http://www.myspace.com/fm3buddhamachine

"An extraordinary piece of sound art" (The Wire)

"Beautifully useless" (New York Times)

"the most addictive, spellbinding, hypnotic little box you've ever wrapped a sweaty palm around." (Santa Fe Reporter)

"Insanely brilliant" (Alan Bishop, Sun City Girls)

"Mesmerizing" (Popmatters)

"I can't stop playing with it" (Pitchfork)

"And it kinda sounds like shit. But a good shit!" (Tiny Mix Tapes)

believers

http://www.myspace.com/believers

THE BELIEVERS We are the one who forget our rights, Being young, Old logic haunts us when we curse the materialism and conservatism, Broken soul greets brand new life, which rise on the power of the past, We deal with the loneliness and vacuous life, Restlessly! We are distorted! What's our future? Waiting for the mercy of the motherland? No!!! Nobody worries for us! We are our own GOD! We are our own salvation army!!! Destroy the whole world! Destroy us! The great first step! PUNK for CHAOS, PUNK for BREACH, and PUNK for YOUTH, My fellow man, we are those to PUNK. It's time for us to PUNK! So, let's punk ahead, keep everything fucking chaos!

reflector

http://www.myspace.com/reflectorbeijing

in 1997, three kids from Wudaokou, Guo Feng, Ye Jingying and Tian Jianhua, who had been friends since grade school got their hands on a Guns n Roses record. The boys immediately decided to form a band, which we now known as Reflector. They pretty much did nothing but practice, and by 98 they were performing in a series of gigs at Scream! Club, where they started doing some DIY shows, made it into foreign media highlights the likes of Sky News, CNN and Newsweek (and even had a brief stint with an Italian exchange student in another Chinese early punk-era band, Rockstar). Reflector recorded eight songs on the Wuliao Contingent four-band double-disc compilation in 99 (Scream! Records), and began to build a colorful repertoire of experience in various bars all over Beijing. In 2000, Scream Club was featured in the soundtrack to the film Warm Summer Day. Scream! Records later went on to record a video of Scream Club (which only took one day to tape by the way), following the guys on a frolic through the Beijing hutongs dressed as peasant girls. Needless to say, this video never made it to MTV, VH1 or even Channel V, but you can find it if you look hard enough. In 2001, attracting media attention as the first Chinese punk band to tour America, Reflector performed at Washington State University and performed in seven cities on the west coast the highlight of which as a opening gig with Anti-Flag in Sacramento. Upon returning to China, Li Peng (former Premier) joined Reflector. Sadly, Guo then left the band in early 2002, and it took the band another 5 months to record their first EP Reflector, which was released by Japanese record label People's Records in July of 2002. Reflector continues to play gigs all over Beijing and China, and has played over 300 shows, including the Live Vocals festival, organized by Cui Jian (August 2003) and the 2003 Midi Music Festival (October 2003). Reflector signed with the Beijing promotion company Newbees Music in February to December 2003.

another idea

http://www.myspace.com/anotheridea

the noname

http://www.myspace.com/thenonamechina

Rice & classical kung fu Movies are not the only things coming from China! Here with a blast comes the hottest Punk Rock import from the Far East- NONAME from Xi'an China! Masterminded by vocalist and NONAME head honcho Ray, whom is sick and tired of this ruling society, he finds his kind of freedom in the music by starting his own revolution in communist China. Even the government who limits all personal rights to zero did not stand a chance to hold back these four Chaos Punks. Furthermore these maniacs show them their middle fingers straight to their faces and fighting against all limits. Their music can be described as a mix between pure Punk Rock from the 80s and straight hardcore with heavy guitars, groovy bass and tons of vocals. NONAME creates a wall of sound to scream along with, this music is the kind of revolution that Ray wanted, and hoped would never stop inspiring.

the reason

http://www.myspace.com/thereasoncn

D-22

http://www.d22beijing.com/

http://www.myspace.com/d22beijing

[roddy]

Obviously an advert, but letting it through as D22 is an established venue and the information might be of use.

[kabukiboy]

i'm not affliated with d22 as such, but have a friend who works there who introduced me to all this music and i'm keen to show the variety of music coming out of china now.

[renzhe]

Actually, in a forum where there are constant threads about finding underground music and non-mainstream live acts, this post is a true gem.

d22 is definitely on my list to visit when I'm in Beijing in March.

Does anyone know any good places in Shanghai?

[gato]

In Shanghai, try these two:

http://www.chinalivebar.com/forum_view.asp?forum_id=16&view_id=1502

http://www.chinalivebar.com/article.asp (pictures)

现场酒吧[上海]----地下原创音乐空间！

地址：杨浦区 昆明路721号 (通北路口)

http://www.chicpark.com/view/?News_ID=303

http://bar.partysh.com/page/?cgid=33

4 Live, 上海建国中路8号7号楼

And this list here:

http://city.megajoy.com/shanghai/nightlife/live/rock_music/

现场酒吧 looks pretty happening.

[kabukiboy]

for more info on chinese music in general i keep this thread on a local message board updated with anything i find:

http://www.messandnoise.com/discussions/1082065

i also host a website collecting info from all around the australasia region to help bands organise their own tours, which in turn can let music fans find out what's going on:

http://www.tenzenmen.com/phpBB2/

glad someone found this thread useful :-)

[renzhe]

I've certainly found it very informative. Thank you both, now I have more places to visit!

Hope to catch some good gigs while there.

[Flying Pigeon]

Thanks for this post. I'm digging P.K. 14!

Peace,

Dean

[kabukiboy]

thought i'd bump this thread to see if any of you folks are still here and have made it to D-22 or discovered more cool chinese music in the mean time :-)

[renzhe]

I visited D-22, and liked it, but TBH, it's a typical European-style indie concert place with lots of expats and tourists.

Still, nice staff, good music, laid-back attitude, good place to visit for sure!

Not on your list, but really good are Glorious Pharmacy, Second Hand Rose and Happy Avenue. I really like PK14, noname, SMZB and Re-TROS.

[gougou]

If you want to check when (and where) your favorite band is playing, you can give this great site I found recently a try: http://www.beijinggigguide.com/en/

[zhuhao]

My favorites of this lot are Hedgehog (and their splinter group The B-Side Lovers, though I've yet to see a discernible difference aside from the lack of bassist), Carsick Cars, Re-TROS, and Reflector. I've seen them all a bunch of times but Reflector gave a SMASHING performance at the Strawberry Festival. D-22 bands often don't sound great recorded but they are all brilliant live shows. It's not necessarily my favorite venue, but it has its place and it's important to the scene in Beijing.

Also, gougou! You plugged my site! Thank you Now I don't have to be all shameless about it myself. ;)

[kabukiboy]

P.K. 14 are finally making it to Australia! actually - not sure if anyone here maybe able to help but i'm looking for leads into the chinese media here in Oz. we're having lots of trouble getting response. with a huge chinese population it would be a shame if they didn't even know about chinese musicians making the effort to get here!

interview at Tone Deaf

We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files, however we don’t like regurgitating press releases or asking the easy questions. No-one gets out of the Tone Deaf Interrogation lightly, so just hold still, grit your teeth, clench your buttocks and be still while we put on the rubber gloves, apply the thumbscrews, and pull out our thermometer while you open up and say ahhhhhhhhhhh… Truthful answers only or we drink your rider while you’re on stage.

Lead singer Yang Haisong from Chinese band P.K14 answers our questions.

We don’t want to know about the bands your press release says you’re influenced by. Take us back to your bedroom when you were 14. What band posters did you have on the wall?

When I was 14, most of music around us are propaganda songs and love songs from Taiwan and Hong Kong singers. I don’t like them both. No any chance to listen western rock music or get posters from stores. So I didn’t have any poster in my bedroom.

What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?

I don’t really remember which gig are the worst. I would say the very first gig that P.K.14 played 13 years ago was so bad. We played 4 songs, I sang all the songs out of key, and my legs shacked all the time in front of hundreds of university students. But at the same time, It’s the best gig to me. I hope I can see the show on Youtube, but seems nobody shot it.

Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $A20/$US18/£14/€10 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?

I have no idea about it. I didn’t get drunk quite long time. Maybe you can take me to some local 2nd hand records stores? I am gonna get drunk even no alcohol there.

What releases have you put out? Are they million sellers or do you still have a few boxes of them sitting gathering dust under your bed?

We put out 4 albums so far. And none is million seller. Most of people like all the love songs and kind of Chinese idols, Unfortunately, we didn’t play love songs, and are not idols neither.

Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another band. Who, which band and why?

Billie Holiday. I think you know why.

You’re touring Australia. We know how much visitors are afraid of our native animals, so what is your greatest fear? Getting attacked by a) a snake B) a red back spider c) a bluebottle jellyfish d) a crocodile or e) a venomous drop bear?

Snake is my nightmare, worst ever.

P.K14 play at The Forum on Fri 22nd October, as part of Melbourne Festival’s Beck’s Festival Bar. Tickets are $20. Find our more info on the Beck’s Bar website, or visit Ticketmaster for tickets.