I love music. All kinds. The scene in Hong Kong has changed a lot over the last six or so years, but despite it getting generally better, I still take my hat off to those who get up there and perform, no matter how great the crowd. No matter how great the talent. Hey, sometimes I'm one of those people.
Joshua Thomson is a British artist who has come to Hong Kong and set up an Avante-Garde vinyl-only record label, which plans to also publish limited edition themed newspapers. Sounds like my cup of tea.
We weren't sure what the audience for PyC #3 would be like – since we'd combined with Social Media Week, we knew we'd be drawing in a different crowd to the eclectic mix we normally attract.
We were grateful that XXX in Sheung Wan was the perfect venue for us: Collapsable chairs, lounging couches, one projector for presenters, another for the TBWA Socializer. What more could we ask for?
Searching in Chinatowns everywhere
We got under way with Adam Cheung (writer, programme editor at RTHK and 80s Canto and J-pop junkie). He doesn't download music, preferring to buy CDs (he enjoys the pleasure of unwrapping and playing it; he respects the musicians). But he's not an idealist, he can't avoid Hong Kong's storage space issues anymore than anyone else.
Along with a great story and sense of humour, Cheung brought along a 13-year overdue cassette tape from the main library in Toronto, which he waved around as he walked us through his teen years. In fact, Cheung was born in Hong Kong, but his parents tricked him into moving to Toronto, in 1989, by prefacing the move with a holiday around the USA. In the '90s he started to yearn for Cantopop and J-pop, finding random music in Chinatowns everywhere: Toronto, Boston, Montreal... all in the dollar boxes. (Now days, he roams around the Sino Centre (Mongkok) and Sham Shui Po.
Come 2007, YouTube entered his life, where he found old songs. Cheung points out, like many music fans, that things that were hard to find, are now searchable - and he misses the search. But he did find himself in an '80s canto music video for Sam Hui's 許冠傑, 甄妮 - 無敵是愛 on YouTube. He was about 6 at the time.
Three degrees of collaboration
Next up, we had Derek Bullen ("music is a hobby"), who was prepared to tell his own story of origination and downloading. It all started when he downloaded a music-making software. He made a track called Hopeless and sent it back to a friend – who commented on the sadness of the piece. Bullen was happy enough to have "transmuted his emotions into a song" – he was happy. His friend put the song online, along with his own songs, which also made Bullen happy, since he was "limited with social media". A few days later, a stranger who had downloaded the track, uploaded it to the same site, with additions. It's what Bullen calls "three degrees of collaboration" and the song maintains a certain touching lament. "Later, we all met up. But that's another presentation," he quips.
Ching Chong
The next presentation was set to be the funniest of the night. Artist and curator Isaac Leung hit the topic on the spot with the statement "social media can punish and reward you!"
Alexandra Wallace made news recently by YouTube-ing her rant, about Asians in her university library. Jimmy Wong took it upon himself to sing a reply in kind, and by now, both have had around 4million views. "Google Alexandra and you get hot pics. But now days you'll also see pictures of 'sexy' Asian guys," jokes Leung, who started 'following' Wong because, well, he's quite cute.
Before making us laugh non-stop for four minutes, Leung emphasises his initial point: "You'll also find stories online of people fired over social media." Wallace chose to stop attending classes at UCLA.
Hong Kong loves Facebook
Our fourth presentation came in Cantonese, along with a bilingual presentation, something that PyC is always grateful for (and perhaps a first for SMW?). Arto Leung (founder of Mugazine.net) talked about the sharing of information – and how Hong Kong loves Facebook (it's so true). But, echoing Cheung's sentiments, there's no surprise like finding the record you wanted.
That said, the Internet makes people "honest". They say when they hate an album... they complain and share, the like and share. So it changes society in a way. In keeping with his native-language presentation, Leung plays 困局 (dilemma) by local act, Ni.Ne.Mo, who were present at the event. Their song reminds me of Bloc Party.
Origins and re-writes
Blogger and YouTube channel member Ching Hoi made things interesting by presenting her own song. Well, originality already came up once in the evening, and it came up again here. As an amateur songwriter – and to promote a love of Cantopop – Ching decided to make a Canto version of the theme song from popular Taiwanese movie, Apple of my Eye.
She explains the difficulties of writing in Cantonese, which requires both tone matches and rhyming - you have to balance the tone and the lyrics, to be convincing. While she cares about the original song, she points out that re-writing and copying are two different things. And it's clear from their comments that her audience also cares about the original; some of them even offering new re-writes.
While it's convenient, sharing music on YouTube has also helped her to make new friends. "There's no need to promote and spend - just ask friends to share. I hope I will make more original songs of my own, too."
The silent approach
The sixth presentation of the evening was mostly silent. Reign Lee (Founder of Indie Mag; Singer/ songwriter) takes a great approach to both topic and style. Silent, with emphatic images making strong cultural references and setting the timeframe: The invasion of Kuwait, fall of Berlin wall, Sinead O'Connor refusing to play in the USA if their national anthem is played first. Frank Sinatra threatening to punch her.
Lee's social networks are real; human. While interviewing Aimee Mann recently, the conversation lead her to recall an old song she loved: Joey by Concrete Blonde. So from one social network, to another, we hear the song that deeply inspired her as a musician.
Being human and socialising: We all need to be loved
Our final presenter (almost ironically) presents The Smiths' How Soon Is Now. I say that, because Stuart Lennon (Senior Communications Manager for Animals Asia; Singer/ songwriter; Co-host Crosswires HK) willingly jumped onto the PyC roster just a week before the event.
In his early days, Lennon was all about distortion and screaming – so he didn't know this song in '84 when it first came out as a B-side. As a punk/ metal/ anything heavy fan, Indie and Britpop wasn't his thing - and so he admits to first hearing this song as a cover by metal act paradise lost.
But his friends all loved Indie and Britpop, so it was almost peer pressure that lead him to embrace the original. He decided it was one of the best music videos he'd seen, blending audio and visual, yet ironically, The Smiths hated it and pretty much disowned it.
But that's just fodder and Lennon gets to the point. "The chorus lyrics speak to two key aspects of being human and socialising".
You shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does
"The first half speaks to Internet trolls. The second is the flip side of the human condition – wanting to connect, be in tune. Hating and loving. That's why we constantly check our Facebook to see how loved we are – or tweet about tweeting."
He finishes poignantly, "its a shame that as we use these social networks, we forget that as we want to be loved, everyone else does."
// Wait – he has an end note: "By the way, I stole my images from the Internet, but i don't illegally download music. And I made this presentation using an app on my phone."//
Ok, so usually, my blog is filled with quirky observations, documentation of weird happenings, or my little shrine-like collections. But I can be serious too – after all, I run my own organic creative services company.
It's Social Media Week again ([at]SMWHK #SMWHK), which means running all over the city to get to as many events as possible, learning, debating, listening and sharing all kinds of ideas and information about tons of topics that relate back to social media.
I've already had a piece in SCMP in advance of the event, promoting events like Blogging 101 and blogging for fashion lovers. You'll find it on my company Facebook page, here.
In fact, I'm also organising an event on Friday, February 17th 2012 under the PitchYrCulture banner, with many, many thanks to Andrew. (There's also an official Pitch Yr Culture blog and Facebook page).
On top of that, I'm an official contributing blogger for SMW. You'll find my profile on the main SMWHK site, where they'll also re-post my blogs.
In the meantime, help to re-post my blog entries until Twitter can't handle capacity (which it already seems to be struggling with and it's only day two of SMW).
As people buzzed around Culture Club in Central (September 16th, 2011) it was easy to tell that the first PitchYrCulture event had gathered a mix of ages and races, all intrigued to see what the evening would be like. There was a comfortable hum of chatting, the sipping of beer and the scent of popcorn popping.
But before I get into how great the event was, let me tell you what it is. Organised by musical artists and artistic musicians (why differentiate?), PitchYrCulture launched a series of public-presentation forums, each dedicated to the exploration and explanation of recorded music in all its varieties. Events are themed and accept about 5-7 guest presenters. And here’s the hook – while each presentation delves into the song’s history, cultural impact, and artistic ambitions and/ or the presenter’s personal anecdotes or aimless digressions – the presentation must be the same length as the chosen song. And that’s not easy.
The first event was themed Before-it-all: Do you remember the first song that made an impression on you or meant something to you, when you were really young, before you started to care what other people liked, what other people thought of you, before you needed to be cool or fit in, before you cared what was ‘in’?
While we filed in and out, bought drinks and chatted, an audience member offered to sing us a song. Hailing from the Mainland, this Chinese student sung us a rendition of a traditional song, in Mandarin. With that under-way, it was time to get things moving, with MC (and founder) Andrew Guthrie. And what better way to start than with the Batman TV Theme song? Remember that jazz number? Guthrie does. Not only did it relax the mood and iron out any technical glitches, the theme song flowed nicely onto Clara Cheung’s presentation. Cheung (co-director of the innovative exhibition space, C&G Artpartment) picked an old favourite TV theme of her own. If we had asked for more perfect examples of East and West, we couldn’t have asked for better. Magical Angel Creamy Mami (我係小忌廉) had all the optimism, complete with synth sounds required to throw you into the nostalgia of 1980s Hong Kong TV (read: Japanese anime).
Keeping nostalgia alive – as was the point – we moved onto Anita Mui’s classic, Star, presented passionately and lovingly in impressive Cantonese and English by Singaporean, Arthur Wong. For those that hadn’t grown up in Hong Kong, or were uneducated about Cantopop, they were about to meet a legend.
Oliver Holtaway, musician and DJ, flew into Hong Kong specifically for the event. He neatly pushed us into the early 90s with Sesame's Treet by the Smart Es – delivering us into the heart of rave culture, posing the question: Did this song kill rave? His speedy, matter-of-fact presentation skills raced us through the political setting (Thatcher) and the history of how we worried about the youth in the UK during all those raves, in a manner that reminded me of a Tim-from-Spaced speech. Holtaway delivered his presentation within seconds of the song time – and was the only one to do so.
Alice Chik, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City U (and co-author of the yet-unpublished English Pop, Hong Kong Style) took us further back in time with some rather amusing personal anecdotes and an apt reminder of how song can be used to teach English. Just how much is that _ _ _ _ _ in the window?
Mike Middleton, a partner of the Songs for Children indie music promotion organisation was one of the first people to ask if he could join the event. Presenting a song that encapsulated his teen years and the coming-of-age of “Indie Mike”, he started fast when telling us about Comin' Through by the Pastels. But then, he got quite absorbed by what he was saying. At one point, I had a vision of Middleton in full kilt (he’s Scottish), giving a speech at his son’s wedding. If he’d wanted a longer song, I’d have suggested Rush, but his manner, enthusiasm and changing pace made his presentation perfect, amusing and endearing.
Bringing the show to a close, Yan Yan Pang of Hard Candy and Tyger Feb took us back to the ‘90s one last time, reminding us of Richie Manic Street Preacher’s disappearing act and – uh oh, we’re in trouble… Shampoo. Growing up in the UK, there was no escaping that one (and I have the pink 7” vinyl) so I was glad to hear the song made it to Hong Kong as well. Pang later said to me, “I did see your smile when I said it's Trouble, so you must be a fan as well! I really enjoyed it, looking at my old CD collection again just makes me smile!”
Written with grateful thanks to Lennon at Culture Club.
Finding music used to be about searching through zines, your siblings collections and writing a letter to a random penpal in the US, to get the latest EP from your favourite Punk band.
Digital has changed that. In a way, it's sad. That trawling search reminds you that it's part of the game and you love music. Nonetheless, here's some tips on finding new music in the digital landscape.
In Spite of Everything (a collection of 12" misunderstandings)
Whilst the name of the collection implies the emotional and temporal impetus we place on music as it passes through the airwaves and into our lives, this collection of LP-sized paintings question the sometimes heart-felt or seemingly innocent song lyrics that blister us on a daily basis.
With each piece named after a song, such as ‘Road To Nowhere’ (Talking Heads), artist Vickie Chan is taking the lyrics out of their musical context, and juxtaposing them with her own images to insinuate new meanings. Chan encourages us to look for new facets in what we know, give apparent innocence a second glance, and question simple relationships between image and text, as she pokes at pop culture. Chan hopes to encourage the viewer to make a new relationship with the songs, In Spite of Everything.
