Beijing's explosive music scene

Posted: Monday, August 11, 2008 9:35 AM
Filed Under: Beijing, China

By day, Michael Pettis is a finance professor expounding on monetary matters at China's prestigious Beijing University (known here as Beida).

By night, he's chain-smoking and tending bar at D-22, a vanguard club on the capital's explosive rock music scene.

"Beijing is probably among the five or six most exciting cities in the world for music, and it’s all really happened in the last few years," said Pettis, who opened D-22 two years ago in the city’s northwestern Haidian district, a sprawling university enclave that is also home to China's Silicon Valley.

Seven years ago, the 50-year-old Pettis was an investment banker on vacation in China.  A long-time specialist in emerging economies, he said he was immediately "blown away by the excitement here."  So much so that he decided to move to China.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

AV Okubo undergo a sound check before a performance at D-22.

Pettis quickly landed a teaching assignment with Tsinghua University, another top-rated university in Beijing. "The idea was to stay here two years, teaching and learning about China," said Pettis from his perch behind the bar at D-22 one afternoon, as one of seven bands prepared sound checks ahead of their performances later that evening.  "As you can see, that plan didn't quite work out."

Pettis wound up moving to Beida, where he now teaches twice a week. Then, "at 9 p.m., I come here every day," he grinned, gesturing around the club.

The scene
In contrast to its monster local reputation amongst those in the know, D-22 is a tiny venue sandwiched between Chinese restaurants in a strip mall off a main road running through the Wudaokou neighborhood in Haidian.  

Tuesday through Sunday nights, D-22 hosts live gigs featuring punk rock, university bands, experimental noise, acoustic music, jazz, folk, even Beijing Opera.  "There is so much interesting, exciting music being created out there that we can have lives every night, except Monday when we have to rest," said Nevin Domer, the booking manager at D-22.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Michael Pettis launched D-22 onto the Beijing music scene in spring 2006.

And despite initial concerns that the Beijing authorities’ attempts to clean up the city ahead of the Summer Olympics would extend to shutting down some live music venues, D-22 and a handful of other clubs have stayed open, entertaining loyal crowds of fans.

"What’s happening here in Beijing is unique to Beijing," said Berwin Song, a writer for Billboard magazine.  "The most exciting thing about [it] right now is the energy.  Just a crazy force of energy.  I had forgotten that music could have that kind of raw power.  These are bands you can see up close and personal."

Slow growth
What Song describes as an organic growth of music didn’t happen overnight.  In fact, it’s taken Chinese rock more than two decades to reach this thrilling stage of growth.

In May 1986, a shaggy-haired young man named Cui Jian broke out with a rock ballad called "Nothing to My Name."  Three years later, students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square embraced the song as their theme.  Cui went on to enjoy a long musical career in China hampered only by government officials fearful of rock’s rebellious potential.

But apart from Cui and occasional talent like heavy metal band Tang Dynasty, the rock scene in China appeared to languish in the twenty years that followed his initial success.

When Pettis moved to Beijing, he began haunting the local clubs in search of good music.  At the time, however, he said the music scene in China – although full of talent – was largely derivative. 

"The audience really wanted Chinese bands to sound like foreign bands," said Pettis, who also ran a club in New York’s East Village during the 1970s and 80s, becoming a fixture in the city’s downtown punk arena.

Then around 2003, the former investment banker noticed that the diverse group of highly talented musicians with potential was growing.  "I thought with the right kind of support and the right kind of infrastructure behind them, there was a possibility within five or six years Beijing could have a really exciting music scene."

D-22 opened its doors in May 2006, and within a year, said Pettis, "it was clear that Beijing was going through this massive explosion.  Bands started coming out from everywhere, [and] we started seeing musicians of all kinds."

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

One more sound check for AV Okubo at D-22.

The music
Musicians like Zhang Shouwang, who is the guitarist and lead singer for Carsick Cars, a young trio that comprises arguably one of the country’s most exciting underground rock bands.

Zhang, whose main introduction to contemporary music when he was a teenager was the Canto-pop of Hong Kong, said it was hearing the Velvet Underground that prompted him to want to start a band a couple of years ago, "I was so surprised by their sound."

After having been cut off from the rest of the world for decades, suddenly "the Chinese discovered all this avant-garde experimental music at the same time," explained Pettis.  "It’s like opening a huge toy store and picking and choosing whatever music you want and mixing with it, playing with it."

Not unlike their counterparts in the arts world, musicians in China experiment with different genres and forms, not hidebound by conventional disciplines.  Zhang, for instance, cites influences as varied as Arnold Schoenberg, Philip Glass or Philip Oakley. In addition to playing guitar for Carsick Cars, he performs with an experimental noise band called White and has written chamber orchestra pieces for the BBC.

Performing with more than one band seems to typify many of the Chinese rock musicians.  The drummer for Carsick Cars, Li Qing, is a self-composed young woman who plays guitar and writes lyrics for another popular rock group called Snapline. 

Another common thread is the apparent absence of politics in the music. "There are definitely lines you don’t cross," said Pettis.  "There are things you don’t do.  But that sort of pressure [to remain below the censorship radar] might actually make the scene in some ways more interesting."

"A lot of bands are very subtly political," said Song, the Billboard writer.  "Even a band like Carsick Cars, [their music] might not necessarily be saying anything specific, but it is a statement of individuality and being an artist… In the new China…a sense of individual identity is able to be expressed right now.  I think that’s what a lot of the music is about."

Carsick Cars’ breakout song, "Zhongnanhai," is a catchy, raucous anthem for Chinese youth.  The name references the highly secretive compound housing all of China’s state leaders, but it also is the name for a Chinese cigarette brand.  (At D-22, when the band performs the song, listeners toss cigarettes onto the stage.)

"’Zhongnanhai’ can mean many things," said Zhang.  "The young generation don’t really care about politics anymore… [They] care more about their own stuff."

That "stuff," continued Zhang, is "life around us…We just write songs about our life. The things happening around us or friends... We don’t really use music as a tool to tell people our political idea."

The men
Nothing about Zhang’s initial appearance suggests he is a force of creative nature on the music scene.  Skinny with an unassuming air, Zhang is a 22-year-old student whose shyness and soft-spoken manner also characterize his fellow band members. Fluent in English, he speaks carefully as though weighing every word.

Even on stage, his presence is low-key.  He plays the guitar with intensity, oblivious it would seem, to the throngs of fans slam-dancing to "Zhongnanhai" or "Rock 'n' Roll Hero."

"We’re kind of shy people," said Zhang over a spicy Hunan meal before a performance one night.  "We don’t want to watch the audience sometimes.  We really enjoy what the sound [we make] when we perform."

Later, as we sat in a room overlooking the D-22 stage, Zhang laughed when I asked about the meaning of the band’s name.  "Carsick Cars," he smiled.  "I don’t know. We liked the idea. So many cars in Beijing."

Zhang’s understated and somewhat nerdy style is in stark contrast to the man some people call China’s Jim Morrison.  When we saw Yuan Bian perform one night at D-22, he was sporting a fedora, tight leather pants, and a frilly silk purple shirt.

Yuan is the frontman for Joyside, which enjoys hamming it up during their live performances, exuding a noisy vigor.  Seven years old, Joyside is one of Beijing’s older punk rock bands, and its four band members – though they appear young – like to play up their image of louche, hard-drinking rockers. 

In person, however, they are all quite friendly and approachable – though a little reticent discussing the transformation of Beijing’s music scene.  "Financially, we’re doing better," said Joyside’s bassist¸ Liu Hao, as he took a swig from his bottle of Qingdao beer.  "We get to drink more beer now.  It’s free.  We can thank Michael for that."

EMAIL THIS