Why the scene has to get international - and China-only is a deadlock

From Rock in China Wiki

Why the scene has to get international - and China-only is a deadlock

As Martin Atkins told Tookoo after his Midi School speach, it is imminent that bands do appeal to an international audience for success outside of their home country, preferably by singing in English. If the Chinese underground music scene is not getting more international they will be caught in a deadlock! The world's most successful artists have always been English-languages ones and even those non-English singing artists that do appear in front of sold out venues in Europe do so by a huge effort spent on making their music more accessibles for people able to speak English.

I do not speak about the style of music or the language bands should sing in, but about the surrounding factors:

• The booklet of a CD
• The MySpace pages
• The leaflets send around
• The stickers posted in big cities
• The blog posts
• And the maturity of English in interviews with the band

The export market as an element of survival- until the domestic market is ripe?

Like it or not, the domestic music market is not able to enable a band to survive purely by making music. There is just not enough money in the making to let a couple of young guys get around doing what they feel they are summoned for: making music, developing their own style and succeeding in perfecting it. As Andy Best pointed out in a recent blog post or podcast, there are just not enough options given for a band to go on without giving up too much, without giving up the fair chance of a stable life after the music. The money in the business is not worth comparing to a regular job, the recognition in society is still marginal (with the exception of those in the scene) and what about your parents? Can you ensure to support them in their old age by making music? At present stage, a Chinese artist in the underground just has no chance of survival by music alone with the domestic scene... hence, the foreign market might be an option of survival? Let's take a look at the best:

Maybe Mars! Which is focussing a particular part of their efforts in enabling an international success story for their artists, in comparison to the efforts undertaken to make a breakthrough in a larger scale in China: Their recent showcast in the USA went through more cities than their showcast in the domestic market. They spent considerable time on telling the foreign press and foreign fans about their artists, show them around, most propably sent our mp3 promos to numerous interested persons and as can been seen by the recent articles woven around their bands, they do succeed! Yes, learn from the best!

Other bands that went on the international path before the Maybe Mars crew are e.g. Subs with their YGTWO supported Nordic Europe Tour, the same for Tookoo by Paul Huang's HotPot Music, and Hanggai that are even promoted by Chinese embassies world-wide and FM3 with their festival appearances all over Europe.

So what to do? What are the steps to follow?

There are a number of things every band should do, as part of the DIY idea:

• Spread news about your band
• Enable your fans to find out more about you
• Create a fixed unique place to give this information
• Give lots of music, videos, info to your fans
• Be present, so you do appear in the things others talk

As logical as the above sounds, they are not being followed by many bands in the market and even worse, most labels active in China do not follow these easy steps! Look at Mort Production and you will see no band promotion, no concerts, just a distribution channel. Look at Scream Records and still the promotion is mostly limited to Beijing. Look at Modern Sky and you do see the first glimpse of promo, but still not as far reaching as what some bands have done for themselves, e.g. AK-47 with their extensive tours or Brainfailure.

Now I am talking about getting the scene international and I do want to split that part:

• The band itself getting international!
• The scene as a whole moving towards an international level!

So what does it mean for a band to get international?

• Get an English MySpace account!
• Make sure there are English translations for your Chinese lyrics available in the booklet / website!
• Be able to speak a minimum level of English for others to understand and for you to answer questions!
• Put up your music in the English part of the web, and yes, do more videos on Youtube!

Why should a band do that? In particular for the following reasons:

The easier it is for foreign fans to access the music of a Chinese band, the easier this music is spreading, hence the easier it will be for a band to find supporters for a tour overseas. Take a look at Joyside, who got involved with the Beijing Bubbles project, convinced the people behind Fly Fast Records and went to Europe for a couple of weeks touring. As a band you not only get 2-3 weeks off the "beaten track" for yourself, but you do get the chance to grow on the experience, to win over more fans and to make contact with other music industry people!

With overseas contacts, even with good domestic ones, you have the chance to make your music available overseas. Whether it be in the form of distributed EPs or CDs or plainly in mp3 format (such as Modern Sky and Maybe Mars are doing at iTunes and Amazon), the pure fact that fans can buy your music at the locations known to them will give you another source of income that is missing in the domestic market! It cannot and it will not be your primary source of income, but think of it as a supplement, an addition until the domestic music market is ripe enough to fully support independent artists...

A statement of clarification

I do not say "to hell with Chinese and write your lyrics in English", but I do say "include English into your natural communication as well". Even in Germany, the world's third largest music market only a handful of bands really achieved it to break through on a global level and only one of the bands I mention actually does sing in German: Scorpions, Blind Guardian, Rammstein and Fool's Garden!

A couple of things on how to actually do this will be stated later on ...

So what does it mean for the scene to get international?

A scene is the multitude of bands, fans, venues, labels and others involved with the music of a particular genre or location or period of time. For China, the location is fixed with numerous genres and differences in generations (Tang Dynasty versus Birdstriking), but it can broken down towards a common "pot" of music: the China scene, the bands coming from China, making music by their own within the cultural and social constraints! At present, the scene is mostly a domestic one, with limited access from the outside world. Limited by the available English information and the limited connections towards the scene (students, friends, a couple of tours in the foreign world, a couple of articles here and there). As such the survivability of the scene, i.e. the ability of the participants and especially the bands to survive financially is limited to the financial capabilities of the domestic scene! Don't get me wrong; that plainly means that bands such as Ritual Day or Raging Mob do need a full-time job to support what they are doing in their free time. That happens in the foreign world as well, yet the proportion in China for rock bands to do so is by far higher than e.g. in Germany.

As such, I declare that it would be in the best of the Chinese underground music scene (call it rock, call it punk) to be international. To be talked about. To be the focus of attention. Why?

• Because when people hear about the Chinese scene as something cool, they check out bands
• Because when people check out bands, they would like to have their music
• Because when people like to have the music, distributors and promoters get involved
• Because when music is distributed and promoted, CDs/MP3s are sold and tours are booked
• Because bands do get something back for what they are doing!

It's a pull-effect!

An example? Just think what would happen if Suffocated would open the next US tour for Metallica?

How can a scene get international?

As mentioned above a scene is not an individum or a band per se. It is the collective of many. And as such only the multitude of actions can bring a scene towards that goal:

• Write about the scene! If you are in a band publish a diary, talking about the life of a punk in Beijing
• Enable the foreign press to write about something (tell them that you speak English), contact them and send them an article
• If you are in a band, do all the above (see previous chapter) and those things mentioned below
• If you are a fan, tell others about the concerts, post an introduction to your favorite band, make a statement towards your friends, make them listen to the music
• Tag the songs you listen to at Last.fm!

The things lacking right now - The things to be done:

Make it international:

• Get MySpace (the English one)
• Get Facebook
• Be at Last.fm (yes, there should be one mp3 for download)
• Get an English biography!
• Post about what you do, at best in English
• Update on a regular basis
• If you are with a label:
  • Tell them to print your lyrics in two languages (Chinese / English)
  • Tell them to send your CD at least to three foreign music review magazines (web/print)
  • Tell them to make a newsletter bi-langual
  • Tell them to enable iTunes or Amazon
• If you are not with a label
  • Get the same shit done as with a label!
  • Use Facebook! Get friends! Use MySpace! Get Friends!
  • Put up at least one or two MVs at Youtube and link to it!
  • Write a good and true biography, add in the spices of your daily life and struggels and yes, do send it to foreign press
  • If you have more than 15 foreign friends online, ask them to help you! Some will do!
  • Take some time and find some local press, e.g. in Hamburg (Germany) or Berlin (Germany). Write to them, they might print something about you, which gives you a local crowd! Perfect to engage a local promoter for a tour start.
  • Once you know a couple of people, get to know some bands. Arrange a tour exchange (they come to China, you go to someplace else)

Make it domestic (as well)

• Use Douban
• Use Xiao Nei
• Use TuDou & Youku, out up the same MVs
• Go on a DIY tour and yes, do also sometimes a more commercial event, just to meet more persons
• Regularly post your news at ALL plattforms you are registered (Democn, Rockyeah, Rockbj, XiaoNei, Douban, etc.)
• Don't think Beijing, think China!

Conclusio

If the scene stays as domestic as it is, there will be no major surprises in the future! Those that are a little bit more creative find their way to some fame, get on a tour here and there, but will never breakthrough completely, in the way Nirvana or Pantera have done it. If, however, a certain part of the scene is pushing towards the same direction, the combined pull-effects might lead to a push for those talents undiscovered so far! Rustic at the GBOB have given a first glance of what is possible! Let's see what the whole scene can do!

--Azchael 19:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

ps: We should actually translate this into Chinese and send it to all Chinese bands :) --Websl@ve 08:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Update 1

Posted at Beijing Noise as "On The Exportation Of Chinese Rock": http://www.beijingnoise.org/2010/05/on-the-exportation-of-chinese-rock/

Contents 1 Further information 1.1 The things to do internationally 1.2 The things to do domestically 1.3 Mentioned bands 1.4 Copyright

Further information

The things to do internationally

• MySpace in English, a social network used worldwide and often - next to youtube - the first station for foreigners to check out bands
• Last.fm, an online radio service used in Europe
• Facebook, the global XiaoNei, most users world-wide, not yet famous for checking out music, but good to find new friends
• Youtube, THE video plattform in the world, similar to Tudou or Youku

The things to do domestically

• Douban, the standard social network for bands in China
• Xiaonei or as it is called today Ren Ren, social network for China
• Tudou, Chinese youtube
• Youku, Chinese youtube

Mentioned bands

• HangGai
• Joyside
• Subs
• Suffocated

Copyright

---