CBC Music, the online musical companion to the national broadcaster, asked me a few questions about why the world Must Hear Hanggai, in advance of their Toronto performances. I answered them, and you can read ’em, here (or by clicking the nice image at right). Find out more about Hanggai’s performances at Harbourfront Centre‘s Planet IndigenUS Festival by clicking the magic words. Hanggai is coming back to North America in September, so stay tuned…
Category: General
You know, general musings, stuff of that ilk.
Seeing China, rock and yaogun
The good people at ArtSpace China have just published a piece of mine on how China is seen. Please: check it out. Then: tell your friends. And their friends.
Talkin’ yaogun with the Wall Street Journal
On a visit to Hong Kong earlier in the year to speak at the Asia Society, the Wall Street Journal sat me down to talk about a few tunes that represent yaogun’s evolution. Here’s me trying to sum up yaogun in three songs.
Suggestions for other representatives…?
North by Northeast by China…
NXNE, Toronto’s counterpart to Austin’s massive SXSW, takes over the city from June 11-17. A part of that chunk of time is for films. This year, a China documentary is on the bill. Down: Indie Rock in the PRC is a film by Andrew Field and Jud Willmont, and looks at a few bands that the filmmakers came upon in their search to document the yaogun scene in 2007.
I’ve been asked to attend the screening and be a part of the post-film Q&A session, and have graciously accepted. The screening goes down Thursday June 14 at 12.30 p.m. at the National Film Board (150 John St.). There’s more info here.
It was twenty-three years ago today…
Twenty-three years ago, it was June 4, 1989.
I lived in Beijing through ten anniversaries, but the significance of the date, in what must sound, to those who didn’t live there over the past few years, odd, seemed to shrink over my stay. Until, however, I looked into yaogun’s history, and saw that the movement that brought thousands to Tiananmen Square was nourished at the same teet as was the passion for rock and the drive to yaogun. Citizens in the Square and yaogunners on stages were after the same thing: It was about possibilities. There was so much that was new, and there was a hunger to discover it all, and more. And there was so much hope.