Toronto: We Are Official UPDATE: Now with Video!

A belated and large thanks to all involved in March 24’s Red Rock launch at the Gladstone Hotel…!

(Thanks to Anna Withrow for shooting pics!)

I did some yappin’ (here, on China’s journey from Mao  to now via Deng Xiaoping’s Journey to the West and beyond)…

 

Through Cui Jian’s career, and onwards, to the present…

 

 

 

Nova Heart did some playing (here, lead singer Helen Feng and bassist Bo Xuan, he formerly of Hedgehog)…

Al Di, former journalist (ALDTV is something that must be experienced to be understood) and current Live Nation China promoter/booker/man-about-town; Helen Feng, she of Nova Heart; and I did some more yappin’…

…And folk-yaogunners Shanren played a final set, that had the crowd doing what the band called Chinese Disco Dancing.

Highlight of the afternoon: An audience member approaching me in advance of the talk to ask if I was, in fact, the drummer from RandomK(e), which, luckily for both of us, I was. He’d seen us play a few years ago and dug it. Then he found out I wrote the book he was there to learn about and, well, the rest, is history.

Big thanks to the folks at TINARS, as well as those who traveled from China to participate, and, of course, to all who came, in person and in spirit.

Stay tuned for video evidence… Here’s the video evidence, with big thanks to Meredith Wright:

Red Rock from Meredith Wright on Vimeo.