Month: January 2013

UPDATE: Liang Heping

Thanks, yet again, to Beijing Daze for the skinny on the fundraiser held, over the weekend, for Liang Heping:

Beijing Daze’s review of the show is here. A total of just shy of RMB134,000 (just over US$21,000) was raised via ticket sales and an auction that consisted of items ranging from a guitar smashed by grunge-rocker Xie Tianxiao (aka XTX) – who had, back in the day, smashed more than his share of guitars that he could barely afford to purchase, let alone destroy; in his not-so-early-days, he brought along to shows an extra smashable guitar that often went unsmashed – to autographed guitars and albums and more.

Our best goes out to Liang Heping; his wife told the gathered crowd that Liang has regained “minimal use of his hands” and we hope that the healing continues.

LiangHepingCJphoto of Liang Heping (right) and Cui Jian from the late 80s via Weibo user 只爱右

Gangnam, again, one last time, promise

So when Asia Society asked me who I thought would be China’s Psy, I figured I’d spent the last of my efforts referring to Gangnam and the Style thereof. But then, via Beijing Cream and a bunch of other spots, came news that Gangnam popped up again in China, and not in an unintelligible fashion by some international superstArtist. In Wuhan, workers owed wages danced the horsey-dance in front of the building they say they have yet to be paid for constructing.

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Liang Heping Fundraiser

A tip via Beijing Daze: On Saturday Jan 26, at Beijing’s Yugongyishan, there is a benefit concert for Liang Heping, one of the earliest and most important yaogunners there are. Hosted by Wang Di, who is a former performer, producer, long-time yaogunner and more, and one of the few that was around when Liang first started, the evening will feature sets from He Yong, Second Hand Rose, Tomahawk, Thin Man, Oxygen Can, Askar, Matiao and Zhang Qianqian, and a charity auction.

I wrote about Liang in the pages Red Rock as well as on this blog. He has been one of yaogun’s biggest boosters for as long as that was possible, and it’s heartening to see that yaogun has come to his aid in his time of need. In June, Liang was involved in a car accident, and in the spirit of a recent ‘rockers for war vets’ charity headed by 90s rocker He Yong (‘Eight Rock @War Vets’), started ‘Eight Rock @Liang Heping.’ The show details (Chinese) are at Yugongyishan’s website.

Liang Heping poster

Shanghai Pranksters

In light of a recent piece in ChinaFile on the wackiest bunch of Shanghaiers in the land – and, for anyone in Beijing this weekend, in advance of the band’s performance there – I thought it appropriate to revisit the phenom that is Top Floor Circus.

The band’s frontman and founder, Lu Chen, who started out singing pop songs following his love of karaoke, dismissed Nirvana as the worst band ever when he first heard it, but came around soon thereafter, deciding that his goal was to make a band louder than Nirvana. Lu is finally ok with his pop roots: as he told ChinaFile, “we don’t mind being a pop band.” And he is bringing that pop to more folks than ever…

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