Cat #: 053 TZM
Sydney garage punk legends 1st album made available on CD.
Author: shaun tenzenmen
Australasian DIY music specialist and practising poet, amongst other things
Tone Deaf in the Public Kingdom – 10th September 2010
Beijing indie punk band P.K.14 were invited to play at the Melbourne Festival and I was to be their man on the ground. The festival covered their travel expenses and two nights in a hotel but I planned an extra show and some free time with them.
As part of the promotional push for them, singer Yang Haisong did this email interview with Tone Deaf magazine.
P.K.14 play Melbourne Festival Oct 22nd 2010
We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files, however, we don’t like regurgitating press releases or asking the easy questions. No one gets out of the Tone Deaf Interrogation lightly, so just hold still, grit your teeth, clench your buttocks and be still while we put on the rubber gloves, apply the thumbscrews, and pull out our thermometer while you open up and say ahhhhhhhhhhh… Truthful answers only or we drink your rider while you’re on stage.
Lead singer Yang Haisong from Chinese band P.K14 answers our questions.
We don’t want to know about the bands your press release says you’re influenced by. Take us back to your bedroom when you were 14. What band posters did you have on the wall?
When I was 14, most of music around us are propaganda songs and love songs from Taiwan and Hong Kong singers. I don’t like them both. No any chance to listen western rock music or get posters from stores. So I didn’t have any poster in my bedroom.
What’s been your worst gig and why are you glad there’s no footage of it on Youtube … yet?
I don’t really remember which gig are the worst. I would say the very first gig that P.K.14 played 13 years ago was so bad. We played 4 songs, I sang all the songs out of key, and my legs shacked all the time in front of hundreds of university students. But at the same time, It’s the best gig to me. I hope I can see the show on Youtube but seems nobody shot it.
Tomorrow’s payday, so we’ve only got $A20/$US18/£14/€10 to get you drunk. Where do we go and what do we buy with it?
I have no idea about it. I didn’t get drunk quite long time. Maybe you can take me to some local 2nd hand records stores? I am gonna get drunk even no alcohol there.
What releases have you put out? Are they million sellers or do you still have a few boxes of them sitting gathering dust under your bed?
We put out 4 albums so far. And none is million-seller. Most of people like all the love songs and kind of Chinese idols, Unfortunately, we didn’t play love songs, and are not idols neither.
Suppose we put a gun to your head and force you to kiss a member of another band. Who, which band and why?
Billie Holiday. I think you know why.
You’re touring Australia. We know how much visitors are afraid of our native animals, so what is your greatest fear? Getting attacked by a) a snake b) a redback spider c) a bluebottle jellyfish d) a crocodile or e) a venomous drop bear?
Snake is my nightmare, worst ever.
P.K14 play at The Forum on Fri 22nd October, as part of Melbourne Festival’s Beck’s Festival Bar. Tickets are $20. Find out more info on the Beck’s Bar website, or visit Ticketmaster for tickets.
Intentions – Unto Dust – 1st September 2010
Cat #: 035TZM
Recorded February 2010. Produced and mixed by Nathan Ashmore.
INTENTIONS: Daniel Madden, Jonathan Papert, Simon Unwin.
Photographs by Laura Hunt. Design by Ben Corio.
Beau Navire – Demo – 1st July 2010
Cat #: 032TZM
Originally released in Australia in an addition of 50 with 2 different types of inserts. Long since sold out (as has the original self released version the band made).
I could only find mp3s of these tracks so have converted them back to wav’s hopefully helping replicate the feel of an old tape recording!
Ya Aha – Novelty – 1st June 2010
Cat #: 042TZM
These folks approached me with an already pressed disc and wanting to be part of tenzenmen. I liked their music well enough though find the vocals a little lacking on this recording. Live they really killed it though. I often ended up working with folks that approached me for help regardless of whether I loved their music or not – sometimes not even listening fully until it was released. I figured if anyone thought enough of tenzenmen to want to work together then they were worth a shot.
Fanzui Xiangfa/Daighila – 1st June 2010
Cat #: 028TZM
The Fanzui Xiangfa / Daighila split 7″ came about after Fanzui Xiangfa’s 2009 SE Asia Tour. The two bands played together in Malaysia and Singapore discovering their common love for hardcore and devotion to the DIY scene. Fanzui Xiangfa’s side is a collection of newer songs in their typical oldschool style reminiscent of DS-13. While Daighila brings three raging screamo tracks that encompass elements from many different classic schools of hardcore. Taken together the split represents two of the most exciting bands from China and Malaysia.
Nikko – The Warm Side – 1st May 2010
Cat #: 036TZM
The Warm Side is the debut album from Brisbane band, Nikko. It is a collection of nine songs written over the past three years. The album was recorded in August 2009 at Black Box Studios in Brisbane by Melbourne- based engineer Naomune Anzai (Laura, Because of Ghosts) and Matt Taylor. It was mixed and mastered by Naomune Anzai at Reel to Real Mix Master in Melbourne.
With its eerie yet beautiful guitar melodies, driving rhythm section and droning violin, organ and trumpet parts, The Warm Side encompasses an array of lush textures that create an engaging dynamic. This unique sound embodies what Brisbane has come to expect from Nikko, capturing the energy of the band’s well-renowned live show with the polish of Naomune Anzai’s reputed flair for treating atmospheric rock. This debut album is the culmination of years of solid gigging, self-recording and self-releasing that has seen Nikko refine their genre-blending style.
24 Hours – No Party People – 1st April 2010
Cat #: 040TZM
24 Hours are one of the most intelligent newcomers in China’s rock scene. Hailing from Xi’an, one of the four great ancient capitals of China, they create, in their own words, passionate rock and roll. Their music is often the reflection of the relationship among the three members: constantly-changing but always-intense.
After relocating to Beijing in early-2008 they quickly dove into the city’s challenging sonic environment, becoming one of the city’s most prolific bands by playing several gigs per weekend, developing both a devoted following and attracting local media in the process.
After two years together, the band released their debut album No Party People produced by Martin Atkins (PiL, Pigface, Nine Inch Nails) the famed Chicago-based producer who initially cut his teeth in Beijing producing Snapline’s debut LP, Party is Over, Pornstar. Using his unique style to capture both the rough and fresh feeling of their music, Atkins has succeeded in elevating their sound to an international level. The 8-song effort maintains the fury of their live sets while adding a dreamy sonic dimension awash in subtle nuances.
26th Feb 2021 – Another one of my dumb ideas – to release 4 new (to Australia) albums on the same date (see White, Snapline and AV Okubo). At least this time I just imported 100 copies of each from China, rather than pressing 500 of each in Australia.
AV Okubo – The Greed of Man – 1st April 2010
Cat #: 040TZM
Hong Kong experimental cinema, 80’s Kungfu movies, triad gangsters, Chinese and Japanese cartoons and China’s early space program all collide together in AV Okubo’s sound to create a weird kaleidoscope of modern Chinese sensibilities.
AV Okubo’s combination of retro-amusements combined with deeper social critique, along with their ferocious dance rhythms, has quickly brought this young band to the attention of fellow musicians and audiences across China and got them a coveted invitation, even before the release of their first CD, to Austin’s SouthbySouthwest festival in 2010.
Formed in 2006 in the dirty industrial megalopolis of Wuhan, AV Okubo has captured the eyes and ears of China with the members themselves living out their music’s conflicts of a changing society. Frontman Lu Yan (vox/keyboard) is an aspiring film director while Tan Chao (guitar) works a day job as a train engineer in a major steel factory. Filling out the band, Zuo Yi (bass) and Hu Juan (percussion) are both active in the local music scene, traditionally the home of China’s hardest and wildest punk scene.
They have played with, and at times overshadowed, such bands as Orange (Uruguay), The 4 Sivits (Germany), Ratatat (USA), These Are Powers (USA) and Battles (USA). Several large festival appearances, including 2008’s Modern Sky Festival and 2009’s JUE Festival, have exposed them to larger audience and their infrequent trips to the capital have become occasions for packed and crazy shows at Yugong Yishan and D22 attended by eager fans. In late 2008 the band set up in A-String, Asia’s largest studio, to record their debut album with acclaimed producer Martin Atkins.
For the band, music is the half-remembered memories of growing up in the social construction project that is China, the places they’ve been to, the people they’ve met and things they’ve experienced along the way. New wave, experimental noise, disco punk, ultimately their sound smashes together everything they have encountered set to a massive beat. AV Okubo has grown up in the entertainment era. Neither punky criticism nor a complete overthrow of modern culture, they slide obliquely through a loophole and force on us their version of change.
Australia’s world renowned Asia music specialist label tenzenmen brings AV Okubo’s debut release ‘The Greed of Man’ to these shores as the band rip it up in North America as part of the China Invasion west coast tour.
White – White – 1st April 2010
China’s experimental music scene spreads it’s wings. Beijing’s White play SXSW.
Formed by Shou Wang and Shen Jing, White has quickly become one of the most acclaimed outfits in the new Beijing music scene. White’s sound is ever evolving, spiralling outwards from the core stars of noise and minimalism to take in everything from the phase patterns of Steve Reich, the atonal chords of Glenn Branca, Throbbing Gristle’s aggressive electronic shimmer, Neubauten’s rhythmic invention, and the gu zheng masters of Chinese classical music. Their pieces can range from highly organized agglomerations of atonal chords that have an almost rock and roll ferociousness, to a completely anarchic attack of weirdly syncopated drum sounds derived from a chance encounter with old furniture or a dysfunctional machine.
Shou Wang, who plays guitar, organ, toys, analogue pedals, drums, and effects, is a founder member of the Chinese new music movement ‘No Beijing’ and is the guitarist/vocalist for Beijing noise band Carsick Cars. Despite his extreme youth he is considered at the very heart of the new generation of Chinese avant-garde musicians, in 2006 flying to New York to take part in Glenn Branca’s famous No.13 recording “Hallucination City” for 100 guitarists.
In 2005 he formed White No.1, a septet that paid tribute to the early work of Glenn Branca, and White 2J, in which he played keyboards. Finally he and Shen Jing, who had been admirers of each other’s music from afar and who shared the same passion for New York noise and kosmiche rhythms, formed White as an outlet for their more avant garde tendencies.
Shen Jing plays analogue synth, drums, percussion, sampler, vocals, tape manipulation, and effects; she has been deeply immersed in Beijing’s music scene since 1998, participating in the vibrant explosion it has undergone in recent years. Until 2006, she was the drummer in Beijing indie/punk legends Hang On The Box, but since 2003, her work has increasingly demonstrated her own unique form of cosmic industrial noise.
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