by terebikun

On Sunday, Nov. 25, I went to the first Taiwan Band Festival held in Huashan Cultural Park. It was drizzling lightly but overall it was possible to enjoy the event without umbrellas, which was what most people did. I ran into Tunghung and several old friends. He could probably provide more context to the logic of the festival, which certainly seems to resonate with the “creative agenda” discussed in the previous posts and comments. Basically, the Government of Information Office has this fund to support independent bands in order to prove that Taiwan could produce more than idols and the “Star Light Gang” (basically a televised singing show which has generated gangs of idols. My students can’t stop talking about them). At lease this is the logic in the promotion.

The result? Two days of bands performance, each band given 25 minutes (or three songs). Not very long. But enough to get a taste of different band styles. http://www.taiwanbandfestival.com.tw/bandlist.htm. Attaching a photo of the wild act, “Fish and the Bedroom Riot,” composed of various musicians who performed in Tunghung’s pub, Underworld, doing visual and performance experiments. On Sunday’s case, they were in various animal costumes and having way too much fun and too soft volume–due to the police (Taipei City) writing tickets for the “noise” sponsored by central government.

by sonicscape

I noticed that Eva and HJ were discussing the concept of creativity in the East Asian context. How about this? Singaporean bureaucracy is trying very hard to promote the creative city state.

Recently I am thinking over the notion of creativity and its policies in Korea too. Still very confused, but I am thinking what might have been positive effects when this notion was introduced in public policy. I am sure that some scholars including Austrailian groups think that creative industries policy is a means of progressive intellectual intervention. I am not sure about that and thinking about the conditions under which it can be considered in that way.

Nonetheless, in practice things might be very uninteresting. I am almost inclined to think that creative industries policy in Korea ends up being a small happening without much substantial effect when significant policy measures are rolled back as a result of the governmental change.

by angel_lin

hi all, just want to share with u below a song written by high school students in HK; it’s the theme song of a Net-drama project of the HKRSS secondary school, a working class school located in the rural area in HK.  The music, the lyrics, the vocals, the MV were all done by students… (except for the English lyrics, which was written by a teacher)…  it’s in the Cantopop genre, but showing much of the talent of the young students in HK…

by angel_lin  hi all! i just came back from the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, where Anthony organized the Opening Ceremony for a series of activities (exhibtions, talks, seminars) on the history and development of Cantopop in Hong Kong.  I attach some pics here: Anthony with Allan Tam: a HK Cantopop icon :). And then we chatted with Poon Wai-Yuen, a lyricist who wrote the lyrics of many good songs for Anita Mui in the 90s (the Catopop diva who passed away a few years ago)…  i had written a paper on his lyrics (and presented in Hyunjun’s conference in Yonsei 2 years ago), but didn’t have chance to meet the lyricist until today… 🙂 the touching moment is when Sam Hui’s son, Ryan Hui, sang Sam Hui’s early Cantopop song with Sam Hui’s guitar… that’s a touching moment for those who grew up with Cantopop…  Sam Hui almost started Cantopop as an indigenous music form for HK… http://www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk/english/exhibition.htm

by plateaux

it’s not exactly a breaking news, but still a heartbreaking loss. lance hahn was an accomplished asian american indie rock musician (of chinese descent) who participated in the first asian american compilation ‘ear of the dragon'(1995). the webzine pitchfork ran an obituary here. and the following is a short obituary written by an iaspm-us member:

Dear IASPMites,

I’m not sure how many of you would be interested in the news, but just in case, I thought I’d pass it on: Lance Hahn, singer/guitarist/songwriter for pop-punk band J Church and longtime writer for _Maximum Rock ‘n Roll_ and _Giant Robot_
passed away from complications due to kidney disease this Sunday past, October 21st. He was 40.

AK Press will publish posthumously his history of ’80 British anarcho-punk, which orginally appeared in installments in MRR.

His friends here in Austin, TX, are planning a memorial service and have put up a website where friends and fans can leave farewells:

http://welovelancehahn.com

Best,

David Uskovich
PhD Candidate
Dept. of Radio-TV-Film
University of Texas at Austin

by plateaux

greetings, sorry for my long hibernation and belated congratulations for the launching of this blog.

my name is pil ho kim. for those who don’t know me, i’m a student of south korean origin currently residing in the u.s. please visit my website for more about me.

today i’m just going to share some postrock, which seems to be all the rage in east asia nowadays. you might already know very well about the japanese band mono. also there are some korean bands some other folks can fill in.

here i’m giving you links to a bunch of mainland chinese bands and a malaysian band that i gleaned from — where else? — the internet.

chinese postrock (hou yao) compilation by neocha

among those bands, wang wen seems to stand out. here are their recordings.

hailing from hangzhou, a band called monkey power — youtube video.

and finally, a malaysian band with a cute name, citizens of ice cream released an ep.