We are pleased to host the Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group (IAPMS) Online Workshop vol.10. This event is free and open to public, but we ask you to register for participation. Please register by filling out the form with your name and email address. The event information (with Zoom link) will be sent to your email two day before and a reminder will be sent to you one hour before the event.

Date: 11th November (Thu)
Time: 20:00-22:00 (Korea/Japan) / 19:00-21:00 pm (China) / 12:00-14:00 pm (Germany/Austria)
Venue: ZOOM

(Please use the time zone converter to calculate the event time in your location: https://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
To register for the event, please visit the link and sign up:

https://forms.gle/yHbp56kBRjg6u7539

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Negotiating spaces: Mid-1990s queer, female fan culture and the popularization of Japanese popular music in German-speaking European countries

Anita Drexler (Nichibunken)

Since the last half of the 20th century, there have been numerous attempts to establish Japanese artists within the music market of German speaking European countries. However, none of them were even remotely as successful as the visual kei-led J-music boom that defined much of the German music industry in the years around the turn of the millennium.

If we want to understand the reasons for this success, we cannot ignore the fan culture that revolved around the wide popularization of anime and manga during the 1990s. In my presentation I’m going to analyse German anime magazines from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, which served as a main vehicle for the formation of a new – that is young, female and disproportionally queer – fanbase.

I argue that not only was this stratum of fans crucial for the success of Japanese popular music in German-speaking European countries for the years to come, but that from their negotiation of a cultural space within a pre-existing fanscape, we can deepen our understanding of what it is that makes an imported musical genre an important one.

In my opinion, knowing more about the mechanism of how cultural spaces are (re)-negotiated by fans can help to further understanding of how specific trends – like City Pop – are able to gain global traction.

BIO

Anita Drexler received her BA and MA in Japanese studies (with minors in Media studies and Musicology) from the University of Vienna. Her research interests include Japanese popular music from the 1970s – 1990s, music journalism and transcultural musical transfers. She is currently a research student at the Nichibunken in Kyōto, Japan.

Respondent: Oliver Seibt (University of Amsterdam)

https://interasiapop.org/

We are pleased to host the Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group (IAPMS) Online Workshop vol.9. To participate in this online event, please register by filling out the form with your name and email address. The event information will be sent to your email after the registration. A reminder email will also be sent two day before as well as one hour before the event.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/CbjuhFTmnkiBNt576

The event will be held on 13th August (Fri):

15:00-17:00m (Korea/Japan) / 14:00-16:00 pm (China)  

(Please use the time zone converter to calculate the event time in your location: https://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

IAPMS online workshop vol.9

Title: Ondo Goes On: the Folk, the Folky and the Festive in Modern Japan

Speaker: Shuhei Hosokawa

Moderator: Yusuke Wajima

Date: 13th August (Fri.)

Time: 15:00-17:00m (Korea/Japan) / 14:00-16:00 pm (China)

Venue: ZOOM

Abstract: Ondo Goes On: the Folk, the Folky and the Festive in Modern Japan

Ondo音頭 is a genre of dance music invented and disseminated since the 1930s in Japan. Although its magnetism is rarely mentioned in the history of popular music, the ondo pieces are so dominant in the summer obon festivals and other community-based events that even the majority of J-pop fans can “tune in” on this vernacular beat.  This paper will outline the musical, industrial and social background of ondo music launching by “Tokyo Ondo” (1933). Over a million copies of record, rumor says, were sold.

The rhythmic pattern of “Tokyo Ondo” omes from geisha party music which is accompanied by shamisen and small taiko drums (kotsuzumi). Unlike their performance indoors for selected audience, ondo is typically played outdoors for the open public. In the center of circle of dancing mass, one sets up a platform for large taiko (and dancers) which is performed with the commercial recordings played loudly through the speakers. It is what the ethnomusicologist Charles Keil called “live-and-mediated performance” (like karaoke).

Astonished by the massive craze, some critics observed it as a “safety valve” against the nationwide tension caused by the warfare in Manchuria. Their sober view, however, did not affect the collective enthusiasm overwhelming beyond the geographical (not national-ethnic) boundaries (in Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, and the Nikkei immigration communities). Similar ondo pieces were released every summer but they could not sweep out “Tokyo Ondo.” While the state control being fortified under the warfare, the gatherings from below were shrinked or prohibited till 1945. 

During the Occupation period, the obon festivals were generally suspended due to their “old Japan” image. However, it slowly revived in the 1950s on the local level, while “Tokyo Olympic Games Ondo” (1964) stimulated the first nationwide boom after the war. It was followed in 1965 by “Oba Q Ondo,” originating from the TV anime, Obake no Q-taro, sung by the voice actress of Oba Q. The liaison with anime was recaptured in 1981 by “Arare-chan Ondo,” recorded by the voice actress of Arare-chan, a character from Dr. Slump. All of these sing happy-go-lucky words and the choreography is easy even for kids. Children’s participation is essential for the organizers of events.

In 2014, Otomo Yoshihide, known for his underground acts, composed “Eejanaika Ondo” for supporting the people in the nuclear-contaminated zones in Fukushima (“eejanaika” refers to the mass upheaval against the Tokugawa reign around the 1850s-60s just before the Meiji Restauration). Ondo turns to be a meeting point between the mass entertainment and political message.

In today’s obon gatherings, the above-noted pieces are played repeatedly with some local variants. Ondo music is neither oriented to Top 40 or to niche market nor classified as J-pop but lingers beneath the surface of consumption society as a unique expression of vernacularism.

Speaker: Shuhei Hosokawa

Professor Emeritus at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto). He is author of Sentiment, Language and the Arts. Japanese-Brazilian Herit­age (Brill, 2019) and coeditor (with Toru Mitsui) of Karaoke around the World: Global Technology Local Singing (Routledge, 1998). His interest ranges from sound technology and music industry to history of popular music. Visiting professor at the University of Michigan (1995), the University of Changchun (2002, 2003), the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (2004, 2006) and the University of Melbourne (2010). 

We are pleased to host the Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group (IAPMS) Online Workshop vol.8. To participate in this online event, please register by filling out the form with your name and email address. The event information will be sent to your email after the registration. A reminder email will also be sent two day before as well as one hour before the event.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/6xi6ZR9uTGHgFFCw8

The event will be held on 10 June (Thu): 8:00-10:00pm (Korea/Japan) / 7:00-9:00 pm (China)  

(Please use the time zone converter to calculate the event time in your location: https://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Music Streaming Platforms and Self-Releasing Musicians in China
IAPMS online workshop vol.8

Name:  Shuwen QU
Affiliation: Jinan University
Moderator: Jian XIAO

10 June (Thu): 8:00-10:00 (Korea/Japan) / 7:00-9:00 (China)  

Biography: Qu Shuwen is the Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Jinan University. She has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include cultural studies, popular music, music technology and communication. Now she is working on the research projects of the platformization of the music industry and its impacts on musical experiences. Her contacts: Qu_sw@sz.jnu.edu.cn, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Qu_Shuwen2.

Abstract: A major development in the music industries in recent years has been the rise of ‘unsigned’ or ‘self-releasing’ musicians (sometimes problematically called ‘DIY musicians’ or ‘independent musicians’) who upload music directly to music streaming platforms (MSPs). What’s unique about self-releasing in China is that Chinese MSPs have sought to incorporate such self-releasing musicians into their platform eco-systems, which is not the case in the west. This talk, first traces the evolution of ‘indie discourse’ in China so as to clarify its meaning in streaming time, that is, the celebration of an entrepreneurial and copyright-oriented ethos, which becomes the ideological foundation of self-releasing services. Then, the discussion analyzes why and how the self-releasing has been incorporated into MSPs as core assets, and to what extent cultural autonomy of self-releasing services is affected by platform mechanisms. 

We are pleased to host the seventh Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group (IAPMS or Inter-Asia Pop) Online Workshop. On Thursday, April 15, Dr. Jian Xiao will give a talk on punk in China and Indonesia.

The event is free. but you need to register in advance: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaOq-TcU6obMJAezrFK4JeQBuPKb8zLXYTsNAIw_xP_JlKjQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

We will send you a reminder with the instruction to the video conference twice: one day before and one hour before the event. Please find more detail below.

Stay underground? Punk in China, Indonesia and The Big Band

Guest speaker: Jian XIAO (Zhejiang University)

Biography: Jian Xiao (Ph.D. Loughborough University, UK) is the Associate Professor in the school of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University. She has published in International Journal of Communication, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Cultural Critique, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Chinese Journal of Communication, Space and Culture, Journalism Practice and so on. She has also published a monograph, “Punk Culture in Contemporary China” with Palgrave Macmillan. Her research interest is focused on urban politics, new media, and cultural studies.

Abstract: In this paper, I consider local, translocal, virtual punk scenes as “a form of networking”. The talk compares two sets of relationships—first, the Chinese punk scene and the Indonesian punk scene, and second, the pre-internet punk scene spatialised through different venues such as gigs, festivals, zines, and the platformised scene as organised via the online music show The Big Band—to discuss the transformation from an underground network to a platformised communicative network. The development of a punk scene in China can be described as “a form of cosmopolitanism urbanism” due to its involvement with global connections. While the underground network is shaped by the global punk community, I regard its relevant spatial practices as a form of authenticity that infuse local tradition into modernity, and its underground nature as an asset since it brings authenticity and the cultural capital that goes with it. It is argued that that the process of reconfiguring an underground network into a platformised network is based on a process of commercialisation that transforms the bands’ cultural capital based in authenticity into economic capital.