One Day in May…

Well, I suspect that Benq is not giving out any huge discounts so far, seeing as how the Chinese Taipei baseball team has now lost to both Japan and China. The best comment on the sad situation comes from this article, which quotes a Taipei government worker as saying, “It’s just like in history. Last night we lost to (former colonizer) Japan and today we lost to the Communist bandits.” Yeah, I had a good laugh at his “Communist Bandits.” (I have in the past amused myself by referring to the mainland government as the “共匪” and the one on Taiwan as the “蔣賊,” though as a caution I feel I should warn you that the playful approach to cross-straits history draws a much bigger laugh in Taiwan than on the mainland. ) There’s still hope for Benq customers, though: the match-up against Korea is on the 18th.

Now, on to other things. The lack of famous young Mandopop stars in the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics drew criticism from some miffed fans. I think one thing that fed this was Zhang Yimou pulling a “Cowboy Jay” - i.e. taking the thousands and thousands of potential theme songs submitted by both famous artists and average people and passing over them in favor of a song penned by one of the ceremony’s main composers (i.e. just like Jay did with the lyrics of his Olympic song, when the anticlimactic end of his “worldwide lyrics hunt” was the selection of his main collaborator, Vincent Fang, to do the honor). Add to that the fact that not a lot of people outside the mainland are all that familiar with Liu Huan, and you have a minor rebellion on your hands. It seems an outdoor performance in Beijing that went on concurrent to the Opening featured Hong Kong singers like Andy Lau, Joey Yung and Nicholas Tse, but no one from Taiwan, adding to the frustration. I think, though, that the obvious rationale behind inviting them and not including stars from Taiwan is that Hong Kong is playing host to the equestrian events.

I’m not sure that it was ever realistic to expect artists from Taiwan to headline the opening (inside or outside the stadium), but I know it was REALLY foolishly optimistic for A-mei fans to have expected her to be asked. She really hasn’t been off the visa ban list that long, but nonetheless, there are unhappy fans. A-mei’s Olympic composition, “Forever Friends (永遠的朋友)” had been well-received, raising expectations that she might get the international exposure that is a clear benefit to such a performance. Instead her manager came out with a statement on August 6 saying that she had not been asked to perform and that perhaps there are political issues leading to the selection of all mainland artists because other artists from the island hadn’t been either. Her manager added that A-mei was celebrating a birthday in the midst of all of this, but opted out of the suggested Olympic-themed party in favor of a quiet evening celebrating with family.

None of this has, however, stopped a widely spreading rumor that Leehom will be performing at the closing. So far, this really is just a big rumor - there is nothing remotely official to indicate one way or the other what the plan is. He did, however, win an online poll asking mainland netizens who they’d most like to see perform, and his bilingual song “One World One Dream” would be a fitting conclusion to the events.

Recently the rumors have gone one step further, to suggest that not only would Leehom be singing at the closing ceremony, but that he’d be singing with Korean superstar Rain (i.e. special guest of his upcoming concert and former collaborator). Hmm. (On a side note, Leehom is looking MUCH better in the pictures accompanying that article than he has in other recent images. I’d still like his hair a bit shorter, but that’s minor compared to his other recent transgressions. At first glance, though, the superman doll in the first photo seems mildly obscene, but maybe that’s just me.) So far, Leehom will neither confirm nor deny such rumors, stating only that he will support the Olympics with everything he’s got. The closing ceremony will be held on August 24… which means I’ll miss it, because I have tickets to see Jonny Lang at the Minnesota State Fair that night (YAY!!), but thanks to the time difference between Minnesota and Beijing I’m sure we’ll know long before the US broadcast whether we need to take measures to record it. My whole family, you might recall, is very pro-Leehom.

There aren’t a lot of long, interesting stories about my headliner Mandopop stars, so I’m doing another list of odds and ends that I’ve read in the last day or two.

A-yue is holding a concert in Shanghai on August 30th. *sigh* That’s a few days too early for me, but oh well. Lots of great A-yue pics with that article - he’s looking groovy in his sunglasses. Amusingly, he jokes in that article that superband “Western Line” is “manlier” than either Mayday or sodagreen. Okay, I’d say A-yue acts more manly than Ashin or Qingfeng, but I think once you throw Stone and Jiakai into the mix you end up giving him a run for his money… and then when you take his three veteran bandmates and put them opposite Monster, Masa and… erm…. Guanyou…. uh oh. Well, put them opposite Xiao Wei, A-fu, A-gong and…. wait… okay, maybe they are manlier. He continued that they may be older, but they have a lot of energy.

‘Kay, that’s what I know at the moment. Now, what’s on in Olympic coverage tonight?

If you don’t know Fusion Band (Fusion乐团) yet, you are missing out. Steve (aka “MaydayBlue“) has linked to a great web radio interview (overdubbed with English translations!) with clips of songs over on the MaydayAmericas Forum. The post is here.

You know, if you enjoy the interview, feel free to join the forum (hint, hint) and talk about the band (or even, you know, Mayday…).

…Singaporeans!!

See, I said I’d try to remember to account for the time difference and post a day early this year.

(It is still the 8th in MN, just not in DC, where I set the clock for the blog!)

[Ashin waxing philosophical on the Olympics. I love the picture accompanying this entry on his blog, which is a very busy combination of baseball, the bird’s nest stadium, what I think sorta looks like a football helmet and one of the standard StayReal cartoons. My mind is swimming.]

Rather fortuitously, we are once again all five of us watching the Olympic opening ceremonies together,
though shocked to discover four years have already passed.

What has changed is time, in these four years much has happened,
What hasn’t changed is us, once again gathered in a tiny recording studio, using guitars, bass, drums, these four simple instruments [ed. obviously counting Monster’s and Stone’s guitars separately]
weaving together the emotions of life and other things.

Suddenly I realize, remaining unchanged can also be a kind of rare blessing.

Although this sort of Olympic opening ceremony is something that I’ve watched countless times since childhood,
seeing those five red, green, yellow, blue and black rings
on the white flag shivering and swaying in the wind
still moves me.

Harmony and peace,
these are two simple words
but these are words that remain distant for humanity.
We can excavate deep pits below the earth’s crust, build rockets and space ships, land on the moon,
but true peace is still untouchable.

But seeing those five rings raised above so many different cities
We can still feel deep-down a thousand years of human persistence.

Come!
Although after everything has concluded,
We still will return to the real world and continue living.
However, at least for that moment the torch is lit,
I’m willing to believe.

[If anyone is curious, the Official Theme Song, “You and Me (我和你)” is now out; you can see the video here. It’s much slower than I anticipated… and I’m not wild about the Sarah Brightman opera part. Oh well, I almost never like the Olympic theme songs anyway.

Anyway, according to reports, Taiwan got a big cheer at the opening ceremonies, which apparently went off without a hitch, so we can just sit back and enjoy the pagentry. Big dilemma here tonight, though, as the opening ceremonies will be broadcast concurrently with the first pre-season game of the Minnesota Vikings. We’re discussing strategies for channel flipping.]

Update: Okay, that was really, really amazing - now it is clear why Ashin was talking so much about harmony, as that character featured prominently in the ceremony. And the torch lighting - incredibly impressive.

Now, the Vikings… not so much.

Yes, that’s me using the royal “we” again. But can I help it if I found this story heartwarming? The recent Metro Radio Mandarin Music Awards (2008年新城國語力頒獎) yielded three big winners: sodagreen, Tanya Chua, and… Fusion! Aw, their first album in January and they’re already winning international awards. I’m so proud of them. Here the winners are, all together:

Taotao (blond emo dude in Fusion) looks a bit solemn, but the rest of the crew look quite happy to be there. Together, these three acts picked up eight of the evening’s awards. Finally, an awards ceremony whose outcome I can agree with.

Though their awards are gratifying for both Tanya Chua and sodagreen, not to mention their fans, it’s a much bigger deal for Fusion. This was their first time walking the awards show red carpet. When they received their award, the offered words of heartfelt gratitude to Jonathan Lee for believing in them. Then, of course, they dutifully returned to Beijing to continue production on their second album, bolstered by the recognition.

(Hmm, that article also referenced a Shanghai concert for sodagreen in September… I’d love for this to be true, but I’ve seen no other mention of it and it is not on their website.)

In other news, Scottish band Travis played in Taiwan this week, and the attendance list was a who’s who of Taiwan indie rock: sodagreen, but also 1976, Tizzy Bac, Faith Yang, Echo Band, Chang Chen-yue, Bear Babes (熊寶貝) and, oddly, Shin. Wow, I haven’t thought about Travis in quite a while… I have their second and third albums, but I sort of lost track of them after The Invisible Band. About eight years ago (was it really that long?), I went to an Oasis concert, and Travis was the opening act. I remember my friend and I were instantly converted, calling their performance the better of the two. I’m sure this Taiwan performance was a great show.

So news on the sodagreen concert in Singapore on Saturday night has been weirdly absent from all my normal news sources, but fortunately, ee very kindly sent me a bunch of great links.

The band took their “Sing With Me” concert to Singapore’s Max Pavilion on Saturday for around 3,000 local fans (this report says 5,000). They brought not only their lovely songs, but a few surprises, like an a cappella rendition of “Little Love Song” to a cover of Tanya Chua’s “Remember (記念)” with a different arrangement than the one they used in Taipei.

Quite aside from their music, sodagreen entertained with their humor. After Qingfeng accidentally ripped a whole in the inner thigh of his left pant leg, he told the crowd “Don’t look there, nothing is going to come out of there.” Then, seeing fans holding signs that said, “Buxom Xinyi” (okay, I completely missed this one - when did she get this nickname?), Qingfeng noted that this whole “buxom business” has already gotten pretty heated, so she should just flash a breast at the audience… then joked that they didn’t get more than a few songs into the concert before it turned into a burlesque show. (Wow, and that’s even before Jiakai removed a single article of clothing! Too bad.)

The people seated in the first few rows were all sponsors, so while the rest of the crowd was engrossed in the show, they sat quietly in their seats. This, of course, was not an opportunity Qingfeng could pass up, so he noted confidentially to the rest of the crowd that the people in those first few rows clearly have much on their minds, because they look quite bothered. Then he told the crowd that if something is worrying them, they should say so, or else they need to leave him a message on his blog. Then as they approached the end of concert, he noted that those poor people in the first few rows with so much on their minds clearly had a new worry: whether or not the concert would end. Hah, I daresay only Qingfeng could get away with that!

Just as they prepared to play the last song before the encore, Qingfeng explained that everyone knew it was just a “fake” ending, that they’ll come back and play another song… but that the crowd would still have to clap and cheer or else they’d take that “fake” ending and making it real. During the encore fans kept requesting songs, even after they said they would take no more requests, leading Qingfeng to call the audience “barbarians.” In the end, though, he did take a moment to give a genuine word of thanks to Rock Records for putting on the concert. (Hmm, Rock Records sponsored the concert? Is it just me, or does this give everyone hope for some real Mayday/sodagreen joint events in the future?)

Anyway, sodagreen sang 22 songs in the regular show, plus six more in the encore. In honor of the generally excellent English skills of Singaporean fans, they band sang several songs in English, including a cover of the Carpenters’ “Close to You,” as well as “Believe in Music,” “I Don’t Care,” “Air,” and “Oh Oh Oh Oh” (the last of which has both English and Chinese versions). There’s more news here, if you browse the August 4th edition.

Of course, newspaper accounts don’t give you the whole story; there’s a great summary of the highlights in this comment from Chrys (thanks!) and at ee’s blog.

Okay, I take back every nice thing I’ve said about Vanness Wu’s facial hair. He now appears to be doing a bad impression of Johnny Depp:

At least, that’s the most charitable explanation I have for this horrible ensemble. Vanness turns thirty this week (welcome to the club, dearie), and he held a little celebration of that auspicious occasion this weekend with 500 of his closest friends in Taipei. Ex-girlfriend Vivian was apparently going to jump out of a cake, but she arrived too late to pull off the surprise. There’s a bummer for you… though I can’t imagine wanting an ex to jump out of a cake at you no matter how amiable the split. Guests included Barbie Hsu and Leehom Wang… [*pauses to consult the cardinal rules of Mandopop blogging*]… don’t you think Vanness was looking much better back when he and Leehom were boxing?

Aaahhhh, moving. It is always such an adventure. The first boxes are neatly packed and labeled and contain related items, like “Chinese history books: Republican Era.” Somewhere between the first box and the last few boxes, however, you run out of time or energy or both, and you start getting large numbers of boxes marked only “misc” that contain the wine rack, an eyelash curler, two packages of instant noodles, several extension cords, a two-year-old issue of the American Historical Review that had fallen behind the bookcase and therefore did not get packed with all the other back issues, three bedsheets, and one red glove… the mate to which may or may not have found its way into another random last-minute box. Yeah, well, I never liked those red gloves anyway.

In the grand tradition of those last boxes packed (which I will soon have to sort through because because I can’t find my iPod charger), I thought I’d offer up my own “misc” package of Mandopop news. And when I say “misc” I do mean “misc.” Be prepared.

I’ve browsed a few more articles about the new A-yue/Lo Ta-yu/Jonathan Lee/Emil Chau superband, and I have to say, the best line from one of A-yue’s new bandmates referenced the money-making prospects of their new superband. With so many acts struggling to make their albums profitable, this group has a major advantage: “Our fans are generally older, most of them don’t even know *how* to download music.” Heh.

But honestly, if I think I’ve been busy, imagine poor A-yue. Aside from his new superband, he’s rehearsing for that MTV concert later this month, producing MC Hotdog’s new album, and then, of course, he’s stuck in the middle of a a big Taiwanese hip-hop controversy, through no fault of his own.

Okay, this is a bit of a story, but it’s interesting. In 2004, A-yue and George (黃靜波) founded the True Color (本色) label. George is the manager, and they have several artists under their flag: A-yue (of course), MC Hotdog, Lo Ta-yu (which goes a long way toward explaining how the rest of the superbanders happened to come up with A-yue’s name!), Ah-niu (阿牛), Jeremy Chang (張洪量), Da Zhi (大支), Tripoets (參劈), and 頑童MJ116. Now, Hip-hop group Tripoets put out an underground album in 2004, but they released their first official album this summer. Their album was well received, but not in one quarter - that was by the members of 3 Cool (三角cool). 3 Cool - which had one of the Music Workers of Taiwan’s best songs of 2007 - is under the Machi flag (and the members are sometimes part of that rather amorphous grouping). They took offense at a Tripoets lyric off the new album that they said criticized Machi’s hip-hop production, and when the two groups met, the 3 Cool members beat up several members of Tripoets. A-yue and MC Hotdog ended up rushing to the hospital when two of the Tripoets members were admitted with serious injuries. Jeffery Huang of Machi (Stanley Huang’s older brother) placed three calls to the Tripoets manager (the aforementioned George), explaining that he absolutely did not tell them to go out and attack anyone, but also not offering his own apology, just hoping that the Machi members involved will take responsibility. What makes the whole thing a little dodgy - other than the unnecessary violence, of course - is that Jeffrey Huang rather famously went to court to defend the free speech rights of rappers in Taiwan after he was sued for libel for his song naming Legislative Yuan members as complicit in piracy. For his part, A-yue defends the right to free speech - including the right for Tripoets to produce their songs and lyrics unmolested. In the coming weeks, Tripoets will consider whether or not to sue.

Okay, on to other scandals, though this one pales in comparison: Leehom’s guitar in that elaborate Music-Man poster was photoshopped in. No! The Horror! It seems the real guitar - which will look exactly like that - was not actually done in time for the photo shoot. I admit, I’m sort of unimpressed with this - seriously, who cares? In other news, the Taipei concert will feature a very special guest: Korean R&B star and the object of Stephen Colbert’s affections, Rain. Leehom and Rain sang together on the song “A Perfect Interaction (完美的互動),” but scheduling issues prevented a joint appearance in the video or the promotional cycle for that album.

Meh, let’s move on. Ashin has yet another design project afoot: Porter International, which I believe makes bags, has launched a multinational design contest, to have bags designed in four international cities: London, New York, Milan and Taipei. In Taipei, they have Ashin leading the design challenge; participants can sign up to submit entries via their website.

Mayday did indeed lose that MTV Asia award, this year to Show Luo (羅志祥). Bleh. Of course, he beat out both Jolin and S.H.E. as well. Now, does everyone who failed to vote feel guilty? Of course, they don’t release the final tallies, so we’ll never know how close it was.

This longish article goes through the benefits and pitfalls of being in a group, the key benefits apparently being a lack of loneliness, the disadvantages splitting all proceeds multiple ways and the long lead time required to get through hair and makeup. I’m sorry, maybe Fahrenheit requires a long time to get ready to face the public, but Mayday has never had much trouble being photographed in any disreputable state. As evidence of this point, I give you this:

Now here’s the kicker: that picture is Monster and Stone at a wedding. Yeah, Monster is looking that scruffy while drinking to someone’s future joy and happiness. The groom was the lead singer to Taiwanese band The Chairman (董事長), and the bride was a cousin of Dee and Barbie Hsu (and a friend of The Chairman’s drummer, Mickey, which is how they met).

Finally, tickets for the Linkin Park/Mayday show in Shanghai will go on sale in Shanghai on August 7. That day is Chinese Valentine’s Day, and of course August 8 is both the start of the Olympics and Father’s Day. So some are in for a very busy week. By the way, I’ll catch up sodagreen news separately, as they just had a concert in Singapore… I’ll post once reports emerge.

Okay, it’s official: A-yue gets the coolest gigs. Four years ago he was invited to tour the United States with shows in the House of Blues in ten cities, known as the “Kill Kitty” Tour. (He gets bonus points on that one for taking a stand against Hello Kitty-ness.) He’s got this whole WNP Tour coming up this fall, starting with the MTV international broadcast.

Then, at the Golden Melody Awards this year, Mandopop veterans Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑), Jonathan Lee (李宗盛), and Emil/Wakin Chau (周華健) performed together, and apparently they found the experience addictive. Though up until now they have all had their own, independent music careers, they decided to form a “superband” - in the grand tradition of groups like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Yong or the Traveling Wilburys - and put out a record… and they asked A-yue to join them, to create interest with a younger crowd.

The guys joked that 34-year-old A-yue, on whom I now officially have a hopeless crush, 48-year-old Emil, 50-year-old Jonathan, and 56-year-old Ta-yu together have close to 200 years of life experience - more than enough for an album of songs. Emil joked about having listened to the other guys’ music growing up, a point which A-yue seconded, leaving poor Jonathan and Ta-yue to say that they listened to someone’s music growing up as well. When asked who would be band leader, they dissembled, saying they’d just work out their differences democratically.

Their new superband has been named for the western rail line in Taiwan (the Chinese name is 縱貫線; I’m not sure if they’ll transliterate that to Zongguan Xian, be “Western Line” in English or something else entirely), and they plan to release an album… they joked that they’d be submitting it for best album and best band consideration. When asked who they considered their greatest competition for such prizes, Jonathan Lee immediately replied, Mayday and sodagreen! Naturally.

The mention of sodagreen immediately brought Lo Ta-yu in for some teasing about his having read their name backwards at the Golden Melody Awards, but A-yue was also teased about the fact that he famously once mooned his audience in a concert. (Hmm, I see no objections to this from where I’m sitting…) His elders in the music industry assured him that he would be welcome to repeat that performance any time he pleases, noting as well that they would be willing to join him, but… well, doing so at this age won’t exactly get them any girls. Heh. Lo Ta-yu also joked that the whole “superband” idea was born after an evening together drinking a dozen bottles of wine… something they appear to be recreating in this picture. But hey, if they come up with an idea this intriguing after that much drinking, I’d say they should partake more often - this will be an interesting CD.

In personal news, I’m moving this week, so I won’t be posting much. I’ll catch up on any news I miss when the ugly part of the packing is behind me.