I am getting onto a plane for Australia in a few hours. This is my first time heading down under – very excited. This Friday evening Carriageworks, a huge art and cultural center in Sydney, is going to present a program on my Sound Kapital project. I am giving a short talk around 6PM followed by a performance at 8PM by three amazing bands from Beijing: Nova Heart, AV Okubo/AV大久保, and Xiao He/小河. An extended selection of my work documenting the underground music scene in Beijing will also be projected during the concert. It should be an awesome evening all around. Check out the links to Carriageworks above for ticket information and videos below for previews of the bands.

I always like to brag about Beijing being the center of the music universe in China. It is rather hard to dispute. The only band that throws a wrench in my argument is Duck Fight Goose. Hailing from Shanghai, they are one of the best bands in China, hands down. Their new album Sports, recently released by Maybe Mars, should put them more on the map not only domestically but hopefully internationally. I love the math and prog rock influences and genuinely feel it could be a breakout album. Han Han, the lead singer and general impresario, is taking the band in a wide array of directions. Their live performances are also extremely tight – check out footage from the Sports album release party at D-22 below. So, onwards and upwards with Duck Fight Goose, and may they continue to instigate a renaissance of sorts in Shanghai.

I just completed a Domus Mixtape for Beijing. You can hear it over at Domus or on SoundCloud. I drew exclusively from Maybe Mars and Modern Sky for the music as well as a live recording of Zhang Shouwang/张守望 of White+ and Carsick Cars fame. There is a lot more music out there in China, of course, but this is definitely some of my favorite material. Sort of the soundtrack to my life over the past four years. Below is the accompanying text, track list and some portraits of the performers included on the mixtape from Sound Kapital:

The hardest part of the day in Beijing is getting out of bed. Gazing across a smoggy skyline and watching the hectic traffic below is reason enough to hide under the covers for a few more hours. It is a dystopia – maybe even a nightmare. That is why I embrace the night. The sky remains a muted black, and I can seek out sparks of life in the darker recesses of the city. Beijing’s mutating urban landscape can only be matched by its shifting artistic climate, especially in the realm of sound. Desperation breeds discontent, and voices are emerging to express it. Every weekend features full billings at a growing number of performance spaces across Beijing: dive bars near the universities, small coffee houses hidden amongst the hutongs, larger concert halls in defunct government buildings, or experimental enclaves adjoining fish farms on the outer edges of the city. Beijing’s erratic social landscape is now molded by the Internet and mobile phones instead of more closely controlled media channels such as television and radio. Those with idiosyncratic tastes readily connect with each other and access an exponentially broader realm of music from both home and abroad as they continue to pick apart the past fifty years of western pop, rock, jazz, punk, electronic, and experimental music with increased vigor. The performers on this mixtape constitute a formidable new wave of artists striving to expand their creative limits in an autonomous and compelling fashion. Even though it is too early to tell what may come of the innovative strides made by these musicians, there is no doubt that they will continue to break ground within Beijing’s nascent artistic landscape, helping to push the boundaries of an already expanding realm of independent thought and musical expression in China. In the end the city resists description. Outside the smoke-choked bars everything is layered in a fine coat of dust. Whole neighborhoods disappear and find their way deep into your lungs. That’s the problem. The city gets inside you – fills you to the brim – consumed by a monstrous flow of people and infrastructure. It’s savage but enticing. Six million people flocked here over the past ten years and half a million are expected each year for the foreseeable future. The implosion is just beginning. The nebulous heart of the middle kingdom skips along to ever irregular beats.

Tracks:

01. My Great Location - Rebuilding the Rights of Statues/重塑雕像的权利

02. Some Surprises Come Too Soon - P.K. 14

03. No. 6 Space Ship - AV Okubo/AV大久保

04. Sand Hammer - Hedgehog/刺猬

05. Sunday Girl - Ourself Beside Me

06. Flu - Snapline

07. You Can Listen You Can Talk - Carsick Cars

08. Golden Gate - Duck Fight Goose/鸭打鹅乐队

09. This Side Down - The Offset Spectacle/憬观：像同叠

10. To Die - Soviet Pop/苏维埃·波普

11. The Earthquake - 24 Hour/24小时

12. Hospital - Guai Li/怪力

13. Beijing is Not My Home - Demerit/过失

14. Intro/Outro/Transitions - Zhang Shouwang/张守望 live at D-22 on November 22, 2011

Queen Sea Big Shark/后海大鲨鱼 is so, like, HOT right now. I mean, for real. This past year they were featured in both V Magazine and the Vogue September issue where Mario Testino cued up on them for a big spread. Lead singer, Fu Han/付菡, is now the electronic dance rock fashion diva of China. During her packed show at Tango in Beijing earlier this month, she went through at least four different outfits in the course of the evening. More power to her. I still have a big soft spot for Queen Sea Big Shark, even if I’m not the biggest fan of the haute couture pop direction she is taking with the band. They still rock it out, and their early surf rock influences make an appearance here and there. I luckily caught Fuhan at UCCA during the Creators Project where I took a few photos and video footage for fun. Check the video below for some recent concert material as well. They are getting into very elaborate stage setups for the big concerts. Otherwise, here are some recent music videos for Let’s Play, Glow in the Dark and an awesome promotional video for their sophomore album Wave.

Earlier this year Alexei Perry Cox of the Handsome Furs contacted me out of the blue about using the name of my book, Sound Kapital, as the name of their new album. Since most of the songs were related to their experiences in China, she thought it would be a cool way to pay homage to the alternative music scene and further their connection to the Middle Kingdom. I quickly consented, of course, after which Alexei made a further request to include my photography in the album design. She proposed to juxtapose my blueish Tuanjiehu waterpark series with an orangish nightfall Portland series photographed by Bradley Sellers. The results are quite stunning. Moreover, the music is great and getting solid reviews by Pitchfork and Spin. This is the first time I contributed to album art outside of Chinese bands, and I am proud to have provided the name of my book to their own musical ventures. The Handsome Furs are touring like mad right now in support of their new album. I am lucky enough to catch them on August 18 at the Bowery Ballroom. Rock it out if you can.

My portrait from Sound Kapital of Subs lead guitarist, Wuhao/吴昊, appeared on the cover of Courrier International. If you buy the magazine and speak French, please translate the article for me. The Subs are AWESOME. They are one of the first bands I saw when I returned to Beijing in 2007. Expect some big features next week, including photos in The New Yorker and Time Magazine.

Beijing is chock-full of branded events these days. Whether it’s Diane von Furstenberg at Pace Gallery or Louis Vuitton at the National Museum of China, many fashion houses and luxury brands are trying to wedge themselves into the lucrative Chinese consumer market by pairing up with “legitimate” cultural institutions. Calvin Klein was no different when they rolled into Beijing and threw a party at Club Tango featuring performances by New Pants/新裤子 from Beijing and Far East Movement from Los Angeles. New Pants played a very short set including my current favorite “Sex, Drugs, Internet” while the Far East Movement rocked the energetic crowd with their “Like a G6″ hit – see videos below. Otherwise, one corner of the dance floor was dominated by a specially constructed mini-studio where people could be videotaped dancing around a white room in the same manner as recent Calvin Klein advertisements. The only caveat was that anyone entering the box signed away their rights to the video in hopes of being selected for a future Calvin Klein campaign or web feature. People around the mini-studio could also watch live feeds of the antics occurring inside via flatscreens built into the siding. Overall it was a rather ingenious ploy to get people to freely relinquish rights to their personal images for commercial purposes. Events like this occur every few days in Beijing as international corporations continue to drum up a consumer frenzy throughout China.

Thanks to my new friend Alex Chao, who just arrived in Beijing to take over art direction at China Vogue, I was able to contribute for the first time to China Vogue this month. It was also a perfect match since the magazine was running a big music issue and decided to let me cue up on some of the old school rockers in China including Cui Jian/崔健 (the godfather of Chinese rock), Shen Lihui/沈黎辉 (general rocker and founder of Modern Sky) and Zhang Youdai/张有待 (the DJ who introduced rock to the masses). First of all, I was very excited to get a chance to shoot Cui Jian on the D-22 red wall. He really is a pillar in the history of Chinese rock and greatly influenced a whole generation of China with his anthem “Nothing to My Name” which became a rallying song for students in China during the 1980s. Although I might not be the biggest fan of some of Shen Lihui’s music, his importance as the founder of the Modern Sky music label and festival production company is undisputed. When other record companies refused to release his music in 1997, he went his own way and founded Modern Sky to support a new generation of Chinese rockers and then continued to take this music to larger audiences with the Modern Sky Music Festival and Strawberry Music Festival. Shen Lihui will undoubtably be a force in the future of alternative music in China for some time to come. Although I had never heard of Zhang Youdai before, he seems to be an instrumental character in the history of rock in China as well. He became a DJ and host on Beijing Music Radio back in 1993 and introduced a wide range of music to youth across China. He is a true shaker in China’s emerging entertainment market and is rocking out to an Eric Clapton LP in the China Vogue portrait. Mad respect.