SHANGHAI
fredfades
584 Posts
which clubs should i go to?where should i eat?where can i get jazz, funk, prog, psych, soul, hiphop records?where can i get some nice clothes? (im a baggyjeans / sneakers / adidas tracksuit type of dude)help me.peace
Comments
Is it me or is there a post like this once every month or so? I feel like there should be a "where can I buy records in China" post to go alongside, "do you rock a portable?"
Here's what I tell everyone: go to The Lab. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=80011811
Gary can hep you to a lot of the questions you're asking about. But don't go to SHanghai to buy records. You're not going to find much and it's insignificant compared to the other pleasures the city has to offer.
any more dudes in here who got tips?
There's no records in Shanghai. Seriously. There's not. At least not the kind you'd want to find.
(Hint: it's called the Cultural Revolution).
In any case, I'm quite curious (and skeptical) as to what "Asian heat" we might be referring to. Not that I doubt Mr. Sheep's taste in music of course, but I've heard some of the "better" Hong Kong records and while some of it is decent, it's not like some true
I get sick of these threads too, do a search Freddy!
(Send meg en PM s?? kan eg fortelle deg om et par bra restauranter og s??nn, men seri??st, plater er VANSKELIGE ?? finne der)
- J
You could start with the Hong Kong only Roy Budd soundtrack - Foxbat, and work your way up and down the level from that. IMO, that's the best record outta Hong Kong, of course you have stuff like The New Topnotes, etc. which is very good at moments, but nothing is really *FACEMELTING*, but I take asian records for what they are and try to appreciate and find things that tickles my fancy music wise. When I go to south east Asia, I'm not trying to find the next Placebo, rather soulful and funky moments on more homegrown music... then again in Japan, I am tryin' to find that next level HEAT.
peace.
sendte deg pm. sjof
Their version of Pick Up the Pieces is niiiiiice, but yeah, not insane. Oh, by the way, I have a question about one of the records in that pic, and I guess you??re the one to ask. PM on the way.
- J
That's definitley their worst album... you need to check the one with the red cover at least...
peace.
I'm currently living in Shanghai
along the way you can find some music here and there : I found a place where they had hundreds and hundreds of mint Fantasy/Prestige reissues on cds for 30 rmb each, although I still don't see any place that has vinyls..
..my suggestion is to enter in any dvd store even the smaller and go look for the tiny music section....
I agree with O*****, Asian "heat" is heat in Southern Asia only, like no one in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong has pulled out any drums which are Skull Snappy, or no Jazz that sounds like Strata East you know. There are "COOL" records in Asia, there's definitly some great bits, but like O***** said, compared to Japan or the US or Europe, the output and quality and ratio of good and shit records is quite slim... still I'm working on a mixtape of the stuff from Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.
peace.
The melodic love ballad tunes is just deep rooted, if an occasional pop/ disco hits cover version pops up then thats as funky as it could get, there has never been emphasis on drums and basslines, and most important of all, intrument improvisation!
As Shadow pointed out quick and on-point when we went digging
"The music in Hong Kong seems a lot softer than I thought it would be. very easy on the ear, watered down love tunes....there's none of those 11 mins guitars drum and bass freak out like some of the Korean psych records!"
I guess perhaps the 70s political climate and the economy wasn't happening to allow people for their own creative expression. at least i can only put the blame on that for now, since everyone were just too worried to make a living and making money in the realistic world than staying in the studio making experimental music recordings.
I just can't really settle with that, I always thought the greatest music comes during the hardest and toughest times of a society?
Re: the last sentence - that's an attractive, romantic notion and while it's certainly true that social adversity can result in a flowering of creative output, it's not always the case and, in any case, depends on many other factors besides just the presence of hardship.
For example: the Great Depression isn't really that associated with groundbreaking music - jazz took off, nationally, two decades prior and especially during the Roaring 20s while the golden era of songwriting was already well underway before then. The blues was already well established in both rural and urban environments prior to the 30s, and so forth. (Not sure about country).
In regards to HK, I'm no expert on HK history but its colonization by the British (vs. U.S.) would make an important contrast from the influence of American pop culture you saw in countries with a large presence of Americans (read: troops) such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and parts of South-East Asia. Personally, I'm surprised the British Invasion didn't have more of an influence on music in Hong Kong (or maybe it did and I don't realize it) but my sense is that the Chinese/HK propensity for sappy love ballads is a combination of local cultural interests (i.e. for whatever reason, that's what people there wanted to hear) as well as the absence of foreign cultural influences that might have encouraged a different evolution in sound.
In the case of mainland China, the answer is simpler: total repression during the Cultural Revolution.
I love me some wynners & sam hui though. I am a canto pop fan, but you knew that already. HAH!
I know its not Chinese, but here is a medely of songs from North Korea, taken from the Radio Pyongyang comp (The motherland megamix). Maybe communism doesn't lend its self to good music? I can only think of a few songs by Brecht & Co., some Billy Bragg anthems, and maybe a little Shoshtakovich.
that's the simple truth: otherwise what is the explanation for all those infamous cover bands from philippines in the chinese live scene? chinese mainlanders could play 10000 times better than that......