P.K.14's Yang Haisong Talks 25 Years of China's Music Scene Ahead of Jun 30 Yue Space Gig
Paying a visit to the Maybe Mars office isn’t what it once was. A few years back, you’d need only duck into a small Dia'nmen-adjacent hutong to find the innovative Beijing indie label’s staff working in the cubby-like office above XP, the much-missed venue best known as a haven for some of Beijing’s more avant-garde leaning gigs. You must venture deeper into those same alleyways to find the quieter, breezier courtyard that the Maybe Mars crew now calls home.
After that bizarro journey through the beautified hutongs, in which a comical yet tragic fix by the local government has been to stick a faux-brick facade over the pre-existing walls – and doors – we're greeted by Yang Haisong, Maybe Mars' label boss, frequent producer, and frontman of P.K.14. He’s tall, lanky, and sports thick-framed spectacles. He agrees that Beijing’s hutongs, given the happenings therein, have withstood seismic change but that he’d long hoped that things would have progressed in the opposite direction, explaining: “For such a big city like Beijing, we only have four or five really good venues to play music. It’s not like Berlin or other big cities. There should be many, many more quality livehouses. Instead, many are closing, and shows and festivals are being canceled left and right.”
That being said, Yang is also quick to point out that he has seen many a dramatic shift in 25 years he’s spent toiling in Beijing’s music scene, initially arriving in the capital merely as the man behind the mike of his Nanjing-borne post-punk band. Now 44 years old, Haisong and his fellow bandmates in P.K.14 certainly aren't as active as they once were, tomorrow's gig at Yue Space only the second they've played here in the last 12 months.
“There were a lot of new venues and new bands coming out about 10 years ago,” he says of Beijing’s indie rock boom that caught the attention of Time magazine and various other foreign media, a whole other era for the capital’s music scene that now feels like a lifetime ago. “It’s not good or bad, it’s just the way it is. Sometimes you have a lot of good bands, tons, but sometimes there’s only a handful. And when it seems quiet for a while, all it can take is one band to reveal an entire scene thriving in the underground. Through all the years I’ve spent in China’s music industry, I’ve seen it go up and down, like waves. So I have a lot of patience to wait.”
P.K.14’s fans, meanwhile, have had their patience tested prior to the band’s gig this weekend, in part because they play so infrequently, but also because they’re nostalgic for the late '00s period when the Nanjing post-punks were buzzed as “the next big thing.” In that regard, the gig will be a huge treat for P.K.14 diehards, with the band taking the stage for themselves to play songs from throughout their catalog, now spanning nearly 20 years.
“We’re getting back to our roots, finding the core of our band. It’s just part of our middle age crisis,” Yang says with an impish grin. While it feels surreal to now be an elder statesman in Beijing’s indie music scene, Yang is nevertheless grateful to have lasted so long. Yang confesses that it's a degree of longevity he never expected when he co-founded P.K.14, saying that for the longest time the band “only thought as far ahead as the next show. Most of us in this industry only have short-term plans. But as a band, the four of us still have fun playing together. And that’s the main thing.”
Not only have they enjoyed regrouping for the occasional gig, including a recent run of shows in China's south, but Yang says P.K.14 have also relished writing and recording a new album, set to be released later this year. Yang describes the record as beautifully and ambitiously produced, with so many overdubs that he’s excited by the challenge of recreating those complex songs onstage. Much of that can be chalked up to how much of Yang’s recent day to day life is devoted to producing younger bands like Xi’an post-punk quartet FAZI and Chengdu indie rockers Hiperson, with Yang the first to admit that his introverted nature suits the studio well: “You don’t need to deal with people, you can just focus on the machines. It’s pretty much easy for me.”
“In the studio, you need to make the decisions yourself, and nobody can help you,” Yang says, adding that he’s eagerly awaiting a change in pace with this weekend’s gig, the completion of P.K.14’s upcoming album, and the subsequent national tour that they’ll embark upon together because “with P.K.14, the pressure comes from having to follow my bandmates, and constantly bettering myself to make sure I can fit in.”
P.K.14 will perform at Yue Space on Jun 30 at 9.30pm. Tickets are RMB 150 or RMB 120 advance. For more information, click here.
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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photos: Charles Saliba for Maybe Mars (via Pangbianr), Live Beijing Music, Nevin Domer
