Rock and Wall: Interview With Ting Ting of Borderless Prior to Wall Vol. II at Yue Space, Aug 3

Beijing-based gig promoter Borderless has been gradually building steam since it began back in 2015. Obstensibly the one-woman project of the short-statured but livewire-natured Ting Ting, Borderless has whisked a plethora of bands around Chinese shores.

Read: Playlist With Alice Ting Ting, Founder of Borderless Music Label

Most recently, Ting Ting accompanied the bass and drums noise rock duo The Devils and Libido throughout China as well as putting together two Beijing shows, at Temple and School, that rendered audiences sweaty and the band so excited that words failed them, leaving bassist Kuniomi Taira comedically shouting "English!" at the top of his lungs after each performance. As a testament to her hard work, this was the second time the group let Borderless take them under its wing and show them the joys of the Chinese live music scene, doing everything but the translation work, apparently.

In the past five years that Ting Ting has been settled in the capital, she's also overseen tours from Australian psych-rockers The Bennies, German electronica duo Hyenaz, and Italian rock duo The Glamour Manifesto.

For this latest outing, the second edition of Borderless' Wall series, Ting Ting has enlisted the help of fellow Beijing-based music lovers such as Chaosit, Live Beijing Music, Loreli, and "a new friend" iGig. As Ting Ting describes, "The theme this time around is breaking the walls between cities and countries; it’s about working together and making something new." Bands on the bill include local punks Jungle Fever and rockers Rascal Rabbits as well as riot grrl group Xiao Wang and Taiyuan's Old Dogs (pictured at top).

Below we speak to Ting Ting about what Aug 3's show at Yue Space will hold, what she hopes to achieve with her work as Borderless, and what we can expect next in terms of upcoming gigs.

Can you tell us the premise behind your Wall nights? Now into its second run, what do you hope to achieve with Vol. II compared to last year’s Vol. I?
Wall comes from an idea I had with Chaosit last summer in which we were brainstorming for an event to create together. We were chatting a lot on WeChat about what kind of an event we would like to put on and which musicians and artists we'd like to line up for the event.

One day, I was walking down Fangjia hutong with some other friends to go to a birthday party, but my mind kept spinning for ideas for the event, then finally it hit me: Fangjia Hutong is no longer the same after the bricks hit it during the spring and all I saw was gray bricks instead of interesting shops, bars, and restaurants, which was a very sad moment for me and most of my friends. There were even videos at the time of our friend’s bar El Nido getting torn down amid a lot of arguments and emotions, and which made us sadder because there was nothing we could do to stop it. But at least we could put on an event to remind us the good old times. So we invited Jady, founder of Hutong Lovers, who had just organized a series of Hutong-themed events, including documentaries, photography, painting, and poems, and by putting all of these elements together, were able to make Wall. 

Last year's Wall was planned further in advance and it went super well; people chilled, danced, got drunk, laughed, and cried. It remains one of the best events I ever put on, and working together with many friends like Chaosit, Live Beijing Music, Loreli, Spitunes, and Jady has always been my ideal way to do events. More people means more ideas and more ways to put them into action. That for me makes a great event!

It seems like Vol. II will span a broad mix of up-and-comers (Xiao Wang, Jungle Fever) with newer bands (Rascal Rabbits, Old Dogs). How did you choose who you wanted to play?
I didn’t have many choices, because the bands who would say yes to playing are the ones who are totally independent and who will take the risk with us, and be on the team with us. The more famous bands are usually signed to agencies which are quite strict with which gigs they're allowed to play and how much they should get paid. We chose the ones who are the real rockers in town, for sure; great music and great performances.

There’s also a VJ (Alkeshka) and a live drawing element to the show – can you tell us more about how they’ll be involved?
A team of artists has been selected to immerse themselves into a deep state of audiovisual flow, doodling alongside the music of the bands. A live stream of the creations will be fed to VJ Alkeshka, who will mix and mangle the present and past, until all we have left is deep anticipation of the future. How long is a piece of string? Well, twice the length of its half, duh! Audience members will be invited to join the interactive clusterf**k via the joys of the Internet. From 4G, to 4D, this promises to be at least mildly interesting.

As for the VJ Alkesha, he would like you to come and see what he's about (he won’t even tell us what he's about).

What draws you (as Borderless) and China’s youth specifically to rock?
I like all kinds of music, but compared to 98 percent of my friends, the music I like is not as well known as the pop music they often listen to. I would say that I like independent music, not just rock per say as I also like electronic music. The way I became turned onto independent music was via CD vendors who would sit at the gate of my university campus and would sell overseas rubbish (literally since the CDs are shipped over to China as garbage). I started to listen to Blur, Interpol, Foals, and began feeling super cool.

And then I went to see a music festival, and I saw that in China we also had rock music with many young and cool rock bands, and that was very exciting for me. Then through the internet, I got access to almost every type of music in the world (though unfortunately not via YouTube). In that regard, I’m so jealous of my Western friends who had access to all this music when they were much younger. It happened to me in 2005.

You’ve been putting on shows for a few years now and have toured China with visiting bands. How have they reacted to the scene here?
The bands I've toured with have all been great people and they absolutely loved China, Chinese people, and Chinese food.

The usual reaction is:

• "China is totally different from what we thought it would be."
• "Chinese audiences are so much more enthusiastic than people in our own country."
• "Chinese beer is not cold."

What’s next for Borderless? Any other events lined up?
Borderless is focusing on building a community which cares for all music-related people, like venues, musicians, labels etc. We want to help them promote themselves regularly. Some people have mistaken Borderless as doing the events, but actually, it's just a promotion for other people whose work I think deserves to be seen by more people.

We would organize shows and tours for any independent musician who is with us in our goals and who have the same ideas about the music scene. No matter what your favored genre of music is, your heart is more important than anything else. We're also interested in doing interesting interviews with musicians, or anyone actually, who has some feedback about Beijing's music scene.

After having toured with a number of bands, I have seen so many local bands in other cities looking so fresh and good. I hope in the future I can cooperate more with Live Beijing Music to bring bands from other cities to play in Beijing. I'll also do more tours with bands, and be on the road again. I hope Borderless can one day reach Shanghai, Guangzhou, and anywhere else domestically. Then, maybe one day, we can go international.

Catch Wall Vol. II at Yue Space on Friday, Aug 3. The music kicks off at 8.30pm and tickets cost RMB 100 on the door or RMB 80 advance (scan the QR code in the poster above). Read more about the line-up here.

Images courtesy or Borderless