A Crazy Good Tuesday with MusicDish’s Triple Whammy
Tuesdays are kinda blah, don’t you think, dear reader? Not quite as brutal as Mondays, and yet they aren’t Wednesdays either. Are you rolling your eyes at me already? Am I possessed by the spirit of Rebecca Black circa 2011? Please bear with me, because really, all I am trying to say is —you deserve some fun on a Tuesday, and I am here with a prime suggestion for you.
More specifically, I am talking about Tusday, Apr 4. On that evening, MusicDish will be taking over Omni Club (东市, Dōngshì) to offer you what they’ve dubbed “Madness Tuesday” (疯狂星期二, fēngkuáng xīngqí'èr), aka a triple gig featuring three really solid Chinese indie bands: Xiao Wang (小王, Xiǎowáng), Safegaze (安全凝视, Ānquán níngshì) and Mobby Kingdom (莫比帝国, Mòbǐ dìguó). All that good music, for just RMB108 presale (door price will be RMB 128!).
That’s cheaper than your average night out and I promise the music will be so much better than whatever you were getting at the club. Don’t believe me? I got to chat some with MusicDish founder Eric de Fontenay. The man’s a trove of musical treasures, that much I can tell you.
Hey, Eric! Well, if there’s someone working on a Tuesday, that’s you with your team at MusicDish bringing us the good tunes. Tell us a bit about the gig.
So there’s a little pun going on there with the date for this gig — 4.4. We feel that plenty of fun stuff went 404 over the last couple years. Now that things are finally better, we thought we’d honour this optimism by throwing a really cool gig on none other than 4.4. No zero in between. Only fun vibes with a trio of bands that have a lot to offer - and of course, you can sleep-in late Wednesday for Qingming festival holiday. It really is a pleasure for MusicDish to support musicians such as Xiaowang who consistently blows the roof off our shows; Safegaze who recently signed to our Fresh Out The Pot新出锅 collective and Mobby Kingdom who recently moved to Beijing after making a name for themselves in Nanjing. Yes, we want you to dance, we want you to pogo, we want you to cheer, we want you to get loud —all on a Tuesday. Doors will open at 7.30pm, and here’s a little surprise: the first five folks to arrive at the venue get free admission.
Um, watch me rush to the door. Plus, we’re getting a medley of genres with these three bands, right?
You bet. So, let’s start with Safegaze. Safegaze was founded in 2021; current band members are Xingyu (SUNOFLEO), Fu Yan, Mö, Gun Gun and Tian Zhensheng. Together, they form a quintet drawing their sounds from post-punk, new psychedelic and noise rock, as well as some delightfully dark aesthetics. Think some obscure vibes from anytime between the ‘60s and the ‘80s, but with their own modern, unique twist.
Mobby Empire has been around for a bit longer; these four guys — Zelif, the founder and vocalist, along with drummer Zhang Bokai, Wan Jun at the guitar and Ge Li at the bass — toured 25 cities in 2017. From opening the Nanjing Forest Music Festival to joining other festivals such as the Strawberry chapters in Beijing, Shanghai and Hainan, in 2020 they followed up with the recording of their second new studio album, Love Is Only We Have 爱无厘头. In a few words, just damn good rock. One of their singles, 《深夜28点》(shēnyè 28 diǎn, loosely translated as 28:00 Late Night) was part of the OST for the TV Series 《我们的婚姻》(wǒmen de hūnyīn, Our Marriage), and this year they’ll perform for the first time at the Midi Festival.
And then, there’s Xiaowang, an all-female quartet doing their very own passionate, colourful, eclectic thing. Their debut album actually came out last October, which is when we had them play at our Haunted House show at Canal Space, but in a way it feels still very relevant, seeing as the last year was so slow for obvious reasons. I first met Xiaowang in the pre-COVID times; I reckon it was in 2017 at Temple Bar.
They were relatively brand new at the time and they impressed me with their uniqueness, their brilliant live performance and their energy. You know, they define their style as kawaiicore —a really unique take on punk. Not only that, their lyrics also pack a punch in terms of the topics they cover, tons of food for thought. They’re sweet and gentle one moment, and the next they’re hoarse, fierce and hot-blooded. Their music speaks of the turbulences that ordinary people experience in the course of their lives.
Speaking of you guys at MusicDish, you’ve gone a long way in nearly 13 years in China. Nowadays, MusicDish is basically an indie lifestyle brand and an incubator for young, up-and-coming Chinese indie bands to get a leg up in the industry. Care to share a recent example?
Indeed, nowadays we are focused on the domestic market. Last September, we officially launched Fresh Out the Pot, a music collective supporting emerging new indie bands in China. The criterion here is that they’ve debuted in 2021 or later, with some exceptions for 2020. Ever since that launch, we’ve had a total of 15 bands, 12 of them based in Beijing. This late winter we also kept ourselves busy with this really cool initiative that we dubbed Asian Music Day, in collaboration with a bunch of folks. The initiative is actually by Colombia-based Bunka Radio, which holds this annual radio marathon (16 hours!) of music in collaboration with various partners from across Asia. MusicDish has been a part of Asian Music Day for the last three years as well as producing a monthly radio show with Bunka Radio in 2021 on China’s indie music scene.
You know, as a foreigner I remember feeling like I’d been sleeping on Chinese indie music when I finally got into it. So many great groups to listen to! It’s no small feat to keep a finger on the pulse of Chinese indie music. How do you manage at MusicDish?
We discover new music two ways. Firstly, as you may imagine, we just go to tons of shows, and Beijing used to be really good for that, what with being the capital for live music and all. But also, at the start of COVID too, we’ve been tracking indie bands across China. We have this yearly playlist that we curate carefully throughout each year and that’s how we constantly track stuff, discussing everything that goes into our choices. These lists are useful for us just as much as for anyone else wanting to plunge into Chinese indie, with the understanding the genre works differently than in the West. There’s so much mingling and crossover between styles.
Last but not least, our playlists have allowed us to track the waves in Chinese music.
Oh, waves. Do tell us what the sea of Chinese indie music looks like, pretty please!
Right, so there have been a few things going on since, say, 2017-2018. Back then, we were talking about this scenario where the last big wave of Chinese indie took place in the early years of the first decade of the 2000s. The big bands that you’d see at summer fests are all from that period, and then stuff kind of petered off. Fast forward to 2017-2018, when a batch of brand new bands popped up all over the country and there was this music variety show called Summer of Bands which really introduced these bands to a more mainstream audience. There was this nice growth going on —and then COVID-19 hit, of course.
Things in China took their own course, everything stopped for a while until about summer 2020, when things were seemingly under relative control. Things popped right back up, and these bands ventured out again with a lot of tours and shows that sold out immediately. You know, there was a lot of pent-up demand in this relative normalcy. But, 2022 came around with a new epidemic blow. Increased controls, cancellations galore, you name it. Festivals were shut down, and those are crucial for indie bands in China to grow, for visibility, gradual opportunities and, eventually, your ticket to success when you finally make it on TV.
That being said, this 2017-2018 wave never quite dried up. It just had to lean more on the recording side, with bands playing locally whenever possible.
That’s quite the summary, and what a ride, down to our hopes for increased openings in 2023. What do you think the future will look like for Chinese indie music in this imminent future?
Future, you say? Well, I’ve grown allergic to making predictions in China by now, but safe to say after three years of hell everything can only be looking up. Everyone is hitting the stage and the road (not to mention festivals), and new venues will be popping up all over in the coming months. We’ve been working on promotion for the tour of two of our bands - 一日赢家One Day Winner and 圈儿踢CypherT - which will be kicking off on Mar 31. Basically, 2023 will look like a pressure cooker letting off a whole lot of pent-up steam… and God knows, we need it!!
Madness Tuesday 【疯狂星期二】will take place on Apr 4, 8.30pm at Omni Club (东市). Early bird tickets are RMB 108 while stocks last, then RMB 128 for general entry. Scan the QR in the event poster or below to grab your tickets.
Omni Club
M Woods Art Community, 95 Longfusijie, Dongcheng District
1/F, Bldg 15, 38 Qianliang Hutong, M Woods Art Community, Dongcheng District
东城区景山街道隆福寺街95号钱粮胡同38号15号楼 木木艺术社区地下一层
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Images: courtesy of MusicDish, Kai Qi (凯奇)
