It was a simple enough question which turned into a mini debate: “Why didn’t Killer Soap play Clockenflap?”
Better a mini debate than a mass debate, anyway.
Here is one of the best Rock bands in Hong Kong- a truly local band- and yet they didn’t “represent” this idle boast of Hong Kong being “Asia’s World City” at the only music and new media festival to be held here.
Some thought that the band was “not well-known enough.”
Aw come on, in a city of 7 million and a tiny music scene that is really not a “scene” at all, the organizers of Clockenflap had never heard of Killer Soap?
“Maybe they’re not ready for ‘prime time'”, asked/answered someone else.
Rubbish. This band comprising Rocky, Kevin Manny, Isaac and Gould- and Producer Anton on passion and belief- can hold its own with any startup band here or anywhere else.
And with “Bittersweet”, their first album into its second printing, plenty agree with that.
Just wish they brought in a really good music video director.
This doesn’t do anything for their music.
No, forget Killer Soap at Clockenflap. It’s come and gone and auditors will see if it comes back to Hong Kong again.
If it doesn’t, that’s a pity, but today it’s all about doing your maths and making sure that what’s on the ledger is working.
The main problem for a good little band like Killer Soap is that despite what anyone else might say, this so-called local music scene is very fragmented.
It has very small pockets of fans and there are certain acts they might support and many they won’t.
There is no ONE big music audience and there are zero mentors.
Perhaps it has to do with a lack of venues and music festivals, but many Hong Kong music fans have not seen enough.
And what they have seen, will not give them the total passion for music which can be found at Roskilde in Denmark or, closer to home, Fuji Rock.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing or something that is as yet to happen in Hong Kong.
Or it’s something that will never happen as we continue to build and build more crap on top of each other until we are all gnats.
China? A Rock market and a place for a huge Rock festival?
Don’t make me laugh.
Any idea how long it takes to have the censors in China approve the release of a record?
What is NOT happening in Hong Kong reminds me of the resounding flop some months ago of a series of events featuring local rappers and hip-hop and rock bands sponsored by San Miguel and organized by the website that is Alivenotdead and TVB.com.
Speaking to the then-head of TVB.com, she couldn’t understand the lack of interest in this event.
Well, having it promoted better might have helped.
Or it could have been the hodge-podge lineup.
What happened to Support Your Local Artist, she wondered?
Sorry, but that disappeared from the Hong Kong music scene in the Sixties.
The Sixties in Hong Kong was playing catch-up with the Sixties in then-Swinging London.
The Beatles had arrived, following it was the British Beat Boom and every kid in a Secondary School in Hong Kong was picking up some musical instrument and forming a band.
Different nationalities started playing together- and key- alongside each other- and doing the best with what they had.
There were The Kontinentals, the Beachcombers, the Blackjacks, Teddy Robin and the Playboys, Danny Diaz and the Checkmates, the Lotus, Joe Junior and the Zoundcrackers, the Mystics, The Menace, The Rebel Sect- and all one stage and with egos checked at the door.
Everyone was still learning and no one thought they knew it all or had it all.
There was no great divide.
Radio stations got behind this “new movement” as did music companies and television stations.
Newspapers started “Pop” columns and “Pop columnists” were hired.
They wrote crap, but it all contributed towards some semblance of a “scene.”
And of course, there was The Scene at the Peninsula and where many-a-band played and many-a-guy got laid.
It all became a “Hong Kong Pop Scene” even though the music might not have been exactly mind-blowingly good.
When it had to be mind-blowingly good, it retreated like a scared penis and made way for the flaccid gooey music that is Canto-Pop.
But, before this, there was none of this need for different musical genres.
There were no ABCs and wannabe Yo!Yo! “hip hop” which is more like “Hop Sing”, the Chinese cook from the TV series “Bonanza”.
There was not a faked out “elitist”, disjointed music scene with no one really coming together.
Hop Sing has grown up but he’s forgotten everything Bruce Lee taught him.
Today, it’s all a bit like, Filipinos over there, lounge singers and cover bands over here.
MOR and AC acts? Only for corporate functions and have that tattooed on your respective asses.
Hip Hoppers? You and that crap? Straight to YouTube.
And yes, there are a few good men and women giving artists and bands venues so that what they are producing and playing can be heard.
Sadly, the Big Daddy and Big Mama of them all remains Canto and Mando-Pop with the same very old artists still touring and still doing their 2900 concert dates- joking- kinda- at the Coliseum in Hong Kong, aided and abetted by the local media such as HK-TVB and performing the same old gooey shit all over China and Taiwan and Vancouver, Toronto and Atlantic city to the overseas Chinese market. Guess gooey shit sells.
At this point, take a look at this video by A-Mei, a singer from Taiwan who has been around for decades. She is “mega”.
But watching this video- which I caught like a stomach bug over the holidays- it shows just how fucking uncool music and creativity from Greater China is.
If giving out awards, I would make this the most uncool video ever made.
It sucks so much wind, I feel bloated just watching it.
Can someone tell me what the fuck she is doing? Or trying to do?
And why is it so outta-sync?
God used to be in the details.
Now, it seems like anything will do as long as it’s done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssphKG2KQaA
The other major problem with Hong Kong- and many of its neighbours- is the local media and their total lack of support of new music.
Note: NEW music.
Why? They either don’t know any better or would prefer to err on the side of caution in case they are left looking stupid.
So, what you get are “marketers”, brand managers who never should be brand managers etc being led by their noses and sold a loada bollocks ‘cos they are the epitome of The Peter Principle.
Incompetence has been promoted. Over and over again.
Go to, let’s say, a fashion show organized by truly local “marketers” and you will very often see tin-pot “fashions” and music that is as far away from being “fashionable” as possible.
Mention a group like AIR to them and they’ll ask if air is free.
So when you have the blind leading the blind, you run into brick walls.
Meanwhile, on the music company side of things, the mantra is “English does not sell.”
So, what chance is there for a local band singing in English to get a recording contract with a major?
Local bands are lucky to even get a recording contract in Hong Kong.
Why?
Many in music companies think of bands as a liability: 4-5 members, 4-5 different personalities and egos and tough to keep together and tougher to deal with them.
With Universal having now signed up local band Mr and with Warner having Dear Jane, this might change.
But I am not holding my breath.
Why bother working with a major?
Sure, majors have no pot to piss in these days, but they still have media toadies on their side.
MTV, Channel [V], pop promoters, the chance of opening for an International act, they are still within easy reach of many these people.
If they wish to bother.
And having been where they are and knowing their problems, it’s all about pleasing “Head Office.”
How “Head Office” in the UK or NYC would know anything about the Asian market has always amused me.
When at UMG and, especially EMI, there were a number of very good bands outta Norway, Sweden and other smaller markets.
There were also some brilliant bands we had from the UK and the US like, for example, Athlete, Doves, Low Millions etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPUlichsfQg
Try and get behind them and the word from Head Office was always the same: “Stop wasting your time with those acts. They are not even selling in their home market. Focus on our Global Priorities.”
And so, it would be back to peddling Norah, Robbie, Gorillaz and Coldplay.
Norah refused to be peddled, Coldplay didn’t have to be and so it was all about Robbie.
And, my, how we forced ourselves to “like” some of his videos and music.
“Rudebox?” Yikes! It should have never left the studio.
Why have all those brilliant Danish bands signed up by Sony Denmark to “global deals” never even had their records released anywhere else?
What is Sony doing, for example, with Veto- internationally?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7jM_XR35U0
Nothing.
Why? ‘cos they are Danish, Denmark is a tiny market and Sony needs to focus on its US global priorities.
Yeah, I know: So why bother signing them up in the first place?
The left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.
Or, one hand is bigger than the other and so the smaller one gets swatted.
What’s the answer?
Well, for years, the term DIY has been bandied about.
Do It Yourself! Do It Yourself!
But are we/you really Doing It Ourselves?
And what exactly are we doing?
Do we even know?
We are living in an age of instant connectivity.
And I don’t mean the Facebook kind, though it has its time and place.
Today, it’s not what you know, but who you know.
That roller-deck better have some names other than those everyone else has.
This is why, let’s stay with Hong Kong for the time being, nothing much different happens here.
And when one has “brand managers” and “marketers” going to these same names time and again, even less happens.
It’s another screening of “The Usual Suspects” but we know the beginning, middle and ending.
We know who Keyzer Soze is.
As with any Hong Kong artist or band with a modicum of talent, Killer Soap needs to work with other musicians- and arrangers and producers- OUTSIDE of here to grow.
Hong Kong has arrangers???
It has copyists- and not very good ones.
The Danish music scene is the same- but different.
Musicians there, too, are big fish in a small pond, but that country crackles with creativity.
Hey, they gave the world Lego and their passion for all forms of art needs to be applauded.
Hong Kong has Ocean Park and a bad Disneyland.
And lotsa tossers who are lucky to be here and not “back home”.
These are the people who talk big but fall short when it comes to delivering the goods.
But they have made a tidy living of being tossers.
What I would personally like to see- and hear- is a band like Killer Soap making music- and performing ‘live’- with a Danish band like Mew or the much younger Thee Attacks.
Can it happen?
Of course, it can- and it’s a NEW starting point.
But just standing there asking if it can happen, won’t get anyone anywhere.
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