I think by far the most common response to this year’s eArts Festival, voiced by performers, curators, and audience members alike, was to curse the disorganization of it all. While it was certainly an improvement over last year’s festival, which I didn’t even know was going on until it was over, getting information about what was going on where and when was much harder than it should have been. There was no clear, central guide; the website was late to come on-line, slow, and hard to navigate (quite an obvious problem for an organization dedicated to cutting edge digital technology); and texts were poorly and erratically translated (despite offers of free assistance from native English speakers).

The biggest problem was in the scheduling, though; it does a disservice to absolutely everyone to book so many simultaneous events. All of the performances were crammed into the first week of the festival, with locations ranging from the Science and Technology Museum in Pudong to Xujiahui Park in Puxi. I anguished over how to schedule my own concert-going, ever worried about missing something brilliant. My biggest regrets were Carl Stone’s first performance on night two of Streaming Objects, Dead J’s set in Xujiahui, and the whole of B6 and Yang Lei’s Feng Shui Omniscience (which sounded very cool, and the more I read about it after the fact, the worse I felt). I couldn’t even catch most of the installations in Xujiahui, since they were on display at the same time as the concerts. There was just no way to be in all those places at once.

But at least they hired top-notch folks to select the actual art, the festival’s saving grace. In the end, most of what I heard was of high quality, and even if it wasn’t, it represented an interesting or otherwise underrepresented voice in new media. So, yes, it was a good and needed festival, and I enjoyed what I was able to catch, but there’s clearly lots of room for improvement.

My performance schedule during this hectic week oscillated between Yao Dajuin’s Streaming Objects three-night opening concert at the Zhangjiabang Riverfront, just behind the Science and Technology Museum in Pudong, and ArtHub’s Final Cut series in Xujiahui Park (organized by Davide Quadrio and Defne Ayas).

October 19
Patience for the Man 忍而为人

I believe this piece was formed at the instigation of Alizia Borsari (also known for a widely circulated photograph of me belly-slamming Final Cuts co-organizer Davide Quadrio that I cannot in good conscience endorse). It was billed as a “work in progress,” and it pretty much lived up to its billing. Mainly, it was short, lasting barely half an hour, to the annoyance of the packed crowd, who had been erroneously informed that the show would last for 2 hours.

I’m pretty lousy at describing choreography, but here goes. There were two female dancers, Nunu and Ling Xi, at times very sculptural and solid and making sharp and brusque gestures, and at other times playacting, which may have been a way of establishing some kind of dichotomy between fact and metaphor, real life and artifice. Or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. The two images that stick with me is when one girl was crawling on her knees, and the other girl picked a fight by pushing her over, and then later one of the girls scampered across the stage, acting like a dog. See some pics.

Behind them Aaajiao was doing real-time 3D graphics using Processing, rear-projected on four big panels, and B6 was accompanying with music on his laptop. Aaajiao’s side of things was fairly straightforward Processing stuff, swirls of particles, similar to what you see in Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video (shot without cameras, generating data that you can edit and recompile yourself in Processing). B6’s set was a bit rougher than what I’m accustomed to hearing from him, or maybe it was the soundsystem (which was partially replaced when Yu Yin Tang’s Zhang Hai Sheng 张海生 was called in as last minute audio insurance just before the Christian Marclay show 2 days later), but still a good, supporting set.

When I asked B6 after the show how he was doing lately, he replied, “busy,” which was a bit of an understatement. In addition to this performance, he had put together the Feng Shui Omniscience portion of the eArts Festival, together with Yang Lei 杨磊 over in Pudong, while simulateously preparing for the launch of his new Modern Sky CD Post Haze (a very fine collection of minimal techno) and subsequent China tour.

Anyway, as I said, the show was short, so afterwards I rushed over to Pudong, hoping I might still catch Carl Stone’s performance at Streaming Objects, but it turns out I missed the first three sets.

I didn’t know the first act, Skoltz_Kolgen from Montreal, but I had dinner with them afterwards, and they are quite charming and erudite, and I wish I could have caught their set.

Then Masayuki Akamatsu 赤松正行’s iPhone Snowflakes got another chance. The story I heard was that some official in attendance on opening night (there were a bunch) had had enough and wanted to leave, but he quite reasonably thought it might be rude to leave in the middle of a piece. So he ordered the piece stopped, allowing time for a more respectable exit. Crazy, but it exemplifies my impression the whole festival’s priorities; to have a big, flashy, expensive spectacle, with little regard for the messy art. Anyway, I went out to lunch with Masayuki Akamatsu, along with Carl Stone, Wang Changcun, and two other guys the next day, and he showed me some other iPhones aps he had done; having graduated from large-scale computer systems, he’s taken to the iPhone as an art medium in a big way, and I think he’s right on the money.

And I missed Carl Stone, who was third up, but I took solace in the fact that he’d be playing again the following night.

When I arrived some slow moving, moody music, and subdued color field visuals were washing over the river. The piece must have just started, since it wasn’t until 20 minutes or more later that I was able to identify the work as being by Ulf Langheinrich. Very subtle, but I dug it.

Then last up was the Hangzhou wonder duo of noise guitarist Li Jianghong 李剑鸿 and laptopist (and Mr. Li’s paramour, if I’m not mistaken) Vavabond. Mr. Li cut a striking figure dressed in black, wailing with his axe like a siren out across the water, enveloped in mist from the fog machine, warmed by the glow of stage lights.

October 20
This night, I was all Streaming Objects’s. First up, 8GG’s set struck me as rough and loose, a bit of a disappointment. There were real time sounds and images, a long stretch of scenery going by outside of a car window, with faces floating above. The last section had white dots in a black background, seemingly dynamically spawned, but bouncing around in very predictable trajectories, evoking Pong in a not altogether favorable comparison, with some noisy blips for impact sounds.

It was Brian O’Reilly who really got the party started. I was stunned by the images he had going, stark, also black and white, but complex and biomorphic, frosty landscapes swallowed up in a ball of undulating brainwaves, unlike anything I’d seen before; it was seriously viscerally thrilling. After the show he slipped me a CD/DVD collaboration he did with granular synthesis pioneer and Computer Music Tutorial author Curtis Roads entitled Point Line Cloud, on which he provided visualizations for several of Mr. Roads’s electronic works. Previously I had mentioned that I’ve been working with granular synthesis, and he said something like, “Oh, you don’t need to tell me about granular synthesis!” Little did I realize he was a close collaborator of the guy who literally wrote the book (Microsound, 2001, MIT Press)! He even revealed that he was the friend who mentioned to Mr. Roads, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you need a visa to visit China,” a few days before Mr. Roads’s cancelled appearance at the 2006 MusicAcoustica Festival in Beijing.

Anyway, next on the bill I finally got to see Carl Stone, and he was awesome, mixing in some pre-prepared elements (pianos and things) with material he sampled in realtime from multi-instrumentalist Wu Wei 吴巍, performing on sheng and erhu and occasionally vocalizing. Fantastic balance of space, variety, color, density…awesome.

Last up was Frank Bretschneider, who returned to the idea of simple shapes in black and white, but wow, what a symphony of forms he unleashed from such humble materials! I think he even topped Ryoichi Kurokawa in terms of audiovisual synchronization, very tight, very minimal, but everything impeccably placed and proportioned, a prime example of how two media conspiring together can coalesce into something greater than can be achieved via one medium alone. The girl sitting next to me thought it was too long, and perhaps it was a bit long for a concert setting on a cool autumn night, but I was kept rapt in the mere contemplation of what it must be like to experience his work in a club! A triumphant culmination to Streaming Objects’s three nights of concerts.

I think in general, once the opening night jitters were over with, things went a lot more smoothly at the Zhangjiabang riverfront. (Although that poor, floating video cube in the river made an appearance each night, each time getting a little farther until pow, flatline, blue screen of death. I was really rooting for the little fella. Maybe next year!) In all, a very fresh and necessary sequence of performances.

October 21
Q2008

Feng Mengbo 冯梦波 seems to be the most famous Chinese artist working in “game art” (which always strikes me, as a longtime game developer myself, as a rather presumptuous category, like saying “film art” or “photograph art,” but I won’t go into that here), and having heard that he primarily uses a modified Quake 3 engine as his artistic medium, his set was more or less what I expected. He had modded the game, replacing the typical beefy combatants with nude girls wielding cell phones instead of guns and shooting roses instead of bullets. And that was about it. He ran around the level performing what might be generously described as a kind of virtual improvisatory choreography.

He pulled one kind of cheap trick, which is to turn off screen refreshing; this requires nothing more than the flip of one Boolean variable. It works like this: think of a computer game as a software film projector that calculates each image and flashes it on the screen at a steady rate; then imagine that each new image doesn’t erase the first, but is simply superimposed on top, leaving trippy trails behind moving objects, obscuring the sense of virtual space, a shortcut to achieving a very dense visual composition in a hurry.

A key concern for game artists ought to be interactivity, the primary characteristic that differentiates games from other media. But here there was only a stultifyingly simple nod in interactivity’s vague direction. Audience members were invited to come up one at a time and click a mouse on a table that did I don’t even remember what to the image on the screen. There was no engagement, no transformation, just the equivalent of opening the refrigerator door and watching the light come on, serving no purpose other than to prove that, yes, it’s all happening in real-time.

Talk among the spectators was that this represented an unprecedented level of erotic permissiveness for officially approved art on the mainland. Mr. Feng manipulated his digital girls to tumble perpendicular to the screen, affrording the audience a clear view of all the polygons shaded to look as if the sun don’t shine on them. Particularly titillated were the group of older ladies who faithfully attended Final Cut every night, as the temporary stage in Xujiahui Park displaced their usual evening ballroom dancing practice.

October 22
Christian Marclay’s Screen Play

I plan to make my participation in this performance the subject of a longer post on my own new blog soon, so I won’t go into it here. Stay tuned!

And that was it for eArts 2008 performances!

BTW, you can read Carl Stone’s own account in two parts on New Music Box.

As I mentioned above, I just started my own blog, less than a month old, and I expect to post most of my ruminations from there from now on, so I’ll be less active on GNO. But many thanks to Lawrence Li and Yao Dajuin for inviting me to participate in GNO and providing feedback and guidance along the way! (Also note that Lawrence has an additional blog keeping him busy these days; see what he’s up to over at the Shao Foundation.)

Last night’s show seemed fraught with more than its fair share of technical problems. Sound cut out a few times during Sulumi’s set (which expanded beyond 8-bit to encompass his whole career, including some early chestnuts; perhaps he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as “that 8-bit guy,” and it’s good to see him stretching out). The collaborative piece Ferry (attributed to Zeng Duo, Yi Lian, Feng Chen, Cao Shu, Zhang Ruyu, Lu Yang, Guo Huilan, and Li Wen) culminated with the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death splayed across a huge digital cube floating in the Zhangjiabang River, mirrored on five massive screens in the background. Laetitia Sonami’s set was a bit of a snore (not sure if that was a technical or aesthetic issue), a bit of a let down after years of hearing about her pioneering work; ideas were brought in and dropped, some particularly ugly sounds went on for way too long, and other chunks seemed canned, leaving me skeptical about how much was actually being controlled in real-time, though for a few delicate minutes in the middle I was quite transfixed. And in general, transitions between sets were awkward, with bumper music (which veered disappointingly towards the pop) ending early, leaving long, dark silences, while title slides with dense descriptions whizzed by too fast to parse.

But three pieces more than compensated for these mishaps; Wang Changcun’s algorithmic piano improvisations (moved to Saturday from Sunday) were captivating, rendered acoustically on a Yamaha Disclavier. A piece involving speech synthesis from internet chat (I’m guessing that was 2510, but maybe it was 4×4x4) was similarly fresh in its careful exploration of a limited range of sounds. And Ryoichi Kurokawa’s Parallel Head was a sublime and masterful final flourish for the evening, an extremely satisfying symbiosis of sound and image.

Anyway, pushing the boundaries of technology inevitably leads to technical snafus from time to time, and if some experiments come off less successfully than others, I am willing to accept this as the price of progress! Looking forward to more experiences like this throughout the festival.

If you’re only going to check out two events, first go to Pudong on Sunday, Oct. 19, to see laptop elder statesman Carl Stone and Wang Changcun’s real-time algorithmic music for acoustic piano [Whoops, Wang Changcun got scooted to Oct. 18]. Then on Wednesday, Oct. 22, come see me and Yan Jun 颜峻 and Bruce Gremo and Elliott Sharp and Top Floor Circus 顶楼的马戏团 perform Christian Marclay’s Screen Play in Xujiahui Park.

But if you want to dig deeper (and there’s lots more cool stuff), read on…

Final Cut, Xujiahui
First let me blatantly plug the part of the show I’m personally involved with, “Final Cut,” going down in Xujiahui Park. This part of the show was organized by the indefatiguable Defne Ayas and Davide Quadrio, of ArtHub, and in addition to the five nights of live shows below, they’re running wild with videos and installations, even taking over Xujiahui’s huge digital displays for artistic ends; check out the ArtHub site for details. The “Final Cut” performances are happening on a specially constructed stage in Xujiahui park.

Saturday, Oct. 18, 40+4 screening
Ok, not a live performance, but a screening of ArtHub’s 40+4 interview project, in which artists answer fundamental questions about their art and practice.

Sunday, Oct. 19, Patience for the Man
A “live performance within a musicscape,” featuring live performances by B6 and Aaajiao, with dancers, on a stage created by the architect duo Wang Zhenfei and Wang Luming.

Monday, Oct. 20, Dead J + Chen Xiongwei
Dead J’s a minimalist electronic musician from Beijing with two ablums out on Modern Sky, and these days I understand he performs in a spacesuit. He’s also a pal and a good guy, and you can listen to his stuff on NeoCha! I don’t know Chen Xiongwei, but he’s going to be doing live video stuff.

Tuesday, Oct. 21, Feng Mengbo’s 冯梦波 Q2008
I don’t know this guy’s work first hand, but he’s got a reputation as the leading practitioner of game art in China, which seems to stem largely from a Quake mod that incorporated the image of Mao Zedong. Personally, coming from 12 years in the game industry, and knowing just how easy it is to make a Quake mod (games are designed to let you do this, for community building), I’m bringing a healthy dose of skepticism to this show, but I’ll definitely be there.

Wednesday, Oct. 22, Christian Marclay’s Screen Play
This should be a very cool show, and not just because I’m performing in it. Christian Marclay is one of the truest definitions of “sound artist” around, active in the downtown New York experimental music scene since the early 80’s, whose work plays with sound and suggestions of sound and objects associated with sound in consistently delightful ways. Screen Play is a ~25 min. video score that cuts together old black and white film footage with a computer graphic overlay of simple, abstract shapes in bright colors. The score is “to be interpreted by a small group of musicians,” and at this show 3 groups of musicians will take a crack, in succession: me, veteran Beijing-based sound artist Yan Jun, and Beijing-based American musician Bruce Gremo (playing his custom digital flute, the Cilia); Marclay’s pal the guitarist Elliott Sharp, over from NY for the occassion, performing with Wang Li Chuan 王力川 and Wu Na 巫娜; and Shanghai’s beloved punk ensemble Top Floor Circus.

“Streaming Objects,” Breath, Pudong
This is the official opening gala for eArts 2008, taking place in Pudong at the Zhangjiabang riverfront over the course of three nights, behind the Science and Technology Center. There’s a huge stage going up, and from the renderings I was sent, it looks like it’s going to be quite a spectacle. “Streaming Objects” is being put together by Yao Dajuin 姚大钧, composer and longtime advocate for new media in the Chinese diaspora, the man behind the Chinese New Ear web site and the Post-Concrete record label (which you doubtless know already, if you’re reading this on GNO).

Saturday, Oct. 18
Sun Dawei 孙大崴 (Beijing), aka Sulumi, proprietor of the revered Shanshui record label, performing 8-bit/chiptune music on a pair of modified GameBoys (see this article
I wrote on the subject a while back)
2510
Wang Changcun 王长存 (Harbin, now living in Hangzhou), real-time algorithmic compositions for acoustic piano, rendered on a Yamaha Disklavier; he is to eArts was Lang Lang was to the opening ceremony of the Olympics
Laetitia Sonami (France), “A Historical Moment on a Line Between A and B;” Sonami has developed a custom “Lady’s Glove” that she uses as a performance interface, a pioneer in the field
4×4x4
Masayuki Akamatsu 赤松正行 (Japan), Snowflakes, seems to consist of folks jamming on stage with an iPhone app he wrote
Ferry
Ryoichi Kurokawa 黑川良一 (Japan), Parallel Head, integration of real-time computer graphics with music

Sunday, Oct. 19
Skoltz_Kolgen (Canada), ASKAA
Masayuki Akamatsu 赤松正行 (Japan), Snowflakes, reprised from previous evening
Carl Stone (USA and Tokyo), “L’Os a Moelle,” from his great new album “Al Noor;” Carl is on my top ten list of favorite musicians ever; his album “Mom’s” is a desert island disc for me
Ulf Langheinrich (Australia)
Li Jianhong 李剑鸿 and VAVABOND (Hangzhou), Cosmic Sexy Junk; I just translated a big chunk of noise guitarist Li Jianhong’s blog on this very site, which should provide ample introduction to his oeuvre.

[Note: Autechre, originally scheduled to close this evening’s performance, has cancelled.
Also, it looks like Shen Ligong’s 沈立功 Second Life thing and Wu Baohui 吴珏辉 have also been cut.]

Monday, Oct. 20
8GG (China), The Air Being Broken, very curious to find out more about this outfit, who I know primarily for inclusion in a VJ book I picked up in Tokyo last February (also represented in B6 and Yang Lei’s adjacent installation)
Brian O’Reilly (Santa Barbara, USA), Weather Mechanics; a former associate of Xenakis, Eliane Radigue, and Naut Humon (Asphodel)
Wu Wei 吴巍 and Carl Stone (USA), Shanghai Rhythm; Carl Stone takes the stage again to collaborate with sheng virtuoso Wu Wei
Frank Bretschneider (USA), Rhythm

Around the corner from the big riverfront gala performances is an “outdoor interdisciplinary performance” put together by B6 and Yang Lei 杨磊. I don’t know a lot of details about this, but it seems to be more about immersive installations than specific live performances. I’m sure it will be worth checking out. Yang Lei was one of the organizers of the very successful Notch Festival at the beginning of this month, and he’s got close ties to the Nordic music scene, so expect solid Nordic representation.

Ancillary Shows
One of my favorite bands, 10, has the misfortune of landing in Shanghai on Oct. 18, the same night that things are getting going in Xujiahui and Pudong for eArts. 10 is the duo of Marqido (laptop, from Japan) and itta (vocals and toys, from Korea), and they just released a CD called Nomad on Wangba records. I attended their CD release party in Beijing last week, and now they’re touring China in support of the album. So if you can’t decide between Streaming Objects and Final Cut on Oct 18 and don’t want to slight either party, head up to Live Bar and be assured a great seat.

Also, while the Christian Marclay show moves up to Beijing’s D-22 on the 24th, with Bruce and Elliott reprising their roles with a new roster of sidemen, stay tuned for Yan Jun performing at NOIShanghai 20 with Torturing Nurse, here in Shanghai on the Oct 25, Live Bar, 2:30pm, as usual.

In Closing
This information is based on my research for a That’s Shanghai article I wrote over a month ago, so some details may have changed since then. I welcome all corrections.

The biggest change, of course, is that Autechre has cancelled; it seems they were demanding someone to open their beer and wine for them in their rider. That’s pretty stupid prima dona stuff; they should be advised that outside a small circle of hardcore music geeks, everyone to whom I gushed, “…and Autechre is coming!” responded with a blank, “Who?”

Another cancellation, or postponement, happened a while ago, but you may have seen in early press info that there was supposed to be some big digital opera thing at the Shanghai Grand Theater, with Tan Dun among the participants; last official word I heard was that it’s been pushed back to December.

It’s really too bad that, even though the festival is about a month long, all the performances are front-loaded to happen during the first weekend, which means lots of unfortunate overlaps. The only rationale I can think of is to have the ability to brag later on about the size of the festival and all the simultaneous events all over the city. But it really does a disservice to the artists and organizers (and Defne and Dajuin have each put together an amazing line-up that could stand on its own as an independent festival) as well as the adventuresome public who would like to absorb as much of this new media bounty as they possibly can.

Anyway, enjoy the festival!

OK, and let me also add, as a final plug, that you have until 5pm on Tuesday, Oct. 21, to check out my ambient sound installation that’s running every day from 9am to 5pm in the 100% Design display at Shanghai International Creative Industry Week, in support of MÜ Furniture designer Jutta Friedrichs’ furniture installation.

LI Jianhong 李剑鸿
Our intrepid protagonist, Hangzhou-based noise guitarist, half of D!O!D!O!D! (together with Huang Jin 黄锦), organizer of the 2pi festival and founder of 2pi records.

Marqido
Japanese musician, the electronic half of the duo 10, Li Jianhong’s host on this tour.

itta
Korean musician, the theatrical and vocal half of 10.

Hideo IKEEZUMI 生悦住英夫
Proprietor of the PSF record label and Modern Music store. His PSF label reissued D!O!D!O!D!’s Ghost Temple album and organized this tour.

Shoji HANO 羽野昌二
Japan’s best free jazz drummer, according to Li Jianhong, and the substitute for Huang Jin on this tour.

NARITA Munehiro 成田宗弘
Psychedelic Japanese guitarist, half of the influential group High Rise.

Zbigniew Karkowski
Polish-Swedish composer and performer, founding member of Sensorband, based in Tokyo for several years.

Ainotamenishis 愛のために死す
Psychedelic punk band opening for Li Jianhong at the UFO Club, subsequently appearing on the PSF compilation Tokyo Flash Back 6: P.S.F. Psychedelic Sampler.

Shizuo UCHIDA 内田静男
Bass player in Keiji Haino’s 灰野敬二 Nijiumu 滲有無 project. Attended Li Jianhong’s show at UFO Club. Designed the artwork for the PSF re-release of the D!O!D!O!D! Ghost Temple album.

Seiichi YAMAMOTO 山本精一
Japanese guitarist, formerly of the Boredoms. Owner of the live music venue Bears in Osaka and the Ummo Record label.

Koyuki 小雪 (translated literally as “Little Snow” in early posts, whoops)
Manager of Super Sonic China, agent and promoter for the Shanshui 山水 records in Japan. Organized Li Jianhong’s second Osaka performance at New World cocoroom.

Iida 饭田 and Tanaka 田中
Friends of Koyuki, and hosts of Li Jianhong, Marqido, and itta in Osaka.

YOSHIKAWA Masatoshi 吉川昌利
Another friend of Iida’s who accompanied Li Jianhong around Osaka.

Tetsuharu MASUDA 増田哲治
Opening act at Bears in Osaka, performing guitar noise processed with delays, loops, and feedback. Designer of effects processors.

Masonna
Japanese noise musician unexpectedly found working in the Alchemy store in Osaka.

Carl Stone
American composer and performer, based in Tokyo and San Francisco, and also on the faculty of the Media Department at Chukyo University in Japan.

HUANG Jin 黄锦
Drummer in D!O!D!O!D! who wasn’t able to make the trip to Japan with Li Jianhong, so Japanese drummer Shoji Hano substituted for him on this Japanese tour.

Asahito NANJO 南条麻人
Psychedelic Japanese bassist, the other half of the influential group High Rise, whom Li Jianhong would have you know has not given up the bass for guitar.

SUN Dawei 孙大威
Better known as Sulumi, the Beijing-based 8bit artist, head of Shanshui records. Koyuki, who organized Li Jianhong’s second show in Osaka, is the agent and promoter for Shanshui in Japan.

Yoshiyuki “Jojo” HIROSHIGE 広重嘉之 or JOJO広重
Osaka-based guitarist, the one constant member of Hijokaidan 非常階段. Founder of the Alchemy label and record store, were Li Jianhong bumped into Masonna.

Now what shall I read next…?

December 17, 2008
The concerts are all over, so now all that’s left is to be a happy tourist. I’d be happier if I had some money to spend, ha ha. But that doesn’t matter, most of the time money doesn’t buy happiness.

Unfortunately today itta was sick with a cold and a fever, so she and Marqido stayed home at Iida’s place. Iida and his friend Yoshikawa Masatoshi 吉川昌利 accompanied me to go stroll around Osaka.

We first went to Shinsaibashi 心斋桥 to check out a market specializing in second-hand clothing, a really big place. The top floor was nothing but second-hand clothes of every kind, trousers, shoes, hats…they had everything, and everything was arranged very clearly. For example, Levi’s Jeans were all hung according to size, making it very convenient to choose the right pair. There were so many pretty and fashionable clothes, and huge numbers of young people shuttling back and forth inside, picking out some clothes, trying them on, then trying on something else. Too bad, I didn’t buy anything.

Afterwards we went to a keyboard store. Inside were all kinds of second-hand keyboards and effects processors, all kinds of effects boxes stacked up like gold bricks, extremely enticing. It was a good thing I had already withstood the temptation of Ochanomizu’s second-hand music stores; otherwise I would have had my heart broken all over again. I saw a Gibson Firebird V, made in America, almost like new, at a very good price. It seems if you had some capital to invest, you could make a good profit buying equipment here and selling it elsewhere.

Afterwards, we went to the birthplace of the Alchemy label, the CD store opened by Jojo Hiroshige JOJO広重. Just like the Modern Music store, this place is on the second floor, with the door covered in D!O!D!O!D! posters, and very small inside. Upon entering, I saw a salesperson with long hair, dressed all in black, very cool. I thought to myself that this guy strongly resembles Masonna. Prior to this, I had no idea he might be here. But I didn’t want to pry, so I just minded my own business, turned around, and started browsing through the CD’s.

In addition to local new music from PSF and Alchemy, there was a wide selection of European and American rock and psychedelia from the 60’s and 70’s, such as Hawkwind, Can, Amon Düül II, etc. And the music playing in the store was also this kind of old rock, just like in Modern Music. It seems the influence of old rock from the 60’s and 70’s on Japanese new music is truly significant. In fact, looking deeper, Japanese noise goes quite well with this early rock. Lots of noise musicians listen to hard rock, Kraut rock, prog rock, art rock, etc., each of them absorbing nutrition, energy, and inspiration.

In the end, I finally chose a double CD called Alchemism, a 20-year retrospective of music on the Alchemy label. On it, in addition to extreme noise music by the likes of Merzbow, Hijokaidan 非常阶段, The Incapacitants, and Masonna, most of the rest was early rock, such as Sekiri 赤痢, SS, SOB 階段, etc. There were also some tracks from JOJO’s former group Ultra Bide and Seiichi Yamamoto 山本精一. After listening, the feeling could be summed up in one phrase: original flavor. Besides the idea I mentioned earlier , that it’s important to find your own angle and dig down deep, this idea of “original flavor” is another important aspect of Japanese new music. Careful attention to mastering your own style and finding your original flavor are the twin nuclei of Japanese new music.

As I was paying for my purchase, I asked the salesperson, “Are you Masonna?” He replied, “Yes!” It seems my earlier guess was correct. I asked if I could take a picture of the store, and he said, “Of course you can, we’re selling your CD’s here.” Afterwards we chatted for a bit.

After we left, the weather suddenly changed, and the drizzle unexpectedly turned to hail. I thought to myself that previously I had only seen such a strange and sudden change of weather in Yunnan.

At nearby Sankakukouen 三角公园 we ate the famous local octopus, which is rolled up into little balls, ha ha. It’s a fashionable place in Osaka for boys and girls to gather together. When the weather is good, there must be a lot of open-air performances.

Finally we returned to that musical instrument shop we visited earlier, and I bought a loop pedal. It’s the newly released Boss RC-2, which I still haven’t seen for sale in China. They didn’t have any second-hand models on sale, so I just bought a new one.

After we got back to where we were staying, we started to pack, since our long-distance train was leaving at 10 pm, arriving in Tokyo at 7 am, 9 hours of travel.

As we were leaving, Iida gave me a copy of Derek Bailey’s book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice 即興演奏の彼方, which had been strongly recommended by those guys. Too bad it’s in Japanese. I thought to myself that it would be so much better if there was a way to translate it into Chinese. There are too many books on music without a Chinese translation, which is really too bad.

December 18, 2006
After returning to Tokyo, we passed out for a bit. At noon, I contacted Karkowski by phone, but we had to cancel our plan to record today, since his friend’s recording booth was already in use. So we were out of luck.

Very well, said Marqido, today let’s go shopping and be happy! After eating lunch, we went to Harajuku to visit the Meiji-Jingu shrine. This shrine was originally constructed in honor of the Meiji Sun Emperor and his mother. Every year on New Year’s Day, people from all over come to pay their respects. The gigantic inscription above the door is Japan’s largest. Inside, the ceiling is constructed of ancient wood, adorned with crows. As it happens, some rite was being performed inside the Meiji-Jingu shrine; the specific details weren’t clear, but Marqido said what we were hearing was Japan’s most ancient music. I hear that the divinations performed in this shrine are very accurate, but I didn’t stick around to find out for myself.

Afterwards, we walked along a footpath kitty corner to the Harajuku subway station. It seemed to be the famous Omote-sando 表参道, the one with two big eyes at the intersection. This really is a place for young boys and girls to gather. Both sides of the street are lined with Tokyo’s most fashionable clothing and jewelry stores, all of them with their own unique style, vying for the attention of the young passers-by. Everywhere you look, fashionable young guys and beautiful girls shuttle back and forth along both sides of the street in every kind of shop, dressed up in traditional uniforms, or decked out in punk or rock attire, or in kawai style, or in cosplay, each one individual and different. It was a pleasure just to enjoy the spectacle. The three of us couldn’t help doing some shopping ourselves. I bought a second-hand jacket, my only luxury purchase, excluding musical gear, since arriving in Japan.

But the happiest surprise was when we suddenly stumbled upon a wondrous, hidden, second-hand synthesizer shop. All kinds of Moogs, Korgs, and Yamahas were stacked up on the floor, filling the room. They also had monitors, effects processors, even a few old Theremins, along with lots of other stuff. Several young shopkeepers were inside busily testing out newly received equipment; it looked like they were repairing talking robots. Not only did the place look like a space ship control center, but lots of these old machines were plugged into speakers, so we could play happily. You can be like a spaceship captain, launching any waveform or signal into whatever direction you can imagine.

Our stroll finally brought us to Shibuya. Evenings in Shibuya can only be described as bustling, with every kind of neon light and billboard; it made me think of Ghost in the Shell. Standing on the street, I thought of my friend Lao Fang 老方. He would surely enjoy Shibuya, since he loves crowded places, and this place was seriously crowded. When the light turns green, from all four directions people crowd into the middle of the street, then quickly disperse in every direction. It seemed like a scene from a movie played back sixteen times faster.

Interestingly, in the second-hand section of one CD store, on the Noise/Avant-garde rack, I discovered a D!O!D!O!D! album selling for 1470 yen, ha ha! Well OK, since they were selling my album, I bought a few second-hand CD’s there for myself: two Derek Bailey disks, one Naked City, and one David Shea.

When we finished shopping, Marqido suggested going to visit a friend, and I thought he was referring to a friend’s concert. When he said the name, it didn’t ring a bell. I only knew that he said this guy has been making computer music for a long time, and Karkowsky should know him. Only when I saw his face and exchanged greetings did I recognize elder statesman Carl Stone. He said, you must know my old friend Yao Dajuin 姚大钧, and I replied, of course I know him, we just played a show together in Hangzhou [the 2pi Festival 2006]. Carl Stone invited everyone to a bar to chat. He and itta and Marqido chatted quite happily, but I couldn’t keep up with the language, so I just listened on the sidelines.

December 19, 2006
My return flight to China is a little after five in the afternoon. I got up at eleven in the morning and decided to prepare a Chinese meal for Marqido and itta to thank them for their hospitality. I originally planned to make some taro pork chops, but unfortunately the store stocked neither taro nor pork chops. So I just prepared three very simple dishes: Chinese yam with scallions, stir-fried egg and tomato, and shredded pork with celery.

After eating, I packed my bags and went out the door. Good-bye, Japan.

Thanks to everyone I met in Japan who assisted me and extended such friendship.

Presenter Robert Worby and producer Philip Tagney were in town in April to poke around, and they met up with Junky of Torturing Nurse, Wang Changcun, B6, and some folks from the EArts festival. They also checked out the first RESO show. From Shanghai they went up to Beijing to meet Yan Jun and others, and were treated to a special performance organized by Eli Marshall and the Beijing New Music Ensemble.

It’s about 1.5 hours long and available for one week only, so set aside some time to check it out!

Randy captioned it as such:

‘Last picture taken of Helmut together with Zbigniew at his home in Graz, Austria. Helmut’s unique energy is captured in his expression here. Joe gave me this photo at the end of 2006 saying, “here’s a picture of your two favorite guys.” It’s been on my refrigerator since.’

Artists: Yan Jun 颜峻, Zhong Minjie 钟敏杰, Lin Zhiying 林志英, Hitlike (Zhang Liming 张立明).

Royal Festival Hall London, 18th - 28th April
Curated by Matthias Kispert

A slice of contemporary China that is not seen but heard, presented through the work of some of China’s leading experimental artists, including Yan Jun (Beijing), Zhong Minjie (Guangzhou), Lin Zhiying (Shenzhen) and Hitlike (Harbin). Commissioned by CHINA NOW, the UK’s largest ever festival of Chinese culture.

For eleven days, the Foyer of the Royal Festival Hall will be infused with real-world sounds from China. The recordings create a fluctuating, unpredictable mix that changes with the time of day, causing a shift in localities between the grand concert hall and the world of everyday life on a different continent.

The three themes, production, consumption and interpretation, are a reference to the changes that are currently affecting all layers of Chinese society. With the rapid increase in production and private enterprise, the emerging consumer culture and the availability of spare time to spend as one wishes, comes a continuous need for communication, interpretation and re-evaluation of people’s everyday living realities.

(CHINA NOW, the UK’s largest ever festival of Chinese culture, is a six-month nationwide celebration of over 1000 Chinese events including exhibitions, performances and activities spanning Chinese film, cuisine, comics, art, literature, music, design, science, technology, business, education and sport across the UK. Visit www.chinanow.org.uk/events for full details of all events.)

Date: Saturday, April 12, 7:30 pm
Venue: Mecooon (aka Downstream Garage) 下河迷仓
Address: Long Cao Road, lane 200, number 100, building 3 (next to the former Yu Yin Tang).
龙漕路200弄100号3楼（育音堂原址隔壁）
Cover charge: 20 RMB (includes free CD for first 50 audience members)

December 16, 2007
Today’s concert was arranged by Super Sonic China, which Koyuki manages, and it’s also my last show in Japan. The venue is New World cocoroom. When we arrived I discovered it’s a coffee shop that’s part of a big, multi-storey entertainment complex.

The show started with a VJ performance organized by Super Sonic China. Koyuki and Iida presented a film montage of the Chinese Model Operas, which was interesting. [The Model Operas or Yang Ban Xi 样板戏 were the dozen or so revolutionary works that were permitted to be performed during the Cultural Revolution, exemplifying revolutionary ideals. If I’m not mistaken, Torturing Nurse incorporated an LP recording of one of them, The White-Haired Girl, into a recent performance. -Ben] Tanaka had originally been scheduled to perform, but in the end he wasn’t feeling well, so he had to pull out. Afterwards was 10, and the timing and emotions of their performance were just right. Marqido made a recording, as he does every time they perform. Then came my solo set. After two days of rest, my hands were much better, so today’s performance was calm and level-headed. Listening to the recording after the show, it sounded quite good.

I thought to myself, this is a contradiction. In a situation where I remain relatively sober and level-headed while performing, my hands will be fine and not cramp up; however, if I throw myself into it in total oblivion, problems will surely emerge after ten minutes. In terms of musicality, for sure it’s clearer when I’m cool-headed; but on the other hand, it won’t be as emotionally intense as when I throw myself into it in total oblivion. So, how to strike a balance between level-headedness and intense emotion remains a problem that I need to deal with.

Last was an improvised collaboration with 10: Marqido on computer, itta vocalizing, and me on guitar. It probably lasted about thirty-five minutes. It sounded awesome, a really great collaborative performance! Maybe we’ll put out a CD together.

There was a Japanese guy who had come from out of town just for this show, and afterwards he was very excited. He came over to tell me that he was told about this show by the PSF label, so he rushed back just to attend. He also bought my CD before leaving. I was surprised that quite a few Chinese people had come to the show, especially an old friend from Beijing who’s already been doing business in Osaka for many years. Previously he only went to extreme metal shows; this was his first time checking out something new, and surprisingly, he really liked it. There were also a few Chinese students studying here: a pretty young girl from Shanghai and a handsome young fellow from Shandong.

In addition, I sold 10,000 yen worth of CD’s. Altogether at three shows I sold 30,000 yen worth of CD’s (about 2000 RMB), notwithstanding the fact that I forgot to bring my CD’s to the BEARS show to sell.