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This page is designed to be a gateway to the emerging rock scene in China. Martin Atkins, of Pigface, Nine Inch Nails, Killing Joke, Ministry, and PiL fame and owner of Invisible/Underground Records has taken it upon himself to open up China's musical boundaries.
MARTIN ATKINS IS IN CHINA RIGHT NOW:
Martin's in Beijing China for the next 10 days (Oct 4 - Oct 12). He's working on the new Snapline album. He wants to meet new bands. He's conducting video interviews with cartoonists, graffiti artists, and tattoo artists. He wants to get in touch with anyone who is do anything cool, groovy, interesting, etc. To get in touch, post a comment on this page - he'll be checking it daily.
Martin on his 2006 trip to China:
My recent trip to China felt like a watershed two weeks in my life and in music. When CNN was unblocked for viewing in my hotel I saw Patti Smith lamenting the closing of CBGBs in New York. An ending of an era that had maybe overstayed its welcome. I went down to D-22, a club near the university in Beijing, and saw five amazing bands, each different, each with their own voice, each ambitiously reaching for a different note, each contributing to each other’s sets. It felt like a cohesive, energized, and molten scene. Talk about "one door closes and another door opens." It re-energized me and made the rest of my 16 days a blur. I have a photograph of myself sitting on the Great Wall but that photograph already feels old and faded compared to the experience of recording for and with the essence of a brave new scene. I anticipated quiet meditation, introspection and enlightenment – I received a bunch of Italian tourists singing Ramones covers, a KFC and an old old lady selling warm beer.
In addition to signing some bands and recording live concerts and studio sessions around the Beijing scene, I recorded an entire Pigface album in Beijing, mashing traditional Chinese instrumentation with western sampling techniques: pitting Erhu and Pipa players against scratch DJs and free-style rappers; forwards and backwards beats against amazing Tibetan singing; traditional sounds against loops of a machine spitting out taxi cab receipts.
Aside from the ground-breaking nature of recording experimental music in a great facility in China, the experience underlined the idea that is Pigface—an open framework on and off stage where there are no rules and different combinations of people and instruments are encouraged to push the boundaries. It has alternatively been described as the “Parliament†of the 80s, the “Funk-a-delic†of the 90s, or simply an industrial super-group whose live shows have no equal. It has nurtured ideas and ailing band members back to health, readying them to rejoin the musical rat race. With an open door policy for unknowns (Trent Reznor of NIN, Meg Lee Chin, Dirk Flannigan, Danny Carey of Tool) and well-knowns (Ogre of Skinny Puppy, Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Gira of Swans, Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle) and an understanding of how absurd and transient
these titles are.
To take that idea to a country that is unfamiliar with the concept, language, and culture and have it work amazingly well is testament to the power of music itself...a testament to the power of music.
