The Legend of Saturday Night by Steven Kurutz
An oral history of the world's most famous disco. *music issue* |
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Sex Advice From Accordion Players by Catherine Adcock
Q: How much is too much masturbation?
A: I don't think there's too much . . . unless it's interfering with your accordion practice. |
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In Good Company by Will Doig
Legendary DJ Mr. Len aims to change hip-hop with his latest title: CEO. *music issue* |
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Inspiration Point by Andy Duncan
A survey of responses to the "what music puts you in the mood?" question on Nerve Personals. *music issue* |
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Smut City by Ryan Kennedy
The filthiest music in the world: Baltimore club.*music issue* |
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Toronto Calling by Bruce LaBruce
Meet the Hidden Cameras, Canada's premier gay socialist sex-worshipping indie-pop symphony. *music issue* |
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The Weekly Pic by Jason Wishnow
Our favorite online video. This week: geek fantasies run amok in a film titled . . . Geek Fantasies. |
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Don't Croon at Me, John Mayer by Amy Keyishian
I'm onto your game. *music issue* |
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Let It Be. . . Naked by Grant Stoddard
Say you want a revelation about the Beatles' sex lives? Tony Bramwell has a few. *music issue* |
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Scanner by Ada Calhoun
Mint condoms, fishing-as-pornography, and racecar driving sexpot Danica Patrick. |
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Postcards From Fist City by Kate Sullivan
The country lyricists' guide to dating, mating and beating down the piece of trash next door. *music issue* |
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Anarchy in the People's Republic by Justin Clark
My punk ambassadorship to China. *music issue* |
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Horoscopes by Neal Medlyn
Your week in sex. |
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That Obscure Object of Desire by Margaret Wappler
We're condescended to, charmingly, by the authors of The Rock Snob's Dictionary. *music issue* |
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Miss Information by Erin Bradley
The orally averse boyfriend; when your partner's sexual past is tough to swallow. |
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Sex Advice From . . . Star Wars Fans by William Bright
Q: What Star Wars fantasy is best played out in the bedroom?
A: Anything with a chase involving lots of male stormtroopers. |
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Afternoon Delight by Patryce Bak
You wouldn't get out of bed either. |
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Bodies, Rest and Motion by Ron Amato
Men of leisure. |
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Film Reviews by Bilge Ebiri and Logan Hill
The Exorcist prequel should have been banished; Tell Them Who You Are is a documentary tribute enlivened by real-life director-subject squabbling. Plus, Date DVD. |
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Sex Advice From . . . Music Critics by Seb Matthews
Q: Describe a new sexual position you've created.
A: I call it the "Rhythm Nation 2005," inspired by my choreography idols Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul. *music issue* |
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Quiet Riot by Adam Kaufman
Four Tet evokes adventure and romance, not just another guy with a laptop. *music issue* |
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Three
years ago, I received the most outlandish of all corporate grants: for
three months I would get paid to live in Beijing and play punk rock.
My benefactor was a stationery corporation that
manufactured address labels, file dividers, and now, apparently,
anarchist youth. The corporation's founder had taken a life-changing
trip to China as a college student, and decided to promote
"cross-cultural understanding." Cross-cultural understanding, indeed.
All I really wanted was a little travel money.
But my proposal read like a neo-con memo, a missive
from Lawrence of Arabia: I would liberate the youthful masses from the
pernicious influence of hard rock and heavy metal, supposedly spreading
faster than the avian flu. I would lead the Beijing counterculture in
glorious battle against the State and MTV. I (and the band I needed
money for) would smash bottles of Tsingtao over the heads of the Public
Security Bureau, then puke my guts out in the middle of Red Square.
The day I learned my proposal was approved, I
realized nobody had actually read the thing. Not even me. Sure, I liked
leather jackets and mohawks, and admired, in an anthropological way,
the heavily pierced gutter punks who spare-changed outside my local
shopping mall. I harbored dreams of reliving Manchester '76. But since
college (and my days in an ill-fated band called Slobberpussy) I'd
enjoyed punk music about as much as dental root planing. I missed being
a musician, sure, but as I packed up my old studded bracelets and
ripped jeans, the inconvenient truth lay before me: I hated punk rock.
I got to Beijing not so much carrying my guitar as
dragging it. Having spent half my grant money on a drinking binge
during the three-day stopover in Tokyo, I decided to move into a cheap
student dormitory where I'd heard I could meet some proles. Instead I
descended one level further into musical purgatory.
My new neighbors were Korean high school exchange
students in the thrall of kissy-faced Korean boy bands, and French
business students devoted to Alanis Morrisette, whose songs I'd
studiously avoided in Finally, I found Beijing punk's epicenter: Kentucky Fried Chicken. |
Slobberpussy's
thrash-punk days, and still did. I could only pray that the Chinese
wouldn't adopt her music as they'd done other pop stars, such as John
Denver and Karen Carpenter. Every time I walked into a hotel or
restaurant, "Leaving On a Jet Plane" hung in the air like a cloud of
unclaimed flatulence.
Isn't it ironic, Alanis taunted me through the thin dormitory walls every night.
So where were the punks? On the Internet I'd seen
photos of mohawked Chinese kids, screwing up their faces in front of
the Forbidden City. I'd heard rumors, later confirmed by Time and The Guardian about China's linglei,
the alternative-culture generation, the first that dared sport tattoos
or dyed hair. I'd pictured Williamsburg or Silver Lake, but in Beijing
the underground seemed to be, well, underground.
Then one day, stumbling around the sprawling and
smoggy city, I found Beijing punk's epicenter: Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It was just an ordinary KFC in the foreigner's
district, San Lit Tun, but there I managed to have my first
cross-cultural exchange with members of one of Beijing's most prominent
punk bands, Brain Failure while they snacked on such local KFC staples
as Happy French Fry shakes and Old Beijing Chicken Roll. Only the
singer, Xiao Rong, spoke English, and not much at that. For twenty
minutes, we grasped for common ground, the old-fashioned way I
remembered from junior high:
"You like Minor Threat?" I asked.
Brain Failure shrugged, collectively.
"The Dead Kennedys?"
More shrugs.
"Alice Donut?"
More shrugs. "Alice in Chains?" tried Xiao.
Okay, I thought. Sure, Alice in Chains. I nodded.
"Very good," Xiao agreed, translating for his
bandmates. Everyone nodded, smiled. I could tell I'd touched a nerve,
so I pressed on, making progress incrementally. I felt, I admit, a
little like Lawrence sweet-talking the bedouin.
"I came here to start a band," I explained. "A punk band."
"Punk?" said Xiao, shaking his bleached head.
"Finished two years ago. There aren't many of us left. Now everyone
listens to nu metal. You know, Limp Bizkit?"
"Limp Bizkit?" I coughed. I'd slipped one more level
into the inferno. For a moment, I tried to envision playing on stage
with a Chinese Fred Durst. No. My stationery giant patron wanted me to
break down cultural barriers, but there was one I wasn't willing to
breach. There had to be some middle ground.
"What about the Strokes?" I suggested.
More shrugs.
As the weeks passed, I saw shows nightly at
Beijing's far-flung bars. I listened to bands with such names as
Confucius Says, Stinky Tofu, and Wooden Pushmelon, but my poor (well,
non-existent) Mandarin thwarted my efforts to find like-minded
musicians and fulfill my grant requirements. For a while I jammed at a
local practice studio with an insane and earnest kid named Yang Yang
who had been barred at most of the local venues for trying to
confiscate the microphone from whatever band was playing. Things were
going well. Then I found out Yang Yang was Japanese. Disqualified.
Anxiety gripped me as the weeks passed, and I still
hadn't recorded the 7" I'd promised my sponsors. Would I have to
I listened to three Chinese kids bust fast rhymes in Mandarin between bong rips. |
give the money back? I fretted about this
until one night, remembering my conversation with Xiao, I had a vision.
I'd do the one thing no white boy, with few exceptions, would ever be
able to accomplish back in the States.
I'd start a hip-hop crew.
I emailed Ry, a rapper-artist friend from L.A., and
explained my predicament. I needed to form the crew fast. It had to be
subversive and promote cross-cultural understanding. And, most
importantly, it had to have a cool name: the Far Eastsiders.
To my amazement, I persuaded Ry to fly out to
Beijing. More astonishingly, within forty-eight hours he had befriended
every rapper in the city. (Admittedly, there were only three or four.)
On his fourth night, we traveled to the university district to smoke
hash and freestyle with a local rap phenom we'd heard about, named MC
Webber. I listened to three Chinese kids beatbox and bust fast rhymes
in Mandarin between bong rips. I had no idea what they were saying, but
I thought: Damn. That sounds good. We sound good.
Ry was undaunted. Occasionally he would drop in a flow of his own: Where'd you get that? / It was made in China/ Brand-new sneakers and a red recliner.
We were sealing the deal. I could already see the
album cover: the five of us throwing signs in our gold chains and
jerseys, outside the KFC, the Colonel in the background. Would it be an
import record, or an export? Would Dre produce our American debut?
Then came my turn.
Where'd you get that? I rhymed. It was made in China.
My rap crew brothers listened politely, bobbing their heads.
Damn, I'm tired of these noodles, I struggled. Yo, anybody know a diner?
There was more, but I'm sure it sucked. Ry kept
freestyling, but I collapsed, creatively spent, realizing that I would
never achieve musical influence on either side of the Pacific, in any
genre. The Chinese I'd met had no taste, but I had a bigger problem: no
talent. I dragged myself back to my dormitory and spent the rest of my
trip listening to my French neighbors blast Alanis. By the end of my
China adventure, American cultural hegemony had succeeded after all: I
knew all her songs by heart.
n°
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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A recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Justin Clark has written for L.A. Weekly, Psychology Today, Black Book, Architecture, Fuse, and The Fader,
among other publications. He is currently researching a history of the
American child prodigy, and writing a mystery novel set in Los Angeles.
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©2005 Justin Clark and Nerve.com
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