Lost Weekend in Nanjing: Declaring Guerilla Warfare on the Censors with Little Dragon and The Morlocks
On that time I fought the Ministry of Culture and won …
Even before we boarded the train to Nanjing, I knew the gig was in jeopardy. Morgan and his manager, Michael Olhsson, had phoned to offer some intel, mentioning that I was about to receive a call from Pan, the booker and organizer of the 2011 Nanjing Blossom International Music Festival.
Not again with this guy, I thought to myself. That’s what I get for trusting someone who goes by the name Wasabi.
Fingers deep in a cannabis-infused chocolate chip oatmeal cookie mix, my mind raced to all the worst places. My gut curdled at the possibility of Pan canceling yet another show. The Fever Machine was less than two days away from our festival main stage debut, and mere hours from departure at Shanghai Railway Station. Rather than wait, I quickly went into action, calling Pan directly.
“There’s a problem with the permits,” he explained. Well, he said it in Mandarin. “许可证,” something or other.
We had contracts, 合同, I explained in my limited, punk rock Chinese. Signed contracts. Not just the current draft, but also the old version, from October of the previous year, the last time the festival was postponed. “没有办法,” he replied. “Meiyou banfa.”
The standard Mandarin phrase, which is akin to there’s nothing I can do, was easily my least favorite retort from the Chinese. In its essence, it was a defeatist cop out. A copy-and-paste reply whenever life’s circumstances became too difficult, or trying to navigate out of a tricky situation. “总是有办法,” I answered back. “Zongshi you banfa.” There’s always a way, I naively explained, firm in my cavalier American spirit.
Pan somewhat smugly laughed off my response. He was embarrassed and trying to save face, so he went on to explain that we could keep the 8,000 RMB advance. It was a good start, but I couldn’t accept such a loss without even trying to fight back. If we were really going to be kicked off this festival, I wasn’t going down without some sort of fight. At the very least, I was going to milk this monumental inconvenience for all it was worth.
“车票, 酒店呢? Che-piao, jiudian ne?” I asked, further inquiring about the train tickets and hotel rooms we already had booked for the weekend at the festival.
“可以,” he replied, meekly. “Keyi.” Adding that all the festival hospitality would still be made available to us.
“好的. 我们九点到了,” I retorted, explaining that we’d be arriving in Nanjing at 9 p.m., adding that we could go over details in person, and that someone from the festival should still meet us at the train station to pick us up and transport our gear.
Hanging up the phone, I returned to my kitchen and finished baking.
Edibles were kind of a staple of my touring regimen the last few years in China. Vocally, performing with the Fever Machine was a sizable enough challenge that we tuned our guitars down a half step. Eating my weed, rather than smoking it, was a real lifesaver on the throat. It was also a rather incognito method of getting stoned.
Given that we’d be away in Jiangsu Province for all three nights of the May holiday, I prepared a rather large batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for the weekend. I even baked an unlaced serving as a legit snack – sort of a decoy from the contraband pastries, perhaps – and started packing up a few plastic containers for the train ride.
The rest of my gear and attire: two guitars, a pedalboard case stuffed with electronics and clothing, and an additional tote bag; was all packed for the weekend and ready on standby. Once Helen, my girlfriend of almost three years at this point, arrived home from work, we hopped in a taxi and headed directly to the train station. It was in the main square, where we met up with my bandmates, Fabien, Miguel, and his wife, Dani, that the edibles first kicked in.
Awkwardly buzzed from the cookies, I distributed the train tickets and led our group towards the departure hall. Now seated on the train en route to Nanjing, I passed the sweets around, eventually walking in between cars to take another call from Pan.
“真的. 没有办法,” he continued to express on the call. “Meiyou banfa. I can’t get the performance permit for the Fever Machine, 发烧机乐队. Not only your group, but also some of the other foreign bands.”
Pan attempted to assuage my anger with repeated mentions of his complete inability to fix the situation. He knew me to be a bit of a passionate hot head, which worked great on stage, but also led to tense moments when I was acting in a managerial role. Frustrated, annoyed, and downright pissed off, I hung up the phone. How was I going to fix this situation? How could I save the day? What was I going to tell my bandmates?
Before I even returned to my seat, I hatched a wild idea in my contorted and distorted hashed-out brain.
What if we put on our own show?
First breaking the news to Miguel and Fabien that there was absolutely no way we were going to step on the main stage and play our contracted 45-minute set on the festival’s opening day, I threw out the idea of putting together our own guerilla-style show. As usual, both Miggs and Fabs were in support of my vision. Everything sounded a little better through their pot warped ears anyway, even if we had no venue, no promotion, and no other groups for the bill.
With their full backing, I returned to the train vestibule and reached out to Morgan to pick his brain about the situation.
“No dice,” I explained. “Pan didn’t get all the permits. We’re not playing.”
Morgan’s band, Boys Climbing Ropes, was also among the crop of four foreign groups that were bumped from the festival bill at the last minute, along with a few electronic artists. BCR wasn’t set to play until the final day of the event, so they were still at home in Shanghai.
I was aware of the financial arrangement Pan had with the artists, though. All of us would receive our performance fees in full, and the hotel rooms and train tickets were already paid for and included as part of the package, so I just casually nudged Morgan in the direction of heading north with the whole band.
“What if we book our own show?” I mentioned. “Would you guys still be willing to come to Nanjing?”
While I was able to inflect a very enticing spin on the current state of affairs, basically I was asking Morgan if his entire band of four, plus their sizable Canadian road crew, would still go through the task of hopping a train to Nanjing, where, instead of playing on the main stage to a crowd of 10,000-plus, they could bring their guitars, pedals, cymbals, and synths on the train during a busy holiday weekend to set up at a still-to-be-determined venue, with no idea of backline gear and absolutely zero promotion.
After all the shows we had played together, though, Morgan knew it could be done. And, if anyone was going to pull it off, it would be me.
He couldn’t fully commit just yet, but Morgan was rather sure that his bandmates, Jordan, Devin, and Little Punk, would all be down for a guerilla-style show in a city where we had some history.
My next call was to Abe Deyo.
A longtime China expat from Idaho, U.S.A., Abe was in Shanghai long before me, and well afterward. He was an incredible liaison for dozens of foreign bands that came through the mainland and beyond. Fucked Up, You Say Party We Say Die, the Queers, Dead Elvis, and D.O.A. all came to China at Abe’s invitation. This particular week he was traveling with the Morlocks, an 80s punk band from California, re-tooled with LA scene vets to support founder Leighton Koizumi, one of the most intense and magnetic musicians I’ve ever come in contact with. Hell of a frontman.
The Morlocks were already in Nanjing, set to make their China debut, when they found out about the cancellation. Abe would still go on to lead them on a loop of the Chinese national circuit: Beijing, Wuhan, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou; before returning to Shanghai for the tour finale, but for the next few days, the band was holed up at the artist hotel in Nanjing, so why not join our guerilla show? Seriously, how are you going to be a punk band in China and not sign up for this chance to stick it to the powers that be?
Like me, like Morgan, like a handful of us who had been around China during those years, Abe knew how to be limber and flexible when putting together shows and tours. He was as resourceful as anyone out there, one of the all around best dudes in the Chinese music scene, so he understood that if there was a venue and equipment, there was a way.
It took one small conversation between Abe and the Morlocks: Leighton, Nic from Montreal, Gabriel, Lenny, and TJ; and we had a third band on the bill.
Now, it was time to find a venue.
By May 2011, Castle Bar, our regular haunt in Nanjing, had closed its doors. With the 89-story Zifeng Tower opening up across the street in December 2010, all the surrounding blocks were consumed by the overflow of construction, development and modernization. However, just because one great underground venue died, didn’t mean Nanjing had lost its punk rock soul. This was the hometown of Angry Jerks, Overdose, and Old Doll, legit tight energy bands with the chops and spirit to match.
Without Castle Bar as an option, I wasn’t exactly sure where to turn, but Gao Feng, leader of Angry Jerks, was a good place to start. Gao Feng was kind of the elder statesman in Nanjing at this point. Years prior we hit it off on the Rock/Electro Ratio tour, when his band was at their psychobilly peak, with Feng Xiao Na rocking the standup bass and Zhou Ge serving as hypeman. We’d see each other constantly around the Chinese rock circuit in the ensuing years, always enjoying each other’s vibe and spirit, sharing a camaraderie of punk rock.
At the time, Angry Jerks were on hiatus, re-tooling the lineup as more of a straightforward street punk four piece. Without an active group, Gao Feng would sit the 2011 Nanjing Blossom International Music Festival out, but he was super helpful to introduce a new bar venue, Sancho Panza, and explain the situation to the owner and booker.
Spur of the moment performances or gatherings aren’t exactly legal in China. According to the law, bands are supposed to have licenses in order to perform at accredited venues. Most of the time, like in the high 90-percent range, we didn’t bother with permits. Venues allowed us to play and promote shows because the licensing process was long and often impossible. For festival appearances, however, we always applied through the promoter, who would have us fill out a lengthy questionnaire and provide sample tracks and all lyrics for approval. I always doctored our content, aware that lines like We live in fucked up places / We live in fucked up times / We go through fucked up phases / Pulling down the party line might not make it past the censors.
Live, no one in the audience could really understand what I was singing anyway. More or less, I basically rolled the dice that the culture police wouldn’t pick up on it, and it was looking like my gamble crashed and burned. But, I still couldn’t confirm that we were bumped from the festival for sensitive lyrical content. It was far more likely that Pan kept some of the money he was supposed to use for the permits. That story was far more believable, but whatever the reason was, we were now rock and roll pirates, unleashed at a music festival, on a goddamn punk rock mission.
There was just one more big hurdle to clear: convincing Little Dragon, one of the festival headliners, to join our rogue rock and roll promotion …
Feeling inconvenienced to have traveled close to 200 miles from Shanghai to Nanjing for this catastrophe of a music festival, I could only imagine what Little Dragon were feeling the morning of April 30, 2011. While we only received official word that we were bumped from the festival lineup a day earlier, our commute was rather reasonable. By comparison, Little Dragon flew all the way from Sweden for the show. The cancellation actually happened while they were in the air, so it was only after arriving in China and clearing immigration that they received the news that there would be no performance.
As an artist, I totally felt for them. Little Dragon was already performing and recording with Gorillaz and Outkast at this point in their career. They had features written about them in major music publications and their star was on the rise, so there’s no doubt they had better things to do than waste time in a random suburb of Nanjing. As a booker and promoter, however, I had them exactly where I wanted.
That morning, I found the band’s road manager in the lobby of the artist hotel, where I proposed the idea of playing alongside the Fever Machine, Boys Climbing Ropes, and the Morlocks at Sancho Panza the next night, May 1. No big deal, just a slight change of plans. Rather than playing a big stage for tens of thousands, how about a club show at a venue without a proper sound system with a capacity of approximately 200? Oh, and I wasn’t offering them any additional cash.
Their manager understood the appeal though, and agreed to pitch the idea to the band. They flew all this way, why not at least try to set up and play for their fans? All our bands were already paid in full by the festival anyway, and I promised to promote the hell out of the show for the next day and a half, branding it as an unofficial afterparty for the festival.
I invited him to join Abe, Morgan, and me on a site tour of the venue in a couple hours. The four of us took a cab from the hotel, met with the soundman and bar manager, and had a handshake deal in place. The show was on, and Little Dragon were in. Time to go into full-on promoter mode.
Back at the festival grounds, I piecemealed a makeshift flier together with the new venue, address, time, and lineup, and printed a couple hundred copies at the hotel business center, charging the cost to Pan. I posted the new show on Douban, but not Weibo. It often felt like the government censors paid attention to that social media platform a bit more than others, so no need to trigger any alarms.
Next, I assembled a street team, a seasoned squad of Laowai guerillas.
Miguel and Fabi, my bandmates and brothers, as always, were on board. They each grabbed a handful of flyers and hit the festival, as did Morgan. Abe and the Morlocks were down for whatever and talked the show up around the stages. There were a few Chinese kids who happily took stacks of fliers to pass out on their own after hearing about the cancellation. Even the DJs at the electronic stage helped out.
Aside from Cui Jian’s killer set the night before, our show was the talk of the entire festival, which also featured Carsick Cars, SMZB, Flying Fruit (羽果), Pet Conspiracy, SUBS, and our friends Proximity Butterfly, a heavy psychedelic American/Canadian/Chinese outfit from Chengdu.
Music festivals in China were all the rage at the time. For years, MIDI and Modern Sky threw big events in Beijing during the May and October holidays, with local bands sharing massive stages and electro tents with groups from around the world. But the festivals grew beyond music, morphing into massive marketing events, promoting anything from Volkswagens, beer, and in this case, a new housing and commercial development. Soon there was a push to expand the festival circuit beyond the capital and into other markets. With the growth of the scene came a lot of red tape from censors and the Ministry of Culture, though, and oftentimes, no sooner was an event announced than it was axed, or, at best, postponed.
Cancellations happened often, and sometimes spontaneously. It was almost predictable after a while. In 2008, while on the road with the Rogue Transmission, two of our club shows in Beijing were shut down with less than 24-hours notice, venues citing lack of permits and fire safety as the cause. A year later, just before the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, all foreign bands were banned from the Modern Sky Festival at the very last minute.
The government’s flex on live rock and roll eventually relaxed a bit leading up to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, but when the months-long party was over, the ministry resumed its old ways. In fact, the 2011 Nanjing Blossom International Music Festival was actually a mulligan. Pan re-booked us after a previous version of the festival fell through eight months earlier. We didn’t get to keep any money that time.
The current situation in Nanjing stung even worse because this wasn’t even the only festival gig we lost that week. A few days prior, an entire event presented by Modern Sky, the Suzhou Strawberry Festival, was completely canceled. All three stages, six dozen acts and artists, axed by the strong arm of the law. The disproportionately harsh penalty only provided further insight into how dangerous the Ministry of Culture actually thought we were, or potentially could be. But really, everyone just wanted to play loud and party.
There were only so many hours and minutes we were able to promote, but we made use of the first day and a half of the festival, passing out fliers, talking up the show at every opportunity. We were here on business after all, and before long, it was off to Sancho Panza, where we needed to figure out how to actually pull this off. Sonically, that is.
With Little Dragon and the Morlocks loaded onto one minibus, and the Fever Machine and Boys Climbing Ropes over on the other, the bands arrived to the most basic of backlines: shity four-piece drum set, shitty 15” bass combo amp, and two super shitty 2x12” guitar amps. Oh, and a set of shitty microphones.
Pointing out the quality of the gear is not meant to inflict shame on the bar owner. This kind of equipment was standard around China, so we knew how to tweak and manipulate all the knobs and switches to dial in the best possible version of our sound for the room. Boys Climbing Ropes had it down too. Years of gigging around the mainland taught us how to survive and solve problems. Dealing with less than ideal gear wasn’t about to stop us now.
For their part, the garage punk Morlocks, all crunchy twin guitars with a tight rhythm section right down the middle, had an easy transition to the small bar stage. Just give Leighton a microphone and see what happens. It’ll be magic and he’ll tell you about it for hours afterward. For Little Dragon, however, their super dialed-in and specific blend of MIDI basses, live samples, boutique synths, and electronic drum pads, didn’t necessarily translate coming out of a Chinese manufactured Laney 12” guitar speaker. They were pros, though. Veterans. And they agreed to make the best of it.
With all our gear now strewn about the floor of Sancho Panza, the various band members had their first look at the oddly shaped bar. There were little nooks and crannies, staircases, split levels, inconveniently placed doors and a drop down entranceway. The whole place was rather bizarre (it was a central Spanish literary themed bar in Nanjing after all), but the bones were there for a great venue: live room, big bar, plenty of seating with different vantage points of the stage, and an outdoor space.
Based on how inconvenienced each band was, we picked slots to perform. Little Dragon opted to play second, putting the Morlocks in that prime third slot, when the crowd is always just ready to burst. BCR decided to play first, which was actually a really good move since the whole show was starting after 10pm when the festival let out. The Fever Machine had no problem going on fourth. After spontaneously playing promoter and booker for a few days, I needed some downtime anyway. The entire 48 hours up until that point were pure stress and adrenaline, mellowed by the mind-altering, infused oatmeal cookies.
Opening the venue at 9 p.m., there was already a lineup of fans waiting to enter. The club didn’t completely fill up right away, but by the time Boys Climbing Ropes finished their set, the room was nearing capacity. Little Dragon took a bit of time to fine tune their live setup, but when the electronic quartet from Gothenburg took the stage, they completely transformed this borderline decrepit bar in Nanjing into a futuristic state of the art sonic temple in outer space.
Lead singer Yukimi Nagano hypnotized the eager audience, singing the entire room into a downtempo trance. Her instrumental co-pilots: Erik Bodin on drums, Fredrik Wallin on the MIDI bass, and Hakan Wirestrand on synths and samples; played tight nuanced grooves, captivating every ear and eye in the house. This was no ordinary bar band. This was a creative tour de force making due on limited gear, and sounding like they had a complete backline and rider.
Everyone in attendance was completely spellbound and awestruck, even Leighton, who took the stage next. Following Little Dragon would be no easy feat, especially when shifting gears from arty electronic trip hop to the Morlocks’ dose of smack-in-the-face, gut punching punk rock. Leighton was mesmerizing, though, crawling all over the bar. He was a proper rock and roll frontman in the lineage of Jagger, Iggy Pop, and Stiv Bators, with a Johnny Ramone haircut to boot. The entire band completely blew the roof off the venue.
The crowd completely ate it up and spit it right back in the Morlocks’ faces. For sure this was going to be a tough set to follow, but at least we didn’t have to go on last …
In another bizarre turn of events, earlier that day, I was contacted by the road manager for The Pet Conspiracy, an electro rock band that was co-headlining the second night of the festival. He asked if they could join the bill at Sancho Panza.
Pet Conspiracy heard how our bands were kicked off the festival and loved the whole spirit and idea of what we were doing. They wanted to support and keep the party going. We just weren’t allowed to add them to the flier or say anything, since, according to their contract, Pet Conspiracy wasn’t supposed to play outside the festival.
Adding Pet Conspiracy to the lineup brought the whole show to a different level. I didn’t really know Huzi, the band leader, and the other members that well, but we’d run into each other here and there, even opening for them at the S.T.D. Third Anniversary show at MAO Livehouse a year prior. Our bands were peers, scene stalwarts, and Huzi was our comrade in rock and art. He understood that we were shoving to the Ministry of Culture, and wanted in.
When it was finally our turn, the Fever Machine played our set with the same power and raw emotion that we had bundled up for the festival stage. Instead of spreading our infectious energy to thousands, however, we delivered the same heavy riffage and burst of intensity to the capacity crowd, igniting the room with song after song. We oozed and dripped with passion, unleashing every ounce of life we had, draining our batteries fully on that stage. For days, stress, anxiety, anger, and frustration all brewed and percolated around my insides, and for 45 minutes on May 1, 2011, I let it all go. Energy rushed from my soul, purging from my quick fingers and operatic vocals. The crowd returned the favor, giving us the love, support, and applause we came here for.
In an instant, like a flash, the whole set was over and we quickly loaded our gear out so Pet Conspiracy could play.
Hopping off stage, I spent the next few hours enjoying the music and the vibe, receiving praise and love from the fans and artists. I imbibed more than a few beers that night, sharing drinks with Miguel and Fabien, the Sancho Panza staff, and Leighton, who was as intense off stage as he was on it. The high from the performance was way more potent than any substance though, and no amount of booze could equal the feeling of pulling off this monumental achievement in punk rock guerilla warfare.
Returning to the hotel close to 4 a.m., it was almost impossible to sleep. I stared at the ceiling for hours, replaying the entire series of events in my mind. After suffering so many prior defeats at the hands of the Ministry of Culture, we fought back, and finally won. You can’t stop rock and roll!
Completely drained and spent from the ordeal, we opted to forgo the last day of the festival and took a train back to Shanghai, where I was finally able to come down. There wasn’t much time to rest, however, as the Fever Machine had just five more days before our main stage debut at the 2011 Shanghai MIDI Festival.
But again, that’s another story in itself …
All photos by Abe Deyo
Great read pal. Best one yet