Remembering YuYinTang (Part 2): The Debut of Precious Chong

For one night only ...

Gotta hand it to Tom from MySpace. He really knew how to bring people together.

Back in 2008, if anyone searched for rock bands in Shanghai, China on the world’s number-one social media website, they were bound to stumble upon my personal profile, along with a page for my garage punk group, The Rogue Transmission. It wasn’t necessarily a very popular search, so I had that market cornered.

It was through MySpace that I met underground New Orleans guitar hero, and Richard Lloyd disciple (yes, the dude from Television), Johnny Seagull, who did a brief stint in Shanghai as part of the China West promotional group that brought Kanye West, Incubus, and George Benson to town. Mensch that he is, in addition to bringing the famed New Orleans Mod Dance Party to China, Johnny filled in on guitar for The Rogue Transmission at a rather important moment, learning our set in two weeks before we played with Boys Climbing Ropes and Joyside at the second Get in the Van event.

Honestly, I still find the concept of meeting people online a bit strange, but because of the fast friendship I struck up with Johnny, I remain open to the idea. So, when I received an excited message (no one called them DMs yet) from an Ecuadorian punk rocker names Miggs Bustamante in the Spring of 2009, explaining that he had just moved to Shanghai and was looking for places to catch bands, I gave him the rundown and introduced him to the YuYinTang scene.

At the time, I was still completely enveloped in The Rogue Transmission. Obsessed and focused on songwriting and dueling guitar arrangements with my six-string partner in crime, Adam Gaensler. We were a headlining draw in Shanghai and had eyes on breaking into the festival circuit later in the year, once our debut LP was complete.

Then the rug was completely pulled out from underneath us. Wind taken out of our sails. Blindsighted by the news that our bassist, John Lynch, was quitting the band.

John was so integral to the sound and feel of our quarter. At that point, we’d spent close to two years together, bonding over T. Rex and Supergrass, writing songs, sharing hotel rooms and trains. I just didn’t see how it was possible to replace him. Rather than look for a new bass player, I made the unpopular decision to disband the very group that I founded. It was not a choice I took lightly. Even before I moved to China, I had dreamed about a band called The Rogue Transmission. Aside from my infamous handlebar moustache, The Rogue Transmission was my identity back then, but I was ironclad in my need to create something new.

Fabien Barbet, our drummer and my main running mate in those days, also had his eyes set on something fresh. He was being courted by Banana Monkey, the best rock band in town, to be their new drummer. Possessive as I was back then, I was none too happy about Fabi’s double dipping in our scene. And with The Rogue Transmission finished, I knew there was a very good chance he’d move on completely. Lucky for me, Banana Monkey had their own internal dysfunction at the time.

Having met Miggs a couple times by that point, I knew enough to invite him over to our rehearsal spot at 0093 Lingling Lu for a jam. He knew how to play drums, recorded a couple albums with his hardcore band, Amigos de lo Ajeno, and he liked Queens of the Stone Age. That was enough for me to give him a shot.

I wanted to play some heavier music after The Rogue Transmission. Not quite metal, but bigger, fatter, fuzzier riffs, deeper pockets, more psychedelic elements. I was sitting on a decent amount of material that didn’t fit the previous group, so this was my chance to incorporate different sounds and expand the sonics and dynamics in composition and arrangements.

After one rehearsal, I was convinced that Miggs was the right guy for the new project. And so we’d meet once a week, practicing at the same time as Fabien was jamming with Banana Monkey, just down the hall, making sure to crank the amps up loud enough to bleed into their room.

Fabien and I were still on good terms. If anything, I was envious of the guys in Banana Monkey because they got to hang out with him in a capacity that I’d coveted so dearly. With Miggs now behind the kit though, I needed to find a way to coax Fabi back into the fold.

Truth be told, he’s one of those guys who plays every instrument well. Give him an empty plastic bottle and he’ll find a way to play both percussion and melody, simultaneously. Just a natural musician in that regard. We’d switched instruments in rehearsals enough for me to know that in addition to being a really creative drummer, Fabien was also a super clever bass player who knew how to build a pocket and work the negative space of an arrangement. I also knew he’d get along with Miggs real well.

Just as I had done a few years earlier, when I re-tooled the lineup of our first group, The Huhu Mamas, to create The Rogue Transmission, I approached Fabien honestly and sincerely and asked him if he’d be willing to go on this new adventure, this time on the bass. It also came with the understanding that I was totally cool with him playing drums in Banana Monkey, The Snots, X is Y, or any other group he had going on.

Even back then I knew how lucky I was to have such a great friend to share the stage and tours with, and I knew there was more out there for us, especially on the festival circuit, which we had repeatedly tried to break into, only to come up short.

And so it was. Fabien would join our new unnamed trio.

By this time, it was already October 2009, and Miggs, Fabien, and I convened weekly to start putting together some songs, the first batch of which included “The Arouser,” “Hell Yeah,” and “Out of Touch.” All quality tunes that never would have fit in the same milieu as The Rogue Transmission.

We enjoyed the process. We enjoyed the music. We enjoyed each other and plenty of beers along the way. We were bonding and gelling, organically, which is a pretty wild concept when you consider that any circumstance that brings three friends from different continents together on a fourth continent that is completely foreign must, in essence, be manufactured. But here we were.

We were actually rather secretive about the whole project at the time because we didn’t quite know what it would be yet. Rather than capitalize on our previous notoriety as a band that could draw 300 heads and headline, we went back to the start and played the new bands Wednesday night showcase at YuYinTang just before Chinese New Year 2010. The only catch was that I asked YYT owners Zhang Haisheng and Lu if we could do it as an invite only show. Closed doors to the general public. They didn’t quite understand the request, but they did honor it.

Previously, The Rogue Transmission had done such good business at YuYinTang that they would’ve given us a Friday or Saturday night to make our debut. But this was really just an introduction to our close friends and select media that we had a new group, and this is what we had been up to for the last few months. Besides, we didn’t even have a band name at that point, and so it was, that for one night only, we played under the moniker Precious Chong, before eventually settling on The Fever Machine. Years later, we referenced the original band name, an ode to Tommy Chong’s daughter, in the second verse of our song “Careful What You Wish For.”

The process of tearing everything we had built down, only to start over from scratch was a necessary and humbling step in my own personal development at the time. By 2010, the Chinese rock scene had already peaked, and what was once an underground punk movement, was already beginning to shift into something more corporate driven. There was a stark contrast between the 2008 Olympic-era and the forthcoming 2010 Shanghai World Expo, and just as The Rogue Transmission better suited the previous period, The Fever Machine was primed for the upcoming years that would see us play some of China’s biggest festivals in Shanghai, Beijing, and Jiangsu Province.

And, as fun and spectacular as the main stages were, there was nothing quite like performing at YuYinTang, where we played roughly 30 times, headlining our fair share, while building the local scene, opening for international artists like The King Khan & BBQ Show, The Routes, and Sahara Hotnights, and Chinese groups like Demerit, The Dancers, Duck Fight Goose, Old Doll, and Steely Heart.

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All “Precious Chong” photos by Chad Ingram, taken January 2010 at YuYinTang.

Keep coming back. I’ll be sharing a few more YuYinTang memories before they shut their doors at 851 Kaixuan Lu for good on June 30.