Recently, the Radar decided that it would be good to profile some of the institutions that make up China’s increasingly diverse music scene. We’ve decided to call it The hands that rock the Cradle (of Chinese music). First up, a small indie record label that it making huge strides to open up an alternative music scene in our very own Beijing.
words by Laura Fitch
Maybe Mars – the little label that could, PART 1
Last year while big-name acts like Nine Inch Nails, New York Dolls and Cui Jian strutted across the stage in front of crowds of screaming fans at the 2007 Beijing Pop Festival, a newborn record label quietly released three albums from local Beijing indie bands. Since then, Maybe Mars Records has recorded 11 albums for bands that define indie music in China’s capital, seen some of them open on tour for internationally renowned groups like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Blixa Bargeld‘s Einsturzende Neubauten, helped them release albums in China and Australia, sign and record with British music giant Martin Atkins and work with Public Enemy drummer and musical director Brian Hardgroove. Not bad for a first-year anniversary.
Brainchild of former investment banker-turned-finance professor and now bar and record label owner Michael Pettis, Maybe Mars Records grew out of a scene that solidified on the stage of D22, a tiny bar on the outskirts of Beijing’s student district that opened its doors three years ago to cultivate the talent that Pettis says he saw around him.
“The Beijing scene is very fresh and very eclectic,” Pettis wrote in an email interview. “its development in the past three years has been so rapid that I think Beijing is one of the most interesting cities in the world right now for new music.”
All of MMR’s bands have graced the stages of D22, and when it opened just over three years ago, it provided a much-needed space for local musicians to practice, and solidified the potential that Pettis saw into one of the city’s strongest music scenes. Made up of a creative team of roughly six that handle everything from distribution and promotion, MMR is focused on recordings and promoting local talent – many of the CDs MMR has released have cover art created by members of a loosely based group of local artists called Cult Youth, whose framed works add a nice punk punch to the walls of D22, hanging opposite band portraits that run like a who’s who of MMR – Joyside, Ourselves Beside Me, Demerit, PK14, Carsick Cars, The Gar, White and Snapline.
Snapline recently recorded a second album, with Atkins owning the international rights and MMR the Chinese, while Demerit and Carsick Cars have already released albums in Australia. This month PK14, slated as a band to watch in TIME magazine, will do the same. Joyside is back in Beijing after an MMR-backed Europe tour, Demerit just finished playing South Korea, and last year Carsick Cars opened for Sonic Youth for three shows in Europe and for punk band Dinosaur Jr in London. MMR is looking to sending their artists to Australia and the US in the future.
More will follow in Part 2, which you can read HERE