Last month, our sister site Wooozy (purveyor of all that is interesting and indie in music in Chinese) conducted and subsequently published this interview with Josh Feola of Beijing based blog Pangbianr (which is also a purveyor of all that is interesting and indie in music in both Chinese and English). They kindly allowed us to reprint – here is part 1.
SXSW last month, you were on the SXSW tour with Carsick Cars as tour manager. Have you been to such big festivals before?
Just to clarify, I wasn’t exactly Carsick Cars’s tour manager. Their trip was sponsored by Converse and they were also supported by their label, Maybe Mars. Since I’m from Texas and I “grew up” in the independent music scene in San Antonio and Austin, I know a lot of people who organize more underground, independent shows during South by Southwest. I also knew Carsick Cars from living in Beijing and running pangbianr. So it was a good opportunity to help out the band by booking some more local shows for them during their trip to Austin. In general I don’t really like big music festivals, but South by Southwest is different. It’s like a music festival spread out across dozens of venues every day for almost a full week. I went to SXSW a few times while in high school but mostly just to see my friends’ bands and more off-the-radar shows at houses and small bars that the majority of fest-goers wouldn’t ever hear of.
And you helped arrange several shows for the band. How did you contact those organizers?
As I mentioned before, I grew up in Texas so most of the shows I booked for Carsick Cars were arranged through personal contacts. I have a few friends who work at a great local record store called End of an Ear. I got in touch with the owner of the store and he booked Carsick Cars an in-store performance (in my opinion this was one of the best shows they played during SXSW!).
My good friend Veronica Ortuño — an Austin-based musician and artist — added Carsick Cars to her excellent Cease to Exist! showcase along with some really amazing current underground US bands like Grass Widow and Dog Leather. The other show I booked was a showcase for Tom Tom Magazine, a magazine focusing on female drummers. I was put in touch with the editor-in-chief of Tom Tom (and the organizer of the showcase) via another friend of Carsick Cars.
During SXSW, what did the band and you do besides playing the shows?
I spent time with my parents, who live in San Antonio, my sister, who lives in Austin, and a lot of friends from Texas and elsewhere who were in town for the fest. There were a few bands/shows I made sure to see. I also went record/music gear shopping with Carsick Cars and tried my best to introduce them to the non-obese side of American cuisine!
any good and potential bands you found in SXSW?
I was really glad I was able to see Dirty Beaches again. I saw him in January at D-22 when Rose Mansion Analog helped organize a few China shows for him. I was also really into some of the bands that Carsick Cars played with, such as Grass Widow, Dog Leather, Weird TV, and Tune-yards — all great new bands, check them out!
what was the reaction of the audience when Carsick Cars was playing on stage?
In general the audience reaction was very good — people jumping around and dancing. At some of the bigger shows a lot of people didn’t who Carsick Cars were but still enjoyed the music. At the other shows there were some people who had heard or seen them before, people who had lived in Beijing and went out of their way to catch Carsick Cars at SXSW.
what do you think Chinese festival organizers need to learn from SXSW?
That’s a good question. A festival like SXSW would be very hard to organize in China. In the US there are thousands of record labels, tour managers, booking agencies, music media outlets, venue owners, etc who find it in their mutual interest to organize this kind of fest, which is basically a giant industry conference that happens to have hundreds of shows. There just isn’t that kind of established music industry infrastructure in China. The closest I’ve seen is JUE, where there are a lot of concerts by bands of different styles at different venues over several weeks. That’s a good start. It would be cool if, like SXSW, you had all of those shows within 5 days and all of them were walking distance from each other, but that wouldn’t make financial sense here.
Do you think it’s worthwhile for Chinese artists to do international tour? What can they expect from the tour?
It’s definitely worthwhile! Chinese bands can expect to be frustrated. There isn’t a lot of awareness or recognition of Chinese music abroad, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions are the ones who get sponsored by brands and labels, as was the case with Carsick Cars and Queen Sea Big Shark at SXSW 2011 and more recently with New Pants, who were sponsored by Vice and Intel to play Coachella as part of the “Creators Project”. Even these bands aren’t that well known in the US. A friend of mine saw New Pants play in New York last week and said the crowd was mostly Chinese! However, I still think it’s worthwhile. There are a lot of hurdles to jump (travel costs, a ridiculously complicated visa application process, etc), but it’s important for Chinese bands — especially the ones who are lucky enough to get sponsored for international tours — to realize that it is their responsibility and obligation to act as ambassadors for Chinese music and culture internationally. It’s a very rare opportunity.
Maybe my opinion on this matter is too subjective and not relevant to most people. But I can say that a lot of my friends who saw Carsick Cars for the first time at SXSW were blown away and now have an interest in Chinese underground music and youth culture that they would never have developed otherwise. Likewise the Chinese bands who play abroad absorb new music, ideas, and perspectives from the people they meet on tour. This is the point of touring and in the context of China there is an extra political and social dimension that amplifies the importance of such opportunities for grassroots cultural exchange.