The Yaogun Diaries, part 1

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Introduction

When I first went to China back in 2006, one of my goals was to learn as much as I could about music there. Being the musical omnivore I am, that included everything from traditional folk music to academic Chinese Classical music to pop and rock – whatever I might find there. Somehow I never managed to see a Peking Opera show, but I saw dozens of rock bands, and the whole phenomenon of rock in China fascinated me.

While it's undeniable that rock music is a Western art form in its origins, it's also undeniable that it has had an impact all around the world. I think this is in part because rock is not a clearly defined genre, but a kind of cultural chameleon. It can absorb various outside traditions and remain rock. This is nothing new – it started back in the 60s when elements of European Classical music and the music of the Middle East and India started to filter into psychedelic rock. As I see it, rock was born out of the union of rhythm and blues (at the time mostly confined to predominantly black communities) with country music (primarily a white form of music), so it should be no surprise that rock is good at melding what may seem like opposites. Over the decades since its birth, rock has mated with just about every possible form of music on the planet, and its bastard offspring can be found just about everywhere you could point on a globe.

So it should come as no surprise that there is rock music in China. I've even had reports that rock is starting to make inroads in North Korea, though in a highly constrained form that mostly resembles 60s surf music – all instrumental, thus avoiding any questionable lyrical content. The government of the People's Republic of China is also known for censorship, though it is nowhere near as restrictive as North Korea, and musicians there have their own methods of dealing with it. We'll get to that later.

I went to a lot of shows at clubs, theaters, and festivals over the last two and a half years in Beijing, and you can get some descriptions and photos on my China blog by searching on the music tag. Like any thriving music scene, Beijing has artists that cover a wide variety of styles, from raucous classic punk to acoustic singer/songwriters, from experimental noise to sweet technopop. Some of them come off as derivative of their Western prototypes, some of them are wildly original. Some of them sing in English, some in Chinese, and some in other languages. All in all, there are easily a couple dozen artists there worthy of international attention, and from my own difficulties, I know how hard it can be to learn about them. There is precious little information, even in Chinese, to guide you, and a lot of it is extremely difficult to come by outside the country. So I'd like to share what I've learned, and help bring together some of what's available elsewhere on the web.

First up, there is an online directory, Rock in China, that has a lot of information, most of it in English. It's an evolving resource with user-created content like Wikipedia. I've been contributing there myself, and will continue to do so as I have time and facts. I've also contributed and updated artist bios on Last.fm for many of the bands I know. A lot of Chinese rock is available for download at VeryCD, though I'll leave it up to others to determine the moral/legal status of what's there – it's also in Chinese, though I've found that even with limited language skills, it's possible to make my way around. I can give some lessons for those who are interested – just ask.

And now, since it seems like it would be a shame to end this post without covering something specific, I'll tell you about...

Re-TROS

This is one of very few Chinese bands which is available on CD in the US. Their first album, Cut Off!, was released by Tag Team Records, and they’ve toured in the US, including a spot at SXSW in 2007. Their first album lists their full name as Reestablishing the Rights of Statues – later items have called them Rebuilding the Rights of Statues. The Chinese version is 重塑雕像的权利 (chóngsù diāoxiàng de quánlì), which can be translated either way.

That American release (actually an EP) is a 2007 re-release of something that came out in China on Badhead Records (a division of Modern Sky) in 2005 with one added track. Both are called Cut Off! I have the Chinese version. As the story goes, Brian Eno was working in the same studio where they were recording, liked their music, and ended up doing some guest keyboards on some of the tracks.
Stylistically, they are most closely related to Gang of Four, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Pere Ubu and early Talking Heads, though they are distinctive enough to avoid any charges of being mere copycats. Their lyrics are almost entirely in English.

"TV Show (Hang the Police)"

I first saw them live in November of 2007 at a little club called 2 Kolegas, which is a great place located inside the grounds of a drive-in movie theater, along with a number of other bars and restaurants. It was my first time going to the place, and it was not easy to find. The taxi driver had no clue (at that time I spoke very little Chinese), so it was lucky I’d looked at a map and knew the general location. It was a triple bill, starting with Subs, then Re-TROS, and finishing up with Hedgehog. I’ll talk about the other two later.
Re-TROS put on an amazing show, very intense with energy and commitment, probably including imperfections but much too enjoyable for me to care.
The lyrics, which deal with social issues bordering on politics, were pretty much indistinguishable. Lead singer 华东 (Hua Dong) is extremely emotive in a jerky David Byne kind of way.
Bassist Liu Min (刘敏) is less demonstrative, providing solid low end and backing vocals. Ma Hui (马晖) is mostly simple, but quite imaginative on the drums, with lots of unconventional patterns and unexpected accents.

2Kolegas is a great place to see a show, not such a great place to take pictures since the lighting is pretty minimal. You can read my original post about the show here.

After that night, I didn’t get a chance to see them again until June of 2009, at the release party for their full-length CD with the unwieldy title of Watch Out! Climate Has Changed, Fat Mum Rises... (including punctuation), which is out on Modern Sky in China. So far no outside release that I'm aware of.

"My Great Location"

This show was at Yugong Yishan, which is much bigger, with better lights and sound than 2Kolegas, though lacking the cozy dive ambiance.
This band was great before, but have since grown into something truly awesome. The new material is rather atmospheric on the CD, though the live show was every bit as intense as before.
Liu Min even handles lead vocals and melodica at times.
Hua Dong sometimes sets aside his guitar to concentrate on singing. When he does this, there are often taped guitar parts filling in. These “non-live” elements are mostly unobtrusive and do not detract at all from the impact of the show. I have also written about this show here.

In short, this band is one of the best bands in China, well able to hold their own with any band anywhere, both live and in the studio.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Re-TROS
Band home: http://re-tros.com/face.html
Band Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/rebuildingtherightsofstatues
Tag Team Records: http://www.tagteamrecords.com/
Modern Sky: http://www.modernsky.com/

You get what you pay for

Americans complain a lot about taxes being too high, which implies that lower taxes are always better. We speak as if the money we pay in taxes is just wasting our hard-earned dollars, and ideally we should keep all we earn and spend it entirely on things of our own choosing. When pressed, I suppose most of us will admit that the government actually uses those tax revenues to do things like maintain armed forces, which most of us will admit are necessary. Leaving aside the question of waste for the moment, what things we are willing to give our government money to accomplish?

This is the first in a series of posts about the role of government. What is government for, and what should we expect of it? In American schools, we learn about the structure of our own government, and from the polls I’ve seen, most of us promptly forget it all. But it is not until specialized college level courses that more general questions about the purpose of government are brought up.

The first broad area of government activity can be called Security. Quite likely it is this function that first led to the creation of government. We can divide Security into a few aspects: External, Internal, and Border Control.

External Security generally takes the form of military organizations. Almost every nation in the history of our planet has had some kind of military force, and very few citizens of any nation would argue that it is not needed (Costa Rica is an interesting counter-example, having abolished its army in 1949, as is Liechtenstein, army-less since 1868). Of course, the size and organization of the military are subject to a wide variety of possibilities. Some countries spend as much as 10% of their GDP on their military forces, some less than 0.1% – the US comes in around 4%, though some military programs are difficult to quantify, so this could be slightly higher. (Information from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.)

Most countries with coastlines maintain some kind of coast guard, which may or may not be considered military. They provide a wide variety of services, such as search and rescue, that are outside the scope of defense, as well as border control and law enforcement. For example, the UK’s Coastguard is a civilian agency, while the Icelandic Coast Guard is a law enforcement agency. The American Coast Guard is a branch of the military which has some non-military functions.

Which leads us to law enforcement or Internal Security. This is another area that virtually all nations have, and organization and duties vary widely. In the US, most law enforcement is organized at levels other than federal, such as state, county, city, or whatever, though we do have the FBI and a few other national entities. For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll include courts and prisons in this category of government activities.

Border Control is another aspect of Security that governments engage in, and another function that few citizens would protest. Even countries with the most liberal immigration policies want some control over who enters, and most countries are interested in stopping the entry of certain items, like illegal drugs, dangerous materials, weapons, disease-carrying people, animals or plants, and so on.

That’s my broad overview of one of the least controversial functions of government. Check back next week when we move into areas that more people take issue with. While we may argue about the details of enforcement, budgeting, and so on, virtually all of us agree that our government should perform these duties.

There is no need to be embarrassed by your taste in music

It's an internet cliche we've all seen:

Your favorite band sucks.

On the one hand it's often meant as a joke, exaggerated hipsterism, but then when you start reading the comments on music blogs and sites like Stereogum, you realize that a lot of people have lost sight of the fact that taste in music, as in all other art forms, is just that: a matter of taste.

There are no objective criteria to be used in judging art, no matter what academics (or internet trolls) may say. Sure, you can evaluate the technical skill involved in a piece of music, but even that has no direct relation to quality of art.

We've all heard the noisy, arrogant attitude: My favorite music is great, and everything else is crap. Whether they're hating on major label artists as sell-outs, emo singers as worthy of decapitation, country singers as uneducated hicks, rappers as unmusical gold-chasers, or anything else. It is absurd to lump all the practitioners of a given genre together, and certainly indicative of minimal exposure. Anyone who has listened with much depth in any genre knows that it's not all the same. The whole indie-vs-major thing is particularly ridiculous, since it requires the listener to know what label the music was released on before deciding on its quality.

On the opposite extreme, in the face of strident hipper-than-thou rhetoric, many people retreat into a blanket apology: I don't have very good taste in music. The big secret is this: there is no such thing as "good taste" in music. Each of us likes what we like for our own reasons. Maybe I like Hank Williams because my parents listened to him when I was a kid and it reminds me of happy times. And if Hank Sr. is considered cool by some kind of hipster consensus, fine, but my feeling is the same with Glen Campbell, who to my knowledge is not considered cool. Whatever. They both remind me of my childhood, just like the Monkees.

I recently watched a great documentary called Afro-punk, which shone light on a fascinating, little-known sub-sub-culture. One thing that was interesting about the film is that while it was in part about defying boundaries and rules in music (like the idea that punk is a white musical idiom), at several points in the film there were stereotypical dismissals of other genres, in particular the ridicule of the "twenty-minute drum solo" emblematic of 70s rock outside of punk. For one thing, I find no contradiction in my fondness for both progressive rock and punk. The drum solo was invented in jazz, allegedly by Gene Krupa, and since the 1930s there have been good ones and bad ones.

I've heard it said that while American radio stations are relatively narrow with their playlists, most Americans actually listen to more variety: if you look at their CD collections, you will find things from multiple genres, things that would never be heard on the same radio station. I don't know if that's true of most people – it's certainly true for me. You'd be hard pressed to find a genre I don't have. I don't say that to brag, but to make a point: quality is not dependent on genre.

There are a lot of other factors that are irrelevant to determining quality...

Like when it was made. Music from 2009 is no more or less valid than music from 1945, 1972, 1984, or even 1705.

Like where it was made. American music is neither intrinsically superior nor inferior to music from Ireland, France, Mexico, China, or Afghanistan.

Like how popular it is now or was at some time in the past. Other people's likes or dislikes, no matter their numbers, tell you nothing.

Like what language the singing is in. Admittedly, many people prefer music where they can understand the words, and that's fine, but I think it's quite possible to enjoy music without knowing what they're singing about. After all, there's a lot of music in English where I wish I didn't understand. And I also enjoy instrumental music where there's no singing at all, and all you have to do is think of the human voice as an instrument.

Like what kinds of instruments are used. Electric, acoustic, electronic – guitar, piano, lute, sitar, koto, accordion, banjo, harmonica, didgeridoo, laptop, kora, coffee cans full of paper clips...

Like what tradition (or combination or lack thereof) it comes from. Pure Delta Blues is not superior to pure Carnatic music or the electronic combination of East African griot music with Irish folk.

So what does quality depend on? Listen to music with as open a mind as you can – how does it make you feel? Does it touch you, either emotionally or intellectually?

If it touches you, it's good music, and you have nothing to be ashamed about. There is no need to be embarrassed by your taste in music. And there is no need to berate others for their taste.

Is health care a service or a right?

John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, caused quite a stir recently with this post on the Wall Street Journal web site. Sensational exaggerations and knee-jerk boycotts aside, while his statements may seem to make sense, there is a fatal flaw in his reasoning that I've not seen anyone call him on, at least not in a reasoned way. The core of his argument comes down to this:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America.

So is health care really a service, not a right? If a bleeding car crash victim staggers into an emergency room, can they be turned away? There is nothing wrong with denying service, right? A restaurant can refuse to serve a shirtless or shoeless person. But even the most hard-line conservative is not going to advocate denying emergency room service to a person in need. I would argue that a service that cannot be denied is a right.

Obviously, we have no trouble denying some medical services to the uninsured, which turns American emergency rooms into their primary source of care. If a problem is not serious enough to drive someone to an emergency room, they do without care. And if the problem becomes more serious, that's exactly where they go, even if it's something that could have been prevented easily with earlier treatment. This is one of the primary reasons American health care is in such trouble. Even aside from the cost in suffering and unnecessary deaths, it would be far cheaper to provide the service of early treatment to the uninsured than to treat them only when they are in serious need.

Another problem with Mackey's point is this: even if health care is a right, that does not mean "equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals," which sounds like some kind of communist system. Virtually every other developed nation in the world has designed systems based on the idea of health care as a right, and nowhere is there any pretense of "equal access." People who have enough money can always get extra care and have more choices, being able to afford travel to the doctor or hospital they want. The right of freedom of speech does not mean equal access to mass media; the right to keep and bear arms does not mean everyone gets a gun for free; the right to work does not mean we can all do whatever job we choose.

Mackey mentions that there are no rights to food or shelter either. I would like to point him to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the US has signed but never ratified. Of course, that Covenant also mentions health care as a right, along with other things that many Americans do not consider human rights, but "desirable goals." Which puts the US in the odd position of claiming to be one of the world's foremost proponents of human rights while simultaneously being one of the nations with the narrowest definition of human rights. Our view is that it would be nice if everyone had enough to eat, but there is no intrinsic right to avoid starving to death. So not only is it acceptable to not help starving people, but it is also acceptable to deny people food if they don't meet some standard of merit. After all, this is not a human right, but a service that can be denied.

Am I reducing Mackey's argument to the point of absurdity? Maybe, but I think his argument is at its core flawed and even of questionable morality. He says health is not a right, and I don't know where he draws the line.

He uses the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution as the only definitions of human rights. Well, a lot has changed in 200 years, and maybe those are not the only documents that should be used. I've mentioned the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and there's also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, widely regarded (outside the US, I suppose) as the Gold Standard of rights documents.

Mackey also goes on to raise the specter of horrendous waiting lists for medical care in Canada and the UK. This is a false argument and misdirection of attention. Which is better, 830,000 Canadians on waiting lists for care, or millions of Americans who get no care at all? But that's really a different topic for another day.