Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Chinese Rocks by Peter Baird The Bitches of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Much of Chinese Rocks is set against the backdrop of China’s burgeoning live music scene. Here at the official homepage for the book we will introduce you to some of the bands featured in the book through photographs and book excerpts. One of the more prominently featured bands is Joyside, Beijing’s self-described “Bitches of Rock ‘n’ Roll”. Active from 2001 to 2009, Joyside evolved from a booze-fueled punk band into a swaggering hard rock band in the vein of The New York Dolls, T-Rex and early 70’s Stones. Many industry insiders cite Joyside as the architect of what has come to be known as “The Beijing sound”. .”We headed up front once Joyside took the stage. Within seconds of the opening chords, the crowd exploded into a Dionysian frenzy as the band conjured up the spirits of Marc Bolan and Johnny Thunders. It was 34°, but with hundreds of bodies pressed together amidst the smoky haze, it felt much hotter. I was soaked in sweat and someone tapped me on the shoulder: it was Jimmy the Bee, who was shirtless. I looked around: all the guys were shedding their shirts and I did the same.”-Chapter 29. “It was pure magic. The Place was as crowded as I’d ever seen it; all the regulars were there and the place just smelled like rock and roll. As they cranked out song after song of solid rock and roll, I got drenched in sweat and made body contact with about 50 people. The greatest testimony that I can make to Joyside is that their shows almost always fell just short of a drunken orgy: having the band back together made it seem as if everything was right with the world.”-Chapter 35. “As for Joyside, they were fast becoming part of the fabric of my time in China. They were not only the first Chinese rock band that I’d ever seen, but the first band Tyler had seen, Chinese or otherwise—and he’d done so twice before his first birthday. I’d met Princess at a Joyside show, too, which was also the gig that acted as my true introduction to the Green Door and the city’s music scene. Not only was I developing a very personal connection to their music, but they epitomized the spirit of rock and roll in a way that I felt no mainstream Western bands had in over a decade.”-Chapter 30. “They put on one hell of a rock and roll show—time just sort of stopped when you were watching them, it was almost magical—and I left with the realization that Joyside was probably my favourite active band on the entire planet.”-Chapter 30. Violent Femmes. The Violent Femmes burst out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early ’80s, a remarkably original trio playing acoustic instruments and singing intense, personal songs with remarkable candor and love. Initially resembling a punk version of the Modern Lovers, the Femmes — Gordon Gano (vocals, guitar, songs), Brian Ritchie (bass) and Victor De Lorenzo (drums) — have grown more uncommon over the years, fixing a flexible style that resembles no other band. On the skeletal first album, Violent Femmes , Gano’s articulate passion and lyrical maladjustment combine with the charged (but not very loud) playing to convey an incredible sense of desperation and rage. “Blister in the Sun” and “Kiss Off” are typical of the anger seething in the grooves, while “Gone Daddy Gone” and “Please Do Not Go” show a more upbeat side still rooted in extreme individuality and super-ego. The disc’s best couplet: “Why can’t I get just one fuck?/Guess it’s got something to do with luck.” (The deluxe reissue includes an album’s worth of demos and rarities and an entire second disc of contemporaneous concert performances.) Hallowed Ground takes a much different approach, displaying Gano’s religious fervor and connecting with traditional American folk music. The cast includes a banjo picker and autoharp strummer, as well as a horn’n’clarinet section; the material encompasses tragic balladry (“Country Death Song”), old-timey spirituals (“Jesus Walking on the Water,” “It’s Gonna Rain”), mild be-bop (“Sweet Misery Blues”) and demented jazz-funk (“Black Girls”). Not as pointed as the first album, it nonetheless showcases an inquisitive band deeply committed to self-expression, regardless of the consequences. The Blind Leading the Naked was produced by Talking Head Jerry Harrison with conscious mainstreaming intent. Of course, the Femmes at their most commercial are still pretty radical, although “I Held Her in My Arms” does sound unnervingly like Bruce Springsteen. As if to prove their orneriness, a vituperative attack on “Old Mother Reagan” and the similarly anti-authoritarian “No Killing” demonstrate an undying rebellious spirit. But it’s another type of spirit that invests the bluesy “Faith” and the Stonesy “Love & Me Make Three,” keeping god in the grooves alongside Marc Bolan, who gets worked over with a misbegotten Headsish version of “Children of the Revolution.” The Velvet Underground fares better on “Good Friend,” a Femmes original that uncannily echoes Lou Reed. The Mercy Seat is an energetically electric album by Gano’s all-gospel side group. Backing big-voiced (but mini-skirted) singer Zena Von Heppinstall in a lineup with a bassist and drummer, he plays guitar and joins the choruses of such numbers as “I Am a Pilgrim” and “I Don’t Need Nobody Else (but Jesus).” De Lorenzo co-produced and, with Ritchie, provided most of the instrumental backing on WisconsInsane , a loopy extravaganza from singing dairy state keyboardist/flautist Sigmund Snopek III. (Snopek’s previous albums — solo and with his eponymous group, going back to the late ’70s — were subsequently reissued by his new label.) While their contributions to such serio-comical Midwest maunderings as “The Rose of Wisconsin,” “Thank God This Isn’t Cleveland” and “I’m So Tired of Singing About the Sky” tend to be lost in the slick production, the LP is a cute theatrical diversion. Snopek returned the favor by playing keyboards on 3 , the Femmes’ first new LP in three years. Settled into a comfortable creative torpor, the trio revisits familiar terrain with easy confidence and very little evident artistic ambition or effort: the loudly electric arrangement of “Fool in the Full Moon” is about the extent of the record’s adventures. (The swaying jazzy feel of “Outside the Palace” and the rock beat of the vengeful “Mother of a Girl” make them 3 ‘s only memorable tunes.) Gano’s songwriting and delivery have their usual odd character and some of the old passion, but the Femmes don’t seem to be making much progress or impact in any direction here. After another lengthy hiatus, the Femmes returned with Why Do Birds Sing? , a stripped-down effort that harks back to Violent Femmes and contains three tunes (“Girl Trouble,” “Life Is a Scream” and “Flamingo Baby”) Gano wrote during the creative frenzy that produced most of the tunes on the first two albums. Despite a decade in the biz, Gano still captures teen angst and frustration better, and more convincingly, than almost anybody. Standouts include “American Music,” the Femme-ization of Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” (with new lyrics by Gano), “Out the Window” (a cheery paean to suicide) and “I’m Free,” a goofy, quasi-religious hymn that celebrates the power of love. Add It Up is a generous and thoughtful 23-track sampler of the band’s career that includes the expected “hits” as well as gems like “Waiting for the Bus” (a 1981 demo that’s been a staple of the band’s live gigs for years), the leering “36-24-36,” “America Is,” a half-studio, half-live version of “Lies” with Ashwin Batish on sitar and the mysterious “Dance, Motherfucker, Dance!” featuring the Horns of Dilemma. New Times introduces new drummer Guy Hoffman, formerly of BoDeans and the Oil Tasters, in place of De Lorenzo. With the exception of a compressed, pumped-up drum sound and a couple of keyboard accents, the trio’s spartan style remains the same. Nihilism, wiseass bon mots and hopeless love affairs still churn through Gano’s psyche to emerge as high art and low humor. “Don’t Start Me on the Liquor” is typical folk-rock done Femmes style, “Mirror Mirror (I See a Damsel)” sounds like a Russian polka and “I’m Nothing” is as fine an expression of sputtering youthful rage as the band has ever done. The only anomaly is “Machine,” a sophomoric electronic experiment that doesn’t quite work — although that didn’t stop it from being released on an EP along with a remix, “Chinese Rocks” and a live “Color Me Once.” Following Rock. , a studio album that didn’t initially find a domestic release, the Femmes issued Viva Wisconsin , a live album recorded on tour in October 1998 in the band’s home state. It includes performances of such classics of the canon as “Blister in the Sun,” “Add It Up” and “Country Death Song” but also such dubious Rock. s as “Dahmer Is Dead,” a song about the slain-in-prison serial cannibal monster from Milwaukee. Freak Magnet , on which the Femmes hang their music in thick, hard-rocking sheets of sound rather than on a skeletal acoustic frame, is a strong return to form, albeit one the group had not previously done much with. (“Mosh Pit” is aptly punked up in a much more audible sense than the emotional aggression on which the band was founded.) Released, like Viva Wisconsin , on the independent Beyond label, the album was held up for several years after the band was dropped from its Interscope deal. Something’s Wrong , available only online, is a collection of outtakes from recent records that also contains demos and studio experiments. Ritchie’s solo debut (“dedicated to Sun Ra, Son House and my son Silas”) shows off his diverse musical interests, from topical blues to avant- garde exotica and beyond. Joined by various players, he sings and handles guitar, banjo, flute, recorder, accordion and other instruments, leaving most of the bass chores to Cynthia Bartell of Têtes Noires. (He and De Lorenzo had earlier produced her group’s Clay Foot Gods LP.) Not all of the excursions work equally well, but The Blend certainly proves that Ritchie’s talents extend far beyond his role in the Femmes. Using a wide variety of instruments (from conch and ocarina to bass flute, baritone sax, Arabic tabla and kalimba), Ritchie and his four talented sidemen still manage to sound entirely organic — even a little plain — on Sonic Temple & Court of Babylon . While the folky music has a nice rustic feel, Ritchie’s lyrics are far less friendly. In an artless but adequate voice, he fires off splenetic attacks on Christianity, American mores, capitalism and someone who deceived him, taking time to praise Sun Ra and marvel at life within some Arabic castle. (Imagine the arguments he and Gano must have…) With the countryfied sarcasm of “Religion Ruined My Life” and the Middle Easternisms of “2 Tongues, 2 Minds,” I See a Noise repeats two of Ritchie’s previous themes, but he applies far more wit, humor and imagination this time. Playing down-to-earth music — an acoustic and electric mix with easy, direct appeal — he offers wry and funny (often autobiographical) commentary on such topics as death, babies and Ernest Hemingway. Easily the best of Ritchie’s albums. The last Femme to strike out on his own, Victor De Lorenzo sings (sort of), drums, percusses and, for one song, plays guitar and keyboards on Peter Corey Sent Me , an intriguing and thoughtfully artistic effort that resembles the Bonzo Dog Band in dada spirit, if not humor. No two tracks are alike (except perhaps in their literate, idiosyncratic lyrics and eloquently understated execution); the stylistic compote of country, noir jazz, spoken musical comedy, 12-bar African chanting, folk, Talking Headsy rock, continental balladry, etc. unfolds to reveal many delightful surprises. The Day Jimmy Came to Town. Yes, incredibly I had actually met Led Zeppelin guitarist and bona fide rock legend Jimmy Page. If you could have given me a choice of any person in the world to meet, I would have probably chosen him: this was bigger than meeting the President of the United States, the Pope and the Queen of England at the same time. I was grading papers at Helen’s Cafe, a cheap Wudaokou student hangout, on a snowy Tuesday night when my phone pinged. “Jimmy Page is at the Green Door right now. Get your ass down here. Tell no one.” I would have been less surprised if he’d told me he’d just killed a prostitute and needed my help disposing of the body—that at least seemed within the realm of possibility. Jimmy Page at the Place did not. While it was only a 20-minute walk, I immediately jumped into a cab. The legendary guitarist was in town to negotiate a deal to headline a proposed event deemed “The Show of Peace Concert,” an ambitious global charity show that would be broadcast live from the Bird’s Nest in October. In addition to Page, the event was slated to feature performances by Aerosmith, Lady Gaga, Prince and neophyte heavyweights like Katy Perry and Beyonce, among several dozen others. While he was here, he’d made some inquiries about where he could take in some live music, and since the Place was pretty much the only place in town you could catch a halfway decent show on a Tuesday night, he’d found his way over. When I arrived, there was definitely something out of the ordinary going on: Tuesday nights were Zoomin’ Nights—a platform for experimental music—and it never drew a crowd this big. It wasn’t huge, but there a lot of faces there that I’d never seen before. Rob was sitting at the bar. “Where is he?” I asked. “He went upstairs, I think. Can you believe this? Jimmy Page at the Green Door? How cool is that?” It was unbelievable, actually. A few minutes later, he appeared from around the corner. If not for the fact that I’d seen him perform at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, I wouldn’t have recognized him: he’d been out of the public spotlight for a long time—he was now in his mid-sixties, and my visual associations of him were mostly from the Led Zeppelin days. He looked good, though, with his long, curly grey hair tied back in a ponytail and clad in a black leather jacket. I smiled and lifted my beer glass towards him—he winked and I was giddy as a school girl. “You got a wink from Jimmy Page,” said Rob. “How’s that for awesome?” I really had that whole “I’m not worthy” feeling, though: I mean, what did you say to a guy who’d been a hero of yours for more than half your life? When I saw him slowly working his way towards the door, I knew I had to say something: I would never get a chance like this again, and if I didn’t take it, I would regret it forever. I walked up to him and said, “Welcome to China” and instantly felt like the world’s biggest putz. Never mind the fact that he’d obviously been to China before, but that was one of the more tiresome things one got used to hearing in the Middle Kingdom. Nevertheless, he said, “Thanks” and shook my hand. I swore that I would never wash that hand again. “I just wanted to say that Led Zeppelin has been my favourite band for pretty much my entire life, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you personally for all the great music.” “Well, thanks man. I appreciate it,” he said. “It seems like there’s some pretty great music here as well.” “Yeah, yeah! There’s a great music scene here—a lot of good bands playing a diverse range of styles. A lot of it is pretty innovative, actually.” “Well, that’s the way it should be. That’s what we always tried to do.” Rob had a similar conversation and we floated on clouds for the rest of the night: at the end of the day, Jimmy Page turned out to just be a fellow rock and roll fan. That was the coolest thing of all—he was “one of us.” I don’t think that either of us talked to him for more than five minutes, but it was a great moment. Punks on Drugs! Punks on Drugs takes a "clever" concept -- punks and proto-punks performing songs about drugs -- and executes it poorly. One of the problems is there simply aren't that many good punk songs about drugs. The two best songs here, the New York Dolls' "Pills" and the Heartbreakers' "Chinese Rocks," are from old-school, Stonesy proto-punkers and the other worthwhile songs, like the Slits' "New Town," are by arty punkers, who only occupy a fraction of the disc. The rest of the album is dedicated to cult rockers and unknowns, who generally turn in uninspired performances. And, if this wasn't enough, the sound quality is poor and live tracks and rarities are scattered throughout the disc, making Punks on Drugs a record only masochistic, undiscriminating punk fans could tolerate. Climate Denial Crock of the Week. As a recurring actor in the climate debate, Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil has figured prominently in shaping the international conversation over the past decade or so. His close relationship with Vladimir Putin is well known, as is his half trillion dollar plan for Exxon to work with Moscow in moving Russian gas out of the arctic. For that reason, when he was named as Secretary of State, it seemed to a lot of people to be as clear an indicator as any of the close coordination between the Trump White House and the oil-soaked mafia oligarchy ruling Putin’s Petrostate. Still, some held out hope that Tillerson, who is on record as favoring a carbon tax, might be a moderating influence on the climate deniers in Trump’s circle. I had some small hope myself. I think we can discount that hope at this time. Meanwhile, Tillerson’s management of the US State Department, one of Washington’s Crown Jewels of professional knowledge and expertise, has been stunningly inept, if not deliberately destructive. The most charitable interpretation of those actions is incompetence. A darker view is that this is a Putin inspired initiative to deliberately hamstring and cripple the United State’s ability to act in the wider world, and create a power and influence vacuum for the Russians and Chinese to fill. See Rachel Maddow’s take on that below. The Foreign Service, our country’s irreplaceable asset for understanding and interacting with a complex and dangerous world, is facing perhaps its greatest crisis. President Trump’s draconian budget cuts for the State Department and his dismissive attitude toward our diplomats and diplomacy itself threaten to dismantle a great foreign service just when we need it most. The United States is facing an extraordinary set of national security challenges. While we count on our military ultimately to defend the country, our diplomats are with it on front lines and in dangerous places around the world. They are our lead negotiators as we work with our European allies in NATO to contain growing Russian power on the Continent. They are our lead negotiators seeking a peaceful end to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Our diplomats are assembling the coalition of countries in East Asia to counter the irresponsible regime of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. – But we are concerned the Trump administration is weakening the Foreign Service by a series of misguided decisions since taking office. It has proposed a 31 percent budget reduction for the State Department that would cripple its global reach. It has failed to fill the majority of the most senior ambassadorial positions in Washington and overseas. It is on track to take the lowest number of new officers into the service in years. – It has even nominated a former officer with a scant eight years of experience to be the director general of the Foreign Service, the chief of its personnel system. The nonpartisan American Academy of Diplomacy (of which we both are members) advised Congress that this would be “like making a former Army captain the chief of staff of the Army.” As a result, many of our most experienced diplomats are leaving the department. Along with the senior diplomats who were summarily fired by the Trump team early this year, we are witnessing the most significant departure of diplomatic talent in generations. The drop in morale among those who remain behind is obvious to both of us. The number of young Americans who applied to take the Foreign Service officer entry test declined by 33 percent in the past year. This is particularly discouraging and will weaken the service for years. – The recent decision by Mr. Tillerson to downsize the Foreign Service by up to 8 percent of the entire officer corps, however, is particularly dangerous. The Foreign Service, which has about 8,000 officers who do core diplomatic work, is a fraction of the size of the military. The service is already overwhelmed by the growing challenges to the United States on every continent. In our view, Mr. Tillerson has failed to make a convincing case as to why deep cuts will strengthen, rather than weaken, the service, and thus the nation. This is not about belt tightening. It is a deliberate effort to deconstruct the State Department and the Foreign Service. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previously turned down multiple meetings with the department’s chief of security, forcing the chief to invoke the law’s requirement that he is allowed to meet with the top U.S. diplomat, according to The New York Times. The chief, Bill Miller, has since resigned from his position. Former senior officials at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security told the Times that for nine months Tillerson turned down multiple briefing requests, including urgent requests, from Miller. Miller was eventually granted a meeting, according to the report, but only after demanding it in according with the law. The meeting reportedly only lasted five minutes. The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment. Miller announced his resignation from his post in July. The State Department said at the time he did not resign in protest, and was not forced out. The department announced that Christian Schurman, deputy assistant secretary for international programs, would replace Miller. Rex Tillerson just took another stab at winning the contest for Worst Secretary of State in Modern History. The occasion took place Tuesday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where he delivered a speech bubbling over with boilerplate, interesting only for his warnings of Russian aggression and his touting of America’s allies as our most vital strength—both sentiments at odds with those of his president, a sign of his scant influence within the administration. The eyebrow-raisers came during the Q&A session, when he was asked to explain the sharp reductions in the State Department’s budget and the hollowing-out of its diplomatic corps. Tillerson replied that the cuts are “reflective of an expectation that we’re going to have success … in getting these conflicts [around the world] resolved” and, therefore, won’t need to have so many officials dealing with them. This may rank as the silliest comment ever made by a Cabinet secretary. First, as an old saw has it, hope is not a strategy. Merely expecting that you’ll resolve the world’s conflicts is not a valid reason for cutting programs and personnel that are currently needed for managing those conflicts. Second, anyone who thinks that any Americans, much less those on Team Trump, are going to solve this world’s conflicts has no understanding of history or politics and thus no business being anywhere near the State Department, much less running the place. Third, even if his expectation wasn’t a fantasy, there’s no way Tillerson or anyone else could even come close to solving the world’s problems without a functioning State Department and a well-stocked diplomatic corps—those things Tillerson and Trump have eviscerated. Then Tillerson muddled the picture further. After explaining why he slashed the budget and ranks of his department, he denied that he’d done any such thing. Yes, he said, the administration seemed to be requesting a drastic cut in the State Department’s budget (a cut of 31 percent, to be precise), but that’s only because in 2016, President Obama boosted the budget to “a record high” of $55 billion, way above normal levels. Trump, he said, is simply returning to a “sustainable” status quo ante.