Rockit 4.0 – coming your way this October 14-15. Hong Kong’s biggest, and only – and yet totally fabulous - outdoor music festival has cemented its place on the short list of stuff that really blows our minds.
Last year’s festival was dogged by the government’s initial refusal to lease out the venue and commit to a contract. Noise restriction laws also meant frequent breaks between sets and a way-too-low limit on speaker volume. For a city of Hong Kong’s caliber, many wondered what exactly was keeping our music scene so low-key, one-dimensional and just plain deadbeat. So what’s changed this year? And are we any closer to that world-class city everyone keeps talking about?
Sort of. And what little we are has little to do with the Economic and Trade Offices or even those happy-go-lucky fools, the Tourism Board (not that the “Young Office Ladies Booster Campaign” wasn’t cool and all). Thanks to a steadfast group of indie music fans, the local music scene has been quietly evolving. Complaints about an unhealthy scene and the people who can’t be bothered to support it are less relevant. “I see the scene as healthy and on target for what it should be,” says Vivian Yeung of local independent music label 89268. “People know that indie music exists and the existing support is enough to sustain the scene.”
The Scene
With a regular crowd at indie band institutions like the bi-monthly Underground and monthly HK Live!, as well as the dozens of other gigs each month, the scene is both flourishing and stable, a happy combination often overlooked by the average naysayer. “There are also a lot of band show opportunities now for indie musicians,” says Jan Lo of 2005 World Battle of the Bands champions, Qiu Hong. “And there have been a lot more local bands putting out albums in the past year.” EMI product manager Divine Mui notes that many indie bands finally accept that there must be at least some pop element in their music and so we see many different genres of independent bands releasing albums, with good results.
One reason behind this is that new-fangled phenomenon, the internet. Any fool can upload a video of himself strumming air guitar to YouTube, or an MP3 from a stoned evening with Cubase onto his MySpace. And many fools do. Somewhere in the flotsam though, bobs bona fide clips of actual musicality from actual musicians. “Before, bands had to go to formal studios to record, but now technology is so advanced that home studios can create nearly the same quality,” says Yeung. “Then it’s all about releasing and promoting the music on the internet, which helps producers and managers find the bands.”
Although the quality of local talent may be extremely diverse, undeniably raw and in many cases extremely underplayed, what’s admirable is, in Yeung’s words, “their spirit.” “Though the music style can be very boring, I admire the bands’ strength of will in making and releasing music in the face of so many obstacles. It’s not pop music after all,” he says. For example, in comparison to the mainstream record labels propelling artists like Joey Yung and Shawn Yu to stardom, indie labels have only a fraction of the money to spend on releasing and promoting artists and their albums. And yet the bands play on.
“The band scene has become more local,” says Nimal Jayawardena, Rockit organizer and managing partner of Matrix Entertainment Group. “Bands have more purpose in their outlook and there has been this slow realization that we are all in this together,” he says. It’s in this happy cushion of unity, determination, and occasionally competent guitar riffing that Rockit 2006 lands.