How China’s once-vibrant underground music scene was beaten down, with artists silenced, imprisoned and socially exiled
- Government censorship and police crackdowns have added to the virus and rising rents, decimating China’s underground music scene. There may be no way back
Like Beijing itself, Dusk Dawn Club – DDC to the locals who stumbled out at all hours – blended centuries of history into a neon blur. Located in the city centre’s trendy Gulou district, down one of its many winding, sparsely lit stone alleys, the club was housed in a traditional courtyard adorned with swinging paper lanterns and floridly carved wood eaves. Rock bands thrashed and flailed in a converted living room as fans spilled out onto the patio, jostling for a view through crooked window panes.
I visited Dusk Dawn Club on a warm spring night in 2019; Xiao Wang, a local riot grrrl band, headlined. Lead singer Yu Yang howled her indignation in Mandarin, eyes obscured beneath a serrated fringe, clawing at the coiled tiger on her tank top. The audience lunged toward her, amber bottles skittering like pinballs between their feet.
Today, Dusk Dawn Club is closed – one of many beloved small clubs to shut down lately, another silent shrine to a once-vibrant scene. In the short, embattled history of indie rock in China, its community has always been resilient. Its musicians have been imprisoned, silenced and socially exiled: forced from their homes, rejected by their families.
In a time of unprecedented prosperity and growth in China, the challenges to this scene may crush so much of what makes it extraordinary. And while disappointed fans might point to the pandemic that began 1,150km (715 miles) south, in Wuhan, that has only been one threat among many. Add a virus to rising rents, gentrification, government censorship and a series of well-choreographed police crackdowns and there may be no cure for what is happening to the Beijing rock underground.
Liu did not set out to sing about censorship and the police in China – and most of the time, he did not. New love, nights out with friends and other youthful tropes comprised most of the lyrics he wrote for his band. The handful of lines that could be interpreted as protesting the government or questioning authority were not intentional, he insists. I ask if he thinks those lyrics – and the excitement that they generated in the Chinese indie-rock community – played any factor in his imprisonment.