Top Ten HK Indie 2010 - Rachel Believes In Me

Here's a band with an album, or at least with an album release party. Nice videos of Waiting and Old Songs. I'm choosing Old Songs, because I really like the double-track vocal. Rachel Believes In Me will also get me out of the house at last - they are on the bill at Fruitpunch's show at Hidden Agenda on 26th December.

Top Ten HK Indie 2010 - Kevin Kaho Tsui

Not much on this blog since last year when I was whingeing about the lack of CDs on Time Out's best of HK indie list(and I still don't get out of the house enough). So I'll have a go myself this year and I'll stick to YouTube and see if I can get to ten.

This is Kevin Kaho Tsui. He came back from university in Manchester (yeah!) last year, he's a big fan of John Lennon, (I guess Dear Florence is a nod to Dear Prudence), and he likes making videos with his iPhone. Highlights of this one: Kevin strumming on a bench in Sha Tin and the girl with the stripy legs.

Kevin does covers too and I love his Telephone, which sent me to Lady Gaga at the Brit Awards. Really, I don't get Lady Gaga, but that performance is something worth watching.

Teabucks

A place worth visiting in Chongqing. Lots of good tea and none of that horrible coffee stuff.

Fong Fong goes bowling

Josephine Siao Fong Fong from 1967 singing a Cantonese version of Where is my heart from Moulin Rouge, transformed into a song about the joys of bowling. The lady beside her was Lydia Shum and the film was shot in the Brunswick Bowling Centre in the basement of Star House TST. Siao Fong Fong made a few English songs in the '60s, and her 2 EPs were the first I came across when I started collecting. This is one of many Fong Fong clips posted by webbinthe6os on Youtube. Great work!

Australia dairy

The Australia Dairy in Parkes Street, Jordan, and this is what all these people are queuing for on a Sunday lunchtime....



Very tasty and the milk and egg puddings are good too, but this is not a place for a leisurely Sunday lunch. The egg on toast arrives within seconds of ordering it and the bill arrives seconds before you finish eating it, quickly followed by the people who are about to take your table. But, of course, that means that the queue moves pretty quickly too.

Cantonese opera in English

Back to the grindstone after a great two-day conference on Asian popular music here in Hong Kong. My paper turned out to be about Cantonese opera as modern popular music in its day, which just made me realize how little I know about Cantonese opera. This is a clip I used at the end - the best part of the presentation by far. The one and only, late, great Sik Kok-sin being modern in a 1947 Hong Kong movie, New White Golden Dragon. Around 3:10 you will hear him speak a little English (translation courtesy of the adventurous hedgehog).

Sit: I am going out, prepare my clothes.
Servant: Which jacket do you want to wear?
Sit: Sportex.
Servant: Which shirt?
Sit: Man-hat-tan.
Servant: Which pairs of shoes?
Sit: Flor-sheim.
Servant: Which hat?
Sit: The light colour Hat-s-man.
Servant: Which cigarette case?
Sit: Ron-son.
Servant: Which kinds of cigarettes?
Sit: Big Capstan.
Servant: Which car?
Sit: Lin-coln.
Servant: Everything is ready, sir.

City Beat

A while back, I mentioned that the likes of Metro - four gwailos singing in Cantonese - haven't been seen in Hong Kong since the days of City Beat. This is City Beat introducing their own video of Tolo Johnny, probably on Fizz Bizz in 1988. Tolo Johnny came out on their first album, which was interesting because side one had five Cantonese songs and side two had the same five songs in English. I believe City Beat never mixed languages in a song, but eventually they released most of their songs in both Cantonese and English versions. The guy you see introducing the video is John Laudon, who is the only one of the four still in Hong Kong, where he still works in the church and the music business. A year or so ago we did an interview with John, where he has a lot of interesting things to say about City Beat and singing in Cantonese.