Mensheng

This is Mensheng (which means disciple in Mandarin), who put out their debut CD last year. Love the cover. Not my kind of music and I don't have the CD. But from the two tracks on their MySpace, I'd say they are pretty good at what they do. Is that what you young people call screamo?

Get your shit together, man!

Chochukmo

Here is Chochukmo, The King Lost His Pink, one of a hundred odd Hong Kong indie CD covers in a new Flickr set. Now, you can't just walk into a shop and buy any Hong Kong indie CD you like, so please tell me what I am missing!

Chochukmo won a Time Out Hong Kong 'we'll make your album' competition and brought out the album at the end of last year. The production is good, which is nice because there's some pretty clever stuff going on in there. Whatever indie means, Chochukmo are definitely indie because they say so on their sleeve notes: 'we're still indie and we'll stay indie'. They also say that nobody forced them to wear anything they didn't enjoy, which I guess explains the cover.

How about A-day? Are they indie? Well, they did have a track on the excellent 3-CD Come Out and Play compilation in 2004. Now they have an album and credits for hairstyling, make up and styling (okay, I'm just jealous). Some nice acoustic tracks, but overall a bit cantopoppy for me. Wish them well!

Top Hong Kong indie track 2009

I am taken task for my last post by Chris B. There were far more indie CDs out in 2009 than the four I bought and I am going to hunt some of them down and post them up here. Meanwhile here's my top track of last year - Mongolia Song, the debut (free!) download only single by Modern Children. Go to their website, download it, watch the 'making of' video (love the bit where the neighbour complains about the drumming in the corridor), and tell your friends.

http://modernchildren.net

Hong Kong indie albums 2009

My favourite Hong Kong indie album for 2009 - My Little Airport's fourth album, Poetics. Something Between Montparnasse and Mongkok. Having said that, there's lots of live music about, but it hasn't been much of a year for those of us who like to listen at home. I think I only bought four CDs all year, which means that compiling the Time Out Best of Hong Kong Indie 2009 podcast couldn't have been that easy. Worth a listen even though half the bands haven't actually put out a CD yet. MLA's Donald Tsang, Please Die! is in there, but I wonder if they couldn't find space for Velvette Vendetta and Ketchup - two acts that did release CDs during the year.

Teresa Teng

In the 1980s, Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng's (Deng Lijun)songs were officially banned in China, but countless pirate cassettes were circulated. The saying went around that Deng Xiaoping ruled China by day, but Deng Lijun ruled by night. It seems that not much has changed. Apple Daily had a recent report on an internet poll asking which cultural icon has had the greatest influence on China since since 1949. 24 million voted and Teresa won with 8.5 million votes. Next came Faye Wong with 7.5 million, and in third place Jay Chou.

Teresa Teng sang in Mandarin and Cantonese, but also recorded songs in English, Japanese, Taiwanese, Indonesian and Vietnamese. The image is from a CD reissue of a selection of English and Japanese songs that originally came out in 1976.

Buying second hand vinyl in Hong Kong

Where would you go to buy second hand vinyl in Hong Kong? Where else but from Paul, who has far more than he can handle. And at last he has a card to show for it. Paul is a great character, speaks English and loves to talk about records. He reckons he has around 200,000 discs, which makes it a little bit difficult to browse. So give him a call, tell him what you want and see what happens. If you read Chinese, you can find more stores on the maps at HC Lee's Vinyl Paradise. But beware! It hasn't been updated for a while and some have closed down.