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Today is postponed!

Today was meant to be Funk Ska Nation, a show I manifested, planned and curated in the latter part of 2019. I had an awesome line-up and it was going to be an amazing opening show for the Underground’s 16th year. Then it all unraveled yesterday as I got an update that a crucial member of The Red Stripes was ill and they would have to pull out…

In all of these years of The Underground, we’ve only ever rescheduled one show and that was for Ladybeard in 2016 (he got sick and wasn’t permitted to fly to HK!). We have had bands pull out for various reasons in the past and normally we would find another band to replace the unable-to-perform band but in this case, I just could not bear to do it. I have been waiting years for The Red Stripes to match a date with our Underground events, I’ve curated them for other events over the years and as one of our few International acts in HK, I am prepared to wait for them.

Yesterday went quickly, as an alternate date was fixed, deliveries cancelled, postponement news sent out, rescheduling of other bands, etc etc.

I was feeling down overall as I had put in heaps of promotional hours into this show and I had been so looking forward to attending the event for a couple of months. What I did feel grateful for, was the understanding of the venue, the other bands, the alcohol sponsors and the general support & love from family and friends. The event has now been rescheduled to 21st March and sadly JUNK! cannot make that night (now you’ll never ever know what ‘anti-ska’ is!), but we have secured an equally-amazing replacement band for the event, so I’ll be busy working on that now!

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This week I left a band

This week, I left a band that I only joined in September 2019.

The bass player of this band, is new to HK and as a trailing spouse, he has plenty of time on his hands, unlike the rest of us, especially me! He has a concept and it seemed quite cool at first, when he pitched it to me. We had one rehearsal where it sounded possible, musically speaking.

Unfortunately it soon started to feel stressful. For example, he sent tracks from his previous band and asked me to either learn the lyrics (which he didn’t know) or to write new lyrics. First it was three songs and then gradually he sent new songs that he composed and recorded digitally and ask me to write lyrics for them. With some of these new songs, he dictated what the subject of the song should be about….

Then he wrote a band biography for us that simply mentioned “Chris B (Underground HK) as the singer” then detailed six paragraphs about himself. 🙂
Admittedly he has accomplished a lot with his previous band in another country prior to moving here but it’s not feeling like a band, but rather like I’m a singer in his solo music project. I’m not expecting other people to sing my praises, but it doesn’t feel right that he’s expecting me to spend my money, my time and my creativity to develop ‘his band’.

This week, he whatsapped me and asked “if you don’t have enough time for this band, would you start to send me contact details of other female rock singers in HK?” 🙂 🙂

I would so love to sing and play in a guitar again. It could be with Thinking Out Loud or with CHRANG! or with a new band. So fingers crossed!

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Yellow

Early last year, someone in the Hong Kong music scene contacted me to work on a new festival concept with them – their concept is a cool idea and has huge potential to be successful. Unfortunately, I then had to postpone working with them as Mellow Yellow Music Festival was taking up all my time and I didn’t think it was fair to commit to helping and then doing nothing!

Today, I decided to get back in touch, by sharing the summary footage from the Mellow Yellow festival and suggested we could start to work on their festival and use the same location. I immediately got a reply saying “No, I’m not watching. I’m not interested in any colour related to Hong Kong” and then further comments of how it is all ‘sensitive‘ and ‘not the right timing‘.

This of course annoyed me a lot. First it showed they didn’t read a word I wrote, just saw the word “Yellow” and reacted. I wasn’t asking them to be involved in my festival in any way 🙂 🙂 Secondly I don’t personally politicise the colours blue or yellow. What a conundrum it would be for me, if I did! The Underground official colours are yellow and black and I’m well-known for having blue hair!!

I am intrigued to see if the Mellow Yellow sponsors and partners from 2019 will have the same reaction to the word yellow, as I’m very much hoping to host the second edition this year. Watch this space.

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Poster Girl Day

Today, I was in Mong Kok, delivering some posters for Funk Ska Nation (I get the A2 and A3 posters printed there as I get better pricing than at e-print!) and was chatting to the guys who run the various band rehearsal rooms and I wasn’t too surprised to find out that business has been tough for them too.

Here in Hong Kong, since space/land is a premium and almost everyone lives in a flat, no one has a ‘garage’ or ‘basement’ to rehearse in, so many bands and musicians hire a rehearsal room to practice in.

The ones in Mong Kok / Prince Edward are more affordable – around HK$80 to HK$120 per hour (when split four or five ways is dirt cheap) – you eventually get used to squeezing five people into a tiny room and making sure you don’t whack your guitar neck into someone else 🙂 It’s good practice for playing gigs in small venues 🙂

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Starting 2020 with a blog!

At the start of 2019, I made a resolution to not buy any plastic bottles of drink. I failed 5 times. I was thirsty a lot more than 5 times 🙂 Now it’s a habit of mine, to carry a reusable water bottle in my bag. Mission accomplished.

For 2020, I’m starting a blog.
I’ve always wanted to write about things that interest me or annoy me. Sometimes I want to share information that isn’t just a random twitter or facebook post. Let’s see how I do with this year’s resolution. Happy New Year!