Since writing about the (first) Chinese visual kei band Silver Ash (official homepage) more than a year and a month ago, I never did make good on my promise to post part 2 of their Sohu interview. The truth is, I had begun working on it after finishing translating part 1 of the interview. However, I soon become frustrated with the massive! amount of ambiguities in the transcript. Everything from the lack of subject, tense clarity, and context, possibly exacerbated by the online chat interview format, discouraged me and I pretty much abandoned that project.
Recently, my interest in Chinese rock music resurged and I plan to write more about the subject in upcoming posts. By chance, I once again stumbled upon the Silver Ash vocalist Ling's blog. Looks like many things have happened since last October when I first wrote about the band. According to Wikipedia:
It was last heard that they were still without a record label, as well, but were given various offers from Japanese record labels, such as Avex Trax. They were previously signed to Toshiba-EMI, but were released from the contract again due to government problems.
In the most recent news, Silver Ash held a live on August 30th (2006) with Japanese band, La'cryma Christi, particularly to be viewed by the record label SWEET-CHILD.
Their most recent release is the PV for a track named 海的女儿 (pinyin: Hai de nu'er). The title of the track roughly translates into Daughter of the Sea.
In addition, as recently as this September, Silver Ash had performed along with Japan's rice and Gram Maria in Beijing.
Alas, Silver Ash is terribly ill-fated. The departure from their record label in 2004 also marked the end of the band's career pinnacle. Even though the members were forced to leave the band and despite the setbacks and traumas the vocalist Ling faced, he still was able to keep Silver Ash alive after 3 years of unbelievable hardship.
As I began to browse through Ling's blog entries, I was continuously struck by his strength of character, his perseverance. I've come to admire his relentless struggles against one setback after another. No matter how beatdown he may be, he still retains that glimmer of optimism and smiles in the face of adversity.
I decided to translate one of his recent entries and present it here. In this particular post, Ling speaks of his life outlook and talks in detail of how Silver Ash's ascent to success came about. For all of us who face challenges of all forms in our daily lives, here's the take of one musician on his experiences.
The "Tower" tarot card (1) Xiaobai read for me on the train to Sichuan (2) had clearly been taking effect on my life... My entire second half of the year, family, life, and work had all reached their nadir. The traumas took place one after another.
I still insist on not believing in fate; I insist on believing that one can control one's own destiny. So, I told myself that the fate dictated by cards can the changed by one's own determination. But I had forgotten, no matter how hard I fought, I could only influence my own decisions. Sometimes, events and people are outside of your control, but the decisions and choices derived from them have profound impact on your life, your happiness, even your faith in humanity. Now... at the time my life is about to enter the next yearly cycle, I think of three months ago, when things had yet to come to pass. It's with hope, that I think back on the band's history. It's with hope, that I face my future. I now continue to write about that time, when my sole focus was on the band's future... when I was bursting with excitement and creativity for music.
After "Lunar Eclipse Night", the band's collaboration with Youth.cn came to an end. But the biggest change to the band came when our guitarist Nancy made the decision to study abroad in Canada. The band once more reverted to a four-piece ensemble. Losing a guitarist meant that the band, in order to maintain the richness of the sound when performing live, must play some pre-recorded music. For our drummer, this was a big challenge, because he must precisely match his rhythm to the recording. For the longest time, the band's practice solely focused on perfecting this. During this period, I mostly worked with Lucy to tweak the finished songs, though most of the work that went into changing the compositions fell on him. But I, who initially was not familiar of this area, gradually began to acquire the knowledge of whole-piece music composition and verse structure as a result of working on revising the songs.
One day I went online, and received an E-mail....
It was signed "Lu Bo, Scream Records".... (3)
It was the first time a record label had come to us, yet our performances to date only added up to four or five lives total.
I was so excited. Even though at the time I didn't really like Scream Records, I thought that fortune had finally beckoned, its gate was about to swing open for us.
I had already written about our acquaintance with Lu Bo in the blog, so I won't repeat myself here. Anyway, our three-year collaboration with Scream Records formally commenced. From a new-born band, we slowly began our ascent to maturity and style.
When the band first signed, because our operation and style are completely different from the label's other bands, every decision needed discussion with all involved because no one had any previous experience. The first photo shoot was going to be a test run with makeup, but somehow this set that we spent a night shooting became the most widely circulated, most widely recognized photos of the band during its early period. Even now, the most commonly seen photos of the band found online are all from this set. In the end, the first official photo shoot with official costumes wasn't really used, though this set of photos appeared on the band's first single.
Because we never wanted our band to become overly feminized, for that photo shoot, we all had prepared black costumes. But at the shooting session, Lucy insisted on wearing a white gown. Seeing the makeup artist also supporting him, I backed down. In the end, I think it's this "how can they tell if I am he or she" (4) white gown image that first, on a visual level, began to propel Lucy to his later immense popularity.
Soon, we released the "Organum" single which included the band's self-recorded demo. Additionally, the pre-order numbers broke Scream Records's CD retail record. And it was this single that changed the face of China's rock bands' product release structure, for a mere three-track CD with a simple video was able to compete with ten-something-track albums on the record store shelves.
- Ling, Silver Ash
(1) In tarot card reading, the Tower symbolizes destruction and loss.
(2) 四川 (Sichuan) is also spelled Szechuan or Szechwan. It's a province in western China, famous for its spicy cuisine.
(3) 嚎叫唱片 (Scream Records) is a sub-label of Jingwen Records and one of the major
rock, punk and new metal labels. It's the biggest alternative rock
label in China and committed themselves to sign every year several
bands and release at least 10 records (from: Rock in China wiki).
(4) 安能辨我是雌雄 (An neng bian wo shi ci xiong). This is the last line of the "Ode of Mulan". Thanks to Disney, most people have a general idea of the story of the young lady who disguised herself as a man to serve in the army in her father's place. The translation was from The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry, by Hans H. Frankel, Yale University Press, 1976. The full translation can be found here.
Gunning Fog Index 7.24
Flesch Reading Ease 74.15
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 4.69
[this is good]
Oh god. Silver Ash is indeed a wonderful band. I got one of their CDs in Beijing last year after hearing some of their songs and they just blew me away.
It's so sad to see one of China's first visual kei bands struggling like this though. :(
If it weren't for the government, I can totally see them rocking the world. :]
Posted by: Heroin(e) | 11/13/2007 at 05:10 PM
It's strange, I've just reached the level of competency in reading/writing Chinese to begin to truly appreciate Ling's lyrics, and looking back on the whole (what little there is, unfortunately) history of Silver Ash, I can't help but think "if only it they had toned it down a bit more in the beginning," or something of the like that wouldn't have made them such a red flag.
Posted by: binaryrose | 11/13/2007 at 08:03 PM
I don't get why the government wants to crack down on Silver Ash. Surely it's not because of visual kei, for SA is by no means the only visual kei band in China. And Japanese VK bands would not have been allowed to perform in China if that's the case. If it's because of the controversial messages of one or two songs, they're rather innocuous in the grand scheme of things. The party-state has a remarkably wide "zone of indifference". SA should be below its notice.
I'm not convinced that it's entirely the Chinese government's fault. I'd like to just ask Ling to explain why and how exactly they left their label. Though, he'll probably talk about it in his band history overview blog entries... a year from now. >_>
Posted by: Aural Candy | 11/14/2007 at 08:24 AM
I don't get why the government wants to crack down on Silver Ash.
Surely it's not because of visual kei, for SA is by no means the only
visual kei band in China. And Japanese VK bands would not have been
allowed to perform in China if that's the case. If it's because of the
controversial messages of one or two songs, they're rather innocuous in
the grand scheme of things. The party-state has a remarkably wide "zone
of indifference". SA should be below its notice.
I'm not convinced that it's entirely the Chinese government's fault.
I'd like to just ask Ling to explain why and how exactly they left
their label. Though, he'll probably talk about it in his band history
overview blog entries... a year from now. >_>
(Sorry I wrote the exactly same response. I have to run now. ^_^;;)
Posted by: Aural Candy | 11/14/2007 at 08:25 AM