A teenager from a rural area
He carried a quilt and a guitar
He wanted to live in the city
He sang a sad melody
Autumn of 1998
He wrote such a psalm
The song "The Boy Who Plays the Guitar" created by the new pants is based on Ding Taisheng - in 1997, Ding Taisheng, nicknamed "Black Knife", came to Beijing with a guitar and dreams on his back and ate all kinds of hardships in the north drift. He accidentally broke into the modern sky that was driving in the basement of Garden Village at that time, often without pay, and since then, as the director of planning, he has been involved in the rock circle for 20 years.
The young people in the basement of Garden Village could never have imagined that today's Modern Sky has become China's largest independent music label, with a market value of more than one billion, and it seems that it is not far from the dream of becoming the Chinese version of the industry legend "Viking Records". At The Stranger's Day, Black Knife is known as "Daddy of the Strawberry Music Festival."
The underground music circle used to be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Today, this group of people are in their forties, some have become political and business celebrities, some have become Internet tycoons, and some people are still making music. But the black knife itself has withdrawn from the circle, as a senior observer of the music industry, laughing and angry at the traffic singers on Weibo, the poisonous tongue has not diminished that year.
Talking about the glorious years of the past, he still has a proud face: "Our work has influenced the musical aesthetics of more young people. ”
01
Cause and effect in the underworld,
Those belong to the idealism of 1999
In 1999, the song written by the guitar boy Black Knife was first published by the record company where he worked.
At that time, the central three sets planned a new program called "The Same Song" for the millennium, and in the following decade, it became a TV variety show that accompanied hundreds of millions of Chinese people every Friday night. Chen Zhe, who composed the lyrics of the theme song of the same name, is the originator of mainland pop music, and "Let the World Be Full of Love" and "Loess High Slope" are also from his handwriting. And it was CZ Music, founded by Chen Zhe, that gave the black knife of North Drift his first job.
This year, CZ's studio was at No. 265 Deshengmennei Street, and several high-caliber students from Tsinghua and Beijing Polytechnic often came to play with black knives, they all wrote songs and practiced the piano together, and Chen Zhe published an independent folk song compilation album for them. In this tape called "First Intuition", the two clear and beautiful songs of "Ancient" and "Miss" were widely praised, and the boy who sang it was li Jian.
CZ Music released First Instinct on September 1, 1999
In addition to singing, he also matched a harmony to a song "Two Thousand Five Hundred Years" sung by Black Knife on the album. The song was written by a black knife, and the lyrics used a pioneering essay by Chen Zhe: If there is a change / It is the toilet / The more advanced and more beautiful it is done / The still has to be pulled, Li Jianhe is this sentence.
The whole album is fresh and rustic, and Black Knife describes it as a "lo-fi" record. In another song, "Dove Tears on the Wound", Wang Xiujuan's female voice is like an empty valley Youlan. Years later, she withdrew her real name and formed the "Xiaojuan & Resident Band in the Valley", and a white linen dress on the cover of the album "Red Cloth and Green Flowers" became the standard for female literary youth at that time.
Little Juan & Resident Band in the Valley
One day in 1999, Black Knife was working at the China Record Corporation, and he ran into Li Jian as soon as he went downstairs. Hearing that he was working as an engineer at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television next door, Black Knife was surprised: "It's a pity that you are not a singer." Li Jian replied in the tone of an old cadre that had not changed for many years: "Cough, just go to work first." ”
When the black knife continues to follow the footsteps of the campus folk song and jump to the land record, the land has long ceased to be the golden brilliance of "Campus Folk Song 1". This was the birthplace of the wave of Chinese campus folk songs in the 1990s, bringing together a group of young talents such as Gao Xiaosong, Old Wolf, Ding Wei and Yu Dong, and "You at the Same Table" and "Brother Sleeping on the Top Bunk" recorded the youth of a generation of people dressed in white.
Dadi Records integrated School Folk Songs 1/2/3 and released a compilation album in 2003
After the founder Liu Zhuohui returned to Hong Kong, Dadi Records, which had been silent for several years, released the "2002 Campus Folk Song" album, in which the "Rubik's Cube Group" was two girls who were good at guitar playing and singing. However, after that, the two North Drift girls could not wait for the news of the renewal of their contracts.
Frustrated, they returned to their hometown of Changsha, just in time for the 2004 "Super Girl" registration. In that "Supergirl" without sparks, the "Strings" formed by the two of them were second only to Zhang Hanyun, achieved the fourth best result in the country, signed a contract with Tianyu, and then quickly forgotten together with the same Supergirl.
A few years later, "Strings" changed its name to "Lilac Xiaoxiao" and entered the small fresh market with an album "One Day I Will Come Back", but soon disappeared again. I heard that Xiaoxiao stayed in Beijing, worked in the film and television industry, and retired behind the scenes and stopped singing.
In 2002, the youthful and beautiful "Rubik's Cube Group" was rehearsed on Earth Records
Every defeat in the war between ideals and reality can always easily crush young people who are unwilling to compromise. At that time, the black knife was not mixed well, and he simply left everything to go to Chengdu to rest. He rode a bicycle from Chengdu to Dunhuang and from Dunhuang back to his hometown in Tangshan, but the confusion in his heart increased unabated.
Also in 1999, modern Sky Records, which was not established for a long time, launched four albums under the "BadHead" label, Fly, NO, Chen Dili and Hu Ma. The precursor of this batch of Chinese underground music brought new excitement and impulse to Black Knife. On the album, "Everybody Has a Little Bench, My Don't Bring It into the Twenty-First Century," the maverick Hu Mo plays a whistle, plays an Eosi country tone, and plays a loose guitar. The song was rough and uninhibited, but it was both true and free.
Interestingly, ten years later, on the stage of "Supergirl", the three old friends of Black Knife, Hu Mo and Shen Lihui actually took turns to sit on the judges' bench, and without exception became the target of the attack of Online fans.
In the 2009 "Happy Girl" National Top 20 Competition, judges Shen Lihui and Bao Xiaobai had a disagreement over Zeng Yike's whereabouts, and the latter left the table in anger.
In the spring of 2001, when Vientiane was renewed, many things took a turn for the better.
Li Jian decided to resign from the iron rice bowl of the bank and debuted with Lu Gengshu, the senior of Tsinghua University, as the combination of "Mizuki Nianhua". After co-releasing the two albums "A Lifetime with You" and "The True Biography of Youth", due to the disagreement of musical concepts, Li Jian flew alone, while his college roommate Miao Jie joined the group.
On the other hand, Black Knife also left his hometown and began a second-degree north drift career. He called Shen Lihui and expressed his desire to join the modern sky. Since then, Black Knife has participated in the planning of dozens of albums in Modern Sky, coded hundreds of thousands of words of drafts, and established a foothold in the music circle with a flexible mind and writing.
02
Off stage in 2002,
What kind of life did they live?
At the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards, Wu Yanzu and Shu Qi starred in "Beijing Music and Road", which won five nominations. However, the image of Beijing's "Tree Village" constructed in the film was boycotted by bands and individuals, including Tongue, Pain, Zuo Xiaozu, Hu Ma, etc., who issued the famous "Tree Village Statement": "We believe that what this film brings is another misunderstanding of underground rock by the public." ”
At the end of the 1990s, more than 100 bands were born in Beijing Shucun
At that time, the Beijing rock circle seemed to be divided into two contexts:
One group is the "Tree Village Gang" living outside the North Fifth Ring Road, backed by the Midi Music School, renting a small bungalow of 150 yuan per month, and the money earned from the usual performance can be drunk with a meal; the other group is the "Beijing New Sound" who grew up in the Third Ring Road, listening to British rock and roll playing, shouting "new music, new life" Self-assertion, and fighting against the generation of rockers and roll people of the Tang Dynasty and Magic Rock Sanjie.
Whether from physical or psychological coordinates, the modern sky stationed in a basement of Haidian Garden Village is between the two.
Music critics Ou Ning and Yan Jun's book titled "Beijing New Voice",
It is a rock 'n' roll commemorative album from the late 90s
Back in 1997, Shen Lihui and his friends came up with a bunch of foreign words, written on a note to catch lots, one person caught "modern", the other caught "sky", and the company name was put together.
The first thing to open, Shen Lihui first gave his sober band "Wonderful!? After the album sold 200,000 copies, it then published "Modern Sky 1", "Modern Sky 2" compilation album and personal album for the young newcomers of "Beijing New Sound"; soon after, Modern Sky set up the "Badhead" label and published albums such as Tongue, Trojan Horse, Fly, NO Band and other "Tree Village Gang".
Released in 1999, "Modern Sky 1/2" includes new works by many groups of people and horses such as sobriety, new pants, wheat field watchman, Zhang Qianqian, Long Kuan, and Flower Band
The millions that Shen Lihui earned by opening a printing factory were all thrown into the big pit of the record company, and when the black knife went, Modern Sky often could not pay wages.
Also in 2002, Hang Tian's second album "Cold Water Toppings" held a popular record premiere concert at the CD Coffee Bar. On the stage, he was full of spirits, but offstage, Hangtian and his friend Black Dao lived a not glamorous life: the two brothers rented a basement in the Zhixin community near the North Fourth Ring Road, cooked and ate together, and practiced singing and harmony together.
Hangtian has opened up the root rock blues to a new height, singing the ridicule and compassion of blues music with Chinese, such as the avant-garde ear-catching "Bibi Daddy" in the first album "My Heart is Fried Broad Beans", which began to satirize the "fight daddy" atmosphere early on, which is the sharp observation and expression of young people on society.
Black Knife believes that Hangtian's art is seriously underestimated by the market. After releasing two albums, Hangtian, who saw no hope, faded away and went to the United States with his girlfriend to marry.
HangTian and musicians Jin Dongning (left) and Zhang Yunfeng (right)
In 2002, there was a steaming "River Bar" in Sanlitun in the east, where a large number of folk singers were stationed, while in the west, Modern Sky planned a folk song compilation album. The "Garden Village" compilation album launched by the "BadHead" label includes the latest singles of musicians such as Hangtian, Wan Xiaoli, Xiaohe, Zhou Yunpeng, Hu Ma, and The Cloth Band, recording their days in the Garden Village.
One day, Xie Qiang (Mu Ma), the lead singer of the Trojan Band, came to their basement and played a new song demo for Shen Lihui and Black Knife, who was immediately shocked by his creative talent, and has since given up writing songs, never touching the guitar that came to Beijing.
Garden Village folk song collection album" released by BadHead on October 1, 2004
Doing "Modern Sky" magazine made the company lose millions, and Shen Lihui used the money from the sale of a house in the North Second Ring Road to save the emergency. At his poorest, he still insisted that Modern Sky wanted to be "China's Viking Records" — that he would one day become Richard Branson, make records like Pink floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, build airplanes, get into the communications business, and buy banks.
He once said in an interview: "The world's art is good enough, it makes a lot of money, such as Radiohead is good enough?" enough. Does he make money? Make money of course. ”
Founded in 1973, Virgin Records is a phenomenal independent music label with legendary stars including the Rolling Stones and Phil Collins, and its founder, Richard Branson, has become a legendary billionaire.
A year later, Black Knife left modern sky, and he asked Shen Lihui to promise one thing: "No matter what, this company will not close its doors." Old Shen agreed. On the birthday of the black knife, everyone was eating, and Old Shen suddenly left the table, and it took half an hour to come back, buy back a Swiss Army knife, and give him a gift.
After he left, the company was left with only two people, the boss and the finance. In order not to close the door, they made built-in music for Motorola and also sold color bells.
In addition to Modern Sky, the predecessor of the independent music label In March, the "Network Show", made a fortune by making CRBT, and even got investment from IDG. Founder Lu Zhongqiang is an excellent composer, but he chose to stand in the perspective of the company's operation, and launched a large number of online songs that are very different from his personal aesthetic, such as "I want five million", "Break up when you do it", and Guo Degang's entertainment inventory song "Just Right".
At the 2007 Lijiang Snow Mountain Music Festival, the members of the independent music label "Thirteen Months" (from the left, Su Yang, Wan Xiaoli, Ma Tiao, Xie Tianxiao, Lu Zhongqiang, Xiao Budian, Qu Zihan)
In the era of color bells, the most popular person is the night thousand of the NO band, and the brainwashing ringing song "I make money and make money, I don't know how to spend it" is his masterpiece.
At one point, Ye Qian signed a contract with Earth Records to form the Pisces band with the female violinist Chao Chao. In 1998, after participating in the bass recording of "The Laughing Balcony" in Zuo Xiaozu's first album "The Lost Master", Ye Qian set up his own studio, began to play computer music arrangement and digital recording system, and formed a "Wu Cool" group with friends to create various funny nonsense color bells.
WuKu group, which became the "first day of crembells", appeared on "Xiao Cui Says Things" and "Happy Base Camp", was interviewed by mainstream media such as Beijing News and Sanlian Life Weekly, and made music for TV programs such as "Lucky 52", and singer Sun Yue also sang "Colorful Ringtones To Celebrate the New Year" produced by Wuku on the Spring Evening of CCTV.
Wuku Group has participated in the collection of theme songs for the Beijing Olympic Games
Later, people no longer mention the distant 2002, and this strange circle of people has a new life.
In 2015, the documentary "The Third Pole", which tells the natural and humanistic stories of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, premiered, Hu Mojia served as the executive producer, he and his wife Hu Xiaolu opened a husband and wife shop, filmed a number of super-produced documentaries; in the "Male Left Female Right" program of Beijing Music Radio FM97.4, Ye Qian was a fixed male anchor, and the "Ye Qian's Cold Joke" link was funny and humorous, and attracted many new fans; Hang Tian finally decided to return to China to resume music after studying archaeology and calligraphy in the United States and publishing two academic books Modern Sky also received a Series B round of financing, with a market value of 1.3 billion.
CCTV documentary "The Third Pole" promotional poster
Hangtian signed to Modern Sky again, appeared on the Strawberry Music Festival, and released a new album "Twelve Years Later", but this time the record plan is no longer a black knife. Black Knife became a documentary filmmaker, and when filming the new film "Goodbye Ideal", he was the first to shoot his old friend Hang Tian, with a subtitle called "I Don't Belong to This Era". Referring to the gloomy departure of that year, HangTian said to the camera: "In fact, there is no artist who does not care about the reactions of others. ”
03
A modern sky comparable to a koi,
And it "strawberry" flavor of 2009
Modern Sky is known for signing who is a red koi physique, boss Shen Lihui's vision and luck, looking at the industry no one can match. From "Modern Sky 1" to "Modern Sky 7", the next musical trend can be accurately predicted every time, and new pants, PK14, the right to reshape statues, and Houhai Shark have all become important names in their respective styles.
In 2009, Song Dongye was still unknown to Douban musicians, and Modern Sky signed a contract with him, followed by Ma Wei and Yao Thirteen. A few years later, folk singers ushered in the spring, and "Miss Dong" and "Nanshan South" were sung by everyone. Long before the "China Has Hip Hop" fire, Modern Sky signed the Red Flower Club with PGOne and Xiaobai, and just before the "head" scandal, it terminated the contract with the hip-hop champion who was worth a lot at the time.
At the 2016 Beijing Strawberry Music Festival, Song Dongye and Ma Wei performed on the same stage
But Black Knife remembered very clearly that the old owner had not always been smooth.
2009's "May Day" also had a 7-day holiday, the "Midi Music Festival" attracted the vast majority of rock fans, while the "Modern Sky Music Festival" that chose the "Eleventh" schedule has been losing money, inviting overseas big-name artists not only to pay a high performance fee, but also to torture the black knife responsible for planning and contact: yeah yeahs the band asked for fresh roses, and the Prodigy band (the Prodigy) sent a message including the use of independent speakers and mixers. Backstage preparation of the designated champagne and other hundreds of pages of "holy will".
The first time American band Yeah Yeah Yeahs came to China to perform, he chose the Modern Sky Music Festival in 2007
One day after work, in the row of gutter oil restaurants on Dawang Road, Black Knife and Shen Lihui slapped the table and argued: Black Knife hoped that Modern Sky would make a bigger, all-inclusive music festival, which was not a rock music festival, but a festival that integrated rock, indie, pop and even eating, drinking and having fun; and Shen Lihui firmly disagreed, how can there be two music festivals at the same time in the same city?
A few days later, still at that restaurant, Black Knife called Tao Ran, another senior planner and old colleague of Modern Sky, to be a lobbyist. "The Warring States era of music festivals has come, and if we don't do it now, we won't be able to enter it again." This time, Shen Lihui finally agreed. They began to name the festival, and after various unreliable proposals such as "chili peppers", Tao Ran suddenly popped out two words: strawberry! Almost at the same moment, everyone thought of the name. The "Strawberry Music Festival", which later defined The symbol that defined China's offline music consumption culture, was identified.
This "strawberry" seems to be full of sweetness, it is very spring and very beatles, reminiscent of John Lennon's "strawberry field forever". Black knife pen to write "the spring, the most romantic, the most rock, the sexiest, the most loving" and a series of "most" word copywriting, this is the strawberry music festival original slogan. The lead singer of the right to reshape the statue recommended the venue of Tongzhou Canal Park, and Zhang Chu, Old Wolf, Zhou Yunpeng and others also helped in friendship, and the black knife stood in the spring breeze of Beijing, imagining the infinite possibilities on the big lawn.
Official poster for the inaugural Strawberry Music Festival
However, on the first day of May, only 8,000 or 9,000 people came to the "Strawberry Music Festival", in addition to the main stage with stars such as the Universal Youth Hostel, the Escape Plan, and Wang Ruolin, the love stage and the electronic stage were very deserted. Many fans were scolding, saying that there were too few rock elements at the festival, but that night, Black Knife saw that many people on Douban had posted photos of the Strawberry Music Festival.
With the sound of controversy, the "Strawberry Music Festival" became more and more popular in the following years, and the 110,000-square-meter lawn was finally filled little by little.
The next year, Shen Lihui invited Zeng Yike, who had supported him in the "Fast Girl"; in the third year, he set up a Taiwan stage and invited the highly respected Hu Defu, and Wenqing's favorite Bear Baby and Wei Ruxuan; in the fourth year, Yang Chengang, an Internet singer standing on the heavy stage, won the attention of the audience and the media. In 2014, before the famous sandstorm stopped Maggie Cheung's performance, there were as many as 60,000 to 70,000 people standing in front of the main stage.
On May 3, 2014, Maggie Cheung performed at the Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing
In addition to Beijing, the Strawberry Music Festival has also opened to other first- and second-tier cities, leading the trend of music festivals nationwide. Since then, hundreds of music festivals such as "Zhangbei Music Festival", "Yangtze River Music Festival" and "Simple Life" have sprung up.
Live music also extends from the niche circle to a larger circle, and dinner, watching movies has become a way of life and leisure, according to the "2018 Internet Ecological Consumption Big Data Report", the proportion of post-90s and post-00s in the music festival ticket-buying population has exceeded 90%.
The music festival scene is almost a carnival for young people
Behind the release of the hormones of youth by young people, the entire independent music industry has also been revitalized. Rock people achieve "re-employment" through music festivals, and their music that has persisted for many years is finally heard by more people. The idealism of that multi-billionaire company and the group of people in their forties seems to be able to continue.
This is the last band,
No more music.
This is the last song,
But I didn't want to leave
Last weekend, the new pants concert resounded with the chorus of "The Last Band". Peng Lei ridiculed the passage of time in this way: the new pants established in 1996 can not only see the old fans who chased all the way from the beginning, but also the new fans who were born in 96.
Now, in addition to writing a 10,000-word long letter to his 2-year-old son on Weibo, Black Knife has begun to write songs again. My son always asked him, "Daddy, can I go to your room and listen to your songs?" "If my son grows up and makes music, Black Knife really hopes that his son can help him arrange music." After the joke, he still said that music doesn't matter, "but he must be free." ”
20 years later, the teenagers still play their own guitar.
In this episode, Black Knife talks about the past of the circle
For more excitement, scan the code to listen
vol.191
Anchor/Uncle Lee Boy
Guest/Ding Taisheng
In this episode, Uncle Li and the old friend of the young man, Ding Taisheng, a predecessor of the music industry known as the "black knife" in the jianghu people, visited the park. As the prototype song character of the new pants band "Boy With the Guitar", he came to Beijing in 1997 with guitar and ideals, and successively worked in Chen Zhe Studio, China Singing, Dadi, Modern Sky and other record companies, planning and promoting the records of many outstanding musicians, and deeply participated in and witnessed the creation of the Modern Sky Music Festival and the Strawberry Music Festival. His current identity is that of a father, an observer of the music industry, a creator of music, poetry, screenplays, documentaries and vlogs, after 20 years of roots in Beijing, as a person who does not fit in, insists on pursuing his anachronistic romance.
Song List
01. Li Jian - Ancient
02. Hang Tian - Bibi Daddy
03. Trojan - Love like honey
04. Sound fragments - love songs only
05. Ding Taisheng - I came from the seashore and my body was covered with salt
"Ritan Park" is a fun and informative podcast program that talks about youth culture topics such as film and television, music, animation, travel, and comedy. The winner of the "2016 Apple Official Best Podcast", in 2018, he was recommended by the C bit of Apple's official website, creating industry-leading playback data on the whole network.
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Recording, Editing, Copywriting /Uncle Lee
Design, upload / CriAngel author, editor / fried chicken nuggets
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