Text | Li Chun
One
In the summer of 2016, Song Yuzhe performed in the south and felt that her hair was heavy and hot. Second, in order to prevent getting sick, he used to take a cold bath every morning, and his hair became troublesome. He simply shaved his hair, which had been left for three years, and returned to his twenty-year-old appearance in Tree Village. The bun on the top of the head was replaced by a straw hat.
People who have seen Song Yuzhe's performance feel that this person is not ordinary. Mei Qingmu Xiu is the appearance of the ancients, and it will only exist after cultivation. Wearing a Chinese-style gown, his hair is tied into a bun, his body is very straight, and he carries a eight-immortal banjo, which is a piano made by himself. It's not about the city songs, like from Xinjiang, Tibet, or Central Asia. The name of the band is also very strange, "Big Forget Bar", and no one knows what it means. In fact, he didn't know that he had heard it from his grandfather. In his later years, Grandpa often grabbed his shoulder and shook it and said, "Dawanggang, dawanggang", with a strange expression. He remembered, like a spell imprinted on his mind. He translated the mantra as "The Great Forgotten Bar," "A Big Bar That Was Forgotten." He felt that the word had a deep meaning.
Founded in 2009, The Great Forgetful Bar belongs to World Music. Some of the band members are from Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, as well as Belgium and Greece. In Europe, the Big Forgetful bar received high praise, winning awards in Germany and Austria for being "fascinating, powerful, and completely contemporary". The BBC has also reported that it "breaks down the boundaries of music and culture" and is a "band of folk music, opera and rock'n' roll".
When signing a contract with a German world music label, Song Yuzhe's resume read: "In 1998, Song Yuzhe formed Mutui melon. In the dramatic framework, a strange style unique to the wooden melon is formed, and it is difficult to name it with any of the existing styles. ”
Once Katui Melon was a rock band. In 2002, the band disbanded, leaving three songs behind. Most people know that Song Yuzhe is the lead singer of a rock band, but they have never really seen him perform. Not even his wife.
From the outsider's point of view, Song Yuzhe has some mysterious feelings.
In 2015, The Great Forgetful Bar performed in Hangzhou.
In 2017, Song Yuzhe demolished a house in Xiayuan Village, Beijing.
Two
Song Yuzhe is a native of Changchun, and he left home before finishing high school. The rigid education system made him feel depressed. In 1997, he borrowed a thousand yuan from a classmate and went to Beijing to do rock music. At the train station, he was caught by his father. His father was the librarian of the Changchun Party School, and he often wore a tweed suit and prepared to beat him violently. Song Yuzhe said, "You take me back, unless it is tied to the heating pipe, otherwise I will leave." The father took out two hundred yuan and said, "Take it first, I will help you pay back the money you owe, I was not ready to let you go." "The father-son relationship suddenly reconciled. He took the money and walked through the green iron railing at the entrance, not daring to look back.
I met a few musical friends in Beijing, heard about the midi school enrollment, and began two-year teaching. He signed up for guitar classes and lived in Tree Village, not far from the school. He and three friends rented a yard with four rooms and a tree. They set up a stove under the tree and cooked over a fire. Eat very plainly, often eating winter melon and cabbage. The monthly rent is $150.
In the classroom, the teacher teaches heavy metal, jazz, and blues, and he doesn't like anything but bruce. After school, he sells singing in the underground passage or selling mouthbands in Haidian Book City, and listens to a lot of music. He was also not willing to imitate Western bands. He dropped out of school six months later. Musically, he was ambitious.
He had his own band called "Mutui Melon", a sign he misread on the street. In addition to him, the band members also have a drummer from Tianjin. They rehearsed the first song, "Boom boom." The performance of Mutui melon gives people the first feeling of being strange. Weird and powerful. Compared with the catchy music that can jump to the rhythm, the wooden tui melon adds a lot of pauses and switches to the song, sometimes suddenly slowing down, then speeding up, slowing down, and then speeding up. The lyrics are also strange, like the best possible irony, "Our goodness is the pride of the gardener, from the fact that we are still young, shivering, as soon as we think, God will laugh, the rainstorm will come, and it will be full of joy", "We are fresh like buds, education rots to the nose, we ignorantly rape you, and the result is that crying has no power". The voice is sharp, squeezing the eyebrows and gritting the teeth, at first hearing, it will make people shudder, physically and mentally nervous.
Song Yuzhe sang, his voice trembling, like a steaming white vapor spewing out of his mouth. Once, while singing, he couldn't help but fall backwards and fell to the ground, and the audience had to go on stage to help him up. "I was tired of rock 'n' roll at the time, it was always like that, it was the same, people were just learning a certain style." He said. He wants to rebel against it, to mock it, not only to mock others, but also to himself.
In 1998, the papaya began to take shape. Drummer Li Dan is from Xinjiang and is also the drummer of the Tongue Band; bassist Chen Chuangyuan, they call him "Ah Yuan", Ah Yuan is from Hainan, who has seen Song Yuzhe's performance in Changchun and is deeply shocked; guitarist Zhang Fangze, from Guizhou, was introduced by the bass player of the tongue. Before, they couldn't find the right guitarist. Song Yuzhe's songs, do not take the routine, love to write complicated, the requirements for musicians are higher. Someone came in the morning to try it, but didn't come again in the afternoon, "Your song is too difficult, I can't finish it." Later, keyboardist Wang Peng also joined, he is from Sichuan. Years later, Mutui gua reorganized, except for Wang Peng, it is still these four people, who have not changed others, and it is difficult for others to be competent.
Around 2000, many rock musicians lived in Tree Village. Tree Village in Haidian, similar to the current urban village, but the house is cheap, attracting a lot of young people from other places. Tongues, painful beliefs, ruins, Zuo Xiaozu mantra, wooden push melon, Zhou Yunpeng also lived there for a year. There is a rock restaurant at the entrance of the village, crossing a road, the view gradually broadens, counting into the village, you can smell the music. Group living was forced by life, and the venues for performances were limited, and they were all platters, which was a feature of underground performances at that time. The new band didn't accumulate enough songs and enough fame to sell them tied together. This way each band gets very little money.
Even in tree villages, mutui melons are a different kind. The lead singer of The Beautiful Drugstore, Xiaohe, heard The Wooden Tui melon for the first time, "Bel Canto Howl", and Xiaohe said, "It's so weird". He loves the band and often plays with mucushi melons. The rehearsal room of Mutui melon is also in The Tree Village, with thick soundproof quilts on the walls, and the band's most valuable things, guitars and speakers, are stored in the rehearsal room. "A few young men with bare arms, shivering!"
In 2000, Mutui melon was in Tree Village. From left to right, Li Dan, Chen Chuangyuan, Song Yuzhe, Zhang Fangze.
In 2000, Mutui melon was in Tree Village.
In 2000, Mutui melon was in Tree Village. From left to right, Zhang Fangze, Song Yuzhe, Li Dan.
Three
Around 2000, Happy Land was the largest underground performance venue in Beijing, accommodating a capacity of 1,000 people. The place is special, situated in an ice rink. During the day for people to skate, at night punk, dirty braids, tattoos, all kinds of people flocked to become a real paradise. The road to paradise is also like an adventure. Migrant workers sang at the intersection and went deeper, and prostitutes solicited customers on the street. Under the dim street lights, perhaps they have also attracted hot-headed rock and roll youth.
The owner of Happy Paradise is called NanJie, who is a veteran. Nan Jie has a bold personality, selling large bottles of Yanjing that are not sold in other bars, a bottle of five yuan, and often serving free beer for the bands that come to perform. A lot of people can get very drunk.
In the summer of 2001, HappyLand hosted a grand performance. The band involved in the show had painful faiths, tongues, ruins, a wonderful drugstore and a papaya.
Before the performance, Song Yuzhe drank most of the bottle of two pots. He had been drinking heavily for some time, so much so that he couldn't perform without drinking. Before going on stage, he and a painter friend Zhu Jingtong said, "When you come up, I will bring you the belt, you pump me hard, I don't feel any pain anymore." ”
The show begins. Zhu Jingtong sat in the first row near the monitor speakers. He was a strong man of one meter and nine meters, wearing a pair of glasses, and kept staring up at Song Yuzhe. Probably also drank wine. Song Yuzhe also looked at him. Singing "The Birth of Tragedy", Zhu Jingtong suddenly came on stage, took Song Yuzhe's belt, and began to beat him. The brass buckle of the belt was thrown to the root behind Song Yuzhe's ear, and the whip saw blood. The belt didn't stop, and neither did the music. He felt pain like a compressed voice, could feel part of it and the other part being sucked away. Until Ah Yuan jumped up and kicked the painter, the audience rushed to the stage and twisted. The scene was completely out of control.
"I thought okay, let it erupt on the stage tonight, let the blood splash out, if I lose my life, I won't care." Song Yuzhe said. This matter was often mentioned later, becoming a "stain on his life".
The painter who whipped him died of illness in 2017. Song Yuzhe sent him off and saw the remains of his friend in the coffin. He remembered that night, a pair of eyes behind the lenses, "a little psychedelic, a little determined, and a tacit understanding that exists outside the language of the same kind, a lot of things in it." ”
From 2001 to 2002, Song Yuzhe's alcoholism became more and more serious. From afternoon to evening. The only small period of waking up was the brief time after waking up in the morning. Late at night, he often sneaks alone to the dump behind tree village. The junkyard is like a maze, and he is unconscious in the maze until his friends turn on flashlights to find him. Once, drummer Li Dan rode a bicycle for an hour in a sandstorm and went from his home in Houying to The Tree Village to find Song Yuzhe for rehearsals. The allotted rehearsal time is nine o'clock in the morning. Song Yuzhe was still drunk, and Li Dan did not wake him up for a long time, and rode back angrily.
In the tree village at that time, drinking was the norm. The young man was filled with anger. This sentiment is realistic and hopeless. For example, there is no temporary residence permit, and there is a danger of custody and repatriation at any time. And economically, these bands only spread word of mouth within small circles. Rock 'n' roll doesn't bring money and sexual freedom, and it can't change the world. He liked and loathed Tree Village, and he felt that it was both utopia and hell.
Song Yuzhe had a premonition that a life was coming to an end. "I was with other people at the time, every day in pain, in despair, and sometimes I was an extreme person." He had to get out of here or he would go crazy. He wants to make the world fairer through music, but doesn't seem to be able to do anything other than drink, drink every day, and fall in love. "Mentally, I have rebellion and distrust of rock 'n' roll, my heroic plot, there's a layer of anti-heroism in it, and I wonder if there's another way out?" I ended up walking. ”
In 2002, he sold all his belongings. With five thousand yuan, he took a Tibetan pilgrimage bus to Lhasa. The guitar was lost at his parents' house. He decided never to touch the guitar again.
Over the next five years, he almost disappeared from Beijing.
Four
What to do when you go to Tibet?
He was aimless. The first stop was Lhasa, where he drank all his money because he liked to drink whiskey. Fifty dollars left. He decided to go to one of the most remote places and came to Ali. The shuttle bus carrying Tibetan antelopes arrived three or four days later. In the car, he met a security guard at a local casino and a doctor.
In addition to the security guard and doctor, he also knew a police officer. The police took good care of him and helped him from time to time. He earned money by selling singing, and for ten dollars he could buy a box of cigarettes, a bottle of wine, and a few steamed buns. Ali's price is very expensive, an egg is a dollar, and he has not eaten peanut rice and eggs for a long time.
Ali is another world. Casinos and brothels are a variety of them, one after the other. Through them are northeasterners, officials, doctors, living Buddhas, painters, and all parties. There is also a Song Yuzhe.
It's winter. He was still often drunk, his bad habits did not change, and when he was drunk, he ran to a deserted place. He ran into the mountains and came across a few wild dogs, which ate people, but he was not afraid at all. He picked up one of the white dogs, which looked weak and probably frozen, and he thought he could take it in. He walked down the street with the dog in his arms and encountered a local gang fight, and one group of people chased after another group with knives. He sat quietly with the dog for a while in the midst of a slash.
The next day, the dog died.
He left Ali, went to Xinjiang, turned around, returned to Lhasa, and then turned back to Ali. I have sat in all kinds of cars, ordinary sleeper shuttles, trucks pulling goods, and cars carrying large boxes. He lay on it, and snow fell on him. He was chased by seventy or eighty wild dogs, and found that the wild dogs had split into two racks, and he hid under the adobe. On a rainy day, he slept in a tent with water on the ground, but he was so sleepy that he woke up with his lower body submerged in the water. Then his knee was broken and he had arthritis.
He had no interest in rock 'n' roll. But music has always been an important part of his life. Every time he went to a place, he asked them what the local folk songs looked like, visited the people who sang, lived with those people for a while, and listened to them sing and play instruments. He became interested in nature, the universe, religion, and man's relationship to it. The land of the northwestern Guangliao opened him up.
Sometimes, he lived in a temple. He had always been interested in Taoism and visited his master. Many of the decisions made later, he said, had to do with the opening of the matter. But he did not want to mention it again, saying that he was afraid of "leaking the opportunity." What happened in the middle, perhaps only he himself knew.
Sometimes, he would return to Beijing, contact a friend or two, stay at a friend's house, and then leave. He met a German girl, Patrizia, who became his current wife.
In 2008, Song Yuzhe began to prepare for the Big Forgetfulness Bar, hoping to express the gains from several years of travel in a new way. It is home to musicians from all over the world, playing ancient tunes on a variety of instruments such as banjo, horsehead, mouth strings, guitars, guqins, etc. The content is related to mythology, nature, and animals.
In the album "Wild Cavity Walking Board", Song Yuzhe elaborated on the ideal musical form in his heart, a kind of music before the "Jedi Heavenly Pass". "A long time ago, the unity of man and heaven was also a mixture of people and gods, so some people came out to set up a religion, including saints and great hypocrites... A big thing has happened in China, the historical official has defeated the witch official, and has created a layer of spiritual official monopoly, and the human world is completely divided, which is what history calls the Jedi Heavenly Pass." "The Absurd Passage is an instinctive reaction of people with a desire for freedom to the Jedi Heavenly Pass." He wrote, "Man may communicate with heaven and earth without hindrance. ”
The performance of the Big Forgetful Bar is amazing. His voice changed. The sharpness of that metallic texture was thick, even round. The movement is slow-paced, but still complex. Sometimes he closed his eyes and whispered, as if gliding at a low altitude, a little dangerous to fall, and a little leisurely. Some people say that Song Yuzhe has a fairy spirit.
He also wrote other songs that expressed rustic emotions in simple sentences and tunes. Something about love. "I ran outside to learn songs, saved some sentences, tunes, and when the meaning came, I didn't want to be too extravagant, I called them 'broken songs'." He dedicated these songs to his wife.
Song Yuzhe in Kailash. Photography: Full gram.
Song Yuzhe was in Qintun, Beijing.
The European version of the great forgetful bar in France, the Atlantic Ocean in winter. From left to right: Achilleas Sourlas, Quentin Manfroy, Song Yuzhe, Masaya Hijikata.
Five
In the fall of 2015, I met Song Yuzhe for the first time in Xiayuan Village, Beijing. He was wearing a washed T-shirt and trousers, and his hair was tied up and clumped above his head. Like a Taoist, but not quite. I was writing an article about the creek at the time. At that time, Mutui Melon, Good Pharmacy and Ruins were brother bands that jointly produced a record of "Insulted Poses". The three bands often meet to discuss what kind of rock music should be done in China? The result of the discussion is that "we must make non-European And American Chinese independent music." it is the Chinese version of Indie Rock.
In 2007, Song Yuzhe and Xiaohe teamed up with the "Two Adults" band to try to deal with folk opera, ballads and fables in a contemporary way, simply put, "New Folk Music". They lived in the Ming Tombs Reservoir for a week, rehearsing in closed style, but not efficiently. One is to drink all day, and the other is that the two have their own opinions and often quarrel. Only two songs were discharged — "Talking Birds" and "Talking Tents." At that time, Song Yuzhe found a new instrument. An improved banjo. Before, he couldn't find the right instrument, but now that he has the piano, "it's like finding a musical lover", he wants to make music again.
I asked Song Yuzhe, will you still go back to rock 'n' roll? He was noncommittal, saying that maybe one day, but not pure anger and despair, "would be more powerful." ”
Li Dan, the drummer of Mutui melon, once played drums for the performances of Tongue, Hang Gai, Wan Xiaoli, Ma Tiao, Old Wolf and others. In 2001, Mutui Gua recorded a scene in the base bar in Shenzhen, and those songs Li Dan have been preserved and often taken out to listen. Every time I listen to him, I feel, "So awesome, I should continue to let more people hear." ”
At the end of 2014, Li Dan also became a drummer of the Great Forgetful Bar. At the end of 2015, he and Song Yuzhe had a phone call. Song Yuzhe said, "I'm ready to sing." Next, they contacted the guitarist and bass player, respectively, and the two already had their own careers and families. But soon agreed to come back and reorganize the wooden push melon.
In June 2016, the news of The reshuffle spread and the album "The Birth of Tragedy" was released at the same time, touring Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. The rehearsal for this album was very relaxed and they were familiar with the songs. These songs were all written fifteen years ago, but they have not had the opportunity to be published. Later, it was reported that "the most disturbing voice of Chinese rock has returned." ”
Six
Over the next two years, Song wrote more than thirty rock songs spanning the past, present and future, which he called the "Secret History of the Living." He produced these songs in Berlin and Edinburgh and then returned to Beijing to record,
In 2012, he moved to Berlin, where the family sometimes lived in his studio, an art district converted from the former East Destasi building. The kids were right at the door playing with the children of other artists. Every two or three months, he returned to Beijing for a while and then back to Berlin. In his village of Changping, Beijing, he rented a yard and built a simple slide for the children, and half a cart of sand was laid under the slide so that they would not fall. Next to the slide is his studio. Inside there were keyboards, Nguyen, guqin, banjo and some dismantled drum kits. There is a Kang table on the right hand side of the entrance, and sometimes he sits cross-legged on the Kang, drinking tea and reading a book. Occasional smoking.
When he first arrived in Berlin, Song Yuzhe thought that he would either continue to work in the band to see if there was a chance to perform, or change jobs and not rely on music to make a living, and he would not be very miserable. Berlin is cheap and looks like an artist's paradise, but there are very few opportunities to actually offer performances, because it is full of artists, but it is difficult to survive.
Later, he resumed making music and preparing for the Big Forgettable. The Big Forget bar is a musical form he has never tried before. His wife gave him full support, telling him it was the right direction. He met jaro, a well-known German world music label, in Berlin, and once met to confirm the signing. Subsequently, Song Yuzhe began to perform at many large European music festivals. The Big Forgetful Bar provides a refreshing way of looking at the world, and in the scene, Song Yuzhe's voice is so infectious. He said the big forgetfulness made him feel calm, "even though there are painful passages that sound painful, but my heart doesn't have them." ”
Life in Europe changed him. He was more concerned about society than before. In Edinburgh, Song Yuzhe met a couple who sang and played the flute, and they got together to talk about socially related topics. Every time they meet, they ask each other, "Did you save the world today?" "When he was young he hated rock 'n' roll, hated its immutable nature, he was just learning the old style. Now, he thinks rock 'n' roll differs from other music in that "it's related to social thought, like a bird and a wind." ”
He re-rolled out rock music he hadn't listened to in years, read professionally arranged books, bought a bunch of effects, and joked that he was ready to make "Rock Star." To produce these songs, he traveled extensively in Beijing, Berlin and Edinburgh, sometimes simply in search of an organ from the 1950s. During this time, he had children, and the travel of different places brought a burden to him and his family. Rock 'n' roll is like a quagmire in which he rolls, struggles, and fights with trapped beasts.
"When you go back to the city, stay in society, including how do I survive in Germany, and think about raising children, it drives me to grab rock and roll things." He said, "I want my children's times to be a little bit better than mine, which is a very simple emotion as a father." ”
In 2016, Song Yuzhe's son was born. He named him Tiangen from Zhuangzi. He also has a five-year-old daughter, Yeshe, who is usually called Lulu. Lulu was like an angel when he fell asleep.
On May 1, 2018, the Shanghai Strawberry Music Festival, Mutui melon performance, the guest was Zhou Yunpeng. A few days ago, Song Yuzhe sent Zhou Yunpeng two new songs, one of which was called "People Hold the Imagination", which he was going to use to name the new album. Six pages of lyrics, quoting Lu Xun, Cicero, William. Burroughs, Kipling, Dante and Thomas Mann. Zhou Yunpeng said, "King Kong is furious, fierce enough!" ”
Song Yuzhe and Zhou Yunpeng recited excerpts from the lyrics on stage. After the recitation, Song Yuzhe said: "We are wooden melons, we do this kind of rock music." ”
Song Yuzhe said that rock 'n' roll is like taking care of the family and helping friends around him. One of the Taoist figures he admired was Lan Caihe. Lan Cai and the arrogant are proud and ridicule the powerful. Later, he became a fairy and sang in the street all day long. This is the character of a Taoist figure — although reclusive, he still has the ambition to support the world. Once, Lan Caihe was in the human world looking for wine, singing: "Dry Zen sits without waves, and sings to the human world again." ”
In June 2016, The Wooden Melon was reorganized.
In 2017, Mutui Melon produced a new album.
Song Yuzhe and daughter LuLu.
Song Yuzhe in Nanshan, Tibet. Photo: Liao Weitang.
—— End ——
The inscription shows the big forgetful bar performing in Lijiang. All images were provided by the interviewee.