At the beginning of the 1990s, there was a saying of three major rock bands in China, and among the three major rock bands, the "Tang Dynasty" band and the "Black Panther" band knew the most. The other has a weaker influence, but it is also an inextricable imprint of the early history of Chinese rock music.
This band is "Breathe".
Why are "Tang Dynasty", "Black Panther" and "Breathing" called China's three major rock bands? It's actually quite simple. Because by the end of 1992, it was also the only three bands in China that had released a complete studio album. The names of the first albums of these three bands are also very interesting, namely "Tang Dynasty", "Black Panther" and "Breathe".
Almost every time the story of the "Breath" band will start from Wei Hua, the former was once the first female lead singer of Chinese rock, and the latter's "overload" band also opened an era of Chinese genre metal music.
Since everyone has to cut in from Wei Hua and Gao Qi, I am not partial. So, about the story of the "Breath" band, this time I want to start with another person, this person, that is, Cao Jun.
Cao Jun is one of the creators of the band Breathe, as well as one of the band's guitarists and creators. Cao Jun's musical path is mainly influenced by two aspects.
On the one hand, he was studying at Jinan University at that time, because Guangzhou is close to Hong Kong, China, and there are more foreign students, so he came into contact with the works of European and American rock musicians such as Paul Simon, Rod Stewart, The Beatles, etc., and thus fell in love with rock music.
On the other hand, Cao Jun's older brother, Cao Ping, is himself the first guitarist in the Beijing rock circle to engage in guitar teaching. At that time, Cao Ping also formed bands such as "Da Da Da" and "Time" together with Wu Yuntao, the drummer of the later "Tang Dynasty" band and the bassist of the "Red Army".
The influence of the two aspects made Cao Jun, who chose to major in finance and accounting in the university and worked as a teacher at the silk import and export company's accounting and tourism service school after graduation, finally resolutely gave up his normal job and embarked on the road of rock and roll.
The Cao brothers established their reputation with technology in the Beijing rock circle in the mid-1980s, and even Cui Jian admired their brothers very much, saying, "You two have given us to the town." That's a great thing, that's real rock 'n' roll" comment.
In addition to leaving a name for the band "Breathe", Cao Jun later became a very famous professional musician. Of the three albums of "Magic Rock Three Masters", Cao Jun played two albums alone. They are Zhang Chu's "Lonely People Are Shameful" and Dou Wei's "Black Dream".
Dou Wei's "Black Dream" album should actually be the album of the "Dream" band. The earliest "Dreaming" bands, including lead singer Dou Wei, guitar Wu Ke, bass Chen Jin, keyboard Bai Fanglin and drummer Yu Weimin, were later replaced by Zhao Muyang.
Later, because "Bo Li Jiayin" only promised to sign Dou Wei personally, it also caused the "Dream" band to disband, and although Wu Ke and Chen Jin still wanted to participate in the recording of the "Black Dream" album later, they quit the recording lineup because they did not talk about cooperation with Zhang Peiren. In the end, Hu Xiaohai replaced Chen Jin, and the original guitarist Wu Ke was replaced by Cao Jun.
"Black Dreams" is an album that combines post-Punk, Hard Rock, Reggae and other diverse musical genres, in which Cao Jun also shows the versatility and balance of his technique. Another Zhang Chu's "Lonely People Are Shameful", Cao Jun uses the box piano more, expressing in the way of folk rock, which is also simple but not simple.
At the same time, Cao Jun is also the guitarist of Zhang Chu's band at the "Rock Chinese Music Force" Hong Kong Hung Hom concert. There is a detail that was not later included in the official video, that is, when Zhang Chu sang "Heaven blesses the people who have finished eating", when he first played the sweeping string, Cao Jun broke the string, so he later changed the guitar and started again. This is also the origin of the later video, before singing this song, Zhang Chuchao asked Cao Jun, "Okay", and then said "Come".
In addition, most of the guitars on later Yu Dong's "Open Air Cinema" and Lao Wolf's "Love wind and dust" were also guitars played by Cao Jun.
What makes me particularly impressed is that in the old wolf's "Love Wind and Dust" album, the song "Beauty" composed by Gao Feng, Cao Du accompanied this song with a flamenco guitar, in the domestic music circle at that time, it can be said that it was a rare attempt, and few musicians can play this style, which also shows Cao Jun's talent in guitar performance.
We're going back to The Breath.
Breathing was formed in 1988.
At that time, Cao Jun was also the guitarist of the "Mayday" band. Don't get me wrong, this is not the "Mayday" band in Taiwan, but the "Mayday" band from Beijing, which was formed in 1987.
The band was later also known as the lead vocal band, as members of the band, He Yong and Zhang Ling, both released solo albums. The former is one of the "Three Masters of Magic Rock", and the latter is known to more people because of his participation in "Good Songs of China".
In addition, Jiang Wenhua of this "Mayday" band later formed bands such as "Self-Education" and "New Truth", and Qin Yong succeeded Luanshu as the lead singer of the "Black Panther" band. As for the history of Cao Jun's lead singer, I will talk about it later.
To sum up, the "Mayday" band is a band that trains the lead singer, and if you don't want to be the lead singer, you don't deserve to join the "Mayday" band, or so it is.
One day in 1988, gao qi, who was only 20 years old at the time, because he had already written some songs, he found Cao Jun, the guitarist of the "Mayday" band, and proposed the idea of forming a band together.
After that, the two found Wu Yuntao, the bassist of the original "Da Da Da", Liu Xiaosong, who had just returned from Spain, and Zou Shidong, a keyboard player recommended by Liang Heping, to assemble the lineup of the "Breath" band for the first time at the end of December 1988.
And Leung Heping, it was at the "Chinese Rock And Roll Force" Hong Kong Hung Hom concert that He Yong introduced the keyboardist and tape producer when he introduced the band. He Yong's only album so far, "Junkyard", was produced by Liang Heping.
In early 1989, the band "Breathe" participated in its first performance at the Beijing Qingyi Small Theater, and the lead singer at that time was Gao Qi. Not long after, Wei Hua, the host of CCTV International Channel at the time, joined the band as the lead singer. Wei Hua, formerly known as Wang Weihua, was called Wei Hua in the CCTV period.
In April 1989, the "Breath" band performed in "Maxim", which at that time was not only an important social venue in Beijing's rock and art circles, but also one of the few rock live performance venues.
The performance of the "Breath" band has been replaced by the lead singer of Wei Hua, and there was a VIP at the scene of "Maxim" at that time. This VIP is Zhang Aijia.
It was precisely because of this performance that the top management of "Rolling Stone Records" who was on the scene at the time decided to sign the "Breath" band (which had been in the negotiation stage before), and the "Mantra Society" was responsible for the rehearsal, performance and recording of the band.
At that time, "Shingon Society" was also a rock label under "Rolling Stone Records", and singers such as Lin Qiang and Wu Bai were all signed under this label at the earliest. Before the establishment of the "Chinese Fire", the "Shingon Society" Chinese mainland actually undertook the task of the later "Chinese Fire".
However, after the mid-1990s, due to the internal reorganization of "Rolling Stone Records", "China Fire" and "Shingon Society" were also merged into "Magic Rock Records".
Around the same time, the ADO band that signed with "Shingon Society" many times, and they later released their only album "I Can't Say Casually" in "Shingon Society".
Compared with the subsequent signing of "Black Panther" to Hong Kong Kinn's in 1991 (the contract was transferred to 'Rolling Stone Records' more than a year later), the "Tang Dynasty" band signed "Magic Rock Records" (then a label of "Rolling Stone Records"), "Breathe" and ADO Band actually set an earlier Chinese mainland rock band to sign an overseas company.
However, the later development of the "Breath" band did not have the smooth development of the "Black Panther" band and the "Tang Dynasty" band, which is more or less related to the execution of the later contract.
After the Rolling Stones signed the "Breath" band, they not only provided them with more than ten thousand yuan of equipment, but also paid the entire band a monthly salary of two thousand yuan. This kind of equipment investment and salary income made the "Breath" band become a local tycoon in beijing's rock circle overnight.
But later, the band "Breath" did not record a single piece of work, and they terminated the contract with "Rolling Stone Records". The reason is that an American named Kenny Bloom unilaterally signed Weihua. The lead singers are gone, and Cao Jun, Gao Qi, and others have no understanding of continuing to stay in the "Shingon Society", so they also went away with Kenny Bloom after the termination.
According to Cao Jun's later interview, "At that time, it was relatively naïve, saying that if you don't do it, you won't do it, not a single song has been recorded, and now I think it's really a bit of a rogue, and I took people's salaries for several months."
This Kenny Bloom was the copyright agent of Warner Records in Chinese mainland at that time, and also served as Cui Jian's agent, and was preparing to help Lao Cui record the album "Solution". At that time, Kenny Bloom's assistant was named Xu Xiaofeng.
Later, Xu Xiaofeng once founded "Longsheng Entertainment", which represented the copyright, and also served as the president of "Beijing Chinese Warner Culture Co., Ltd.", which is actually the Chinese mainland branch of "Warner Records". After that, Xu Xiaofeng successively created "Chuangmeng Music", helmed the "National Music Creative Base", and "Cactus" and other music festivals.
Kenny Bloom, also named after himself, signed the band "Breathe" and began recording albums in the studio in December 1989. In addition to being an executive producer, Kenny Bloom was responsible for the production, recording and synthesis of the album.
Two months later, the recording of the band 'Breath' debut album was completed.
Originally, the album was thought to be released simultaneously in Chinese mainland and overseas. However, due to certain personal reasons at that time, the album had already printed tens of thousands of covers, and received a notice of prohibition from publication in the early morning of the day of release. The videos that Wei Hua himself once hosted on CCTV were all deleted from the video materials retained at the party.
Fortunately, overseas distribution channels were not affected, and on August 31, 1990, "BMG Records" still released this record in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Singapore and Malaysia. Although at this time, the "Breath" band also terminated the cooperation because of the contract relationship, it is said that the cost of overseas distribution, the "Breath" band did not get a penny.
However, the more embarrassing point is that Kenny Bloom signed Weihua first as a singer at that time, resulting in the original "Breath" band album becoming Weihua's solo album and released under the name of Weihua's "Sun Rising".
At the same time, the biggest problem with this "Sun Rising" is not only the problem of Wei Hua's personal album. Because before the album was recorded, Liu Xiaosong was favored by Lao Cui and invited him to participate in the recording of the "Solution" album, so the "Breath" band suddenly lost its drummer. The rhythm part of the album "Sun Rises" is made by Gao Qi, Cao Jun and another person named Yao Rolling Buddha, using a drum machine.
This Yao Rolling Buddha is also a Chinese "stage name" that Kenny Bloom blindly pulled.
Fortunately, it was not long before the "Breath" band finally recruited Zhao Muyang, the northwest drum king, from Changkuan's "Baby Brothers" band, and participated in the "90 Modern Concert" in early 1990.
In this performance, the lineup of the "Breathing Band" is guitarist Cao Jun, Gao Qi, Liu Wenli, bass Wu Yuntao, keyboard Zou Shidong and Zhuang Biao, and drummer Zhao Muyang. Among them, Cao Jun sang "New World", Gao Qi sang "Let Me Stand Up", and Wei Hua sang three songs, namely "Don't Try to Stop Me", "I'm No Longer Busy" and "The Sun Rises".
Because of the addition of Zhao Muyang, the "Breath" band was also reprocessed with the original recording, including the addition of Zhao Muyang's real drum part. At that time, it was Wang Xinbo (the elder brother), Lou Wei and Jin Shaogang who completed the recording. The latter was also the sound director of programs such as the Beijing Olympics and "The Voice of China".
In 1992, with the return of Wei Hua to host the show, the "Breath" band was also successfully unblocked, and their album could finally be released Chinese mainland. And this time the album is no longer Wei Hua's personal album, but it has indeed become the band's album.
However, the song originally called "The Sun Rises" was changed to the new name of "The Light of Love". The lyrics of "Back", which once attracted some doubts, "My throat was sealed, eager to sing", was fortunately preserved.
However, as early as 1990, because of the cooperation problem, the "Breath" band that had signed a contract with Kenny Bloom encountered the two bands of "Black Panther" and "Tang Dynasty" that "Rolling Stone Records" promoted strongly in the Chinese mainland, and they basically had zero publicity, and it was difficult to resist the mature commercial planning and marketing of the overseas legion. This also made the "Breath" band's self-titled album basically in a state of self-destruction in the market at that time.
Of course, the work aspect is also a problem.
The "Breath" band's album, in fact, has completed the formation of the work as early as 1989, earlier than the "Tang Dynasty" and "Black Panther" band's eponymous albums, which came earlier. And because Gao Qi, one of the main creators at that time, was only a 20-year-old young man, and his works were relatively immature, it would be a little less interesting than the more mature works of the "Tang Dynasty" and the "Black Panther" band.
Don't underestimate the impact of two or three years on a musician. At the time of the release of the "Breath" band album, Gao Qi was actually already a year ago, because of the conflict of musical concepts with Cao Jun and Wei Hua, so in the case of taking Zhao Muyang, he formed a Thrash Metal-style "overload" band, and his works such as "BowIng Down is the Human World" and "The Shadow of the Ancestors" created during this period are obviously another Dan's work.
In addition, the long-term unstable lineup of the "Breath" band and the lack of professional agents like Guo Chuanlin Yuzhi "Black Panther" and Guo Dawei Yuzhi "Tang Dynasty" also make it difficult for them to develop commercially.
However, in fact, compared with the bands of the same period, even including the "Black Panther" and "Tang Dynasty" bands, the "Breath" band because of Wei Hua's host temperament, coupled with his bold interpretation, also makes their live performance power far stronger than the studio album. At least in the nineties I watched the "Breath" and "Tang Dynasty" band live comparison, "Breath" is real rock, and the live "Tang Dynasty" is a bit of a blur compared to the album.
The entire album of the "Breath" band was basically composed by Cao Jun and Gao Qi, and Wei Hua at that time was only responsible for a small number of lyrics. Among them, the personal emotional expression of "No Longer Busy" also became a precursor to her later attempt to create two albums of "Modernization" and "Acid Rain".
Both Gao Qi and Cao Jun's melodic treatment of the work is as good as a pop song. Of course, it may be because of the elevation of Wei Hua's voice line, coupled with the fact that some lyrics are still written in some hollowness, so that the work of the "Breath" band at that time, neither the mystery of the "Tang Dynasty", nor the affinity and impact of "Black Panther".
At the band level, Cao Jun played all guitars throughout the album, as well as bass playing eight of the ten pieces. The accompaniment of many songs is accompanied by Yang Ying, Wang Xiaofang, Xiao Nan, Yu Jin and others. They are also members of the band "Cobra".
However, what many people don't know is that Kenny Bloom's KB Communications, after signing Weihua, also signed a personal singer contract with Cao Jun. However, after the recording of this album, it was not officially released for some reasons.
After that, Hong Kong Wilson Company signed a contract with Cao Jun, who also revised the previously recorded works and prepared to release them again, but he did not expect that the company collapsed again, which led to this personal album sung by Cao Jun, until now there has been no chance for more people to hear.
The relevant information about this album is that Cao Jun completed the lyrics, songs, singing and arranging and production of all the works, plus guitar and bass performances, while the keyboardist was Zang Tianshuo, who died in 2018, and the drummer was Zhao Muyang, the second drummer of "Breathe", and Ma He, the third drummer. Now I only know that one of the songs is called "Utopia".
As for the final story of the band "Breathe", it was in 1994", "Rock Beijing" compilation album, the release of the single "New World" sung by Wei Hua. Compared with the version of Cao Jun's lead singer of "90 Modern Concert", in this version, Wei Hua added a large section of English lyrics. With the performance of "Olympic Lights" in July, the band "Breath" was officially disbanded.
However, in 2002, because of the three sets of CCTV "Passion Square" column, musicians such as Cao Jun, Zou Shidong, Chen Yixin and Ma He also began to form a "deep breath" band on the basis of the original "breathing" band. In addition to renovating old songs, the later stage also made some attempts to integrate cross-border music, which can also be regarded as the "Breath" band's comeback in another way.
The recent lineup of "Deep Breathing", in addition to Cao Jun and Zou Shidong, two old "breaths", there are also yu Weimin, drummer of the former "Acupuncture Point" band and He Yong's band, and the second lead singer of the "Compass" band Ugly (Liu Zhengrong).
The story of "breathing" is over, and today's lesson ends here.