To this day, we still miss the warm, clean night of 1994, the faces and voices of those young, talented and fearless.
That night, Dou Wei was dressed in a black suit, coldly and deeply reciting "contradictions, hypocrisy, greed, deception, fantasy...", sometimes clapping and singing, sometimes turning around and playing keyboards, and more classic flute playing, interpreting rock and roll can be angry, can be spotlessly clean, can be realistic, and can also be left alone.
He was the most calm person on the Hung Hom stage that day, as if he was looking at this rock and roll boom with cold eyes, and the audience under the stage and those of us who enjoyed this performance through images many years later, looked at Dou Wei, who was "a stranger like a jade, a prince is unparalleled in the world", and sighed that this young heart that avoided the disputes of the world was so beautiful.
Dou Wei is a very comprehensive musician, from the creative and instrumental talent, voice and singing skills, distinct personality, young appearance and temperament, and thoughts, etc., are rarely concentrated on him alone.
And the most valuable thing about Dou Wei is to be himself. It can even be said that the young Dou only has the wind of the Tang Dynasty, and the middle-aged Dou only has the bones of Wei Jin.
Lu Zhongqiang and Xie Tianxiao said in an interview: "The most respected musician in China is Dou Wei. The ancient Chinese emphasized the integrity of the literati, if the musician also draws the category of the writer, only such a person is giving up a lot of things to insist, even hurt at all costs, I have always thought that he is the most worthy of respect, there is no second. ’’
Dou Wei's music is also like his people, seeing the impermanence of the world in a calm and calm manner, and firmly immersed in his own paradise. He does not live in the gaps of the news, only in pure music.
So his work will always break our view of the form of music, avant-garde and profound. I think for Dou Wei, rock 'n' roll may just be part of his musical path, because he doesn't care about rock and roll at all. As dirty as you are, rock 'n' roll is dirty; as clean as you are, rock 'n' roll is as clean. In the face of good works, labels are meaningless.
Not to mention that today's rock is far from enough compared to Dou Wei's thoughts and the depth of the lyrics he wrote when he played rock and roll. Too much rock now focuses on rebellion, and Dou Wei's rock and roll in '94 has begun to be serious and introspective.
The song "High Animals" is from the album "Black Dream", when Zhang Peiren sold Dou Wei's contract to The Magic Rock Culture, and the Dream Band's painstakingly choreographed "Black Dream" was transferred to others to produce.
This album is very experimental and audible, the key is that Dou Weicai was in his early 20s at that time, what is this comprehension? His secondary school psychiatric nursing, his father engaged in folk music, I can only sigh that the awesome people are never suddenly bullish.
At that time, the young Dou Wei was greatly influenced by Peter Murphy, so this album can also be felt from the arrangement as a post-punk album with Murphy style. Of course, in fact, music is objectively indistinguishable style, essentially expressing the artist's self. The music itself is an emotion, and the feeling is over.
Musicians will feel this way, and if some bands, musicians or works are impressed in their hearts, their own works will also intentionally or unintentionally imitate and move closer, which is hindsight. From later interviews, we can also see one or two.
Information Times: Do you still listen to previous works? How does it feel?
Dou Wei: Very little, but occasionally I listen to it, just looking for stimulation. In my opinion, the works of "Black Dream" and "Sunny Days" at that time were very bad.
The 10 songs on this album are actually one theme: dreams.
There are no gaps in the entire album, and Dou Wei connects the gaps between each song with music, such as "Oh! The voice of a child at the end of "Good" is directly connected to the voice of a child at the beginning of "Advanced Animals".
This is true of many concept albums, such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
"Advanced Animals" begins with a heavy bass, the main song part basically has no melody, but the melody is done in the drum, the drum point is increased, the drumming processed by the electro-acoustic, the rough guitar creates a cold and arrogant atmosphere, although there are not many notes, it makes people feel the bomber-like roar, and you can feel the distortion and bumps of the spirit.
Dou Wei expressed the 48 adjectives that expressed the state of human nature, and there were positive and negative contradictions between the words, all of which were human behaviors, and these words were expressed in the way of recitation, which meant that people are all advanced animals and have so many weaknesses and shortcomings.
Every age has its own different pathologies, and the dirtier the society, the more morality is promoted. Man is ultimately an animal, not necessarily a superior, but more desire. Once heard that a photographer fed tibetan antelope water, the accompanying police drove the Tibetan antelope away, the photographer asked why, the police said, otherwise it would think that humans are good.
By the way, nianbai is a unique artistic expression method in Chinese opera, which dramatizes and musicalizes the language with a tone between reading and singing, and often connects, foils and contrasts with the singing cavity part in opera, forming a technique that can most express the inner monologue of the characters in the opera and reflect the thoughts of the characters.
Dou Wei maximizes the tonal charm of Chinese characters in this way similar to chanting, and raises philosophical questions about human animals through the stacking of imagery words, which can be said to be the existence of a rock and roll model.
Among them, when the voice is raised and the "great" is pronounced, the whole person will explode. And the last sentence ,"Where is happiness", which means you have these things, do you still want to pursue happiness? If you want to be happy, you must give up the contradictions, hypocrisy, greed mentioned above... In other words, the simpler life, the happier it is.
In an interview with Xu Gehui in his early years, Dou Wei said that his music is in the untouchable entertainment atmosphere, reminding everyone not to forget that there is such a stubble as suffering. Seeing these sufferings is for people to live better and pursue happiness better.
A very relaxed and pleasant humming song was suddenly inserted in the middle, adding a touch of light to the dark atmosphere of the whole song, which felt like the finishing touch.
The epilogue is a stroke of genius, a few crisp guitars, it sounds as if the water droplet stone wears back to nature, the struggle between the water droplet and the stone is finally over, a drop of water passes through the stone, slides into the calm lake, and swings the microwave, and then the cheerful blow is like countless happy water droplets jumping.
Finally imagine: a few years later, at Dou Jingtong's concert, the melodious flute suddenly sounded, and the light hit the person who played the flute on the dark stage, and Dou Jingtong introduced: Flute, my father - Dou Wei.