Text | Yuan Jiaqi, Mia
Catalyzed by the epidemic, the Livehouses have started a brief transformation, Bluenote has made a music restaurant bar inside, the venue of Xinjiang Jinjiu has become a photo studio, and the subcultural gathering place of Gulou has become a bit deserted after experiencing the successive departures of Livehouse.
A recent group of day visitors appeared in the courtyard of No. 14 Shanlao Hutong in Beijing. Over the course of six years, countless twilights and dawns have stringed together highlights of this independent music venue.
Today, the countless portraits of blues, jazz, alternative rock and Cui Jian's improvisational stages quietly listened to on the wall have been carefully removed; the stacks of old CDs placed under the drink bar have been picked up and taken away; the books that have eavesdropped on a lot of gossip in the musicians' lounge have been packed in a centralized box... Daytime visitors claim items to commemorate the site, which is about to disappear at the end of the month.
On May 21, 2020, another slightly drunk morning symbolizing some kind of farewell ceremony, after sending away friends who came to "remember", the fine drizzle once again came to the DDC light sign that had been washed countless times for six years, and two geckos crawled restlessly on it, "It was a coincidence that on the day of opening 6 years ago, there was also a gecko climbing here." The presiding officer 69 sighed fiercely.
A year ago, on February 18, a tweet about Yugong moving the mountain to stop business and re-sites attracted the attention of the industry, and some fans left a hand-painted Mohican piglet on the gate of the old site of Duan Qirui's government with a seal. A year on, the waiting for independent music culture lovers is not about the emotional boost of Livehouse's resumption of business.
Livehouse culture has only developed in Beijing for more than 20 years, and the Drum Tower- Independent Cultural Center alone has undergone two large-scale retreats, and several of the old Livehouses have mostly undergone twists and turns, and the temporary withdrawal of DDC has become one of the epitomes. In contrast to the surging rock 'n' roll, the powerful metal music, and the avant-garde psychedelic electronics, the venues that carry these musical cultures are also fraught with uncertainty.
Under the catalysis of the epidemic, the situation of Livehouse/bar, which connects offline entertainment and subculture circles, has changed from "carrying weight forward" to "life hanging on the line".
Beijing DDC, ARKHAM Shanghai store, and everyone tacitLY DADA, Temple or will close the news has come one after another, a number of Livehouses have also opened a brief transformation, Bluenote has made a music restaurant bar, The venue of Xinjiang Into Wine has opened a photographic punch card mode, and some Livebars have been suggested to do wine takeaway... The subcultural gathering place of Gulou has also become somewhat deserted after experiencing the successive departures of Livehouse.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >who the Drum Tower becomes the next Houhai, where does "Brooklyn" go? </h1>
Will the Drum Tower become the next Houhai? This is the question of every "drum tower er".
On the rental demand list of a literary and artistic youth, a line was clearly written "Qiu Gu Lou Area". No matter how much they repeatedly moved and tossed under the painful rental conditions in Beijing, there is a group of people who have always stuck to the Second Ring Road, the Pan Drum Tower area, and become contemporary hippies: they are known as "subcultural youth", accustomed to going to the school every weekend to see the performance, to dada bungee, temple continuation, to modenista, Beiping machine, Dayue, Jing A to drink, the biggest festival is the Beijing Film Festival and various music festivals, the hair is bleached into colorful, wearing umbilical nails, lip nails, nose rings, Tattooed, anti-consumerist, self-professed poor but spiritually rich, and regarded the Drum Tower as a second home.
North of the Forbidden City and Jingshan Mountain, on the north-south axis of this ancient capital, the bell tower and drum tower stand wordlessly. Liu Xinwu wrote "Bell and Drum Tower" for this purpose, and He Yong sang "Bell and Drum Tower". Gulou East Street, Old Gulou Street, Xiaojingchang Hutong, Shoubi Hutong, North Luogu Lane, South Luogu Lane, Baoqian Hutong, Hougulouyuan Hutong, Caochang Hutong... The Pan Drum Tower area is far more extensive than the "Drum Tower" in the noun sense.
The Drum Tower is no longer a simple landmark ancient building, but more like a spiritual landmark, Beijing's "Brooklyn, New York". It's home to young artists, musicians, painters, designers... And Live House, Live Bar plays an incredibly important role in this. Young people get inspired by POGO and hormones here, and new bands make their debuts on stage.
Not far away, in the Houhai bar area, is the opposite of "drum tower": commercialization, red wine, and vulgarity. Just like "South Luoguxiang" and "North Luoguxiang" are divided into two worlds by the chain of contempt.
But in fact, the drum tower is slowly becoming less "drum tower".
In 2017, the MAO Livehouse Wukesong store was announced to open, and "I walked from the drum tower to MAO" officially became a thing of the past. The first wave of changes may have begun in 2018 when Beijing rectified the "opening of the wall and punching holes".
One day, the senior "wine putty" Xiao Liu came to Fangjia Hutong, and was shocked to find that the doors of many favorite bars such as Fang Bar were sealed by a stucco wall, and then more and more hutong shops began to move away, or directly shut down, and the public comment page became gray. This year, Yugong Moved Mountain was closed due to fire problems. Rent, qualifications, every reason can be the last straw that crushes a Livehouse.
"When these cultural atmospheres of Beijing, which I love, no longer exist, what reason do I have to stay in Beijing?" Music fan C said so. This may represent the voice of a group of people. What is Beijing's reason for attracting young people? Is it a platform provided by an Internet giant? Is it different from the small city trapped in the human chain network and comfortable life, with unlimited entrepreneurial opportunities? At the same time, the answer given by many people is "culture": world-class theater troupes, performances, bands. It's just that now all of these reasons seem to be gone.
At the time when the literary and artistic youth were lamenting, the "hutong string" child born and raised in the Drum Tower gave a different view: "I always heard how the drum tower that your literary and artistic youth missed was then, how it is now, and how it is now, I think it is particularly funny, it is only a few years, the drum tower when we were young is not what it is now, where are the cafes and bars to perform, and who do we remember to find?" "Perhaps, the drum tower will always exist, the audience and performers, the performance venues are just passers-by who come and go, and the buildings and areas are much more permanent than a generation."
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Livehouse Survival Report: Site, Rent, Approval, and Perpetual Uncertainty</h1>
As an offline performance format, performance qualifications, venue rent, and approval have become the "three major pieces" of Livehouse's operation.
Standing at No. 161 Lanying Banner, Haidian District, Beijing for 15 years, 13Club held a "final performance" in December 2019 due to the rental of venues. The number given by the founder is: "The rent has risen by 80,000 compared with the previous year, which is a bit unbearable." ”
Finally, after many communications with the landlord, 13Club was able to renew its contract in 2020. Other places in the Inner Ring are not so lucky.
After the official announcement of the closure of the store, the long table in the DDC courtyard became the "parlor" of 69, and friends who came to "commemorate" every night drank a dawn on it.
Six years ago in July, on the first night of DDC's soft opening, nearly 200 people came to congratulate the founder 69 on his two wrists, the symbol of the utopia youth wave symbolized by the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival was tattooed on his two wrists, but he still maintained "rational thinking" in business, and wanted to use the concept of open source to operate his Livehouse venue - with more scientific, effective and reasonable means, to maximize the use of Internet means, Channels and ways of thinking serve daily work.
In the first six months of its opening in 2014, DDC had 119 band performances, and by 2019, DDC had 350 performances over 365 days.
Around 2015, Beijing urban planning landed and implemented, the Gulou area from a stable area to a commercial area, rents rose sharply, and overnight stationed in the "commercial area" of the Livehouse is not a vested interest in the business circle, rent and environmental problems, greatly hampering the survival of the Gulou area Livehouse, including Yugong Moving Mountain, DDC and other Livehouse are affected to varying degrees, Drum Tower Mao, XP, Heat Cat is even more annihilated into the "front wave" 。
On the one hand, there are hard environmental constraints, on the other hand, Livehouse culture and market are also being seen by more audiences and capital.
According to the data of the "2018 China Live Music Industry Report", the number of live music performances, audiences and box office in China increased by 30%, 14% and 13% respectively in 2017, with revenue of 4.857 billion yuan. Among them, Livehouse grew the fastest, up 51%, and the first box office revenue exceeded 100 million yuan, reaching 125 million yuan.
But under the epidemic of hardware being shackled, the box office seems to have become empty talk. 69 said in his self-statement that "under normal circumstances, DDC can have hundreds of thousands of flowing waters every month, although in the end it can not produce anything, at least it can maintain the operation of the site." ”
Catalyzed by historical problems such as the epidemic and performance qualifications, DDC finally chose to evacuate Shanlao Hutong.
On the other hand, Livebar, whose main business model is liquor, is not optimistic after it has almost left the performance business.
Located at No. 73 Nan daxing Hutong, Jiaodaokou, Snail's home tavern was born nine years ago, and is also the origin of snail's home brand, and since then, in order to feed back this "origin", founders Xiao Wei and The Prince have successively operated Internet red restaurants such as snail canteens for multi-line layout.
On May 20, 10 days after the opening of Snail's "old shop", the store of less than 80 square meters was almost full, and Xiao Wei went to and from different tables to chat with friends and make cups. "On the first day of opening, there were four or five tables, friends were in attendance, and today was the most crowded."
Although Xiao Wei believes that his place is different from the traditional livehouse, just a gathering place for the scattered "ronin", his ambition and love for music also allows the livebar to constantly explore the living space. In an interview with an entertainment unicorn in February a year ago, Xiao Wei's eyes lit up, describing the upcoming birth of Beijing's largest music scene venue , Snail Live, and for various reasons, in the end, this musical ambition about love has not been realized, and feelings cannot drive everything.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > precipitation, on-line and evacuation, independent musician "self-help guide"</h1>
The Cultural Center for Self-Precipitation, Embracing Live Broadcasting and Evacuation is a self-help guide for independent musicians in the epidemic. The living conditions of musicians, especially non-head musicians, are equally worrying. "A lot of musicians just stay at home and just wait." Xiao Wei sighed.
Zhang Sikun, a young singer who has performed at a jianghu bar, said that the epidemic has catalyzed the speed at which musicians are leaving Beijing, but everyone has accelerated the release of songs, and the quality has also improved:
"There are many, many musicians and friends around me who have returned to their hometowns, Chen Luoli, Wang Wu, etc., and have left one after another. Because of his full-time music friends, such as Wang Wu, his only source of income is commercial performances and resident singing. But in fact, going home is also a good choice, people relax, in order to make good things, I listened to a friend back to Yunnan to write a song, much better than the song he used to write in Beijing. ”
She showed a video of her cover of Wu Bai's "Summer Night Wind", which included lawns, rivers, and butterflies photographed in her hometown.
"When I went back, I felt like time was passing so slowly. Maybe after a while I will also go back, after all, everyone is gone, Beijing is not the Beijing, it is better to make my life more comfortable, we are musicians of this level, everywhere is the same. ”
Almost all the literary and art workers who stayed behind chose to do self-media and look for other ways to monetize. "It's sad to see musicians turn to Douyin, but this thing really needs professional people to do, and I also hope that musicians will learn more about how to monetize, but often the more people who understand how to monetize, the music is often not very good."
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the livehouse survival report: for 10% of the "original intention", create 90% of the profit</h1>
Musical dreams and years are quiet and good, and they cannot be combined.
If the closed Shanghai Arkham and Beijing DDC are facing the dilemma of the epidemic, business license, rent, etc., while the second- and third-tier cities in other places, Livehouse, which is relatively less under manual pressure on rent, is facing another dilemma outside the epidemic: no audience.
"The performance market in Mianyang in the past two years has been stagnant." Alan, the founder of trying to build a Live venue, said.
Known as the "old bar", "Low Bar" was previously the façade of the Live house in this small southern city, inviting rock bands such as scar physique and velvet highway, and also invited the symphonic melody metal band Dante's Boat born in Mianyang, but finally had no choice but to shut down, it is reported that "has been losing money, has been the boss Deng SS post money in doing, because the disturbance moved a lot of places, and later because of the limited venue, forced to close the door." His tone was a little helpless: "No one in Mianyang really likes Live." ”
In his opinion, Mianyang is currently a fake Live, a bar under the banner of Live. His current plan is to "invite some independent musicians, do some lighter tours, and then invite excellent local small bands to sing, and they will also come to sing, and the box office is not enough to use alcohol to paste, after all, survival is the first." ”
Rick, the founder of Shenyang-based "One Table Tavern", who often visits Live Houses across the country, told entertainment unicorns: "30% of the people in the tavern come to chat, 30% come to drink, 30% of people listen casually, and only the remaining 10% come to listen to music." "And I started out to open a store for the 10 percent, but the 90 percent were the main source of profit."
A Douyin video with 56,000 likes and more than one million plays made his store unexpectedly popular. Musicians playing and singing Hush's "Third Person" on stage, coupled with a piece of Sad Copywriting in the style of NetEase Cloud Music Hot Review, constitute a blockbuster formula, "At least two months of popular benefits." ”
In the view of some managers, making Livehouse/bar is not a profitable business, nor has it ever been an ecology driven by emotions alone, in addition to excellent hardware facilities and hardware, at all costs to invite excellent foreign bands to perform in Beijing, to provide audiences with live atmosphere, but also need to embrace the interaction of contemporary young people. For example, live broadcasting, online marketing promotion.
During the epidemic, music labels led by Modern Sky are also exploring the online survival of independent musicians, and as an indispensable link in independent music, Livehouse is also joining this industry chain. For example, by inviting music fans to come to the offline Livehouse to watch the live broadcast.
However, other managers have made firm judgments in the new wave spawned by the Internet, "To some extent, the prevalence of live culture is 'against technology', which proves to us that some human emotions and energies still need to be directly conveyed face to face, returning to 'people and people'". In February, when it was hit by the epidemic, the DDC official blog wrote.
Whether it is the retreat of cultural landmarks from the Drum Tower one after another, or the difficult and contradictory situation faced by independent culture under the black swan of the epidemic, the epidemic is only a catalyst, and when the inherent problems of the industry are multiplied, "burning all" also means briskly moving to meet tomorrow.