We recently had a review and an interesting piece about Renmin Park published in the Southern Weekly, which is a Chinese language newspaper that comes out of Beijing. The journalist, Timothy Hathaway, has a very interesting take on the album. He is coming at it with a much more informed perspective on Chinese culture, so his insights are valuable. Tim also interviewed ZXZZ for his blog, China Beat, in which Zuzhou talks a bit about our collaboration and other projects that he is working on. I think that both article are worth the time.
A Walk In The Park is probably one of the songs on Renmin Park that make most people reach for the skip button. But it’s a very important song for the album, probably its most ambitious and, from a producer’s point of view, it’s one of my proudest achievements.
The singer and the lyricist of the song is Zuoxiao Zuzhou (ZXZZ), an extremely respected artist and a cultural jewel of the Chinese underground art scene. You won’t hear his music playing at the roller rink, but it’s bound to be in the collection of any self respecting Mandarin hipster. I was introduced to his music by my friend Eric Chen and I was blown away by the breadth of his recorded work and most specifically the intensity of his voice. In his work I hear strong influences of Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Sonic Youth, Einstürzende Neubauten and other artists who like to occasionally push boundaries. He is also a very political voice in a scene where being political actually has meaning. When Joby and Al presented me with the first musical draft of A Walk In The Park I knew that the ideal person to add to it was Zuoxiao Zuzhou. But it was quite a journey getting to that point.
The starting point for the track was me and my Zoom recorder in China. There are about a half-dozen field recordings incorporated in to this song including: a Peking Opera recital in Renmin Park; a class of my wife’s students singing the Chinese National Anthem; a bell tolling from the Bell Tower in Xian; a PA blaring morning excercise exhortations in the school yard where we lived; the song of the propane seller; and the din of human activity blended with the chirping of cicadas in Renmin Park. When I returned to Toronto I then sent these recordings to our friend Joby Baker in Victoria who assembled them in to a structure over which a musical template could be created. Alan then laid down his best Jah Wobble dub bass line that defined the overall feel of the song and Joby layered that with keyboards to suggest the harmonic direction. This was then sent back to me in Toronto where Pete laid down a drum part and I added the frenetic guitar outro. I then emailed that to my friend Eric Chen in Jingjiang who had tracked down Zuoxiao Zuzhou and had interested him in the project. Eric sent the track to Zuzhou who then wrote lyrics for the track and laid down his vocal. That track was then emailed back to me in Toronto where a few minor touches were made and then it was forwarded back to Joby who added a few more field recordings and finally mixed the song. Chalk one up for globalization.
Eric translated the song for me but, as I have said, there is always something lost in the translation. Zuoxiao Zuzhou told Eric to tell me that the lyric is a metaphor comparing a leisurely walk in the park with the cultural “walk” that is needed to successfully and honestly express oneself in Modern China.
Here is Eric’s translation of Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s lyrics as well as a couple of ZXZZ related videos. The first is of a live performance by ZXZZ (not for the unadventurous) and the second is a beautifully animated short, set to an amazing live recording by ZXZZ of his interpretation of the traditional Mongolian folk song Ulan Bator Nights.
About half way through our three month stay in Jingjiang I stumbled upon the only person in the entire city who was a fan of modern music and who also happened to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the modern Chinese rock scene. My wife and I were often dragged to these very uncomfortable “meet-the-English-speaking-freaks” gatherings, in which a handful of locals who were interested in practicing their limited English would show up and stare at us. On this one particular night a young man came up and introduced himself and upon hearing that my wife’s name was Patty, he said, “like Patti Smith?”. My wife and I were both a little taken aback and weren’t quite sure what we had just heard, so I replied,”…you mean Patti Smith…the musician Patti Smith?!?” He said, “yes, yes..Patti Smith, CBGBs, Horses…”. This was Eric Chen, we became fast friends. Eric learnt all of his English by watching American movies. He is a music fanatic, caught inside of a country that relatively little interest in the music underground, caught inside a city that is about as backwater as it gets when it comes to modern culture. Eric took me around Jingjiang and introduced me to the handful of musicians that lived in the town, but more importantly he schooled me in the modern Chinese rock scene. He brought me a stereo and stacks of cds by modern Chinese rock bands. I was floored by the intensity of the music. Here was a status-quo that an angry young man could really kick against. No Future, indeed. There was also something about Mandarin that lent itself to rock music. It’s all those hard consonants and those guttural sounds; it just makes for some good gut-wrenching belting.
Near the end of my stay I asked Eric to translate a handful of songs that I was, for whatever reason, attracted to. I quickly learnt that Mandarin may be a great rock language, but trying to bridge the gap between Mandarin and English was not going to be an easy task. I’ve come to the conclusion that Mandarin and English are like two software platforms that just won’t communicate with each other. Eric did a great job translating and then I had to take his translations and turn them into songs that could be expressed in English. Here are Erics translations of My Fall and I Cannot Sit Sadly By Your Side (written by two great Chinese musicians Xu Wei and Zuoxiao Zuzhou) with my hand written notes on the borders, followed by my further adaptations of the lyrics.
When we adopted my youngest daughter, when she was placed in our arms for the very first time, she stared at us in complete silence for about 30 seconds and then huge tears, enormous sorrow, welled from deep inside her. It was from that specific moment that the phrase little dark heart sprung. I held on to it for six years because I didn’t understand how it applied, how can a one-year-old child have a dark heart? It was after our visits to the orphanages (and after working with Mary Gauthier on The Foundling) that I realized that this darkness is a shadow, a shadow cast on my daughters’ hearts by their birth mothers, always present never seen, and that, this darkness, will never go away. Being abandoned as a baby by one’s mother, no matter what the circumstance, is not an easy reality to face up to.
When you adopt a child from China they give you a dossier of very official looking paperwork with very little information about your child. One piece that is in every dossier is the “police report” which outlines where your child was found. According to the police reports our eldest daughter was found beneath the tax bureau gate and our youngest was found in a ditch by the side of the road. These are not images that are easily shook…and then you begin to think about the twisted meanderings of Fate, of all the convoluted circumstances that took them from that lost dark night, into your home, into your heart:
One is left in a ditch by the highway / the other by the tax bureau gate/Wherever you come from/that’s where you go/They lie staring at the stars and they wait/They lie staring at the stars and they wait.
There is a decent interview with me that has just been posted on American Songwriter. I discuss the Renmin Park album as well as the upcoming Demon’s (volume 2) album.
One of the main reasons for my family going to China for three months was to bring my two daughters back to the land of their birth; a chance for them to experience it firsthand. The latest trend in international adoptions is “homeland visits.” Parents are encouraged to take their adopted daughters on a two week tour of China, culminating in a trip to the child’s orphanage. It’s definitely a worthy idea (and a smart way for the adoption industry to make a bit more cash), but my wife and I have always felt that to take your kid from the suburban splendours of North America head-first into the urban sprawl that is modern China would be a little too mind-blowing for even the most prepared and sophisticated child. So when we were offered an opportunity to spend three months living in a small city in China, which would give this homeland visit a bit of context, we jumped at it. We thought that the experience of walking into an orphanage and seeing a room full of squalling babies laid out in their cribs on wooden boards wouldn’t be as traumatic for our daughters if they had a better sense of the difference between living conditions in China and those in the West. We were wrong, of course.
A Few Bags of Grain comes specifically out of that experience – of returning to the girl’s orphanages. We always talk about the birth-mother in the adoption stories that we are told to tell our kids, but I don’t think we are capable of truly representing her. We usually portray her as a stereotype – a tragic, romantic figure. We also talk about abandonment in these stories, but what do most of us truly know and understand about abandonment? Returning to the birth towns and the orphanages was an awakening for us as parents and a life-altering experience for, at least, my eldest daughter (who had just turned eleven). When we began the journey, my wife and I had no idea what were heading in to. My daughter, on the other hand, seemed to have a much deeper understanding of what lay ahead. As we were, literally, stepping out of our apartment to head off on this journey, she pulled us aside and out-of-the-blue said, “OK…I’ll go to the orphanage, but I don’t want to go to the place where I was found…”. She already knew what this trip was really about and what it was that she was going to have to face.
The song is about the “worthlessness of girl,” an attitude that exists not just in China, but all around the globe and shows itself in different ways. And, it’s about, that worn old saw, the indomitable nature of the human spirit.
Here is a video taken inside one of my daughter’s orphanages. Don’t watch this if you are in a public place, unless, of course, you don’t mind bawling in public.
If you’d like to catch up on some past blogs about the Renmin Park album, just click on a link:
Day 6 – Asheville, NC: It was a very bumpy and uncomfortable ride through the mountains last night. No one got much sleep. Tim and I took any early morning walk through the streets of Asheville and found an exceptional breakfast at the Early Girl Eatery. Today was day one of a three day street festival in downtown Asheville. It’s a huge affair and we are in direct competition. Margo and I did a short set at the local radio station. It was hot as a @#*he%#uc%&r. We had a pretty decent turnout tonight despite all of the free stuff going on outside. We love this place, this town, this club. We had a fun, we played loose with lots of energy. An excellent crowd despite the small gaggle of geese near the bar that Margo had to quiet down. Playing for an audience like this is what makes touring worthwhile.
Day 7 – Atlanta, GA: We spent the morning in a hotel parking lot in downtown Atlanta. Jared and I decided to kill some time and we set off for the new-ish Georgia Aquarium. The line-up to get in was stretching out the door and winding along the treeless plaza, so we headed back to the bus. It is freakin’ hot…no metaphor or simile is needed. Throughout the week we have been watching bits and pieces of 2012 on satellite TV. This morning we filled in the few missing pieces. You all should know that it doesn’t end with a whimper, but a bang. Once we got settled in behind the venue (The Variety Playhouse), next to the stinky dumpsters, I did the obligatory stumbling around the Little Five Points area. There was a Cake Boss marathon on the satellite this afternoon, so we partook. What a bizarre premise for a show. We figure that one could create an excellent reality TV show (in the Cake Boss mode) set around a tour manager: following him or her through their day and watching them deal with all of the hic-ups that occur. You could even have different bands guest starring as the tour manager moves from tour to tour. That is now a copyrighted idea so if you want to develop it you need to contact me first. We had another very good show tonight. It started off a little bit shaky but gathered steam as it went along. Another excellent crowd helped us to focus. We needed them tonight , it was show number six in seven nights…and did I mention how hot it was…..
We fly home tomorrow. The rest of the Summer and September (between time off with our families) will be dedicated to finishing off Demons, Volume 2 of The Nomad Series. We are aiming to have it available on the site by late October. In the meantime I’ll be posting a lot more stuff about Renmin Park and we’ll also start to post some of the work that we are doing on Demons. So check back often (or join us on Facebook or put us in your RSS feed). We’ll be back on the road in October, in the meantime, have a safe and fun Summer.
Day 4 – Charlotte, NC: It was as hot as Megan Fox in Transformers 1. I barely left the bus: once in the morning to find coffee, and a second time to check out a very disturbing anti-abortion rally on a downtown corner, complete with raging preacher and photos of butchered babies. This is a strange town. But why wouldn’t it be. Lots of money floating around, lots of poverty too and then there’s that Southern thang adrift in the humidity. This venue (the McGlohan Theater) is a beauty. It looks good, it feels good and it sounds great. It’s always a treat to play here because the audiences are always enthusiastic. What comes first, the venue or the audience? I think that each feeds the other. I had a tough show tonight and could never really find the handle. It wasn’t a bad show, it just didn’t take off. But the audience cheered and egged us on throughout, which is always much appreciated.
Day 5 – Knoxville, TN: I woke up in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The best thing about it was that I didn’t have to change out of my PJs to go shopping. A great way to start the day. We then moved on to a very good record store called the Disc Exchange where Margo, Jeff and I played a very fun acoustic set to a very appreciative gathering. Jeff and I watched Ed Harris and Vigo M play a couple of real cool cats in Appaloosa. After soundcheck some of us had a crappy dinner at a big brew hall down the street. Tonight, another very fine music venue, The Bijou, and a small, but excellent audience: enthusiastic and appreciative. I had a lot of fun. Our late night movie was 44 Inch Chest: a nasty and very twisted English gangster film, which doesn’t quite hit the mark. Not too hot today, but steamy as a lobster pot in a Maine kitchen.
Day 1:Camden, NJ – A very long overnight drive from Toronto to get us here. Why here? A three day festival just across the river from Philadelphia, put on by WXPN (one of the better music stations left standing). It was as hot as a two dollar whore on the 4th of July. I tried to stay as cool as possible and moved between the air conditioned bus and the air conditioned green room and didn’t get much of a feel for the festival grounds. It was definitely a well attended event with lots and lots of bands that I’ve never heard of (kids these days). We had a pretty good, if short, set. After the show we headed back to the hotel to recover from our heat exhaustion. Later in the night the police cordoned off the hotel parking lot…speculation was that a body was found in the back of a car. Welcome to Jersey.
Day 2: Annapolis, MD – A day off on day 2 of the tour is just a little unusual. But so be it. We woke and we drove. We watched the movie Greenberg in which Ben Stiller (in a serious role) plays an asshole who puts himself into cringe-inducing situation. We kept waiting for the punch line, which never came. And we watched Green Zone in which Matt Damon plays a soldier in Iraq who goes off on this ludicrous hunt for the missing WMDs. It was time well wasted. We arrived in Annapolis just in time to greet the noon day sun. It was so hot today the squirrels were fanning their nuts. I braved the heat to wander around Annapolis. I’ve always liked this little town, it has ice cream, good coffee, cobblestones and lots and lots of history: it actually has over three hundred years of history ranging from the inspiring (the ratification of The Treaty of Paris) to the terrifying (the bustling slave market that was this town’s economic engine for decades). I found a pristine hard covered copy of Ian McEwan’s latest book, Solar, in one of my favourite used book stores, I found a smelly pub and ate a semi-tasty BLT with a happy hour, half priced pint of local Pale Ale and had a cup of oh-so-tasty coconut ice cream at the Annapolis Ice Cream company. So it was a good day.
Day 3: Annapolis, MD – Another good day. Hotter than a McDonalds cup of coffee. I found a nice cafe and had a good latte and very good breakfast of smoked salmon with capers, onions and cream cheese on a toasted sesame seed bagel. I talked to my family who are ensconced in the Adirondacks; worked on a new song called Idle Tales; struggled through soundcheck; and then had a very fun show. The Rams Head is an odd space. It doesn’t have the greatest sound on stage (and it probably doesn’t have the greatest sound in the audience), but it’s always a fun place to play and that’s because of the audience. There is always an energy in that place which you just want to plug in to. We played a wicked version of Me and the Devil tonight. Before we went on, we watched a documentary on Miles at The Isle of Wight in 1970. So we were emboldened.
NPR to the rescue again. They ran a nice piece today on the program All Songs Considered and have a posted a piece on their blog. Please check it out if you have the time.
