28 February 2006 Original music for Original People! That’s our Underground slogan for now.  The live music showcase event called Underground (that I organize) is going really well. We've got some really cool people giving a hand (thanks Mike D, Manek, Shirley, Yan, Steph, Tim), and it's growing in audience attendance. We're planning to keep up the momentum and break more new bands! See photo of me with Airtub and some of their die-hard fans from Underground #15! If you want to read reviews of Hong Kong bands, check it out. hongkongbands.com Are you wondering what happened since I last wrote?  Qiu Hong won the 2005 World Battle of the Bands, beating out such top rated acts as Something to Burn (USA) and The Twitch (New Zealand). It was a very surreal setting in a club with fake palm trees and Romanesque feel...  That's a pic of me and Fleur (lead singer/bassist) of The Twitch.  Also another glorious pic of me and some suspect musician types - I'm sandwiched between Hippo, the guitarist from Qiu Hong and the other being Don the guitarist from Audiotraffic! In January, I was interviewed by Interactive TV HK; a cable channel on I-Cable network and also online.  I was sandwiched between two old guys who asked me lots about the HK music scene and about my bands too.  They had a bit of trouble grasping what I was saying, to be honest... I've got a 5 minute highlight clip here.  Yet again fame knocked on my door, and I was in last weekend's HK magazine!  However, fame didn't stop me from falling down some stairs earlier this month which meant - boohoo - that I couldn't make it to Bangkok, Thailand for the 2-day festival this past weekend.  I really wanted to see Franz Ferdinand, Placebo & heaps of Thai bands whilst chilling by a lake, but it was not to be. I'll get there next year! Psst - it's a severe sprain but the docs reckon I can gyrate on stage again by the end of February! There's been some musical stuff happening since I last wrote. We've had Franz Ferdinand, Dream Theater and Feeder. Oasis is playing this coming weekend.  US bands Bouncing Souls and Die Young TX are playing in the next couple of months. Beijing band Ziyo is rocking out next weekend. Jaggedy Ann (a hot looking all girl band) are playing here as part of their world tour in April.    Someone asked me to summarize the live original music gig venues in HK, and to be honest there aren’t many....  The Edge and Fringe Club in Central, Les Visages/Skitz and Venue in Wanchai, Warehouse in Aberdeen, and then random gigs held here and there.  If you're coming to HK and want to know what's happening whilst you here, drop me a line and I'll let you know what's going on. Next update I'll be able to share with you any more sandwiching that I decide to do, and also my recordings with Guitars & Panties (I've attached a photo of Shirley our bass player) and a new song by Thinking Out Loud!  In the meantime, wishing you all a happy, sexy and musically filled Year of the Dog, love bbchris xx     5 November 2005 Well yes it's been awhile since I last reported and although I have some brilliant reasons why I didn't write earlier I DO promise not to leave it so long again!  Spank me if I need reminding!  In July, my new all girl band "Guitars & Panties" debuted on the Hong Kong music scene.  We thought we would shake up HK's audiences by making our band slogan, "Sometimes we wear panties, sometimes we don't!"   We are now currently recording a couple of tracks at Mark One Studio run by a cool Japanese guy called Koya (who just happens to play bass in NINE bands!!). Forget bird flu, my other band "Thinking Out Loud" has been struck by 'wedding flu'! This year both Egg & Chris W tied the knot with their beautiful fiances and now drummer Matt has got engaged!   Yes I'm in THREE bands and being in three bands takes its toll....   Recently I decided to go for the goth look for the "Flowers of Babylon" and ended up with the offer to front "Dark Vampire"!  Since FOUR is unlucky in Chinese, I'll just stick to three for now.... We've had the World Battle of the Bands happening here - I Emcee the whole event and this year's winners "Qiu Hong" are amazing - nu-metallers with image and charisma - tight musicianship and meaningful lyrics.  And I'm delighted to say that the WORLD FINALS are happening right here in HK!!  On 26 November!  Only 3 weeks away!!!   Woooohooooo!  The winners from Los Angeles, Singapore, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand are going to battle out with Qiu Hong for the World Title.  And I'm going to be there!  This month we also have Rockit, our annual outdoor music fest (12~13 Nov); Feeder and Brian Jonestown Massacre are headlining.  The punks will be coming out in full force to watch NOFX (a separate event).  Will be great to have full capacity at both events.  The organizer for NOFX (Karen) is so cool and so helping to grow HK's music scene.  Definitely another coolgrrrl!! Most importantly, my Underground event has gone bi-monthly as interest and support for live original music is definitely growing in Hong Kong.  Underground is just our own sweet way of sticking two fingers up at all the negative naysayer who say "No one in HK wants live original music", ahem, so who are the 3000 people a day that visit the Undergroundhk.com website?  We've had 45 bands play so far at Underground and there are many more on the waiting list.  I'm so proud of all these musicians and songwriters bursting from Hong Kong's seams.  I'll keep it short & sweet & write more soon! love bbchris xx ps The bikini shot is from my gorgeous holiday in Thailand in August! 6 November 2004 Well I've been busy these last few months. Since I've discovered the purpose of my life is to create music for everyone, I've thrown myself passionately into music! I accepted the offer from Mike, to join his band "Flowers of Babylon." I also conspired with Mike to create a new scene to expose the cream of Hong Kong band by creating "Underground" (undergroundhk.com). Underground - it started in April this year. Had some AMAZING bands play - our only requirement is that you have to play original music - no covers. Funny how it ended up coinciding with World Battle of the Bands!! The best 2 bands we've had at Underground (besides Thinking Out Loud!!!) have got to be Hard Candy and Headhunters! Hard Candy's Yan is an awesome lead vocalist/guitarist with personality, cuteness, and punkiness all rolled into one. With her female drummer and a cute male bassist, I predict awesome things for this band. Headhunters drip with originality - with their masks & makeup, there were lotsof dropped jaws during their set. Mixing androgenous styles with goth music, it was so cool to see some creativity finally in Hong Kong. I know I mentioned FOBs to you last time but I just want to say "Flowers of Babylon" - what a COOL name for a band! hahahaha Songs are either funny or political, and each song has an accompanying video which compliments the band. Very audio-visual, and very, very different for Hong Kong. The band is constantly winning fans with Mike's rendition of "I wanna kill Tom Cruise" hahahahahhaa I got more involved in democracy (link - tol.com.hk/democrac) - playing with TOL outdoors at a benefit for the Democratic Party. I was quoted in the national paper as saying "We did it with a sense of 'f*** you' in our minds". During our set, I got all passionate and whipped off my shirt declaring, "I have the freedom to strip"! Well, I do here in Hong Kong!! Especially if a spiky bra is what I'm unveiling! Then on July 1st, yet again, people marched to show that they were inspired by democracy - we were there too and it was even hotter than last year. It felt good to do it again. You know how it's not what you know, it's who you know? Well, because I've known Andrew for a long time (he's the New Zealand guy organising World Battle of the Bands - happening in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Australia and New Zealand) he invited me to be an official Judge. Being bilingual, I suddenly found myself in the role of Chinese MC translating for the comperes!! Great fun!! I've never done that before!! And I'm still not sure if I'm any good!! ahahahahahaha I'm glad I left it a few months before I wrote about my experience with the battle. It was extremely hard work and tough to be a judge. It was a great way to see lots of local talent and to be encouraging to those who were eager to improve and bring out the best of themselves. There was unfortunately, the other side of the coin, where some bands took it personally when they didn't make it through to the next round. There were 10 categories to judge each band on - things like vocal ability, songwriting and professionalism, and of course each band has it's forte. So it was really interesting to see bands that had great singers but wrote crap songs e.g. In fact, out of all the bands I saw, apart from the winning band "Audiotraffic;" the bands that really stood out were Nothing None and Miracle! Imagine William Hung forming a band with his musical peers - this would be Miracle. Miracle were terrible; so bad that they kept your attention and made you laugh all the way through their set. They played with heart,and were very happy just to enter the competition. Keep the spirit guys, and learn to play! Nothing None impressed me with their professionalism, their tightness, their charismatic singer, their song arrangements, and their off-stage politeness and positive attitudes. Not suprisingly, they made it to the finals. I was surprised to find out they've only been together for less than a year - and are already touring around Asia. (And yes, of course I invited them to headline Underground in July!) Watch this space, as I'm now one of their biggest fans! Well, after writing this article, the next one will be coming at you very soon; as we've recently had the smashing 3 day outdoor Rockit Festival, and I was there to cover the story for our coolgrrrls readers!! love bbchris xx Oh before I forget, I'm officially famous in Hong Kong now!! hahaha 16 August 2004 With my ears ringing after last night's Linkin Park concert, I sit down and decide it's a good time to finish up and send in my update! <- I wrote those very words on 18th June. My rock n roll lifestyle has delayed you from reading this till NOW! DAVID BOWIE CAME TO HONG KONG IN MARCH!! Wooooooooooohooooooooooo! Well he was AWESOME! I didn't get into Bowie's music till 90s and last night was just stunning. My favourite Bowie song is "Suffragette City" I really couldn't explain why although I love the "Wham Bam Thank you Mam" part!! He kicked off the evening with "Rebel Rebel" which got half the audience onto their feet. We rushed down to the area behind the photographers so that we had space to dance. As my brother (ex-security & seated in the front section!!) predicted, the photographers left after the second song and we had a great view and great sound all night. The musicians - I could only remember Earl Slick's name as it was indeed Earl Slick on guitar! What a guitar God he is!! Brilliant! Tight band. The bass player was awesome - she had awesome vocals too. Listen to her and Bowie sing on Under Pressure (acven.com/movies/underpressurevid.avi) (a 21 seconds avi file). This was probably the best song of the night performance-wise. He performed a few covers too - he covered a Pixies song and also a Nirvana song (hahahaha just kidding!) He did make a joke about how at festivals that kids would come up to him and say "you're so cool doing a nirvana song" And yes he did the perfect encore - including Lets Dance, Suffragette City (!!!) and Ziggy. I was jumping around like a fool by this point. Just brilliant memories..... One of the coolest gigs I've ever been to for awhile! Well in April, I headed over to Australia to the Gold Coast to learn more about myself on a Date With Destiny seminar - I had a glorious time - Australia is STUNNING!! I've never seen beaches that are so long and long and long! And wide! The whole Gold Coast is a holiday resort type place, I'll definitely go back to Australia. You ought to see the knee high boots I bought whilst down under.... Back to work and in May, this time I was working on bringing over my second overseas band (first being Fugazi many moons ago) - Aaron Calhoun - www.aaroncalhoun.com A Texan singer/songwriter/guitarist - who's tall & fun to hang with! His music is poppy with latin influences - watch out for his new single to be released called "Almost Pornographic" - will make all females melt inside. Amazingly I booked his three-piece band; 8 gigs in 10 days! Quite an achievement in tiny Hong Kong! With radio interviews & a TV appearance, it was hard work and lots of fun! And Aaron says he'll come back to HK too! There's no stopping the empire of Shazza Music!! What about my band "THINKING OUT LOUD"? Well, we had an upheaval that ended positively with Ever; a local Chinese Jazz drummer joining us adding a nice twist to our pop with attitude sounds! He had his debut with us at Wanchai Live! A great charity event that runs over 2 days in 2 venues - hence 40 hours of music! A teenage charity gets the benefit and of course it's encouraging to see so many teenagers perform too! WANCHAI LIVE. I do so love this event! Loads of Hong Kong's best and worst bands get together in the name of charity and play for K.E.L.Y. Support group which is about getting teenagers to get creative and busy without drink or drugs. This was the first time I'd myself had played at this event in two bands which was so sensational!! So with Thinking Out Loud, I unveiled my new hair - black with purple & pink streaks around my face. On Sunday - "Flowers of Babylon" made it's debut - I'm the lead guitarist in this band - with Joy Division influences; Mike (ex-P.N.S.) writes the songs ranging in topics from Tony Blair to Apollo 13 parodies to transvestites.... It's fun - we wear black and I get to play out the hidden goth side inside of me.... We've not got any group pics yet but here's one of Shirley (keyboards) & myself. (photo attached - fob3.jpg) After our set, another of Hong Kong's great bands played Called 'nude' - they squeezed 9 people onto the tiny stage at Carnegies unfortunately fully-dressed; mixing trumpet, congas, keys, sax, rapper & vocals bouncing around the bass & drums. Funk out! Stopping off one night in June to check out jazz trio of Bob Moses, Mordy Ferber & Rickard Malms. Bob Moses is a drummer, band-leader & composer. Rickard Malms although Swedish is Hong Kong-based. For a Wednesday night, was surprised to see the band didn't start their set for nearly an hour after advertised - something to do with a very important salad.... They were different and refreshing playing fusion contemporary jazz that was a delight to listen to! It does seem like the Hong Kong music scene is just getting better & better. Also in June, WORLD BATTLE OF THE BANDS kicked off here in Hong Kong. I'll make my next entry ALL about the event! And the best thing to happen in the first half of this year? I got to fulfill my infatuation by seeing my current favourite band! Bought my ticket on the first day of sales - for the mosh pit right in front of stage - at US$128 - not cheap but well worth it! Who am I all passionate for? LINKIN PARK! Their Korean support band PIA were excellent and only piqued me even more. After PIA, the stage was rearranged and then some guy came out and told us 'no moshing was allowed' Yeah right! As the band appeared on stage I was so fired up! Chester Bennington has amazing vocal ability. It's a little shame that the mix wasn't so great that night, his vocals were low in the mix. They were tight and played all the songs that I love. What a year it's been so far. I realised as the year's been progressing that I want to take photos of live bands. And that I need another holiday.... 7 April 2004 Well well well, I've become a world traveler since I last wrote my update!! I didn't mean to leave it this long and heaps of love to Frank @ coolgrrrls.com for his patience with me. Let's begin with my trip to Germany in August 2003; I landed in Düsseldorf and was shocked to find myself in the middle of a HEATWAVE!! It was way hotter than in Hong Kong! I spent my time in shorts and little vests and left my PVC trousers stashed in my luggage.... Düsseldorf - fashion capital of Germany - I was there to visit the CPD Man Woman - the biggest fashion trade show in the world. There was an abundance of colours and stylishness, exposed nipples and guesses on what would be the next latest phenomenon. (It looks like they are recycling the 70s - yet again!!) I like Düsseldorf and will be back. Next stop - Berlin - what an exciting city! Did all the touristy things possible, visited the Bundestag, hung around Zoo Station, ate in Kreuzberg, stayed in the Prenzlauer Berg. Didn't sample the music scene (I'm not counting the night I fell into a Country & Western bar and listened to a German band 'yee-har'the night away!!) Last stop in Deutschland - Frankfurt - and I had a blast!! Met up with the wonderful creators/owners of IC-musicmedia.com who are comprised mostly of musicians driven to showcasing the best of indie music worldwide. Also attended the Bunkerfest - an annual event - organized for bands that have rehearsal rooms inside the bunker (its outer walls are 2.38 meters thick!). The best band I saw was "Yellow Jumps Twice" who do Brit-pop (even though they're all German)!! The main goal of the festival is to show other people what's happening inside that WW2 building. G.E.M.I.N.I. {German electronica princess} Kristina, from Hanover, is a talented musician with a beautiful sultry voice who invited me to sing on her song "Nothing" and we shot the accompanying video INSIDE the bunker. Her video is available for viewing on the Electronic Video page here: (www.ic-musicmedia.com/video/video_electronic.php) The Germany countryside was stunning. Here's a shot of me by the Rhine River (south of Frankfurt) All the German people I met were absolutely lovely and were delighted to entertain and look after a girl from Hong Kong. Mike Burn invited me to his studio to lay down some vocals for a track with Mike Debus plus another track. More about those tracks in my future updates!! Shortly after I got back from Germany (and after suffering from bad jetlag) I was whisked away to Phuket, one of the most beautiful islands of Thailand. Two weeks of sun and sand... Spent one night watching Thai kick-boxing matches, spent other nights playing 'Spot the Tranny' games in Patong, snorkeled a lot in amazing waters, and even visited Koh Phi Phi (where the Beach was partly-filmed), other days sat under coconut trees strumming my acoustic guitar; a total 'rock babe' holiday.... Anti-Death penalty Day was on 11 October and Thinking Out Loud were invited to perform. We roped in a stand-in bass player (thanks John!) and it was very fulfilling for me to do this gig. The venue was heaving with people and we were one of four bands (other bands: Ultrastatic, Don't Panic & Airtub) who were delighted to support Amnesty International in a musical way. Then from October 17 till November 9, Hong Kong held the biggest International Music Festival ever held here; entitled "Harbour Fest" organized by an obviously older generation! (They committed a faux pas for not including Linkin Park; who were actually touring Asia during this time!) Harbour Fest was created to attract tourists back to Hong Kong. The outdoor location chosen was stunning. The sound system was superb. And so it should be considering the HK taxpayers were spending 100 million HK dollars (US$13 million) to foot the bill! Kicking off with Prince - who hadn't performed live in 2 years - he was superb and is a fantastic showman! He must have said "Hong Kong" at least 10 times. We spent 2 hours dancing to songs that were so funky! He performed a medley of his hits and we were actually shown repeatedly on TVB news dancing up a storm! haha I have to confess that I had to decline free tickets to Craig David, Westlife and Air Supply. Just not my cup of tea......... However we couldn't turn down the opportunity to watch 'Twins' (HK's reigning Canto-pop duo) and Tatu who were slightly irritating as they spent 15 minutes with a video camera pointing at the audience chanting in high pitch squeaks "KISS KISS!". An interesting way to stretch your thin set out.. They. also did a horrendous cover of "How Soon is Now" by the Smiths. Tatu really must learn to stick to their hit songs... This evening was a free free concert so the venue was full. I must add though that at least TATU had a live band whereas Twins (as like so much of the Hong Kong music scene) performed to a backing tape..... Meanwhile during this corporate Harbour Fest, Hong Kong had another first - the First ever Outdoor Festival in Victoria Park - "Rockit". With two stages, food stalls, hippie paraphernalia stalls and a giant teepee with continuous drum-jams, it had an excellent 'Summer Festival' feel to the whole event. On the first day (Saturday 25 Oct), I came late and missed acts like Electric Eel Shock (Japan) (whom I'm gutted to have missed! They were the highlight of Saturday!), Watched A Guy Called Gerald (UK), and The Feelers (NZ). The highlight act for today was Finley Quaye'(from the UK) who proved to be a big disappointment due to zero-audience participation and supposedly 'too-much-pot-smoked-earlier' which meant that he made a few dismissive comments to the audience. We were sitting down on the grass and listening and couldn't work out if he was reggae or pop or indie - he played a few weird covers too. Bless him for being too stoned to communicate. Waxed Apple (UK) were quite entertaining. I actually thought they were a local band at first!! hahahahaha. They were the only band that made use of the screen backdrop and projected cool visual images during their gig. Their music was a mix of live and recorded samples. Check them out in the UK if you can. On Sunday, We got there early, rolled out a big blanket in front of the big stage and sunbathed. It was a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky. Whence He came - the best HK band (after Thinking Out Loud!!!) were as entertaining as usual. Tight songs and great stage presence from these Christian boys (you wouldn't know it from their songs!) Ephraim has great charisma and knows how to work the crowd. Friends of ours had set up the teepee and Kumi was running her drumjam on both days - local people have embraced drum jam and the teepee was bustling on both days. If you have broadband, here's a 25 second avi video of me walking up to the teepee, they're drumming quite well! acven.com/festival/drumjam.avi Australian Band "The Regurgitators" were the highlight of Rockit for me. Brilliant band - 3 piece - tight and entertaining. I can see why Red Hot Chili Peppers would pick these guys to support them when touring Australia. They captivated the audience and their music ranged from funky songs to electronica rap. This is the sort of band that Hong Kong craves. The headliners on Sunday were the "Spanish Harlem Orchestra" who were responsible for stuff like the theme tune to "Sex in the City" - ending the outdoor fest with a salsa evening! Overall Rockit 2003 was an amazing event. Very good vibes from the people who attended and the weather was perfect. Lets hope the organisers go for another festival this autumn. Please & thanks to Matrix Entertainment Group! A few days later I found myself having lunch with Kazuto (bass) & Gian (drums) from Electric Eel Shock (www.electriceelshock.com) Apparently this was their only day off (without a flight or a performance), and from reading their website they've been touring the world since June 2002! Gian, the drummer ended up being arrested for his stage attire (a fashionable sock slipped over his manhood), the day after their performance at Rock-it and ended up being fined US$32 after hours of explanation. You ought to have seen the full page colour photos that the Chinese press published.... Halloween weekend happened and instead of watching Santana and the Asian All-star night at Harbour Fest, I flew to Shanghai (in mainland China) for my first visit there. I finally got the chance to check out the clubs in Shanghai but found the live music scene rather on the boring side. The few bands I saw were playing sad old covers with no energy. It's a shame cause these clubs were also full of people! Maybe it was a dull weekend when I was there? I intend to visit again as a full-roving reporter for coolgrrrls! Back to Hong Kong in time to catch Michelle Branch & Neil Young all on one night. Michelle was really cool but there were rumours flying about that she was miming.....Neil Young - according to his fans was awesome, for someone like me who doesn't know any of his songs; I found it hard work. His stage persona is minimal although when he sung the three acoustic solo numbers, I thought his voice was beautiful then. I've discovered that I would rather see the godchildren then the Godfather of Grunge.... 'Crazy horses' wont drag me to a Neil Young gig again - hahaha And to close Harbour Fest - well HK finally got their wish to have the Rolling Stones perform! All the older generation finally got to let their hair down, let their jewellery rattle and dressed up as if they were teenagers in the Sixties again. Great to witness. These old rockers were very entertaining! I was forever grateful to the video crew for not zooming in on Keith Richards face...And that man can play guitar but he cannot sing!! Then it was suddenly the end of November and Thinking Out Loud had our last gig for 2003 where we introduced our newest bass player; Egg and we had a storming gig that was ALSO videoed. Limited VCDs (45mins) still available if you write to me. Reports in the local press mentioned my "A-la-Matrix dress". Then in December, it was time to pop over to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for a change of scenery. Musically I only visited the Hard Rock Cafe which was throbbing even though it was a Sunday night! It's floor plan is much better than the one in Hong Kong and obviously KL has a real scene happening. Here's a photo I took of the world's tallest buildings at this moment; Petronas Towers - 1483 ft (452m) tall. I was standing at the foot of the towers at dusk. They were really quite awesome and KL being a very small city - you really could see the towers from wherever you were in KL. To finish up the year, on New Years Eve, I wrote two soul-searching songs with Chris W (TOL) and ended 2003 on a high! Well I'll finish here for now - I promise wont be so long in delay or length for my next update!!! Meanwhile, thank you to coolgrrrls.com for featuring Thinking Out Loud's song "The Stranger" on the front page! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Next update I'll unveil the new colours in my hair.... love from Hong Kong. bbchris xxx August 1, 2003 Hi everyone! Amazing to believe that since I last wrote here, we've had to deal with the Iraq invasion and SARS and Peaceful Protests in Hong Kong.... SARS? Well, I wasn't having any of that 'wear a mask' crap that so many people bought into. You could see people wearing them upside down, pushing them aside to smoke a ciggie and then replacing them over their mouths... hahahahaha Hong Kong was the first place to bring SARS to the world's attention, so my band "Thinking Out Loud" had to cancel going to the famous "SpringScream" (an annual 4-day music festival held in the south of Taiwan.) This year we had a prime spot on stage 3 at 10pm on the Saturday night (April 7th). Could we book a hotel room? As soon as they heard we were coming from Hong Kong, they said 'no rooms available' - Taiwanese people were advising us not to promote the fact that we are a band from Hong Kong. I ended up being interviewed by the "South China Morning Post" (''I'm a rock star. Not a f****** camper!'' (thinkingoutloud.com.hk/newsa.html) For the Cantonese Guitar Competition, I went onto Pierre Tremblay's radio show on Radio 3 twice – once to promote the contest and again to announce the winner. The only requirement for the contestants was to make their guitars ‘speak’ in Cantonese – a tonal language which makes it notoriously difficult to duplicate on guitar never mind vocals!… I truly believe all the contestants are winners and outstanding guys to take on this unusual challenge. All songs, information about the judges and interviews (with much laughter) are all available here. (mp3.com/ducttape) The winner? PANick aka Scott Kesson won with his incredibly groovy song called "Never Never Band" PANick really can kick your ass on guitar! hahaha End of March, SARS had really gripped the public’s attention and the Rolling Stones who were set to play HK and China - cancelled their gigs!?!?! Hard to believe that these rockers who have done every drug imaginable under the sun would be afraid. Yes I had tickets. Rumour is now that they'll return in September – who knows!?!? I’ll keep you posted! April rolled in and more gigs were being cancelled left, right and center - Moby, David Gray and Mariah Carey weren't coming anymore. I wasn't too upset about Mariah but I hope the others reschedule. Many people left HK in panic which was to my band's advantage and we nabbed a few extra gigs. At one of them I decided to do the whole chemical boiler suit thing...... I walked in with my "Hello Kitty" mask on but found it too hard to sing with it......It all got a bit hot for me so I had to strip. Even Warner Music Hong Kong decided it would be amusing to plug Madonna's new album with her wearing a mask..... Then May rolled in and the number of SARS infections continued to, lots of parties were planned and we found ourselves with 5 gigs booked for June. June 2003 kicked off with "Musicians against SARS" two day festival which was held at 48th Street Chicago Blues and Hard Rock Café over the first weekend of June. We played a laid back afternoon set and were followed by Helter Skelter one of Hong Kong’s best blues band. Hats off to these 2 venues for firing up Hong Kong’s music scene and for donating all profits to SARS orphans. Then we played our first shopping mall! We had told the organizers that we were a pop band but on arrival at Times Square – we noticed the band before us were playing ‘shopping-mall’ jazz – whoops hahahahaha We were told to ‘play quietly’ so as not to annoy the shop owners – can you believe that?!?! It was actually a great gig. 95% of the audience were local Chinese who were delighted with the Cantonese patter I was giving them in-between songs plus the TOL stickers were a hit! Times Square has 12 floors and 8 of the floors looks down into the Piazza which was where the stage is set up. The acoustics were awesome! Hahahaha Then we broke the virginity of a hip venue in Lan Kwai Fong* called "Bar George", we were invited by "Exit" a cool cover band to play with them on a packed Saturday night. A lot of band-bonding happened that night and many a mad photo were taken…. *Lan Kwai Fong – the expensive, trendy (also can be touristy) area on Hong Kong island, here you’ll find lots of nightclubs, bars & restaurants. End of June signaled the now-famous "Wanchai Live" a mini-music festival dedicated to raising awareness & money for KELY charity. In its 8th year and sponsored by The Wanch and Carnegies – 2 venues very close to each other in Wanchai. 40 bands played over the weeked of 28th & 29th of June. From veteran band "The Bastards" (punk) to Boludo, it was a mish-mash of music and both venues were packed out for the weekend. Thinking Out Loud got one of the premium spots – 10pm at Carnegies – I decided to unveil the spikey bra look! Well last time I wrote, I promised to fill you in on my music publishing company; Shazza Music – I have a few excellent songwriters; of course Sisters of Sharon, Jane Eliz – a fantastic acoustic guitar player with an awesome voice to match and Mike Barrie – who can perform 1000 songs! Shazza Music works with the songwriters on achieving what they want with their musical goals. On a political note, on 1st July, I joined in the Protest March with 500,000 other Hong Kong people against Article 23. It was an amazing day, we spent 4 hours walking, the atmosphere was calm even though we were all hot and moving slowly. The banners on display were great!! I’ve included a photo of my Mum and myself. The Government was trying to say it wouldn’t make a difference but it did. OK lastly, I think I’ll leave you a link to "Dummy’s Guide to Taking A Band Photo" hahahahaha I’m off to Germany this weekend and will have a nose around Berlin and Frankfurt, I’ll tell you more next time I write! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee February 16, 2003 Hi! BBChris here! Going to be writing about Hong Kong’s music scene for coolgrrrls.com. I’m a musician – singer & guitarist & song-writer – in a few bands - Sisters of Sharon & Thinking Out Loud & Smoking Monkeys. Hong Kong is a tiny place on the south coast of China which until 1997 was a British Colony – which explains my British accent….. It’s 97% Chinese here. And quite conservative which is cool cause it’s quite easy to be different and alternative here – I get a lot of stares for having tattoos & multi-colour hair, nothing to do with my weird dress sense of course! Hahaha I also laugh a lot and have a very positive attitude to music and life in general…. I’m heavily influenced by pop music, grunge music and nu-metal sounds yet have a heavily varied CD collection. I HAVE to listen to music as I truly enjoy it PLUS I co-run a publishing company…. I'll tell you more about that next time I write! What’s happening in the Hong Kong music scene? Well currently everyone is getting excited as a big music Festival is being planned with at least one whole day of music - it's all in aid of charity. Believe it or not but Hong Kong doesn't have any festival equivalent to "Glastonbury/Woodstock/Fuji Rock Festival". For a world city, it's ABOUT TIME! One of the bands I’m in "Thinking Out Loud" is very likely to be performing. I’ll let you know when more details are confirmed. Oh it’s called the "Pearl River Festival"!! Currently, with "Thinking Out Loud" we’re playing the Hard Rock Café every Sunday which is kind of cool. We get free food and their veggie burgers are pretty good! Other good live music venues here are the Fringe Club, 48th Street Chicago Blues and The Wanch. The last gig I saw at the Fringe Club was Pong Nan who’s a songwriter to the Canto-pop stars, he’s a fantastic pianist and has a sexy song to boot. We're there on the 8th of March - really looking forward to it as we always have a good crowd who comes down to watch and cheer. Also watched my friend Debbie Mannas' band at the Wanch - they're called "Heisha", they were rocking the house. Debbie is a very attractive lady - shame I got so drunk I didn't take a photo of Debbie & the band… Still there is one photo of the two of us ;) The Rolling Stones are coming to town (for the FIRST time!) and are playing over the last weekend of March – same weekend as the Rugby Sevens. We’re calling it the "Keith Richards Deathwatch tour" hahaha only cause no one seems to know what the tour is called!! Some of the oldsters here are excited about Cliff Richard coming to town, he’s been here before…. Apparently I saw him when I was in my mothers womb… I’ve been having a Cantonese guitar competition online – seeing if guitarists from all over the world can make their guitar speak the phrase "I kick your ass on guitar with the two middle fingers of my left hand taped to my palm with duct tape" in Cantonese. I’ll be going back on Hong Kong’s Radio 3 (Pierre Tremblay’s Planet World show) beginning of next month to announce the winner. It’s been amazing listening to how creative people can be! Oh a couple of weeks ago I bumped into Melvis Chan – he’s the Hong Kong Elvis (the only one) and also happens to be President of the Hong Kong Elvis Fan Club. I was delighted to get my photo with him and then when I got the camera back and turned around to talk to him, I discovered that "Melvis had left the alley……" Got to take my acoustic guitar to Sam Pleitgen – he’s definitely the best in town for over-hauling guitars, producing/mixing songs – a multi-talented guy who’s also an awesome bass player. He runs the company Sound Advice plus he’s worked with some big names (recorded UB40, Sting etc.) and has my utmost respect. I lost the knob at the end of my acoustic guitar so I can’t put a strap on it. It’s been suggested that I play an acoustic on some of the songs for Thinking Out Loud to give our music an added dimension… Plus I have this peculiar habit of strapping it on me and then walking round the outlying island I live on, serenading everyone along the way…. *sigh* what my friends have to put up with……..