• Home
• About
• Music
  • Interviews
  • Featured Artists
  • Editor’s Picks
  • Sizzling CDs
  • Press Releases
• Columns
  • Bambi Monroe
  • Dirty Jenny : Jen Leigh
  • Rebecca Kane
  • Tanya T6
• Store
• Networking
• Archives
  • Past Articles
  • Grrrls@nite
    • Grrrls Bios
    • US
      • sanfrancisco@nite
      • detroit@nite
      • NYrox@nite
      • LA@nite
      • newyork@nite
      • orangecounty@nite
      • boston@nite
      • philly@nite
      • nashville@nite
    • International
      • argentina@nite
      • budapest@nite
      • scotland@nite
      • munich@nite
      • sweden@nite
      • germany@nite
      • australia@nite
      • london@nite
      • tokyo@nite
      • hongkong@nite
      • calgary@nite
      • spain@nite
• More
  • Contests
• Contact

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