It’s been seven years since independent Beijing record label Maybe Mars exploded onto the scene with a trio of landmark album releases, including Carsick Cars’ seminal self-titled debut.
At the label’s head office – a small, chaotic cluster of tables and rock ‘n’ roll detritus that doubles as the backstage area of Beijing underground live venue XP – anniversary celebrations are already underway. This is thanks, in part, to a surprise early birthday gift: the return of label co-founder and P.K. 14’s iconic frontman Yang Haisong as CEO.
Having left several years ago to concentrate on his band, Yang – dubbed the “spiritual head of Maybe Mars” by label COO Nevin Domer – explains his motivation for returning as simply the desire to pass along his industry experience (everything from setting up national tours to working with producers) to up-and-coming bands.
“I want all new bands to take their first step with us,” he says, before adding: “What I really want is to help make high quality recordings that sound good a decade later.”
With over 50 releases from 30 artists to its name, and many more planned, the Beijing label is working hard to achieve that goal. Label owner Michael Pettis takes the notion even further.
“If you can be a part of something like New York in the 1960s or Paris in the 1920s, that’s the perfect life,” he says of his role in helping to establish Maybe Mars. “Since I’m not an artist, I can do the next best thing and support them.”
Dubbed “a brilliant economic thinker” by The Wall Street Journal, Pettis lives something of a double life. By day, he’s a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. By night, he’s hanging out at XP, indulging a life-long love affair with music – one that started, appropriately enough, when he opened New York’s Avenue C in the early 1980s.
The influential underground club helped to produce avant-garde composer Glenn Branca, as well as bands such as Swans and Sonic Youth. These very artists would, in a strange turn of events, go on to inspire Carsick Cars’ frontman Zhang Shouwang to first pick up a guitar.
And it was hearing Carsick Cars, or so the story goes, that convinced Pettis to open the now defunct influential punk club D22 in Wudaokou, to provide the band with a regular place to play. Later, with the band unable to secure a fair recording contract, Pettis stepped up again, co-founding Maybe Mars.
As his label partner Yang explains: “Michael and I wanted to document the beginning of this scene as Carsick Cars and Snapline were starting up, and to show the world that Beijing had really good rock bands.”
The pair went on to sign established underground acts Joyside and P.K. 14 to their roster, and helped bring in underground icons like Martin Atkins (PiL, Nine Inch Nails, Snapline), Steve Albini (Big Black, Nirvana, P.K. 14) and Andy Gill (Gang of Four, Red Hot Chili Peppers, AV Okubo) to produce records, ensuring quality, while offering their artists opportunity to work with people they admired.
Later, Sonic Youth handpicked Carsick Cars to open for them on their 2008 European tour, exposing the band to foreign audiences and opening the door for overseas shows. It’s a tradition that continues with Birdstriking playing to 1,000-plus crowds across Europe with the Brian Jonestown Massacre this summer. Label-mates, the psychedelic Chui Wan, also embarked on a seven-country European tour this month.
“When we started, there was this inferiority complex among Beijing musicians,” Pettis recalls. “It was important they could go around the world, be with other musicians and recognize that Beijing was as good as these cities of their dreams.”
Mainland rock history dates back to the 1980s, when the scene’s early figures like Cui Jian raised the flag for yaogun [the Chinese term for rock ‘n’ roll] by incorporating traditional influences. But Maybe Mars reflects the first generation of domestic acts inspired by the Internet, which suddenly provided unfettered access to Western music.
“There’s freshness to how they approach the history of music and also just really high-quality songwriting,” Pettis explains. “Most Chinese people grew up listening to syrupy pop music and even if they left that behind they still have that sense of how to create a melodic structure and a good hook.”
The label has swelled to include Wuhan punk (SZMB), Taiwanese shoegaze (Skip Skip Ben Ben) and Shanghai electronic-rock (Duck Fight Goose). While some critics have questioned their acts’ Western sound, Pettis slams the double standards that Mainland groups face.
“If you play the electric guitar, you’re not being authentic, but if you play the horsehead fiddle, people say you’re finally expressing yourself. But what the f**k does 19th century music have to do with someone born in modern Beijing?” he asks.
The wall-of-noise and synth flourishes that bands like Snapline and Carsick Cars brought to Mainland music can be felt in newer acts like Birdstriking and Chui Wan, the formation of which Pettis credits to Zhu Wenbo’s weekly Zoomin’ Nights at XP. The ability to handle the XP crowd is a prerequisite for any act to be considered by Maybe Mars. The label will canonize the venue in the upcoming compilation The XP Sound, which will be released with an accompanying live show on September 5.
“You can’t hide [when] playing live,” Yang explains. “As a producer, I want to see if you have passion and whether the music is good, even if the playing isn’t.”
Maybe Mars’ first generation of acts may have approached rock with fresh ears, but their newer acts are steeped in label lore. New signees, the Chengdu quintet Hi-Person, made it their mission to join the label. Paking Leung of Hong Kong noise-rockers, The Yours, (pictured top) cites Snapline and Birdstriking as influences, with Yang producing their upcoming Teenagarten album.
With more bands and livehouses emerging from China’s second- and third-tier cities, as well as the rise of digital plaforms like Xiami and Douban providing national exposure, Pettis notes musicians are aiming higher. “Before there was a sense that you really couldn’t be a Beijing musician,” he says. “Now people really think of music as a permanent thing they’re doing.”
“You still can’t make a living,” Yang intervenes, as a caveat. “Our purpose is to change that – so bands can live off their creativity. It pushes us to work harder and harder.”
As always, Carsick Cars are leading the way in this regard. They released their third album, 3, in January and embarked on a successful two-month North American tour. They also played at the Workers Gymnasium in May, a stadium show boldly predicted by Pettis seven years ago, to the group’s disbelief.
“I made a bunch of crazy predictions,” he laughs, recalling a time he jokingly added ‘Sonic Youth’s favorite Chinese band’ to an early Carsick Cars’ show poster to Zhang’s outrage. “I just had a lot of faith in the Beijing music scene.”
When asked for a new set of declarations, he’s not shy: “In five to ten years, these bands are going to be regularly playing pretty large stadiums across China. Abroad, people are going to have their favorite Chinese band like they do their favorite German or Japanese band. I honestly think in 30 to 40 years, the people you see regularly in the clubs now are going to be near-legendary figures on the scene.”
> Listen to Maybe Mars’ discography at downloads.maybemars.org
> 10 Year Yugong Yishan show featuring Carsick Cars, Mr. Graceless and Rustic (with RE:TROS and WHAI); Sep 20; 8pm-late; RMB70-100; Yugong Yishan
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