editor's bit

Today’s technology-savvy music industry offers terrible singers and bands a multitude of ways to sound great. Even at live gigs, software can vastly improve the audio output, and many lip-syncing ‘superstars’ take advantage of background music while performing their X-rated dance sequences. But at an unplugged gig, there’s nowhere to hide - it’s just the singer and his acoustic guitar, raw and exposed. That’s when you find out if an artist is genuine or just another product of auto-tune. Earlier this month, we held the first of an ongoing series of unplugged gigs. My thanks go to Steve Cray, Lani Giro, Reign Lee (and Sioux), Scarlett Lewis (and Ash), John Bryant - via MySpace and the US Navy - and The Wanch’s John Prymmer for a wonderful night of original unplugged music. You can find some short videos of what you missed on www.bcmagazine.net. Join us for the next show on 17 July at The Wanch.

The sun is out on a Saturday for the first time in a long while, and I’m off for a sail around our Fragrant Harbour. After the race, as the adrenaline of competition subsides, the return sail - up the harbour and into the setting sun - offers some of the most stunning views of our wonderful city. As the 11th anniversary of the Handover approaches, I acknowledge there are many things that could be improved in Asia’s World City. But faults and all, it’s a wonderful place, and I’m proud to refer to myself as a Hong Konger and to call Hong Kong my home.

sd