On the Road
words rachel mok

Calling French quintet Moriarty a group of modern bohemian gypsies is not an exaggeration. In fact the label may underestimate them – with members from three continents, the group have played their fusion of folk, blues and country sounds in places as unconventional as prisons, mental institutions, a ruined castle and on an overnight train. Back in the studio their attractions remain – their debut album Gee Whiz But This Is A Lonesome Town was nominated for the Prix Constantin in 2008. The group talk of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and their own road trips before playing for Le French May in Hong Kong this month.

Did you take your name from Dean Moriarty, the name of the character in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road?
When we started the band, which was at the end of the last century, Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road was one of our favourite books. There was something in its rhythm, its images of America that was fascinating. Maybe it resonated with our own childhood memories. So we picked up the name of the main character. Since then, people have told us that Moriarty was actually the name of a town in Tasmania, a blonde actress in Raging Bull, a criminal genius in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books and the name of an Irish clan. That’s why we’re called Moriarty and not Dean Moriarty – it has more meanings.

Do you think you guys resonate with the character Dean Moriarty, or with the real-life Neal Cassady on whom Moriarty was based?
Dean Moriarty is a fascinating character. He follows his impulses; he’s completely unpredictable; he’s also immature, reckless, and dangerous – not a hero. That’s fine with us. But we don’t identify with him, we just happen to share the same name.

Travelling and playing in unconventional venues is a big part of the band. How does that affect the music?
We spend a lot of time on the road. After 10 years spent playing in a small basement room in Paris, we started touring around Europe and America in autumn 2007, doing over 200 concerts and driving over 50,000km. As we travel, we collect memories of places, people, stories that will probably re-surface in future songs. And you find better stories along the little dirt roads than on the highways. That’s why we like to play in unconventional places.

So out of all the places the group have played in, which one is the most memorable?
We once played in a prison in Eastern France. This might have been the strongest, most essential concert experience we’ve had. We played in front of 50 inmates, only men. The look in their eyes was sharp, hard. We played our songs as simply and intensely as we could. The only goal was to convince them, to get the emotion through. At first they were very cold, unimpressed, talking aloud during the songs, wondering who we were. Then after a few songs they started clapping. At the end they didn’t want to leave. There was a long silence. Then the prison guards told everybody to get up, and took them back to their cells. One young guy stayed behind and told us the music was good; Rosemary’s voice won him over. We like it when a concert goes into the unknown, when we don’t know what to expect.

Where do you guys want to play next?
We would like to play inside a night train en route to Turkey, singing lullabies to the passengers; we would like to make a concert inside a subterranean cathedral in a salt mine in Poland, to play with the echo, taste the salt and hear the miner’s stories; we would like to play in a tiny bar in La Boca in Buenos Aires and invite tango musicians into the songs.

The members of the group come from different parts of the world but settled in Paris. Is nostalgia a common motif in your music?
Our families came from the United States, Vietnam, Switzerland, and settled in Paris, France. They gave us stories about mountains, trains, wars, spies, transatlantic ships and snowstorms. Our music, somehow, probably talks about living far away from your homeland.

So the lyrics to the songs are based on real stories?
The stories behind the songs are sometimes real, sometimes made up, but mostly it’s a mix of both. Lily, for example, is a real-life character, she’s one of our cousins who grew up in Florida and got enrolled in the US Army at age 19. But we wrote the song in such a way that you could also take her for an imaginary person, who maybe could have lived in the ’50s. Jimmy, on the contrary, is a fantasy character but we can think of many real-life people who followed his story.

The Guardian described your live show as a ‘happening’. What do you think that means?
We cannot predict what will happen during our live shows. We try to control it, but there’s always something unexpected: A three-year-old kid who climbs on stage, a power failure, an unstoppable laughing-crisis from the guitarist, instruments disappearing mysteriously, or God knows what. I guess you can call it a happening.

Experience Moriarty on May 27 as they play as part of Le French May at the HK City Hall Concert Hall. Singer-songwriter Chet Lam will be their special guest. The show starts at 8pm and tickets are $250, $200 and $150 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

Sham 69
Sham 69 may have busted out of the punk scene roughly the same time as Sex Pistols did, but their story is very different. As they play their first gig in China, guitarist Dave Parsons is the only founding member in the current line-up and some of their signature songs have been given new meanings: they gained media attention when their most recognized tune If the Kids are United was played during Tony Blair’s entrance to the Labour Party conference in 2005 and former vocalist Jimmy Pursey changed the lyrics to protest against UK sending troops to Iraq. In 2006, the hit Hurry Up Harry became Hurry Up England and made it into the top 10 on the singles charts. Despite the success, the band spilt up that year, Parsons continuing with Sham 69 independently. You may say the band is not what it used to be, but once a legend always a legend. They will play at Backstage on May 15 at 9:30pm with opening acts NONAME from Xian and HK’s own street punk rocker Defiant Scum. Advance tickets are $150 from the venue and Star Crossed Tattoo or $180 at the door.

Glass Work
The modern glass harmonica was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 and its uniquely ethereal sound is made by rubbing the edge of stemmed glasses. It was banned in the mid-1800s in some parts of Germany because it was believe that its sound would drive the instrument’s player insane, frighten animals and cause premature deliveries, among other superstitions. But French musician Thomas Bloch and his pet aren’t too worried. ‘Fortunately, I am still in good health. And my cat loves the sound of the instrument,’ he says. Yet he believes all the ‘myths’ can be scientifically explained.

Players from the past suffered from lead poisoning because of the lead contained in crystal (24%) but mainly because of the black paint put on some glasses to indicate sound alterations, like the black keys of a piano. The paint was rich in lead, not well fixed and so after many years of daily playing, a musician could become ill. ‘But at that time they didn’t know about this problem and thought that it was because of the high sounds the instrument can produce. So, it was forbidden to play it in Germany.’

Bloch is also an expert in other rare instruments like the ondes Martenot (an early electronic musical instrument) and the Cristal Baschet (an instrument that produces sound from oscillating glass cylinders). His love for these unique instruments date back in his early childhood, when he was ‘fascinated by the sounds’. Later he went to Paris Conservatory to study ondes Martenot where he heard German musician Bruno Hoffmann playing a glass harp (glasses filled with varying levels of water to tune them) on an LP – and that’s when he decided to try the harmonica for the first time. ‘I was fascinated by the ethereal sound. The booklet spoke about the glass harmonica and the pieces composed by Mozart and a few others. I decided to buy one and by coincidence it was just at that time that Gerhard Finkenbeiner began to rebuild one.’

As experienced a musician as he is, it took Bloch three years of hard work before his first concert playing the harmonica. ‘At the beginning, you cannot obtain any sound and it takes time until your skin and your ability is good enough to make a powerful sound and to make a sound each time you put your fingers on the instrument.’ He now has his own trick to mastering the instrument – he travels with his own water to fill the glasses to determine the pitch of the sound. ‘Or if I cannot because of security problems in planes I take a special preparation to mix with local water, a special soap, and don’t allow anybody to touch the harmonica – if there is grease on it, doesn’t work anymore,’ he says. ‘It’s fascinating to see the people attracted by it and wanting to touch it – who would even think to touch the violin of a musician who gives a concert?’

His expertise has taken him to over 2,500 concerts and over 80 records with some notable collaborations including Radiohead, Damon Albarn and Gorillaz, Marianne Faithful, Tom Waits and John Cage. ‘It’s just a musical job as any other,’ he says. ‘Playing music is just the same with Mozart or Radiohead. Just the fee, the intensity and the number of concerts per year are different.’ He is also indifferent to audiences leaving his concert halfway through if they cannot stand the sound of the once mysterious instrument. ‘You probably have also seen some people’s reactions when you play with wet fingers on a glass in a restaurant. They join you or they cannot stand the sound and ask you to stop. I don’t have a problem if someone can’t stand the sound and leaves the hall when I play. I can understand and it happens sometimes.’
Audiences retreating isn’t a big concern, but travelling with the fragile instrument is. ‘When I travel by car, which means almost everywhere around Europe as I live in France, there is no problem. By plane, I have to buy a second seat when I travel with one instrument. When I am asked to use several, I have to send them by a freight company several days before I go and I get them back several days after my return, which is not always possible if I have concerts just after or before. And that’s not saying anything about the freight price. So, sometimes, I – and the organizers too – have to make a choice.’

Thomas Bloch will be joining the City Chamber Orchestra and soprano Yuki Ip in Glass Music, as part of Le French May, on May 26. Programme highlights include Franklin’s Quintet for Glass Harmonica and Strings, Hasse’s Cantata L’Armonica (excerpts), Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo in C Major, KV 617 and the world premiere of local composer Samson Young’s, new work I Give You a Transparent Wonderland for Live Electronics, Video and Strings. The concert starts at 8pm at the HK City Hall and tickets are $220, $160 and $120 from Urbtix

Guitar Fever
Twenty-four-year-old Thibault Cauvin has a boyish, innocent look but his guitar-playing skills are way beyond his actual age. He started learning the instrument when he was six and had 13 international championships under his belt by the age of 20, including the Stotsenberg International Guitar Competition in Los Angeles, Concurso Internazionale di Chitarra di Mottola in Italy and Forum Gitarre Wien in Austria. The French press and critics have hailed him as the ‘ambassador of the new classic guitar’ – and so now he is stopping by the SAR on June 1 for a Thibault Cauvin and his Guitar concert as part of Le French May. The programme includes Roland Dyens’ arrangements of jazz standards, sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and Brazilian composer Sergio Assad’s Farewell. The one-night-only concert will be on June 1 at 8pm in the HKAPA Concert Hall. Tickets are $150 and $90 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

Mini Noise
Big Echo
Folk band Mininoise recently released their debut EP So Nice, which features songs the five members often sang during street rallies, as well as songs they wrote for grassroots comrades. Outrageous, bitter yet ever hopeful, the troupe addresses the lives of sex workers, construction workers who lost their lives in industrial accidents, kids crammed into overcrowded public housing and those who fought for their beliefs 20 years ago in Tiananmen Square. Mininoise are B (vocals, guitar), Chan Wai Fat (bass guitar, guitar, background vocals), Lau Tze Bun (accordion), Yank Wang (ukulele, guitar) and Edmund Leung (drums). They will be singing their hearts out on May 15 at Kubrick – the show starts at 10pm and tickets are $100 (includes one drink) from www.kubrick.com.hk or from Kubrick at BC or APM.

Community Sound
The Shek Kip Mei Factory Building – now known as JCCAC – is set to become the cultural hub of Kowloon to showcase off-the-beaten-track art and music performances. Tim Wheeler, artistic director of UK’s theatre group Mind the Gap and actor/singer Jez Colburne present Silk Road 1 – The Moth Ball, a musical performance in which the two British artists, the Caritas Lok Hang Workshop Dance Troupe and The Symbiotic Dance Troupe take a journey into history, family, joy and grief. The community performance will take place on May 21 and 22 at 8pm at the JCCAC Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $150 from Centre for Community Cultural Development (L5-04, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, 2891 8482). On both dates there will be five workshops and exhibitions in different units at the JCCAC starting from 5pm and if you participate in all of them, entry to the performance will be free. Visit http://cccd.hk for a schedule and updates.

Big Showdown
The 33rd PolyMuso Annual Performance 2009 will feature two guest bands – 2side1BRAIN, a Screamo/Emo five-piece hailing from Okinawa who have been gigging in local clubs as well as the US military base since 2003 and Beijing hardcore/nu-trash powerhouse Four Five. They will be joined by an A-list of local bands including Mr, Audiotraffic, Hardpack and Shepherds The Weak as well as university bands Tonick, Partyolk and this year’s PolyMuso. Tickets are $60 if you buy them from Tom Lee outlets in advance or $80 at the door. This annual showdown on May 30 will be at the Hang Out Youth Outreach and doors open at 5pm.

Freebie
Singer-songwriter Jeff Caylor is about to release his second album What Birds Dream at the beginning of June but now you have a chance to get a free preview copy – legally. In return he is asking for an honest review of the album on your blog. It’s what Caylor calls a ‘blog tour’ and here is how it works: drop an email to press@jeffcaylor.com with your name, your blog URL, RSS feed and mailing address and if your blog is approved, he will send you a preview copy of the album, as well as a copy for you to give away on your site. And of course, he trusts that you will post an honest review between May 25 and 29. And after the blog tour there is a real tour – an album release party will be thrown on May 29 at 9:30pm at Island ECC (2/F, 633 Kings Road) at which Caylor and his band will perform some of the tracks from his latest effort. Again, it is free! Speaking of freebie, you can now visit Coldplay’s official website (www.coldplay.com) and download LeftRightLeftRightLeft, a new live album of the biggest band in the world, for free. Just thought you may want to know…

Coming Soon
The name says it all – George Lam’s Lam@Coliseum plays on June 5 and 6, tickets are $480, $380, $280 and $150. Leon Lai will be staging Dream Wedding Summer 09 concerts from July 16-19, tickets are $480, $280, $180 and $100. And TVB heartthrob Raymond Lam’s debut stadium concerts running on June 16 and 17 are titled Let’s Get Wet. Given that he has only released two albums, that probably means he will be singing a lot of covers, and anyone who has seen his lip-syncing performance of Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack on TV or YouTube, you will either have harder laugh or cry over the fact that he can have a concert in the most prestigious concert venue in HK.
STOP PRESS Linkin Park to play Macau on 16 August 2009, tickets on sale 18 May from www.cotaiticketing.com

The Right Score
For Henry Lai, making music for Hong Kong films needs a right mindset

Look carefully at the names of the nominees in the Best Original Film Score category of the recent Hong Kong Film Awards and you may notice something strange – only one out of the five is Chinese. Three are Japanese (for Painted Skin, Ip Man, and, the winner, Red Cliff) and two French (for Sparrow), leaving local composer Henry Lai Wan-man as the lone Chinese contestant for Three Kingdoms – Resurrection Of The Dragon. What does that say about our city’s film and music industry?

It is not an original question. In fact, the day before this interview took place, Henry had watched a TV segment that asked that very question of iconic Hong Kong director John Woo. ‘Woo replied that Hong Kong musicians need to be more international in their works - which means that Hong Kong music is not international enough,’ Lai says – then hesitates. ‘How should I put it? Well, I have lots of respect for John Woo but I do think that comment is very wrong.’ To this veteran of the film score, though going international seems to be the trend, composers must always remember the kind of film they are working for. ‘It sounds like sour grapes but Painted Skin,’ he says, ‘is [adapted from] very traditional Chinese literature, right? I don’t think there is much of a Chinese feel in [the score].’ One could say the same thing about Red Cliff and Ip Man – ironically enough, all three Chinese costume dramas hired composers from our neighbouring country for their soundtracks.

Lai’s work in Three Kingdoms has also earned him a nomination at the Asian Film Awards, competing with Joe Hisaishi and Allah Rakha Rahman, (last year’s Oscar winner for Slumdog Millionaire). His might be the only Chinese name in the region’s various award nominations, but Lai refuses to believe there is a lack of talent in Hong Kong music industry and refers to the number of graduates coming from music schools every year. ‘But it is too difficult for them to enter the industry,’ he says. ‘We are talking about a few million dollars at least to make a film. What if [a film company] lets some newcomers try but they missed the deadline? [The company] cannot take the risk so [newcomers] can’t get a chance even if they would do it for free.’

The former architect started off his musical career playing in the legendary indie band Island in the late ’80s, then went on to write and produce for pop singers such as Sandy Lam, Prudence Lau and Andy Lau. He started scoring for local films in 1994 with The Kung Fu Scholar and earned his first HK Film Awards nomination for Beijing Rocks in 2002. Some of his more recent works include The Sniper, Beast Stalker and Storm Rider – Clashes of Evil. But he is still a rocker at heart and has also managed to release two albums with the alternative project Tienji Tang (literally Heavenly Weaved) he formed in the ’90s. Yet for the first time in his film-composing career, he has had to self-invest in the release of a soundtrack, and the music from Three Kingdoms – Resurrection Of The Dragon didn’t hit the streets until last month although the film first screened in March 2008.

‘The market is bad,’ he explains. ‘Even pop artists cannot sell, so how can a company help you to release an instrumental soundtrack?’ Still he is proud of what he has done in this Daniel Lee film, a project he took very seriously: The soundtrack was mastered by Marcussen Mastering in the US whose CV includes Hollywood blockbusters The Dark Knight, Spiderman and Transformers and a DTS Surround Sound DVD is included in the Three Kingdoms’ soundtrack package. This, I surmise, with the deluxe design of the package must have cost a fortune. ‘I don’t know what to tell my wife,’ jokes Lai. ‘If the CDs don’t sell, she probably won’t let me buy anything else.’

Despite the risk and hard work, Lai believes the pay-off will eventually come, although it may take time. He knows some in the film’s audiences recorded the theme song of Three Kingdoms inside the cinema and used it as their ringtone – not exactly the best way to show appreciation, but it does say something.

This year, Lai and Daniel Lee’s collaboration continues in Jin Yi Wei (literally The Brocade-Clad Guard referring to the Ming Dynasty emperor’s secret service), a costume drama starring Donnie Yen. After that he wished to score for a ghost film – which will be a first for the composer – though he has no plans to once more strap on his guitar for a band. ‘You need a lot of courage to do that again,’ he laughs. ‘For fun it is okay, but rock is about the flame in one’s heart. I don’t know, probably I don’t have much of that left anymore. ’http://javamusicproductions.com

Indie Roundup
The first rock marathon of the fortnight will be the HW Muso Band Show on May 15 at Yo Park (Shop Nos B46-B48, 1st Basement, Site 11, Whampoa Garden, Hung Hom), where the line-up will include Bi-Luo-Chun, Bomber, Revolution, Mc.Donica, Wiggo, Peri M and Supper Moment. The gig starts at 7:30pm and tickets are $70 in advance from the venue or $80 at the door, both include one drink.

Until August, under the leadership of local composer Kung Chi Shing, a free Street Music Series will showcase all kinds of musical talents, from classical to indie rock/pop and electronic, in the square outside the Arts Centre main entrance. This month’s performance will be on May 15 at 6pm with The Pancakes, Yank Wong and Kung Chi-shing, Dr Beat Percussion Group and SIU2.

The following night at a rock marathon at The Wanch (2861 1621) modern collective Bus Uncles, progressive four-piece Dominic Chow & the Hardcore Band and the funky The McCadden Place Collective will play from 8:30pm till late – as usual entry is free.

On the same night, a few bands will give their first Underground performance – Uranus, Partyolk, The Sleeves and Shenzhen’s dub/digital reggae fuses with classical Chinese music collective cruftworld in a debut for Underground 80 (9486 4648) on May 16 at California. Transnoodle will make their 6th appearance on the same night. The gig starts at 9:30pm and entry is $100.

Local king of harmonica Henry Chung and jazz/ blues guitar icon Eugene Pao are teaming up for an all-star line-up for the local blues gig of the year – also playing are Vincent Lam (vocals/guitar), Edward Chun (vocals/guitar), Bob Mocarsky (keyboards), Ah Hong (bass) and Anthony Fernandes (drums) with special guest Genevieve Marentette on vocals. The gig will be on May 16 at 9pm at Grappa’s Cellar (2521 2322) and tickets are $188 (includes two drinks).

The Sinister Left have just released their debut EP Red Eye Effect – buy your copy by emailing thesinisterleft.hk@gmail.com or go to any of their gigs, the next one being Rock Faces on May 22 at the Fringe Club. Also sharing the stage that night will be Tai Tai Alibi, The Icarus Flightplan and The David Bowie Knives. The gig starts at 10:30pm and advance tickets are $100 from the Fringe Club box office (2521 7251) or $125 at the door, and that includes one drink.

Mainland folk/rock singer-songwriter Su Yang and his band will play the HK leg of their national tour at Hidden Agenda (6335 6366) on May 23 with opening acts Fitswave, Karat, Motion Fade and Modern Children. Doors open at 7:30pm, entry is $100.

The Students Miss Schools charity gig will be a fund raiser for U Hearts, an organization formed in 2005 aimed at improving the learning environment in China’s rural areas by building schools, funding students and organizing youth exchange programmes. Funk trio Golden Cage, indie rocker Chochukmo and Canto-rock three-piece Sway Dog will be headlining the gig on May 27 at Youth Outreach Hang Out. The gig starts at 7pm and advance tickets are $80 from Hang Out, White Noise and Zoo Records or $100 at the door. Ticket holders of Rockraiser, which was cancelled on April 25 due to adverse weather, can enter for free. The Rockraiser festival has been rescheduled for October 10.