So here we were in our next destination opf China, a country that for so many years was closed off to the outside world but since the government started making concessions in the 80's, began opening it's doors to the outside world. After the Cultural Revolution in the 60's all foreign music was outlawed, and it wasn't until the 80's that tapes of foreign music started creeping in. First of all the sounds of Cantopop which was Chinese Pop music from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Which was quite a shock to most musicians in China at the time, as it was the first time that they realised thjat music could be written about some other things other than the revolution and how cool Chairman Mao was! Secondly by the end of the 80's, UK & US pop music started slowly creeping in, which changed everytuing completely. Now young Chinese had a whole world of musical possibilities infront of them and set about beginning to write the nerw chapter of Chinese music history. And we were here to get a piece of it!!!

I tell you what we didn't get off to a good start. for all this talk about China opening up and being a fantatsic. welcoming place for foreigners, our welcome was 'Red Carpet' in the old-skool sense. Having a camera and a whole lot of shooting equipment can sometimes invite unwanted attention at airports of the world, but having the right papers and documents will always save ya. Not here. On arrival the customs officical demanded a 'bond' of 50,000 Yuan (about 10,000NZ) in cash!!! Just to take the camera in! Realising that noty only was this ridiculous, but the chances of seeing that money again (we would get it back when we departed China) were slim. So we left our beloved HD camera at the airport and the first mission was to find a hire place to get new equipment. Really not a good omen for things to come. More on that later....

Luckily we had our trusty guide with us - Eric Wang. Who spends half his time living in Wellington and half his time living in Shanghai, and with Mandarin skills lacking alot, he really made everything flow nicely. Shanghai's not so bad if you're doing the touristey thing, but if you need to get tasks completed in this city you really need somone by your side that can speak the local language. Luckily once we had new gear our moods changed alot with our first interview - one of China's leading female popstars, a young girl called Nirace. Cute as a button and the embodiment of the sickly sweet C-Pop scene. Wasn't the biggest fan of her music, by had a good stroll through Shanghai with her, and even got to do karaoke with her. Me and her in a booth singing her songs, was pretty funny. That night and it's all about the Shanghai broth styled dumplings.... Damn these things are incredible, I swear for the next 8 days I could've just dined on these alone. They're a Shanghai specialty, and i really gotta find somewhere in Auckland that does them proper. Next day and it was off to get a taste of Shanghai's infamous Jazz scene. Basically in the 1930's Jazz was ruling the roost at nightspots around Shanghai, and found favour espeically with all the foreigners in the city. It even earnt itself the reputation as being the Jazz capital of the East. Sadly with the Cultural Revolution came the end of the Jazz scene. But more than 40 years later, the all-swingin, all-singin sounds of jazz are back. Checked out a couple of spots on this night, first was the Peace Hotel Jazz band who are pretty legendary, most of them were players that started out in the 30's, and although it's really amazing to see them still at it, with and average age of 83 they really aren't playing the kind of jazz that makes you wanna get up and shake your thing. Respect to the boys though, they even busted out Moari folk anthem 'Po-Ataru'... Ka Pai lads.... Anyways for the freshness we headed across town to the legendary JZ club. If you are af an of Jazz, this is the spot. Great club, great vibe, and great players that really do encapsulate this international mix of peeps that makes Shanghai so vibrant at the moment. I was meeting with a man names Lawrence Ku who was going to be transforming kiwi track 'Crazy, Yes Dumb No' by the Mint Chicks into a chin stroking jazz affair. I'd given him the track, and would return back to JZ on my final night in China to hear the results

Next day and it was off to Beijing, and although Shanghai was cool, I really hadn't felt like I'd been given a taste of the real China, Beijing changed all of that... Amazing architecture, an amazing sense of an incredible history, and enough plaques of Mao to give you a reminder of the way things once were in this city. Beijing is absolutely blowing up right now musically, and especially with underground forms of music like Punk, Rock, Hip-Hop and Electronic music. The Hip-Hop scene was were we headed to for a taste of this explosion first, and it was multi-leveled superclub 'Star Live' that was playing host. On this night it wasn't just the local players letting loose, but one of Hip-Hop's top MC's from the US - Talib Kweli, was giving the crowd an excellent education in the real Hip-Hop. And good to see international artists vibing off taking their music to all new territories, just as much as the crowd were having him in their territory. Was a killer night, and definately impressed with the local talent.

Across town and the next spot was a dingy little club called D22. Now this club, is seminal. Pretty much the epicentre of what's happening right now in Punk and quality Rock, most of the bands that are putting Chinese Rock on the map right now like Snapline, Carsick Cars, Hedgehog, Joyside and PK14 either play here on a regular basis, or you'll see them at the bar checking out the other bands and getting inspired. A really cool, really tightknit community that I think are seriously gonna make some big waves internationally very soon. If you are a fan of Rock music and find yourself in China, then definately head here.

The next day was gonna be the worst day of the whole shoot so far but we wouldn't find that out til the end of the night some 16 hours later. It had started so well! We met with a band called Hang On The Box, who were the first all girl Punk band in China, they went on to very well overseas, and their lead singer Gia is rock royalty here in China. They jammed out an interesting version of The Chills classic 'I Love My Leather Jacket' and afterwards we thought a decent celebratory night of nocturnal activities was in order. We started out with some Beijing style 'Hot Pot' which I gotta sayw as yummy as. Next thing some drinks. Nice. Next thing we were at some VIP party for Playboy TV (how we managed to get in I don't know), next thing we were at club Alfa on the dancefloor seriously getting down to one of Beijings top techno DJ's Mickey Zhang, incredbile music and I seriously was having one of the best boogies on the trip so far. And I love a good boogie y'see. Okay so all good up til now, then on our way home, boot loaded up, we get out of the car and just as we are about to get the gear out of the boot the cab drives off! And there he goes.... We thought he'd come back, but no.... He literally watched him screm off into the Beijing night, and in a city which has hundreds of thousands of taxis (all of them look identical), i just had to have a little cry inside to myself as i knew my laptop was gone, and I'd never ever backed up. As a big fan of music, my whole digital music collection - gone. All my old photos - bye. All my emails and a lot of work- seeya! Okay so as you can imagine not the collest thing to have happen on a shoot, luckily no footage was lost (it was all backed up) and the rest of the stuff we could hire. but me? poor sad me? BIG lesson learnt. Always, always, always, always, always backup your laptop.....

Okay so as you can imagine the next couple of days morale was kinda low, but we still had a rocking time. Checked out the Modern Sky music fextival which was great. And then kissed Beijing goodbye (missed out on that great wall which bummed me out a bit) and headed back to Shanghai where we rounded off our Chinese adventure with a storming rendition of The Mint Chicks. Had a great time here. Just forever scarred when it comes to foreign taxi drivers

:)