Press Room

JANUARY 19, 2005

Chinese music draws crowds in Bay Area
Marian Liu

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS - With a critical mass of Chinese immigrants, the Bay Area is fast becoming the destination of choice for music acts, including pop, rock and rap, from China. The groups -- relegated in the past to local hotels, casinos and colleges -- are now performing in mainstream venues, although promoters can't use traditional ways to reach fans.

Late last year, the Chinese pop-classical group Twelve Girls Band sold out Bimbo's 365 Club, and Taiwanese rocker A-Yue and rapper MC Hot Dog packed a show at Slim's, both in San Francisco.

On Sunday, San Jose's HP Pavilion -- hoping to sell 10,000 tickets -- is the only U.S. stop for a popular Chinese singalong show that commonly sells out in China. It boasts a lineup of more than a dozen performers, including Taiwanese pop star A-Mei.

"In the last year or so, there's been a lot more buzz about crisscrossing artists from Asia to the states," says Anni Lam, a talent agent for Parc Landon Agency, which specializes in bringing Asian musical artists to the United States.

It's not quite like the Latin pop music craze of the late '90s. But some promoters here are hopeful that with the growth in Asian population, the music can eventually cross over to the mainstream. For example, Taiwanese pop sensation Jay Chou sold out the 6,000-seat Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in December.

"The music world is evolving, and, hopefully, it's time for Asian music to enter the market," says Patricia Kao, vice president of planning at the House of Blues. "But to make that distinction, it has to go beyond the pop, trendy and gimmicky" and reach "true rock talent," she said. House of Blues was the first mainstream promoter to back a Chinese-language artist, A-Yue, (pronounced ah-you-eh) on an all-American tour that included some House of Blues venues.

In the past decade, the Chinese population has dramatically increased in California, according to the 2000 census. As the Bay Area's largest Asian ethnic group, Chinese make up almost half of the area's 1.3 million Asians. Promoters are tapping into the group's hunger for popular artistic acts.

"Before, we had to worship them across the ocean, but now we get to see them at home," says Jerry Chi, a 20-year-old Stanford junior and second-generation Taiwanese-American, about his favorite artists coming to the Bay Area.

He and his friends from Stanford's Taiwanese Cultural Society made the trip up the Peninsula to see their pop idols A-Yue and MC Hot Dog at their first stop in a 10-city U.S. tour at Slim's in October.

That night, it was hard to distinguish the club from one in Taiwan -- a sea of black hair waved up and down, and almost every word spoken was in Mandarin or Taiwanese. Outside, instead of fliers to other clubs, people were passing out samples of bottled tea.

The Twelve Girls Band concert was even more popular. Its tour sold out across seven cities in America, including San Francisco. Scalpers outside Bimbo's were selling the $25 tickets for four times the price. Fans bombarded the Chinese classical pop artists -- whose suggestive image seems more American than Asian -- waiting for hours to greet them at the airport, then at their shows for autographs and pictures.

Kymm Britton, publicist for the band, joked that it was like The Beatles had landed.

Unlike the A-Yue show, which was in Mandarin and the crowd predominantly Asian, the Twelve Girls Band's instrumental concert ranged in race and age.

Despite the relative success of these concerts, promoters are finding it is difficult to market and advertise Chinese artists.

"It's not the normal rock 'n' roll deal," says Kevin Morrow, senior vice president of tours and talent at the House of Blues. "You need to go a couple steps deeper than just normal radio and normal print advertising. You need to go to all of the Asian clubs on campuses.

"Different generations of immigrants find their information differently, explains Terry Pan, president of CMPG Marketing, which focuses on Asian events.

Pan, who advertises in Asian supermarkets and tapioca cafes, works on the assumption that second-generation Chinese immigrants tend to get their information through non-traditional sources.

Radio advertising is also unreliable because while different generations may listen to the same kind of music from the homeland, they understand different dialects of Chinese -- some speak Mandarin, others Cantonese, and then there is Taiwanese and Toisan. And their children speak English.

Lam, the talent agent, is working on reaching second-generation immigrants through an online radio lineup that includes Chinese-language music and Chinese news translated into English on www.hkvpradio.com and www.audiofeast.com. The San Francisco Bay Area, she says, is her biggest market.

Regardless of the obstacles, the House of Blues' Morrow said he's bringing Wu Bai, the Taiwanese "King of Rock," to the United States for a tour in May. And A-Yue, again, at the end of the year. Other deals, Morrow foresees, will bring artists from other parts of Asia. In the Bay Area, pop singers from Vietnam and Bollywood performers from India stage shows regularly, though without mainstream American backing.

But, as with any trend, growing pains come along.When Morrow was working on signing the Twelve Girls Band to a second tour of the States, the deal collapsed because the performers wanted more money.

"It's definitely good for the Asian community," he said, "but not so good for us."

Press contact:
Jinny Chen
jinnyparclandon.com