From its debut to the present, the works of Universal Youth Hostel have always traced and absorbed the roots of rock and roll, responding to the changing social reality and the symptoms of the times. The new album's eclecticism in music and aesthetic experiments in songwriting and writing have diverted a group of listeners, but also presented the band's artistic pursuit and state of mind at the moment
On the day after the winter solstice in 2020, the second album of the Universal Youth Hostel Band (hereinafter referred to as "Wanqing") "Ji southwest forest road trip" was listed on NetEase Cloud Music in the form of a paid digital album, and 200,000 copies were sold in half a day. After two weeks, sales exceeded 10 million. As of March 1, 2021, more than 510,000 online albums have been sold. Douban score 9.2.
Compared with the good reputation obtained when the first album was released 10 years ago, the integrity of the new album in music, the huge amount of information, the diversity of style and instrumental music, and the "quirking path" of the words have triggered mixed responses and given the audience more space for repeated appreciation and discussion.
For Wanqing, myths never existed. The carefully polished album is not only a proof of energy, but also a double precipitation of their artistic exploration and writing reality.
In the past 10 years, society has become more bizarre and deep. Focus, constantness and not an endless stream of talents are all challenged by fast-moving lifestyles and attention economies. Music sociologist Wang Qian and music educator and Broadway player Feng Jianpeng both pointed out that compared with technology, the musical value that Wanqing brings to us is more important than style, new experience, and formal content. "It is inevitable that Wanqing will trigger a fierce response. The most valuable thing is that their attitude is particularly sincere, always soberly looking at reality and themselves. Wang Qian said.
Two months later, we visited Shijiazhuang again. The heated discussion and noise caused by the new specialty have been lost in the warmth of the New Year's Day and sunk in the wine glass. The city, which has just announced the city's transition to "low risk," appears quiet and relaxed. The local musicians who have been "circled" by the epidemic for dozens of days and have settled down with each other have finally come together again. Guitars, basses, drums, trumpets and violins once again lingered and swung in the rehearsal hall of more than three hundred square meters.
"Actually, I haven't come out of the last round of exhaustion." Wanqing main creator Dong Yaqian said. But he was the one who was the most punctual in the shed every day.
Ji Geng took the small book and planned the recent studio's affairs arrangements - taking a decent introduction to the studio photo, the new vinyl master tape, the first CD reprint (overseas version) production, everything had to be worried about. Rehearsing the second special repertoire, the articulation between acoustic guitar and electric guitar is quite smooth. I also had to call the musicians from other provinces, "When will everyone be able to get together, at least 9 people must be lined up first." Dong Yaqian said.
The festival performances in April and May are in sight. Although the special session has not yet been scheduled, there can always be imagination. Dong Yaqian said: "Re-performing the special performance, we have more space in the arrangement of the track. ”
"Do you have enough energy to eat?"
"No problem. But another 10 or 20 years is not good. So you have to learn how to push harder. ”
I think of the night of the "countdown" of the new album, when a group of friends talked about three or four o'clock in the morning. Dong Yaqian didn't drink much, "I've been tired lately." At two o'clock in the middle of the night, he sent a new message to the jazz trumpet player Wen Zhiyong. The latter congratulated him, and he replied: "I still have to continue practicing, and then I will continue to learn with you." For the rest of my life, I play music happily and play together. ”
At midnight on December 21, 2020, at the Mai Forget Restaurant Bar in Shijiazhuang, a moment before the launch of "Ji Southwest Forest Road Trip", Ji Geng and a group of friends gathered in front of Wanqing's agent Zhao Liang's computer to pay attention to the final revision of the new Weibo copy
riddle
Ji Geng is not a person who can spread his creative ideas widely. But in the new copywriter, he threw a thread at the audience.
In 2013, the band left Hebei and went northwest. The train penetrated into the belly of The Taihang Mountain, and the scenery suddenly superimposed and changed: "The village at the foot of the mountain is still running an ancient benevolent order, while on the opposite mountainside, the performance of the Explosives Song and Dance Troupe opened the curtain." ”
Six years later, at the end of winter, documentary filmmaker Fan Jian and the band traveled to Jingxing County, Hebei Province, where mining was the pillar industry, the origin of Ji Geng's "vertigo memory".
"As soon as I heard the song 'Morning', I came up with the feeling of being sitting in a car and walking in the mountains. The sky went from dark gray to fish belly white. Maybe the mountain road is broken at this end of the wall, but the other end is a dense jungle, very magical. Some of the quarrying sites are semi-abandoned, and the cement plant next to it is still functioning. ”
Until he reached the large pit that was 100 meters deep and saw the entire mountain being blasted and mined, all of Fan Jian's psychological presuppositions were crushed by the scene in front of him.
Further to the county seat of Jingxing, the houses, streets, and people are all shrouded in obscurity and chaos. "The sun may be bright during the day, but everything around you is gray." Later, Mr. Fan said, they ate at a restaurant near the riverbed, which was huge and dry, like the picture on the poster for the movie "Elephant Sitting on the Ground."
"Mythical handshake modernization", the wasteland thus lays out the riddle of pathos. One early morning after the train was traveling, half dreaming and half waking up, the words "Ji Southwest Forest Road Line" suddenly popped out of Ji Geng's mind, like a spell, and never dissipated again.
When he wrote "Quarrying", the original song title was called "Ji Southwest Forest Road Line". The two are related, but he feels that this song is not it ("Ji Southwest Forest Road Line"). Then to the later Mud River and, all have a relationship, but they can't fully fill it either. So, after the "Hebei Ink Qilin" "get up and go to the wasteland independently", what else is there?
Ji Geng said that he had been waiting. "In the beginning, it was necessary to solve the 'light body technique and electrocardiogram' in "Ink Qilin", which is not a simple rhyme game, but has connotations. You also have to express the blankness of the text and the direct connection with yourself. The ink unicorn is a myth of the 21st century imagination. The "Suburban Sleeping Temple" in the back should be two sides of the same coin with it. ”
One drag, it's hundreds of days.
"It's useless to be in a hurry, it's always wrong. I always feel that this song is not yet the time to write dynamics, and it is always accumulating. ”
On July 31, 2020, the photo of "Dosenji Temple" was taken.
After a few years of wandering and solving puzzles, it was finally completed with a mixture of myths, fables and sketches of the times: rivers, mountains, birds, beasts, and people, which are both the protagonists of the oral narratives and the objects of observation. Images such as thunder, dark clouds, thieves, and actors and princes echo back and forth in different perspectives and time and space, and the grass snake gray line. It seems that writing a more "grand" proposition is actually closely related to the present, you and me.
When all the lyrics were completed, Ji Geng recalled, some like a dream: "It wasn't until I wrote the sentence 'There is a dense forest in the western suburbs of the suburbs, helping the king to suddenly encircle' in the "Suburban Sleeping Temple", that I realized that the Ji Southwest Forest Road line may have really begun at this moment, and this name that suddenly appeared a few years ago turned out to be this meaning, a cold sweat. ”
He put down the teacup in his hand and looked solemn: "For me, "Suburban Sleep Temple" is a very important thing. It wraps up the entire record. So much has been written before, and finally it has to come back to yourself: Who are you? What are you doing? What kind of time and space do you live in? ”
The singles except "Suburban Sleep Temple" have been sung live before 2018. Some fans believe that Wanqing has made great efforts to make the album coherent, the track form uniform and the primary service to the album as a whole. But some people feel that "Suburban Sleep Temple" is a bit like a hastily completed work.
"That's not how it's understood." Ji Geng was a little excited. "If you don't have enough time, you can definitely finish your work." It's about having to be experienced. Without reaching this time, without experiencing something, that content does not exist. It does not automatically appear until one's own experience and perception extend and gradually merge with what it had previously imagined. ”
Le fan Shiying said that at first, like many netizens, he was eager to decode and decipher the new specialty word by word, but later he was relieved. "Even if you go through the dictionary and see through all their information, even if you go and install a camera in their rehearsal room, there is no way to understand it." It's better to jump out of the literal and just feel it. ”
Fan Jian's listening experience is not so "screwed" and difficult to understand. "For example, 'New things are rising and disillusioned like stars, but I am blinded by dark clouds', this sentence has hit the post-85s and 90s like my wife - the era is leaping forward, seemingly changing with each passing day, but the individual has a sense of hopelessness and confusion." As for me? It should be similar to 'the times are noisy and the creation is busy', and this direct expression has touched me a lot. ”
There are also people who associate cyberpunk's "high-tech, low-life" from the "electronic wasteland"; some people see workers, urban tenants, ordinary people who "work hard but are cannibalized, but still expect glimmering" from the words...
In Wang Qian's view, it was Ji Geng's words that laid the tone of this band. "He has a lot to express in his heart, and then he relies on his language to control it, expressing it in the form of a postmodern and abstract painting." It's not necessarily all true, but he offers a very important cultural imagination of the things that we really feel in our lives but can't say. ”
Front row: lyricist, Bass Ji Geng, composer, guitar Dong Yaqian; back row: drummer Feng Jiang, trumpet, flute Shi Li, guitar Su Lei Tu/ Reporter Jiang Xiaoming
grow
In the past four or five years of meetings, I have gradually become accustomed to not asking the band about the schedule of new albums. It seems to have become an unrealistic "delusion." But no matter how patient and tolerant the music fans are, there are also times when they can't stand it. All kinds of speculation, eagerness, and even complaints appear from time to time in discussions such as Douban.
"Slow, it's a little slow." Ji Geng, Dong Yaqian, and Shi Li nodded honestly one by one, "But definitely not idle." ”
Dong Yaqian said that he and Ji Geng are more "blindly confident" in their respective creations. "He doesn't consult with me when he writes, and usually shows it to me when he's done." I don't ask either. ”
Musical motives are born, sooner or later. When the words come out, the motivation will also adjust. "You've got to make these two things a long time. When it's long, we start moving. ”
The time of growth, usually in months, can be as long as several years. Everything goes with the flow. When the dust settles, let's talk about arranging and orchestrating.
Discussions on the new framework and configuration began more than two years ago; the formal arrangement and recording began in mid-2020.
It was at the turn of summer and autumn that I saw Dong Yaqian, a jujube red T-shirt, pants with black and white flowers, and cloth shoes dragging behind her head. Because he concentrated on recording for months in a row, he suffered from severe tinnitus. It took two days to get better after going into a mountain retreat (recuperation). "Just by deleting the voided recordings, I deleted hundreds of G's." Dong Yaqian said, but did not think it was bitter.
During the recording for more than half a year, the band that was dormant in the studio was sometimes exhausted and repeated. The state is always in between, looping like a pendulum.
When recording the wind band group, I had self-doubt. "How do you feel bad, not neat, either there is a problem with the pitch, or the recording method is not right, the microphone is not appropriate, the strength of the group has not been formed, and for a while it is quite ignorant, should not get this thing?" Even if you ask an expert, everyone may give different answers. Just keep trying. Shi Li said.
Fortunately, in the end the band had everything they wanted. Looking back on the path he had come from, Ji Geng lay back and shook his head, "Lean, it's too difficult." ”
With less than two months to go before the original release time, except for "Morning" and "Ink Unicorn" in the middle of September, the guitar and singing of other tracks, as well as several basses and drums, have not yet been completed.
Hardware and software have to be tightened. At that time, everyone in the band knew that they had to wait for a big guy- Dong Yaqian's Neve bcm10 mixer.
"Neve is rock 'n' roll. The rock 'n' roll of the 1980s and 1990s was all recorded on this stage. Dong Yaqian explained. Of course, the mixer must also keep up with the changes of the times, digitalization, integrated circuits. The one I ordered was a new machine, an old technology, but it was the only analog circuit on the whole line. ”
The band's original Studio mixer was also a good thing. However, both have their own emphases, Neve is relatively more suitable for electric guitar, bass, drums and vocals, which need to be more saturated, and Studer uses orchestral music to record these acoustic instruments are more effective.
"The reverberations in my records, the sounds that have a sense of depth are real, not made with software, not with effects." Dong Yaqian was a little self-satisfied.
"Probably the best sound of rock 'n' roll was in the '70s and '80s." That sounds a bit absolute. But the members of this band do prefer relatively thick, unpretentious sound quality.
At 9 p.m. on December 11, 2020, Dong Yaqian, who was alone in the Beijing mixing studio, called Ji Geng.
"(To the platform) sent (final version)." Don't get tangled up anymore. ”
It was the last night of late 10 days. Before the call, Dong Yaqian listened to the whole track for the last time, slapping the speaker while listening, and quipped to the mixer Shi Junfeng: "Good guy, this is very clear in every detail." Sort of..."
"I'm a little insecure, aren't I?" Shi Junfeng, who knew his roots, smiled back.
Wait until "Suburban Sleep Temple", Ya Qianle. "It's relaxing to hear this. You listen, it's thick, better than a lot of classical music. ”
Shi Junfeng said that Dong Yaqian has his own ideas, such as hoping to compress less and try to leave some of the original texture of the performance. "Drums like this song [the middle interlude of 'Quarry'] I might want to record it a little shorter, it sounds clear, and the grainy, dotted stuff is a little stronger. He just wanted to keep the tone a little longer. Later I found out that this paragraph is indeed relatively slow, and if you make it very short, it does not sound enough. Ya Qian is very controlling of these things he wants, even if they are not 'perfect', but they have vitality. ”
On the afternoon of December 22, 2020, Dong Yaqian, sitting in the recording studio, photo/ Reporter Jiang Xiaoming
kingdom
In late December 2020, Shijiazhuang, where the epidemic was serious, was closed-loop control throughout the city. Recalling the "arrow on the string" moment at the tipping point of the film, the band not only sighed for the current situation in their hometown, but also somewhat glad that the record was completed in time without delay.
Thankfully, it doesn't stop there. The band recording studio, which was named "Suburban Sleep Temple", is also like a gift from God.
In 2019, the rehearsal hall originally located in Mian'er, Shijiazhuang, was facing demolition, and the place never had the ideal conditions for recording, and the band tried for a long time and finally failed. By coincidence, a good friend introduced the band to the studio originally used by Hebei Film Studio for the dubbing soundtrack of the movie.
The two sides talked very well. "On the day this place was set, Yaqian said to me, 'Uli, we've found a place for a giant bull! The tone was happy like a child.5 Modern Sky vice president Ulyassu told me.
The doorkeeper, the dark red velvet curtain and the solid wood door, the terrazzo floor mixed with pale yellow and pale green geometric patterns, everything is like walking in the 1980s. Stay in the shed, don't smell outside the house, and the morning is like dusk. Ji Geng named this shed "Suburban Sleep Temple", which was interpreted as: suburb, far away from the noisy city center; sleep, bid farewell to the splendid city that never sleeps; temple, a place of chanting and practice, does not get involved in the world's chores. Not to be mistaken.
The most treasured thing is naturally the sound field space with an area of more than 300 square meters in the center of this "temple" and a height of 8 meters. The room is big enough that the reflected sound will be far away, and all you receive is the sound that the instrument should have, and there is no other interference sound. The walls on both sides can be moved, and the two reverberation effects of dry and wet are obtained when opened and closed, providing a layered guarantee for recording. No wonder the band had the ecstasy of "getting hit by a pie". What's even more strange is that this place is only 500 meters away from Ji Geng's house in a straight line. "Missed" years, fortunately, came at the right time.
In the spring of 2020, after the epidemic was controlled, it took a month or two to open up the wilderness and make food. Take apart the floor and tidy up the wires – good wires can filter out excess clutter. The capacitor that was replaced was filled with a glass bottle.
Outside the house is a deserted lawn. In the spring and summer, the recording engineer Xiao Kai also planted melon seedlings and small trees, and everyone would come out to play basketball when they were tired. However, these, along with their former hobbies of riding motorcycles and playing with porcelain, eventually gave way to day-to-day recordings.
"Atmosphere, Bass Man, Fanta (guitar), room center, far mode 6-7m. The speaker is on the central axis, and the rear of the speaker is 150cm away from the drum..." Recording engineer Xiao Kai often holds a stack of paper, measures the distance between various instruments such as musical instruments and speaker microphones, and writes down the parameters, like a surveying and mapping engineer.
Dong Yaqian, who comes to the shed every afternoon, is as well-behaved as an office worker punching a clock. Or listen to the material and "knock" his teammates; more often, he is quiet, deep in the chair in the middle of the listening room, and a satisfied smile appears on his face from time to time. The room full of instruments, the intricate pipes, the tracks, and the music that swirled around his ears built a kingdom that fascinated him and the band and wanted nothing else.
Punch card machine and backpack in the studio lounge (from top to bottom); Wanqing Band rehearsing at Hebei Film Studio on February 23, 2021; the studio's display board; whiskey vase on the lounge window sill
roam
After the release of the new album, I hope that this listener who will regenerate the "golden sentences" and have "memory points" and "lethality" like the first album has a sense of gap. Someone questioned, "So flat? There is also less brilliance. ”
"The new specialty is a black hole in time." The day after the release, Dong Yaqian said to us. "A lot of the tracks on this album actually developed from a single motivation. If you hear it from the beginning to the end, there are actually the same harmonic directions, the same melodies, interspersed in different songs. It can also be understood as a piece of music. ”
At the beginning of December 2020, I listened to the album for the first time in the mixing studio of the second ring road in Beijing, and the length of 44 minutes and 22 seconds did not feel long; listening, communicating with friends, and having a more direct feeling for the melody, the preference for, tactful and elegant, actually hidden crisis; some people indulged in the rich jazz style and experimental sense of Quarry; Hebei Ink Qilin was recognized as the most musical, neat and active, layered, constantly heating up, until the explosion.
Hearing the back of "Hebei Ink Qilin" in which Li Zenghui participated in the recording, the kind of roar that was not like the human world seemed to shout out all that the creator Yu Ji had. Speaking of this, Ji Geng's shoulders twitched a little. "Through the glass I saw him (Li Zenghui) recorded over and over again, very moving, my tears could not be controlled."
"Exquisite. But less power. "'Quarry' and 'Tit' are almost like Wanqing without the ultra-long pure instrumental prelude and solo at the time of performance." The dissatisfaction of netizens is also very direct.
"Still have to consider the effect of the whole track, the ups and downs of all the tracks connected together." The band responded. They stressed that the recordings at this stage also reflect the aesthetics of Wanqing in recent years.
In addition to the first regular rock instruments and Evergreen's iconic trumpet, mandolin, flute, and viola, the album features a 6-pipe wind band (4 saxophones, 2 trumpets) and 4 strings for the violin, as well as other instrumental music with added color.
The idea of an orchestra group was conceived years ago.
"Adding more wind and strings gives the music more layers, dialogue and expression. But that's not to say we're writing symphonies. In fact, the wind music group has long had movements, strings, "Ink Qilin" was originally two voice parts, and then simply made into a quartet. Dong Yaqian explained.
Li Zenghui, Zhao Lu, Feng Yuliang, Liu Yibin and others in the big establishment are all old partners for many years. The newly invited musician, Wen Zhiyong, not necessarily a member of the band and the Red Hand Quintet, is known as "The Best Jazz Trumpeter in China". Dong Yaqian had great respect for him. "The first time I heard Dou Wei's "Killing Two Birds with One Stone" use trumpets, it was still quite pioneering at that time. Teacher Wen's rhythm is the rhythm of rock music. "Gao Taixing, born in Yanzhao, is a mixed-race Chinese-American child, a core member of the Red Hand Quintet, and a master of writing scores. There are also several young musicians around the age of 20, who have been unanimously praised by the band: first-class technology, strong comprehension, and open musical concepts.
On September 26 and 27, in order to correct a few small mistakes in the previous recordings of "Mud River" and "Mo Qilin", the saxophones and trumpets rushed to Shijiazhuang from Xi'an, Tianjin and Beijing.
"Last time I miscalculated a tone, the first part of the tone, the tail tone is not quite right. Record too many times, the ears are not sensitive, sorry everyone. Dong Yaqian scratched his head a little apologetically, "Don't blame me, I'm just more entangled." Dug a hole for yourself. ”
After warming up, quickly get to the point. Dong Yaqian and Wen Zhiyong discussed how to stand and space the most appropriate place to improve the timbre; Gao Taixing immediately wrote the harmony and the score of each part according to the motivation given by Dong Yaqian.
Feng Jianpeng (nagging Feng), who analyzed in detail the "Ji southwest forest road trip" at station B, believes that these instrumental music joined by Wanqing are not for showmanship, but from the narrative and richness of music.
Since more than two decades ago, the band has absorbed blues, grunge, avant-garde and art rock, and various styles such as jazz and classical music have also entered their field of vision early.
Alto saxophonist Zhao Lu once went to the United States to study jazz. During that time, Dong Yaqian would call on WeChat every week or two to ask him what he had learned. From the blues and bebop periods, to funk, rock and roll, how to flow and develop, how the rhythm of music changes, the understanding and control of the whole harmony... Solve the doubts one by one. After mastering it systematically, the music he makes is more reasonable. Why did this album drag on for so long? The more Yaqian learned, the more things he wanted to add. Zhao Lu said.
More than two years ago, Viola Liu Yibin began to participate in the arrangement of the new string group. He said that Dong Yaqian listened to a large number of symphonic works before recording, and he had a goal in mind about what he wanted to record. "It takes a long time to digest and overthrow yourself indefinitely."
In Ji Geng's words, Dong Yaqian is a bully in the band, "He likes to brush up on problem solving." He then said, "We are actually all born in the wild way, and we don't have the opportunity to learn music in a complete system." Inspiration cannot be sustained by cleverness and hormones alone, it needs to be continuously immersed in it, constantly thinking, and then it will come out in an instant... such. Ji Geng lifted his hands up and made a "blossoming" motion.
In the eyes of outsiders, Dong Ya's voice line is clear, and his temperament is sometimes naughty and sometimes silly, which seems to be a combination of a musical naughty boy and a mixed world boy. Ji Geng has been cautious and persistent for decades. "The personalities in life, we are very different, but we are very serious about music and emotions. Write humorously, relax a little, try it, and you can't do it at this stage. To put it bluntly, the two of us are still relatively consistent in aesthetics and worldview, and we can finally get together. For the band, this is important. Ji Geng said.
Talking about the process of composing music, Dong Yaqian, who stayed up late, was not sleepy. "It's a bit of a reverse thinking feeling. Like you have an A, and then you have to fantasize about what BCD looks like? It's interesting. Like an architect. "It's not that he can't write scores, but he's far less accurate than Gao Taixing, who came from a science class. He specifically said to us: "Don't think it's great not to write music to compose music, but it's not like that." The real musician is to look at the score, look at the score and the music in the brain will ring, which requires years of accumulation. I still have to learn this. ”
Many people think that jazz is heavy and improvised, thousands of turns, and the mystery is endless. Dong Yaqian felt that there were many things that Jazz was becoming more and more solidified. I used to think that as long as I could improvise, it would be enough. But it has to be surpassed. "Because as long as you train it systematically, it can actually be achieved." But the artist's transcendence does not depend on these alone. Transcendence, not every time. ”
In the recording of "Hebei Southwest Forest Road", such inspiration often comes from some "cross-border" inspiration.
Originally, Dong Yaqian had reservations about the violin, and felt that the tone was too high and easy to use. By chance, I met the newly cooperated musician Liu Kuo, only to find that the original good musicians and pianos can pull out the tone of "so thick and so durable". Dong Yaqian used the guitar to play some violin etudes, playing Paganini, fingering, degrees, and fingerboard lengths are different, but it is possible to more clearly understand the changes in the tonality of different instruments.
The most "divine stroke" is Wen Zhiyong's "Qilin Call". Dong Yaqian explained: "The previous prelude version of "Hebei Mo Qilin" used a lot of melodies. I said let's stop melody, everyone loves to blow what they want, just improvise. So they didn't play jazz those impromptu phrases, it was all about some atmosphere, and then Teacher Wen suddenly blew a feeling with six consecutive notes, there was no sound, only the sound of air. He blew it out with his hands, especially like an electronic instrument. But if you listen carefully, it also carries a triplet rhythm, like a unicorn barking. So we processed it a bit and did a spatial transformation that was much more effective than if you played a bunch of specific notes. So although this record was recorded very hard, there were many moments in between that I enjoyed very much. ”
In rehearsal, Taihang exclaimed, he heard the best bass saxophone in the country. "I'm talking about Miao Zheng (Miao Zheng), who originally practiced the middle voice. This allows us to discover his talent for bass. "Shi Li laughed and said that everyone was shaking the 21-year-old Miao Zheng to turn into a bass." Why do so few Chinese people practice bass? Because this tube is big, the back cannot be moved, and the voice is flattering and not ostentatious. ”
Liu Kuo had hardly heard of rock music or jazz before. This time, from Wanqing, I came into contact with Pink Floyd and King Crimson, "especially KC, who was shocked to hear it, and it turned out that he could still play music like this." One after another, he also pushed Dong Yaqian's Greek chants on WeChat, violinist Heifetz's adaptation of "Deep River", and Mendelsohn's "Wings of Song".
In the end, art is like building a pyramid, and when it reaches the spire, no matter which side it passes from, where the roots come from, it will always converge in one place. For the creators, that may be "opening up the second pulse of Ren Dou".
On the night when the later period was done, Liu Kuo and Dong Yaqian drank sake and recalled the countless back-and-forths of the "Suburban Sleeping Temple", "Yu, it is the best time to fall asleep." ”
This is not a joke.
"That afternoon, the lights in the hall were broken a few times, and it was dusk. It's like if you're really in a monastery, a particularly quiet place, and you just want to sleep and play the piano. After many days, Liu Kuo heard the recorded version, "It's really more integrated, not so gorgeous tone." We as a character were particularly good in it. ”
In the past few months, these musicians have turned themselves into sponges, floating in the sea of art, infiltrating and changing each other.
Liu Kuo used "a journey through the world of music" to describe such an encounter. "If you have any problems somewhere, you can solve them with music and don't have to think about anything else." Because they (Wanqing) just see this as a work of art to give to themselves and to the world, without distraction. ”
For a few old members of the band, after the release, the biggest thought is that when can we put all the people together again and find a suitable venue, "Play one... Top configuration combination ha, must be great. More visitors come to the "Suburban Sleep Temple", and the band will also open the recording studio to some interested peers, so that this new "Universal Music Hotel" can make the most of it.
(Left) Shi Li playing the flute; (right) Violinist Liu Kuo; (Bottom) Jazz trumpet player Wen Zhiyong
youth
As of March 1, 510,000 copies of "Hebei Southwest Forest Road Trip" had been sold. However, in addition to the two-day advance notice, Wanqing did not make any publicity on the new specialty, and the interaction was only limited to the poster lottery.
Unlike traffic stars who have fans to buy intensively, the main consumers of Wanqing albums are more loyal fans accumulated in the past twenty years, like fireworks, warming themselves from their favorite music.
Two days before the release of the new album, netizens on Station B uploaded 8 special live performance versions of Wanqing in the past 10 years: on November 17, 2011, noisey special gathering in Beijing Station, a female music fan took the stage to sing "Qinhuangdao" with Dong Yaqian; there was "Kill that Shijiazhuang Man" at the Midi Music Festival on October 4, 2013; and on May 19, 2020, Strawberry Nebula visited Wanqing's version of "Big Stone Broken Chest", and the guitar wow solo's "soul-destroying" interpretation...
"I've seen it all before." Shi Ying, who was in his early 20s, told me. In the past few years, he did not have the opportunity to listen to the Wanqing scene, but the "boot leg" (bootleg) on the Internet (bootleg, a live performance recording version that music fans privately circulated or collected, and the musicians did not publicly release), he almost exhausted it, and thus met his peer Chen Yu, and the two felt sorry for each other.
From Li Zenghui to Yang Xu to Zhao Lu, Sachs's performance is different. When the original special performance, Mud River, Quarry, have ups and downs, and the feelings at the end will rise. The saxophone solo of "Ink Unicorn", the performance in March 2019 is really perfect, the melody is written in a complex way, but by April and May some details have been missed and blown loosely. All the way to the online live broadcast of Strawberry Nebula, solo is back, but not quite the same as before. ”
Both Shiying and Chen Yu liked Wanqing's 2010 Shijiazhuang Soho Bar, "Qinhuangdao sang twice. Unplugged is also good, Dong Yaqian also covered Bob Dylan's All Along The Watchtower, but it is a version of Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors' song People Are Strange, Dong Yaqian's English is too soul-destroying. The recording was supposed to come out of the mixer and worked well. The two men's music boxes opened and could not be closed.
For example, shi Ying said that on a website like lplive, every live performance in Lincoln Park will be followed by fans to summarize the various details of the band's guitar, bass, and drums. "Wanqing is also a band that pays great attention to live choreography and improvisation, but such a fan culture in China has not yet risen and is not very valued."
In addition to music, words are also used to chew carefully. Shi Ying once showed his father the lyrics of "Heart-wrenching Jokes and Long Daydreams" in the first album. The father said, "Isn't that what we write?" ”
"The first sentence, 'sneaking out of the back door of the Times Bank,' refers to young people leaving factories, military schools, all the institutional guarantees, what those times have created. The protagonist's heart is actually very rebellious, but he does not have enough motivation and strong reasons to support himself. My father had a similar experience. "Shi Ying described it to me." Listening to the first one, you can understand that everyone has a other shore in their hearts, and few people can get there, but everyone is still proudly moving forward. ”
As he grew older, he became more aware of the gap between ideals and reality. The lyrics of "Hebei Ink Qilin" are only a few lines, but in Shiying's view, it is like writing himself, "Stop chanting twilight and miss, have a more attitude, pay more attention to reality." ”
Miki, a music fan in Fujian, bluntly said that he did not like Wanqing's new song, "The rain is heavy on the mountain, the sweetness is injected into him / the breath is exchanged, the stone iron spits out the mud and sand... I feel like I can't read it, but I still like the more straightforward songs before. But the green hairs around Miki were full of imagination, and the past five or six years flashed through his mind like a movie.
After failing the middle school entrance examination, Lu Mao came from a coastal town in the east of Hui'an to a newly built high school in Quanzhou. The school is fully enclosed, with only about 70 students, and the school is still in arrears with deducting teachers' salaries. Lu Mao felt unwilling and angry, and the shame brought to him by his parents spending hard work for him to study also made him unbearable.
Until I overheard Wanqing. "For me rock 'n' roll is about being there for that moment. I feel like if I continue like this, I can't see my head, I'm afraid that one day, I may become the protagonist in the song "Kill that Shijiazhuang Man"),(until the building collapses,) you know? ”
Lu Mao tried to share Wanqing with the classmates around him, "The results are predictable, they don't need this emotion." "The only person who can listen to him and understand him is a little brother who helps cook in the canteen."
The brother's appearance is ordinary enough that he can't remember, only remember that people are lean and lean, and the corners of their eyes often have smile lines. He shared Wanqing with his brother, and the next day the brother replied "very powerful". Unexpectedly, in a few days, the brother was gone, and the phone could not be found. He hadn't seen him again.
He didn't know if there was a connection between all this, but he only felt that the little brother was also the kind of person in the song, "(Probably he also felt) that most of his life was not worth living." ”
Ten years ago, after graduating from Furnace Creek University, I began to listen to Wanqing. A few months before that, he was driving a board game that was about to go out of business, playing a lot of fun, not making money, and the whole person seemed to be wandering, maintaining active communication with others, "and feeling sick, but unable to find a prescription." ”
That winter, he went to Shijiazhuang, and in the "desperate smog of the North China Plain", he understood Wanqing even more. "When I was in Xiamen, listening to 'Kill that Shijiazhuang Man' felt like Jing Ke stabbed Qin, and when I arrived in Hebei, I heard that I was describing the people in the building, the kind of helplessness in the face of mediocrity." Later, he went to beijing to work. For a long time, before going to bed, I must click on "Chest Crushing Big Stone", and the single loops.
In order to listen to the new specialty, Furnace Creek specially set an alarm clock and placed an order at zero o'clock. He said that in the early years, he listened to Wanqing and had a greater sense of immersion, and now he will be more "bystander". "10 years ago, I felt like a trapped beast looking forward to the collapse of the building. Now I am very calm, and I find that there are gaps in the building, and I will try to avoid it (and find a way again). ”
A Douban user named SoccerObsidian said very directly that he had "no feeling" for Wanqing.
He said he grew up in a small town in the south, in his early 20s, had no wife, was allergic to alcohol and had never mined anything. "Life is like a piece of straw paper that accidentally falls in a public toilet, wet and thin, and it can't absorb the many thick and deep experiences in Wanqing Music."
"Ping Pong boy with his back to me" is the best sentence in all the lyrics of Wanqing. Because only this sentence is like a broken chapter, let him find the only connection with Wanqing.
He recalls a day in the fourth grade when there were three ping-pong tables under the plane tree at school, when someone tied his shoelaces to the legs of the table, causing his lips to crack and he didn't know how to tell his mother. There were two boys playing on the other side of the ping-pong table furthest away from him, but the boy with his back to him never looked back.
SoccerObsidian therefore felt that in a band like Wanqing, musicality was always entangled with the narrative, constituting a dialogue between the musical text and the listener. Although he could not ask any questions to Wanqing, whether the comments on the pipe were sincere or pretentious, whether they were lamenting ten years or lamenting based on the present, "they are at least as good as the melodies we can hear with our ears, and they are truly involved in the process of generating the meaning of this album." ”
On September 27, 2020, in order to correct two minor flaws in the previous recording of "Hebei Southwest LinLuXing", the wind music team of Wanqing Xinzhuan gathered in the recording studio from Xi'an, Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. Sachs Miao Zheng, Feng Yuliang, Trumpet Shi Li, Sachs Zhao Lu, Gao Taixing, Trumpet Wen Zhiyong (from far and near, counterclockwise) and Dong Yaqian (the guitar player) discussed and rehearsed until 3 a.m. the next day Photo / Reporter Deng Yu
Mud
On the eve of the new special release, a bar in Shijiazhuang was brightly lit, with sake, whiskey, beer, and an endless stream. Friends gave the band a toast, champagne and lamb chops. "There are still 2 hours/1 hour/half hour before the release of the Wanqing new album, and there are still 10 seconds to go, and the countdown begins..." The atmosphere is completely dependent on the loud-voiced bar owner and the old Tie Zhang Xiangdong. Several of the "protagonists" were a little timid, and no words were published.
At zero, the bubble splashed around, and the brothers finally let go.
Congratulations, bumping glasses, hugging, not knowing what to say, simply clenching fists and yelling. Shi Li didn't hold back his whimpering as usual, but it was different from the youthful vigor of the first specialist. "At that time, the mood of waiting for the release was very nervous, and the stimulation would be great. On the day of the first launch, we went to Nanjing to tour, and I don't know how many people can come. Later I learned that the tickets were sold out, hey, excited. ”
Someone came from the other table and put his arm around Ji Geng and poured wine. "Don't worry, I'm going to send the baby tomorrow!" He held his hand in the way, but he was kind, chatting with people every corner.
In the eyes of the musician Xiaohe, Ji Geng is a typical northerner, cold on the outside and hot on the inside. But the appearance of dislike does not mean that the heart must not be unhappy. "It's better to say he's calm. Besides, it doesn't matter if you are unhappy, suffering is an indissoluble theme. The despair after drunkenness, the hardships in life, and finally the convergence from all over life, he condensed them on paper, which required careful perception and great ability. ”
Between recordings, sit idly in the tea room. The melody of "Early" came to my ears again. The wind music began to sound, leisurely and leisurely, unknown origin, unknown destination.
"Do you say this voice is of the 21st century, or is it the 14th century?" Or the 9th century? It's actually not easy to be sure. "Ji Geng asked me, and he seemed to be talking to himself." I just thought it was amazing. It is the relationship between individual creatures. ”
Many people read About Wei jin from his lyrics and touch Zhuangzi and the Classics of Mountains and Seas. He said that over the years, his understanding and imagination of Chinese has also changed. "A lot of classical words, in fact, the connotation is very new, very contemporary. To be honest, I want to take Du Fu, Li He, and Wang Wei to the 21st century, like a space-time machine, falling into soft bread, and coming to a strange country, right? I think they're the people of the 21st century. I also wanted to see how they would treat their language? Ji Geng's face was still like that, faint, without a hint of a playful smile.
I don't remember how many years ago, he read Du Fu's "Muddy Mud People, Listen to the Country's Dogs", goosebumps suddenly arose, and he could not put it down ever since.
Over the past few years, he had seen the world in a strange vortex, with too much uncertainty and unfathomability. "Internal floods and external misdirections" have created countless "dumb people with tight chests." Some people have bright eyes, and some people lose their souls. "If you think about the chaos and isolation of the whole world in 2020, is it quite similar to the sense of panic, subversion and destruction after the Anshi Chaos?" Today's Ji Geng will not be trapped in a binary system of right and wrong. But there are some problems that will eventually meet.
As for the phrase "there are dense forests in the western suburbs, help the king out of the siege", is it a wake-up call, a concession, or a guide? Everyone gets differently, so it is better to extract it yourself.
At midnight on December 21, 2020, after the shijiazhuang Mai Forget-guan bar, "Ji Southwest Forest Road Trip" was launched, Wanqing's friend Zhang Xiangdong had mixed feelings and cried in the bathroom aisle
Full and empty
After thinking through the ultimate problem, no matter how tired the arrangement and lyrics are, to negotiate with the organization and deal with the contradictions and conflicts of personnel, it is also necessary to bear it hard. As for the setting, creation, and completion of the record, there is no advertising, in Ji Geng's view, it is all "decentralized".
Do not go to the variety show, try to expose as little as possible, do not talk about private life, and do not deny the same industry, which is indifferent in their nature, and objectively also forms a kind of protection. Shield from distractions and focus only on what is at hand.
Before the press release, for the sake of magazine filming, the photographer instructed the musicians to bring more clothes for backup. When I saw the look of a few of them, it was dumbfounded. In addition to Dong Yaqian's black leather jacket and pointed boots, Ji Geng and Feng Jiang both wore ordinary zipper sweatshirts. The new cardigan specially purchased by Ji Geng is just to buy another one of the styles already in the home. And Shi Li's coat also seems to be the "original reproduction" of the 2018 cover.
The hooded bakery, always going to only one or two, is thick and hot as if it has lasted for thousands of years; everywhere in the city is on foot, talking while walking, and occasionally there are small episodes of "uneven roads". In the eyes of old friends, these are all ben four people, and there is still a state of twenty-something people on their faces.
"The album sold 200,000 copies, and further up, how much do those numbers mean to you?" The day after the release, I asked Ji Geng.
"Of course, first of all we want to be worthy of all those who are involved and helping the band." He smiled and replied, with a serious face. "People are more confident in making music."
Although they said that some comments on the Internet were "not easy to understand", there were still many comments full of realism and intellect for the band to agree with. "It may not appeal to people who don't understand Chinese, but it still carries some beautiful melodic threads, and clearly shows that intonational languages like Mandarin can also adapt to Western musical styles, and the sound is still beautiful... Occasional rock and jazz explosions made the album as a whole quite mellow. "The English comment of this overseas music fan on the Prog Archives website, which focuses on avant-garde music, makes Dong Yaqian feel that he has learned the sound." The man also said that we need more composing and arranging courage, compositional fortitude, to really compete with the Western art rock world that is half a century ahead. ”
Some people say that the popularity of Wanqing's album shows a certain improvement in social aesthetics. Wang Qian, author of "Rock 'n' Roll Crisis" and a scholar of music sociology, said that such a statement "can be said to be correct and fallacious." Correct, because such works can allow many people to live in trivialities while still embracing ideals and reflecting on reality. But we must also see that our cultural consumption is very differentiated." Wang Qian said, "I love this album, but you say that Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, or Radiohead's Ok Computer, it is not enough; you have to say that it is more advanced than some pop music, and there is no need." Each person has his own preferences, and it is better to explore it in the context of a circle that belongs to its audience. This also speaks volumes about the pluralism of society. ”
Fan Jian, who works in documentaries, said he was also inspired by it. "We also take into account a lot of external factors when we make films, and the audience's acceptance. But it turns out that something so self-contained (Wanqing) will still be accepted by some people. Shouldn't we also rush forward? Instead of polishing yourself off. ”
During the Spring Festival in 2021, Dong Yaqian was held back at home by the epidemic and watched several movies every day. "Yoji Yamada's samurai trilogy, too cattle." He made no secret of his interest in the soundtrack, "I can try it when I have the chance." ”
"That is the fusion of the two languages of musical vision, which will be difficult, but it is also an extension." There may also be new ideas for band music. Ji Geng said. But in addition to the creation of the band, he personally does not have such a strong desire to express. "It's a strong desire to know what you're interested in, or to explore." But after exploring, you may be very happy on your own, not necessarily express it. ”
Novels, poems, and highly rhetorical reading materials, Ji Geng said that in recent years, he was a little tired, but it was more reasonable things, and it was comfortable to read and relax. "Like history and political economy, the system you refer to and contrast has changed, and you need a new dimension to explain the phenomenon, which is helpful for understanding these things."
The next step of the band's creation will be the transition from full to blank and empty. Ji Geng said, "The second album must be very full to be full in order to be fully expressed. But emptiness also has to be empty for a reason, not to say that it is simple or empty. There are not many motivations at hand, but it is not until the new methodology is formed that you will feel that it can be developed and completed, and it will slowly grow. ”
How to keep a simple mindset and life in this iterative world? In many people, this is a question that needs to be constantly asked and faced. For Almighty Youth Hostel, the consistent way of life is either a choice or an instinct. When chatting, Ji Geng used the word "luck" several times to bring it over: "Shijiazhuang may be like this, you are not in a hurry, and there is not so much interference." We may not have to live on local economic dynamism. Just take it slow. ”
In the copy of the first album "Universal Youth Hostel", there was such a text: "I long that this record with a lot of stuff can still leave a silky feeling of open space, so that all those who hear it can stand side by side." ”
Such hopes, for the next decade, will remain valid.
(Reference: Douban Soccer Obsidian posted.) Thanks to all the interviewees and Chen Yu, Fan Zhu, Liu Juexin, Shen Hexi, Xu Chanjuan, Liu Dongxiao, Jiao Xueyan, Wang Xiaomeng and other teachers and friends for their great help in this article, the fans are pseudonyms)