A music festival bridges the gap between local and foreign

Not so long ago, the best live acts in Shanghai were bands that flew in, played over the weekend and disappeared. To see how far the local live music scene has come since then, you only need to go as far as Huaihai Park, where the China Now Music Festival is set to take place.

Ruby Hsiao, the event organizer and owner of the Melting Pot bar, says her intention was to use the festival as "a platform to introduce local artists to an international audience." With a line-up dominated by local Chinese bands representing a range of musical genres, the two-day festival is an opportunity to see how local Chinese bands have interpreted Western styles of music.

Some of the bands performing are already names in Shanghai, albeit in very different circles. E-Groove is well-known as the best Chinese jazz quartet in the city, playing an electrified form of jazz that manages to be both funky and experimental. The Crazy Mushroom Brigade plays an aggressive, nu-metal rock that won them top honors at the 2007 Beijing Underground Music Festival. Since then, they have continued to blow audiences away but still remain a mystery to many of the foreigners in Shanghai.

At least two of the festival's most notable acts are ones that few outside a small coterie of musicians and devotees have heard of. Only a handful of expats would recognize Joe Chow, but he is a legend in the local scene for his masterful guitar play and Dylan-like vocals. Just as talented, and obscure, are Tom and Jerry, Mongolian brothers who form one of the few full-time bluegrass bands in Shanghai. At a glance, it's hard to see the connection between the plains of Mongolia and a music form born in the tidewaters of the American South, but Tom and Jerry offer a simple explanation. "Bluegrass to us has always referred to the blue of the sky and the grass beneath it," says Tom. "Where we come from in Mongolia, that's all there is–blue sky and green grass." Tom and Jerry's music put all questions of cultural property to rest, as Tom plays the mandolin like a man possessed and Jerry's country voice churns with nostalgia.

That kind of cultural cross-over is at the heart of the festival, as well as one of its main attractions. Hsiao sees music as a "universal language that people can use to connect and exchange ideas," and by staging this event, she hopes to get Chinese and expats, both on the stage and in the audience, standing side by side.

JM Chris Chang