Wuhan

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General information Several photos of Wuhan Chinese Name 武汉 / Wǔhàn Geographical Location 30° 34' 60" N, 114° 16' 60" E Province Hubei Bands associated 12 (show all) Venues in town 1 (show all) Musicians born/died in town 0

Wuhan (武汉) is the capital of Hubei province

General information

The area was first settled more than 3,000 years ago. During the Han Dynasty, Hanyang became a fairly busy port. In the 3rd century AD, walls were built to protect Hanyang (AD 206) and Wuchang (AD 223). The latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD 223, the Yellow Crane Tower (黄鹤楼) was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River. Cui Hao, a celebrated poet of Tang Dynasty, visited the building in the early 8th Century; his poem made the building the most celebrated building in southern China. The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts (especially poetry) and for intellectual studies. Under the Mongol ruler (Yuan Dynasty), Wuchang was promoted to the status of provincial capital. By approximately 300 years ago, Hankou had become one of the country's top four trading towns.

In the late 1800s railroads were extended on a north-south axis through this city, which then became an important transhipment point between rail and river traffic. At this time foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into various foreign controlled merchant districts. These districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities.

In 1911, Sun Yat-sen's followers launched the Wuchang Uprising that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1920s.

In 1938, Wuhan and its proximities became the battlefield of the Battle of Wuhan, a major conflict in the Second Sino-Japanese War. After being taken by the Japanese in 1938, Wuhan became an major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China. In December 1944, the city was largely destroyed in U.S. firebombing raids conducted by the 14th Army Air Force.

The city has been subject to numerous devastating floods, which are supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam. That project is set to be completed in 2009, but is plagued by environmental, technical, and social issues.

Information taken from Wikipedia.

History of rock in Wuhan

Bands in 1993 - 1994: The underground university band of Wuhan coming from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, called "The Deadly Entice" started the wave of underground music.

Around the same time the band "Feng Jie" played folk music style.

In the years 1994 to 1995, the band "Comrade" became the star of Wuhan underground live shows, playing in most Wuhan universities (Green Hill Steel Courtyard, the Hai Bei Mei Courtyard, the Zhong Nan Finance and Economics University, the Wuhan university and the Zhong Nan Politics and Law University).

Other bands include the Zhouxiping Brother band, Metal Moon, Hu Qun Feng and Hu Ma Ge.

The year 1995 is marked by a beneficial concert for a schoolmate in the Wuhan Engineering Institute who had leukemia. During the concert, that was organized by local underground bands, money was donated. The participating bands were the newcomers "Foundling", the band "人异", the band "Forbidden Area" and several others.

The year 1998: This Year Wuhan's underground music entered into a dark age, the only band who could improove in playing skills and performing was Black Fire. Another change had been the "side by side attack" habit of the Wuhan Punk community, they often do some school gigs all together unfortunedly without causing any notable affects on the students but negative reports on news papers. Emerging bands: Black Fire, Mama

The year 1999: The Papa Bar at the Huagong West Gate became the best running point of this age, and the student band Wednesday its best representives. On the metal side ex-Human Opposite (Ren Yi) members Wei Du and Ozzy together with members of other bands like Xiao Han formed Corpse Burner. The Dada were still taking their time for writing songs. After the band Raging Dog Eyes was formed by local musicians with two from Nan Jing City, the so called Wuhan Punk was offically called to life with an amount of local and regional gigs. Emerging Bands: Raging Dogeyes, Death Short Happy, Wednesday, Corpse Burner, Paranoia

In the beginning of the year 2000 a festival of local bands and the Muma special night broke the long lasting silence of Wuhan's underground. After the Kurt Cobain memorial gig on April 8th in Oasis Bar [Lu Zhou], local heros Dada got an deal with Warner Music China and opened withat a new horizont for local bands and musicians. Mid of the year Axe came back from Cheng Du City and opened his Wuhan Rock Website to provide independent music and its spirit as well as demo tracks produced by PCs with the aim to give this nationwide not that wellknow scene a better foundation of sticking together. Under the support of radion stations gigs were celebrated also in Universities which attracted more and more student bands. New Human Kind Bar (Xin Ren Lei) became the main base of Wuhan Punk, but bands playing in here from other parts of the nation of generally a little better in playing skills, i.e. Jia Zhi Wang from Hongkong, A-Boy from Beijijng etc. Jumping House finished their selftitled demo record in Guang Zhou City. The band Shocked was renamed into Hai Gang turning stylisic more towards pop music. Emerging Bands: Jumping Hous, Blues, Backyard Garden, Hai Gang, False Speech, Core, Animal, Wan Dao Er Hao, Creating Time, No Pass, Day of Chaos

The year 2001:At the years beginn Wuhan's local gigs ware based in Wu Chang's Feel 100 Bar and New Human Kind Bar, the first one was more a gathering of local student bands and the best underground band was without doupt Full Moon Night formed all by students from Beijing, but they unfortunedly broke up very soon and left many cool songs to remember. Wuhan's Brit Rock Band Dada released their debut album "Angel" over Warner Music. Mid of the year after changing the vocalis also Jumping House signed a 3year record deal (an became the second signed band from Wuhan now) with the legendary independent label Mordern Sky Rec. Meanwhile both Axe (with his Solo-Project) and Hai Gang put out their demo releases. On the other side, bands like Gold Finger, Sunday etc. with pop music aproche often play on University gigs promoted by radio stations and got their fan base amount students. A pure brit pop band Fu Chong was busy in writing songs in their rehearsal room and renamed themselves soon into Blue Flighter. Hard Rock band Jailbreaking Pig from Yi Chang show their markable ability on their debut EP. Raging Dogseye from the Wuhan Punk community also changed their name into Shitdog and turning their style from RGTM to Hardcore. Mama renamed into Excrement Machine coming up with a music style called blues punk. Punk Band Big Buns joint into the Wuhan Punk Community.

On December 23rd / 24th, VOX was holding a concert including bands from Guangzhou and Shijiazhuang.^[1]

Emerging bands: Fullmoon Night, 2B, Madmans Sanatorium, Ruin, Jailbreaking Pig (from Yi Chang), Gold Finger, Sunday, Love, Cici, Black Dream, Propells under Water, Dead Devil, Iron Skull, Du Lan, Morning Flight, Fu Chong, Mo Fang, Shitdog, Day of Chaos, Excrement Machine, Big Buns

The year 2002: The biggest Change in music development of the year was that because of Wuhan Rock Website's continuing propaganda almost all underground bands and musicians from Wuhan accepted the idea of self recording methodes per PC, with that more demo materials produced this way could be offered on the downloading section of the website. At the begin of the year a serie of gigs were organized by Wuhan Punk community in Vox Bar with outside interprets like Tongue, Wang Lei, Miserable Faith etc. The electro duo 2B release their debut demo, Jailbreaking Pig from Yi Chang finished their second demo "I love violence" with the technical support of Jumping House guitarist Limin Liu, the style still remains hard core with creative finess. The blues punkers Excrement Machine (ex-Mama) renamed themselves once again to Wavebreaking, a foreign guitarist joint in. After hard working outs Wuhan's metal band Backyard Garden got attention of national rock magazines but splitt soon for certain reasons, only leaving a 4 track demo. Vocalist Wei Du formed another metal band Flowing River on a Hold with new musicians. On October 19th and November 9th Wuhan Rock Website organized two big festivals and the Soundtoy gig in Wuhan of the Cheng Du Little Bar 5 Years anniversary Tour and the gig of the Beijing/Henan/Wuhan-Metal Formation Ululate were overall aplouded and heartly greeted by local fans. End of the Year Techno Band Pretty Relatives signed with Modern Sky Rec. Pretty Relatives, 7 Months and a half, Soldier Splitt, Flowing River on a Hold, Wavebreaking, Structure, Red Spider, LZ (from Huang Gang), Cartoon Figures, Black Rain

The year 2003:Axe and Jailbreaking Pig were invited to play on the Valentine's Day on the Shen/Guang/Han-Delta Tour. Pretty Relatives release their debut album, Solist Xiao release the Solo output "Dangyang 2003" which could be seen as one of the best local demos of the year. Grunge band Supporting Role appeared in the scene with a notable demo release. Wuhan's Metallers Soldier Splitt release an EP incl. to instrumental tracks which is very unusual for Wuhan's Scene, their guitar player Yang Qin is without doupt a frontrider of the new generation. Wuhan Pop Band Gold Finger renamed into Emphasize' Xiao, Supporting Role, Iced Fire, Dressy Bomb

Further information

At Rock in China

• Bands, events, things in Wuhan
• Venues in Wuhan
• Signs and Sounds: Identity Projects and Postmodern Bricolage in a Chinese Punk Rock Community, master thesis on the Wuhan Punk scene.

Music-Scene related

• Whrock.com - Music page about underground rock in the Wuhan area, which is dedicating itself to spread information about Wuhan bands and the Wuhan scene.
• Wuhanpunk, the page for punk in Wuhan and for the CHAOS magazine.
• VOXWebpage for one the finest venues around in Wuhan.

Articles

• Doug Wallen (2012), Jamie Hutchings In China: 'Professionalism! It’s Overrated', published on 5 November 2012
  
• Jack Aldane (2012), Rockin’ around, published on 17 October 2012
  
• Bob Blunt (2012), From Beijing with Punk!, published on 25 September 2012
  

Other pages

• Wuhan in the Wikipedia, General information about Wuhan

References

1. ↑ Concert Review of 2001.12.23 (Wuhan, VOX)