So, in addition to seeking out songs by Kou Chou Ching, I've been thinking I need to get a record or two by Cui Jian, the Elvis/Beatles/Bob Dylan/Johnny Rotten of China. He's the guy who took Western rock music and, well, stopped imitating it and started writing his own. With Chinese characteristics.


You may have heard about him on public broadcasting a few years back. They call him "the Father of Chinese Rock."

And the songs ain't half bad for a jaded old punk fan like me.


According to his website, he's definitely getting the songs out there, playing dates all over the country.

I dare you, however, to decode the "live vocals" page. It's in English. I think it has something to do with karaoke tracks, but I can't be sure.

The, um, urine talk gets in the way.

Anyway, if you surf over to "press kit," then click "works" over on the right margin, you'll wind up on a page with Realmedia samples of two of his songs, including "Nothing to my Name," the controversial Tiananmen anthem. You'll have to allow popups for them to work, and the connection was a little, um, spotty. You might have better luck with the samples on the public broadcasting link up there, which has songs from a handful of other great bands, too.

The fun thing about rock in China is that folk, psychedelic pop, punk rock, New Wave, funk, industrial, hip-hop and anything else you can imaging is all hitting at basically the same time. It's all new and cool and inspiring young musicians to go and do other new and cool and inspired things.

There's more information at the Chaile.org Chinese rock wiki database, which one can surf around for long periods of time. A whole new world of music.

And, of course, there's more at his inevitable MySpace page.