Tina Tsai
E-Mail: tinabot@gmail.com
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Registered Since: 2008-02-17 07:17:51
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Heart Melting Voices
March 21st, 2008When I heard these two angels singing live for the first time, their voices melted my heart.
Jane Lui - Libra Armor
Corrinne May - Fly Away
Make Music Not War
March 1st, 2008If only it were that simple all the time.
On Feb 26th in Pyongyang, the New York Philharmonic performed a nationally and internationally broadcast concert in a communist country that America is technically still at war with.
Most notable was the performance of Arirang, North Korea’s most famous traditional folk song, which got an encore at the end. When I heard on NPR about the event and about the performance of a traditional Korean folk song by an American orchestra, I had to see and hear it for myself. Many people in both the audience and amongst musicians were reported to be in tears.
Thank goodness for youtube.
The song is absolutely lovely.
Rock The Vote (of a different sort)
February 22nd, 2008We need more Asian Americans in the arts. Asian Americans may score highest on standardized tests, but we are the least powerful major minority group in the country. Why? Because we have almost no influence, no political or cultural power. Being really good at answering multiple choice questions does not translate well into truly complex, strategic problem solving which is what brings real power to a group. Anything that’s hip Asian these days are from ASIA not ASIAN AMERICA. Asian America has got to step up its game.
One of America’s major strengths in the world is cultural proliferation. The British still has the whole world brainwashed to think that if you speak with a British accent, you’re automatically more intelligent. Japan and Korea are becoming a major part of peoples lives all around the world through anime, dramas, and music. They’re so successful in “converting” people that we’ve got stupid young Americans who dare chant “Japan is better than America!” as American soldiers die for their freedom. That’s influence. That’s power.
Arts is a major key in all of this. That is one of the reasons I’m very supportive of Kaba Modern, their hard work and achievements. They are the only all-Asian-American dance crew in the finals for MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew.
Not to mention they are truly damn good dancers.
They made it through another round of eliminations! Please vote for them! You can vote multiple times!
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dance_crew/voting.jhtml?episodeId=3123
Voting closes Saturday 2-23-08 @ 4am.
Happy Birthday Kurdt Kovain (Feb 20)…you jerk…
February 20th, 2008
Cortney Love had the crowd call him worse things when she read his suicide note to them.
I was not an active and avid fan of Nirvana when their singer Kurt Cobain killed glam rock with his nonsensical screams and pop structured punk grunge tunes. I liked their music though, and I remember wondering,
“Why is he singing about girl’s deoderant?”
As I listen to the Nirvana albums today, I realize that I know practically every song. I guess you can’t be a teen in the early nineties and escape the impact Nirvana had on that generation.
I try to imagine what I would have done if the idol of my own teen years, Tori Amos, had committed suicide while I was in the midst of using her music and voice as a resonator for my young soul. I would probably have sobbed in grief silently under my bed covers with her album on repeat, or maybe I would have smashed her cds on the street in effigy at the betrayal. Whatever the physical actions, I know for sure that the piercing and torturous scream in my head would have been:
“WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!….”
That’s exactly what Courtney Love screamed as she waded her hands in the blood of her beloved dead husband and saved a piece of his shotgun shattered skull. His suicide was simply a pattern that he had repeated his whole life since his mother left his father when he was 7 years old. Before that event, he was a little boy that didn’t want to sleep because he didn’t want to leave his family. After that, he was a self-destructing, relationship sabotaging jerk.
To be fair, Kurdt wasn’t all bad.
He was an animal lover who took in strays and loved having a bathtub full of turtles in the middle of his dwelling. His home always smelled like the bottom of a litter tray.
He was incredibly respectful of women, more feminist than the feminist punker girl love interest that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was written about. His song “Polly” is as poignant a song about rape as Tori Amos’s “Me and A Gun (and a man on my back).”
He really, really loved his parents and sister, which is why he reacted so strongly to the breaking of his idyllic home life. He cared deeply for his grandparents and other relatives.
He really, deeply, truly loved his wife and daughter. Why else would he name his albums In Utero the year after his marriage and daughter’s birth?
Though a drug addict, he called Courtney and cried when drug addicts worshipped him at a concert. He couldn’t stand being an icon for drug use.
Kurdt was charismatic, drawing people into his life with his sincere kindness and empathy as well as the siren song of his art.
But he was a control freak. He would create something real and genuine then quickly destroy it himself before someone else could. It was his way of protecting himself from loss. He broke everything precious to him the way he smashed his guitars. He had attempted suicide multiple times.
As I read the biography, I had thought that I would become so invested in its main character that I would be very sad for him when he died. Unexpectedly, there were three other moments instead that were intensely painful to vicariously witness. First was a short conversation he had with his estranged father where they actually exchanged an awkward and heartfelt “I love you.” Then there was the moment when he held his daughter for the last time and whispered into her ear before he went off to kill himself. Finally, there was Cortney’s reaction to his death. She had covered herself in layers of his clothes that still had the lingering scent of his body. Like all deaths, it’s the ones left behind that suffer.
Cross did a great job allowing readers a glimpse into Cobain’s life and mind. I’m a bigger fan of Nirvana after reading the book. As I read his description of Kurdt in the actual act of suicide, the image of him abandoning family, friends, and millions of adoring fans who had linked their hearts and souls with his caused me to whisper under my breath:
“How could you?”
Granted it wasn’t like all of his family, friends, and fans were perfect people, but it is heartbreaking to see so many hearts break.
Tears for Tori
February 18th, 2008I was 14 years old when I was first captivated by the progressive music and voice of Tori Amos as she screamed into my ears through the walkman headset: “…those demigods with their nine-inch nails and little fascist panties tucked inside the heart of every nice girl…” (Song: Precious Things).
I knew exactly what she was talking about.
This past Christmas I received a wonderful gift from my dearest friends–I went to my very first Tori Amos concert 15 years after I bought her first album.
It was the last show of her tour for her newest album, American Doll Posse, and lucky for me she went all out performing over 20 songs over more than 2 hours of wonderful live music bliss.
When I arrived at the Nokia theater and my friends revealed the surprise concert to me, I was trying to play it cool and not get all fan-gril about it all. I bought a concert t-shirt and the elegant program, sat down, and tried to calm my anxious heart.
As she began to sing, I was so moved that tears would occasionally roll down my cheek as I laughed and sang along with many of the songs that I knew so well from my years as an adolescent girl.
The real killer, though, was when she sang the song she called her anthem: “Silent All These Years.” As I floated in the midst of this song that I had sung along with countless times, I soon found myself sobbing uncontrollably. It felt like a lifetime of solitude welled up in me all at once. Tori Amos live is quite an experience.
Shoving Asian American Music Down Your Throat
February 18th, 2008I’m not a musician. I’m a writer. But I love music.
I’m a huge fan of classic Asian instruments and music.
I’ve also enjoyed and supported the music of tons of Asian American musicians over the past decade, and one thing I’ve noticed is that Asian American music doesn’t exist.
Don’t get me wrong. A lot of the Asian American musicians I’ve supported are very talented and good at what they do, and there is nothing wrong with Asians loving hip hop, jazz, rock, etc. But aside from putting an Asian face and name on the music and the occasional reference to rice cookers in their lyrics or use of Asian language in their singing, there’s nothing really Asian American about the music itself. Just close your eyes and listen and you’ll find that there’s nothing in what you hear that screams Asian American.
I’ve always sought out fusion music. Even when I was romping around Asia immersed in their pop music culture, I was especially drawn to any song that used traditional Asian instruments in them. Sadly, those types of music were always the exception and not the rule.
In the mainstream, the only Asian American that I’ve heard actually integrating some Asian styles into music is Mike Shinoda. Again, though, it’s only an occasionally added flavor instead of the core of the music. The only place that I can get Asian fusion of some sort on a regular basis is from the world music genre, but much of it is just slightly altered traditional music. Sometimes they just add a dance beat to it and call it fusion.
Given this particular taste for Asian fusion music that I have, my reaction to hearing the songs from the band Random Ninjas was:
“I’ve been waiting to hear this music all my life.”
What I love about their music is that it shoves Asian American down your throat.
I’ve often been ridiculed by non-Asians for listening to the twingy twangy traditional Asian music that I developed a taste for as a little girl who learned cultural dances and watched kung fu movies, but that’s expected, right? In my experience, caucasian men were especially rude and cruel in their jeers.
What’s surprising is I’ve also been criticized by Asian Americans for it.
“Don’t you think you’re promoting a stereotype of us?” one Asian American peer had said to me after I performed a sword dance to some classic Chinese music in college. As you can imagine, I felt really upset that I wasn’t allowed to love and be a avid fan of my own cultural heritage.
My current favorite Random Ninjas song right now happens to be “Go” on their newly released E.P. It starts out with some unassuming, minimalistic shamisen which picks up a little momentum and then surprisingly bursts out into full on heavy in-your-face metal. I just imagine all those people who make fun of traditional Asian music being taken off guard by the sudden attack of Asian American rock guitars, and it makes me smile with a vengence. This music gives me hope for the evolution of Asian American music.
Currently the band just finished shooting a new music video that should be out within the next month. They’ve got a show coming up at the legendary Whisky A Go Go on Sunset.
Lots of band bios claim that they have a “fresh” new sound. This band actually delivers.
If you know of any other fusion music, send it my way. I’m always looking for new music.
