Our Next Program on November 11 2011

Thanks to everyone who made PitchYrCulture Mix #1 so successful with Culture Club's large, appreciative audience and fantastic presentations by our 7 presenters. 

And now . . . ! We'd like to announce our next program at Videotage on November 11(with more details to follow),  with (at this time) opening acts and side events including musician Yanyan Pang and a mini-store of vintage vinyl records organized by the legendary Paul of Paul's Records in Sham Shui Po.

Here's how PitchYrCulture works - at each event we have a theme. Of course the presenter is free to interpret the theme as they see fit (we all have our own, highly personalized musical histories). Listed below is the thematic format for the first three PitchYrCultures:

Before-it-All – Friday, September 16, 8pm, at Culture Club

Do you remember the first song that made an impression on you or meant something to you, when you were really young, before you started to care what other people liked, what other people thought of you? Before you needed to be cool or fit in and before you knew where ‘in’ was?

Into-It-All – Friday, November 11, 8pm, at Videotage

After you had worked through a few different styles, you went your own way – you rebelled. Your musical choices made a conscious statement about who you were and who you wanted to be. Posted to your parents, teachers, friends and peers, your statement was subtly or overtly against the world!

Over-It-All – venue/date to be announced

And finally, you’d either seen it all (or you thought you had) and you started to become disillusioned with what was ‘out there’. You might have even dug out some of your old favourites and felt disbelief at your old tastes! Or did that journey through your archives make you embrace the past – over the present – taking you further away from current musical trends?

Hope to see you on November 11 

and feel free to send us feedback, suggestions, fan mail

8 slides from 7 presentions - PyC mix #1

Here are 8 slides from our September 16, 2011 event, 1 slide per presenter until you get to the end.

"1966 Batman TV Theme" song presented by MC Andrew Guthrie

"我係小忌廉"  or "Magical Angel Creamy Mami" presented by Clara Cheung

"Star" by Anita Mui presented by Arthur Wong

"Sesame's Treet" by the Smart E's presented by Oliver Holtaway

"How Much is that Doggie . . ." by Patti Page presented by Alice Chik

"Comin' Through" by The Pastels presented by Mike Middleton

"Trouble" by Shampoo presented by Yanyan Pang

Please Tune In

On Wednesday, September 14 at 11am, PitchYrCulture’s MC Andrew Guthrie will be a guest on RTHK’s Morning Brew program with Caroline Chan.

Along with promoting PitchYrCulture’s first and second events (on September 16 at Culture Club and November 4 at Videotage), Andrew has been invited to play a few selections from his 45 rpm collection.

If time allows this will include an obscure Kenyan Kikuyu folk song found at the Sham Shui Po New Year street market, along with the classic American folk song “500 Miles” being interpreted by British Duo Peter and Gordon and local entertainer Nancy Sit 薛家燕.

Here's the link to the Radio 3 website to listen live (9.30am-1pm)

Here's the link to the archived show of Morning Brew

Here’s RTHK over the air:

Hong Kong-wide: AM567

Hong Kong-South: AM1584/FM106.8

Happy Valley, Jardine's Lookout, Parkview Corner: FM97.9

Tseung Kwan O, Tin Shui Wai: FM107.8

On September 16th, 2011, at Culture Club in Central HK, PitchYrCulture will launch a series of public-presentation forums titled PitchYrCulture. Each forum is dedicated to the exploration and explanation of recorded music in all its varieties. At each event, five to ten guest presenters will each explain a song that they have chosen, in relation to the event’s theme (see below). Each presentation will delve into the song’s history, cultural impact, and artistic ambitions and/or include personal anecdotes or aimless digressions. Presentations must not exceed the length of the chosen song. After the presentation, the chosen song will be played for the audience’s pleasure.

PitchYrCulture是個公開演講論壇，旨在探索和闡述各種類型的灌錄音樂。每次活動將會有五至十位嘉賓根據當日音樂主題選取一首樂曲（詳見下列）與觀眾細味品嘗。每位分享者會與觀眾探索所選樂曲的歷史，文化影響，藝術追求(比如與之有關的個人軼事或是天馬行空的瑣屑思緒)。不過個人分享時間不可超過所選歌曲的實際長度。講演之後，我們會再為觀眾播放一次該首歌曲。

PitchYrCulture Playlist (Mix #1): Before-It-All

Friday, September 16, 8pm

Culture Club, Lower Elgin St, Central, Hong Kong

Before-it-all: Do you remember the first song that made an impression on you or meant something to you, when you were really young, before you started to care what other people liked, what other people thought of you, before you needed to be cool or fit in, before you cared what was ‘in’?

那時那刻  -  你還否記得， 當你在年少輕狂、 無所顧忌的歲月裏，在你尚未畏懼世俗眼光、我行我素之時，  第一首令你難忘或是別有意義的樂曲?

This program is Free and Open to the Public

This program is mostly in English with some Cantonese

節目以英語為主，輔以廣東話

Individuals  presenting  at:
PitchYrCulture Playlist #1: Before-It-All
Friday, September 16, 8pm
Culture Club, Central HK

Alice Chik is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City U of HK, is currently co-authoring the book, 'English pop, Hong Kong style”.

Andrew Guthrie is founder and organizer of PitchYrCulture Playlist. He is also the creator of the artist edition Broken Records: 1960 -1969, an image and text chronicle of ten 45rpms spanning the 1960s.

Arthur Wong was born in Malaysia and lives in Singapore and Hong Kong. He studied as a Contemporary Dancer and Visual Artist at LaSalle College of the Arts. His artwork is a result of training in both the performing and the visual arts.

Clara Cheung is an artist, educator, curator and co-director of the innovative exhibition space, C&G Artpartment, in Prince Edward, Kowloon

Mike Middleton is a Senior Art Director in advertising and branding, and Head of Propaganda for Songs For Children, an indie-music promotion group based in Hong Kong.

Oliver Holtaway was in the art rock band Awful Sparks in London in the mid-00s before moving to Hong Kong and becoming an indie DJ, playing at IN2IND and Songs For Children under the name of "Perfect Pete".

Yanyan Pang is a local indie musician who formed the all girl experimental band Hard Candy in 2002. She is currently performing in a singer-songwriter project named Tyger Feb and playing bass for the psychedelic trio Logo.

And special opening act: 

85 years young Liu King Yung is a bubbly, smart and sociable grandma who has super good memory of songs from her growing up Liu King Yung. She will sing Wai Tau songs dating back to around the Second World War.

Example of power-point for PitchYrCulture

Slide 1: Title of Song, recording artist, length of song, year of songs release.

Slide 2: A comparison of generational styles. Something had drastically changed, but these were the Pop Idols of their respective eras. Could we say they were as different as black and white?

Slide 3: In fact it was more like the difference between gray and purple (as in Hendrix's song "Purple Haze") yet Hendrix recorded on the label Frank Sinatra started (one of Sinatra's nicknames was "Chairman of the Board"). As Sinatra was a musician he made sure Reprise Records entitled the recording artist to the ownership of their material, a right that was usually usurped by other record companies.

Slide 4: In the spoken intro to "Third Stone from the Sun" Hendrix and his producer, Chas Chandler act as if they are "aliens" viewing Earth from outer space, referencing the TV show "Star Trek" in their use of the term “Star Fleet”.

Slide 5: Hendrix waxed poetic on the new age leanings of his time, including 4th dimensions, UFOs, mind-reading, native-American philosophy, and so on. He sometimes referred to his songs as "Electric Sky Church Music".

Slide 6: But clearly there was a direct psychedelic influence on Hendrix and his peers, a marker of the gaping differences between the mid 1960s and the previous generation's Pop stylings. Though they spoke of UFOs in outer space, the journey was clearly one that fundamentally explored "inner space".

Slide 7: Hendrix was a freaky Afro-American Blues-man, a relentless practitioner who was taking things to another level, yet it took a Englishman to recognize and foster Hendrix’s talent. This was Chas Chandler of the rock band The Animals who brought Hendrix to London where they auditioned the musicians who would back-up Hendrix. 

Slide 8: He formed The Experience, a Rock band with two white Englishmen – Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. But Hendrix had previously been whole-heartedly paying his dues in the USA, backing up some of the most hardcore African-American stalwarts of early Rock n’ Roll and R&B.

Please Note: This example is far from complete, for one thing you can’t witness the transition and animations between slides. It is intended to sketch out and suggest the possibilities for what might occur at a PitchYrCulture event. Cheers!