A month after the 2008 Summer Olympics, I was finally granted a visa and returned to Beijing. I had spent my summer teaching at an English camp in Korea and now had a decent chunk of cash but no home. I had been planning to sleep at D-22 until at that night’s show, Chenxi, the singer from Snapline,
By the spring of 2005, I had finally said my long goodbye to Korea and was ready to settle down for a new life in China. As I returned to Beijing after those somewhat ill-fated, R.A.M.B.O. shows, Jonas was already busy bringing a band together. For this new project, he was to play drums. I’d be on guitar
The first release on Genjing Records came out before the label even existed, but it set the tone for what was to come. It formed the mold for the subsequent releases and delineated the boundaries of the label, a template that, surprisingly and unintentionally, has held for the majority of the label’s fifty-seven releases to date.
Why would anyone want to start a label? For me, it definitely wasn’t for money. I’ve spent more money and time on this ‘labor of love’ than I’ll ever get back. It also wasn’t for fame. Running a label, as with many of the behind-the-scenes tasks in the music ‘industry,’ is often a thankless task. Performing on a