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Your guide to gigs, concerts and music festivals in Hong Kong
Music edited by Mark Tjhung
Not quite the top 20
Sadly, there ain’t enough room in our top 20 for all the musicians we love. Here’s a list of those who came oh-so close.
INDIE
The Yours Lo-fi post-punk with hi-fi ass-kicking ’tude.
www.myspace.com/theyours
El Destroyo Scintillating rockabilly trio who push their instruments to the limit.
Kim Tak Building Dreamy ambient electronica and post-rock from the city’s most secretive band.
24Herbs The only Hong Kong hip-hop posse worth mentioning.
Alok Leung Multi-instrumentalist, experimentalist, and sometimes even a straight-out rocker, Alok is a Hong Kong music leader and a member of holy-shit-they’re-good new band A Roller Control.
CANTOPOP
Khalil Fong Young singer-songwriter with an R&B edge who threatens to undermine the packaged-star model of Cantopop.
Endy Chow & Zarahn Pop that swims on the verges of the mainstream from a young-but-established band.
Kary Ng A pop rock singer who left the saccharine girl band Cookies to develop her own, edgier image.
Kay Tse Great vocal range and a voice for jazz, mother Tse doesn’t fit the typical pop star image.
Bianca Wu Fusion style singer melding pop, soul, jazz and R&B with five albums under her belt and a musical theatre show on the cards.
CLASSICAL
Samson Young First Hong Kong artist to win the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award, and an awesomely creative talent who merges his compositions with multimedia elements.
Herman Paw Man Hang Twenty-two-year-old French horn player who has commanded the principal horn chair in the Asian Youth Orchestra for the past two years.
Jimmy Chiang Pianist, conductor and last year’s winner of the International Competition of Young Conductors in Croatia.
Guo Yazi Versatile Chinese suona player who’s actively involved in cross-over projects in conventional and unconventional venues.
King’s Harmonica Quartet World champion pros – but they’ve all got day-jobs. They've probably commissioned the most number of new works for the harmonica, an instrument they've turned into a classical force.
JAZZ
Henry Chung Perhaps the best blues man in town, Chung is a demon on the harmonica and has numerous Cantopop collabs to his name.
The China Coast Jazzmen (at Ned Kelly’s Last Stand) They might be covering Dixieland standards, but boy do they play. Band leader Colin is also famous for chugging pints on stage.
Koya Hisakazu He’s in about 20 bands and at least some of them are jazz and blues – including Helter Skelter and Sea Monsters. Bassist extraordinaire Hisakazu is a must on any list of important Hong Kong music people.
Tsang Tak Hong (Ah Hong) Double-bass-playing Hong has this year continued his rise in the local jazz scene by securing a residency for his trio at Peel Fresco.
Joao Marcus Entertaining Brazilian pianist who plays with passion and creativity.
13 comment(s)
Tom
Where's The Lovesong?
08 Oct 2008 01:34:03 PM
Bummy
And elf fatima? Personally I think the yours are too aggressive and inconsistent
08 Oct 2008 01:35:18 PM
Silver
I am totally appalled. Obviously you have never seen The Yours live, or they'd be in the Top 20 instead of the pad on the back section
08 Oct 2008 01:38:06 PM
Natalie
only Chochkmo and The Yours? Is that all you can find? Who did you ask? Shoot your music editors and hire people who actually go to gigs in hong kong....
08 Oct 2008 01:45:21 PM
Hamish
Hey Natalie - I'm the music editor. I go to gigs. But there's only so many bands you can include in a top 20. Especially because we selected only five for each category. Who would you have liked to see make the list?
08 Oct 2008 01:54:52 PM
Bob's Yer Unkle
DP underneath Eason Chan... is there any photo evidence?? Scandelous!!
:P
08 Oct 2008 03:45:08 PM
music music
cool it mckenzie, alok's not a great musician but he should be in the top 10 of people who make shit HAPPEN in this town
08 Oct 2008 07:18:47 PM
AKW
Strange there's no electronic section - Technasia put HK on the map in the techno arena years ago, and breaks/techno producer Dan F has sold a shitload of records internationally. Plus no 24 Herbs? Diuuuuu
08 Oct 2008 07:48:18 PM
Monda
I find it completely a joke to make a list to shout
"This is the top 20 of HK".
Just look at the words you use to describe those pop-singers, it's nothing more than a joke.
And it's preposterous to put hocc on the list but not fong tai tong.
Well, if you don't know well enough about Hong Kong Music scene, please don't ever bother to make something like this again.
09 Oct 2008 04:44:53 PM
Nick D
Very upset not to see Empire on the list!!
But I didn't see Audiotraffic on the 20 or the not quite list.... hmmmmm
09 Oct 2008 05:18:10 PM
Sam
Since when were El Destroyo 'Indie'?? :P Also, where's the kudos to the metal scene? Not my thing, but the likes of King Lychee pull in hundreds of people everytime.
10 Oct 2008 03:56:21 PM
Missy
Y'all need to chillax. Our music scene ain't even worth gettin' angry about. Now that's the sad truth.
10 Oct 2008 07:46:32 PM
sean
Thank god the lovesong weren't on the list - they are truly awful.. There's only one band in HK DP - the yours have some attitude and so do my little airport.. but until we can get some venues that actually like music rather than see gigs as a way of ripping off promoters, bands and punters this city will get the music scene it deserves .. shame really it could be quite a funky place for music ...
24 Oct 2008 01:07:47 PM
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