Mark Tjhung talks to two filmmakers who are exploring Hong Kong music through a lens

Matthew Stender and John Wills King are an odd couple. Visually speaking, at least. Waiting outside the MTR station, Stender stands, afro-sprouting, sporting a gleaming pair of aviator sunglasses – a picture of 70s funk. Wills King is next to him, with brushed blonde hair and a neatly untucked crisp shirt. On first appearances, these two American grad students seem a world apart. But later, as they discuss Hong Kong music, finishing each others’ sentences about this city’s scene, it’s clear that there’s been a meeting of minds.

For the past six months, the pair, along with their cinematographer Chester Chen, have headed up a project called Culture of Sound, a series of mini-documentaries that, according to their website, “brings you along for a behind-the-scenes, all-access tour through Hong Kong’s underground music scene.”

“Hong Kong prides itself on its inner cultural cohesion and variety. We wanted to see that portrayed through the music,” says Wills King. “We wanted to do whatever we could do to help explicate that, to not only people here, but people in the States or in England, who really have no idea about what music is like in Hong Kong.”

What’s since become quite an ambitious project began largely through chance, as the two – both of whom have been in Hong Kong for about a year – slowly discovered the local scene simmering under the Cantopop surface. “We’d stumble upon a little music here and there. And then we met some people who were in the music scene here, and we got invited a couple of times to tape a few shows,” says Wills King in a distinctively pleasant Southern American drawl.

The duo became increasingly immersed in the scene, and the more shows they attended and the more people they talked to, the further they uncovered something they considered to be unique and exciting. “We realised that everyone had this feeling, like there was something special going on here. We got this sense from a lot of people that, in the last 18 months to a year, things have really started to snowball,” says Stender, originally a Texan. “We just wanted to be a part of that.”

With this impetus, the Culture of Sound series was born. In the six documentaries made thus far, their journey has taken them the length
and breadth of the city’s music spectrum – from documenting a benefit gig in the hardcore and metal scene to chatting with the man behind the comedy/jazz institution Ned Kelly’s Last Stand. They’ve explored the city’s nascent reggae scene, the momentum behind the drum’n’bass crews, and the role of indie music showcase stalwart The Underground in the increasing emergence of Hong Kong original music.

“All of our episodes have been focused on either events or a venue. We found that telling a story of a particular place – where we would interview the venue owner and the people who are playing there – is an interesting way [to explore the scene],” says Stender, also noting that Wan Chai music venue The Wanch will be the focus of an upcoming episode. “On the other hand, there are events like DJ events where a scene coalesced in one particular event on one particular night. So we tried to cover that.”

While covering diverse genres, Wills King and Stender were fascinated to see a theme that emerged across the scenes – something that glued the disparate musical pockets of the city together. “Really early on, this theme arose and we kept seeing it. This DIY – do it yourself – culture inside the Hong Kong music scene,” says Stender. “I think this is something that really stood out and was a big component of the scene, no matter what type of music you were talking about. It was this idea that, in a town that’s so commercialised and consumeristic, people that are looking for a creative outlet really have to go and do it themselves.”

This examination of Hong Kong music’s DIY culture provides something of a mirror to the twosome’s own project. Neither Wills King or Stender have a formal filmmaking background (they’re “the ideas guys”, as Wills King puts it), but they are making things happen. And like many of the people they’re featuring in their documentaries, they harbour lofty ambitions, hoping to use the Hong Kong-focused series as a stepping stone. “We want to identify a particular theme within each city [such as] the punk scene in Beijing, the hip-hop scene in Chengdu and identifying local movers and shakers who are the driving forces behind those scenes,” says Wills King.

With this kind of grand plan, we could well see Stender and Wills King become musical movers and shakers in their own right.

Check out Culture of Sound at www.asiaanalysis.com/documentaries/cultureofsound.