The first Laoban Soundsystem event at CPU:798 in Beijing went quite well for the a frist event thanks to Ed having a great space, lots of current and new friends coming out and of course, because some really great artists came out to mix in. After getting our contractor friends to drop off the soundsystem, some installers mounting a projector, and then us taping up the Laoban posters, we started the night off with getting five crates of beer and some street meat sellers and progressed to having a rotating set of people from all over Beijing stopping in. From Yang Tao’s blip hop, Long2’s brilliant visuals and symphonic set all the way to good friends like Ya Zhu, Jenny and our friend Phil bringing out the cool contingent from Ai Wei Wei’s fake studio, the event jumpstarted the creation of the Laoban soundsystem. Thanks to Ed, here’s a quick video sampling of some of the sets:

Ed also has a good wrap-up keeping critical of the event and holding us to task for what the outcome for Laoban events will be. I definitely agree with him about the format of the event and not having enough women mixing in. We did have some video from Lu which we ran out of time to play and I wanted to get our friend Ya Zhu to plug into the event, but we pushed this event out in a week from lock-in to event, so without really knowing anyone doing this type of work in Beijing really until Friday, I’m still happy with where we arrived. Check out a bit more from Ed on his comments:

Looking ahead, I hope there will more variety in the material in future events, last night was very focused on DJs and VJs. Films and short talks were promised, which would have given more of a conceptual structure to the proceedings and will help prevent it becoming just another club night.

I hope, too, that more women will present their work. Last night the performers were without exception all men – it seemed to be the cliché of boys with their toys (I don’t know maybe this is perhaps a feature of the scene rather than a bug, as they say to excuse some oddity in software). I can’t believe there are no women making material and this would make a valuable contribution to the event.

But this was the first version of the event, and was very much about investigating a format for the future, so I want to see how it develops. The original spec for the night I thought was very exciting and something which had the potential for development into something very strong – and this was one of the reasons why I agreed to go with it. I hope that more of what was originally announced becomes incorporated into future events, as they have the possibility to a) bring together some of the creative communities here in Beijing and China in general which hover round each other but which don’t really get to cross-fertilise so often, and b) make links out from the local to the international creative scenes which all have their representatives here in BJ.

I’m not giving a description of the night adequate love, so I will just say thanks to all the folks who came out to both consume and produce at the first Laoban event. Xu Tao came on last for the night and I look forward to plugging him into a larger event as well. Him and his mate had really great tracks and kicked in some San Francisco House music which was quite cool. I look forward to stretching out a bit more and getting these guys on with some extended sets. I’m even happy that Sandy and his trance mates came out and brought their laser which added to the overall event’s decor and theme of seeing who comes out to this type of mixing event in Beijing.

I’ll post up other photos as they become available. Ed took some great shots of the night up on flickr like:

Long2 Mixing by Ed

Yang Tao Mixing by Ed

Matt and I talked yesterday and set-up plans for Laoban Soundsystem 2.0 which is going to be made in parts, CNC’d and then put together by us. We will make it all with Chinese wood, hardware, parts and companies. It will have a distinctive look, but be of supreme quality.

The next event we do, I really want to make heavy on the dubstep side. Maybe that means that Matt and I both need to get our DJ’ing chops up and we need to plan ahead a bit more to get folks like DJ Mael and others out from Beijing art and music scenes.

In closing, I will ask what you all out there want to see in these events? Are you interested in mixing in? We are quite hopeful to make these events different each time, make them sustainable, easy to put on, but also as a great venue to get new artists out to mix work, show work, and have things fail or succeed in a live setting. This is another invitation to plug into the Laoban Soundsystem by producing art at the events, consuming art at the events, making your own speakers, and generally connecting up with the soundsystem to help shape what happens. You are the Laoban!