Y'know some people out there are cool enough to dig where China 5's
coming from and to ask us questions about our music. With that, here's
the cleaned-up-and-properly-punctuated transcript of a Japanese dude
called DOUBLE*YAY (remember that name, he'll pop up again) talking to me
and Pete online. Enjoy!
DOUBLE*YAY: Will you eventually get tired of band name?
Lychee:
Probably. People read all sorts of things into band names, but it's
just a word, y'know? Just a word with a number tacked on to the end of
it. It don't mean nothin'. It's got nothing to do with the music.
D*Y: How hard it is to write songs?
Lychee:
Well, writing a pop song, as in a "pop"ular song, as in a song that
people can hum or sing to themselves, with a tune that remains in your
mind, and lyrics not too banal or not too deep, you know, anything that
doesn't freak out the listener and make them think the sky is going to
fall in tomorrow, all that stuff, it is pretty difficult. That's not to
say we don't have fun trying to do it, but it's a challenge to write a
decent song that people might like as opposed to, say, a song that only
we like. Because that's pretty much what we've done all along.
D*Y: What do you mean?
Lychee:
Well you look at all our oldest songs. Who would they appeal to apart
from the two of us and one or two of our friends? Not many people I
would think. They're songs for us, by us, to borrow a naff slogan from
the nineteen forties. Which is why they don't follow the same staid,
weatherbeaten, cliched paradigms of songwriting formats of yore.
D*Y: My English is not good, could you explain last sentence please.
Lychee: No.
D*Y:
Very well, I have been given a CD of you. It has 9 songs on it in poor
quality. Still, the melodies are nice. Those songs are just my feeling. I
wonder what will happen to those songs of yours.
Lychee: That's the
Friends Of China 5
disc you've got there my friend! Keep it in a sacred place. Dip it in
mayonnaise and bake it in your next lasagna. That CD is a true pop
artefact.
Pete: Yeah.
Lychee: That
disc was made before we had the technology to make audio files in high
quality. Hence the crappy sound on that CD. The first three CDs we did
were all recorded on cassette, you know. We're such dinosaurs we can
even remember what it was like to dub off copies of cassettes on
high-speed, and multi-track them. How about you? What year were you
born?
D*Y: 1978.
Pete: Okay,
same year as me. So, you know how you could double-track cassette
dubbing, and triple-track it. That'd be pushing it. If you did it four
times, it would start to distort the sound.
Lychee: Yeah, your vocals would go all chipmunky. Hence the first Lounge Act tape.
Pete: Give me a break man, it was 1994.
Lychee: Cassettes! We are ancient! I can't even mosh at concerts anymore.
Crreeeeeeeeeak!
D*Y: So you have embraced new technology?
Lychee: Pretty new. But hey you're from Japan, so compared to your new technology, our new technology would seem primitive.
D*Y: Obviously.
Lychee:
Smartarse. But getting back to that 9 track CD, we put our best songs
on it, and then we realized that they aren't really pop songs at all. I
mean there's instrumental waltzes on it for gawd's sake. Whoever heard
of an instrumental waltz in the Top 10?
Pete: I like our instrumentals, but most people find them boring.
Lychee: Exactly. They want lyrics. Not anything special, they don't wanna
understand and
feel and
be moved by the lyrics, they just wanna know that there
were
lyrics. Something to shout along to in a seedy nightclub after 88 shots
of gin. Hence the banal, vapid pap that passes for songwriting these
days.
Pete: But you're saying that like everyone loves
mindless, moronic radio-playlist filler that can be sped up by 20%
without cokeheads noticing. But surprisingly there
are people out there who do love fine songcraft.
Lychee: Bull. Every time I turn on the radio it's the same old R&B/hip-hop crap.
D*Y: So why do you
rap then Lychee?
Pete: Scorch.
Lychee:
Yeah, I rap. You're right. But not all that blingy pimps n' ho's shit.
If I write a rap, it's gonna be about something topical, political or
maybe humorous to mix it up a little. I don't write tunes about how I
was in the club and saw some hot chick and wanted to do her. 99% of all
songs are about that. You can write songs like that while watching
television. You don't even have to think. You just wave your pen in
front of the paper and let the vacuous cliches pour out.
D*Y: One more question, can someone else join China 5 if they want?
Lychee: Sure. Just bring over salt & vinegar chips, some MAD magazines and imported Grape Fanta and we'll see you right.
This is the sign outside the world's first Starbucks Coffee shop in Seattle, and as you can see, they don't use the familiar logo used worldwide; the original brown logo of the two-tailed mermaid is used. It's tasteful nudity though, coffee fans. As for the store itself, it's tiny and always packed. Everyone inside is talking on their phone saying "I'm in the original Starbucks...jealous?" etc.
Here's a signed Foo Fighters drum head, on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle. I can make out the Mexican hat, sorry, UFO, and the words "Foo Fighters, Nate Mendel, Rock On", but what are those words at the top? It looks suspiciously like "To: Surfers Paradise"!
And finally, a Christmas message from the Smart Mouth Cafe in the Gastown area of Vancouver, Canada. "Your (mostly) friendly neighbourhood cafe", indeed! 
In this strip, I kind of centre on the term 'LOL' (which I used to hate, by the way, but now it doesn't really bother me), but I had to squeeze in that reference to 'unfunny Chuck Norris crap', which does bother me. Here in Seattle, in several cool comic book & collectible shops, I've found all manner of unfunny Chuck Norris crap. What's going on? Seriously, the people who put that together should just go marry the dude or something. Then we can get to the merchandise that really matters: Pickle Fingers! I don't know what they're for, but they rule, and you shall deal with it.
The only Geeks strip drawn in 2010. The second year that has passed by with me doing only one of these. Hooray!
This strip, like one I previously posted, is completely true. I've been to the school and seen the spot where the shooting took place. My dad said the gunman, as expected, went to jail, but no one knows what happened to him after that.
On a side note, if anyone knows of a non-DSLR digital camera that can take decent (unblurred) indoor nighttime shots without flash, let me know. Don't say use your phone or you might get a toaster hurled at your face. (I'll post a review of TMBG's show with more pics on the China 5 Blog soon, as it's more music-related.)
Hmmm, not too much to say about this one. Hope you like the new layout for the blog though. It probably more resembles my actual desktop. Also, it doesn't 'tile', so it might not look good if your computer screen is really big. It looks fine on mine.
We've made it to number 30! When you read this, try to pretend it's nearly the end of 2009. It'll make more sense that way. Don't pretend for too long though or you may start to feel depressed. It's not the '00s no more, let's be thankful for that.
Yes, the story in this strip is true – it took place on October 13, 2007 at the Armageddon Multimedia Expo at the Melbourne Convention Centre. An awesome day, because I got to meet the great voice actor Billy West. Never heard of him? Shame on you. Go watch some cartoons. In particular, The Ren And Stimpy Show, where he voiced both Ren and Stimpy (at first only Stimpy), and also Futurama, where he is the voice of Fry, the Professor, Zoidberg and Zapp Brannigan. 
This is a 2008 drawing of the Villa Aoyama, the apartment building I lived in. It was a new-ish building with many rice fields and a river behind it, and mountains behind that. I went back there in December 2007 with my teacher friend Kaz.
A Christmas winter market in Osaka. It was German-themed (hence the sign), with a merry-go-round and some classical music playing. Note that there were many more people there than I have shown in this fineliner drawing.
In Tokyo, even the cars have a crazy fashion sense. My friend Yoji and I were in a noodle house when this bad boy pulled up outside the window. I couldn't make sense of the signs plastered all over it, but the figurines mounted on the bonnet were certainly eye-catching.
I read somewhere recently that bored people just trawl the internet from money shot to money shot. Well, let me save you the trouble with this night scene of the harbour. The future is now and we are here. And we're not leaving.
Store front of a T-shirt shop. Note the girl who works there looking straight at me. This was one of the more pricey places.
A life-size Game Of Life board in a shopping centre. If only the spinner was real, that would have been boss.
The waterfront statue of a childhood hero of mine, Mr. Bruce Lee. As he is buried in Seattle, this is the closest to a memorial in Hong Kong. I didn't realize it at the time but the date I chose to go see the statue was July 20, his death anniversary.
In the same area, the Avenue Of Stars, the greats of HK cinema have these plaques, sometimes with their handprints, and this is Bruce Lee's star. 'Little Dragon' is his given name in Chinese characters.
A staggering array of magazines, many of which are devoted to technology. There are several about the iPhone 4 alone. 
This installation is at Times Square, a huge shopping centre. You can't tell too easily but that's a black steam train. It's got Hogwarts Express written on it, whatever that is. The blue sign says London, Kings Cross. Beats me. Every teenage girl in HK was there that day, though.
The Hang Seng index, prominently displayed out front of the eponymous bank. Many people deal in stocks, so this info is critical. Looks like it's taken a hit here...
Are you a racecar nerd who's also into classical music? Then this piano design is for you. The car-like leather seat and aerodynamic bodywork will be perfect as you perform Beethoven's "Ecossaise" while fanging it around Causeway Bay. You'll need some bulldog clips for your sheet music though.
Bape (A Bathing Ape) is a Japanese clothing line and here is the front of HK's Bape store, with its three hooded pocketed-handed silverclones. What does it all mean?
Apartment blocks are a curious geometric patchwork, studded with air conditioners and draped with drying clothes.
The most controversial Geeks strip so far (apart from that earlier one about 50 Cent), as it features a real-life person. No, I didn't bother to change his name for the strip; no, he hasn't read it; and no, he hasn't come around to kick my head in. Yes, he actually said the things in the strip, and yes, this sequence was recycled for use in another comic (see below) because I thought it was pretty funny.
