Snoblind

 
Hong Kong's Snoblind have been making a name for themselves with their genre bending rock-meets-hip hop brand of electronica.  They've found an adopted musical home in Taiwan, gone record digging with DJ Shadow, and what's more, they're currently the most popular artists on AMP.  Let's learn a little more about Snoblind shall we?

Hello there, please introduce yourselves:
Hi! Snoblind is Regina Chang and Vincent Wong.

Howdy.  Can you give us a brief history of Snoblind?
Regina saw a ticket stub of a Suede concert in Vincent’s cubicle (amongst other pop cultural junk) and conversation started.  What started out as a musical joke in office X’mas party became a serious pursuit.  We started gigging around 2003, released an album in 2006, and that’s where we are now.

How’d you choose the name Snoblind?  What does it mean? You don't look like metal heads...
For the record, the name we adopted is not a Black Sabbath-tribute thing (no disrespect to Black Sabbath at all).  Anyway, we could not settle for a name, so Vincent conveniently changed the name of a book he was reading at that time - “Snowblind” by Robert Sabbag -to become Snoblind.

So what’s the battle plan?
We don’t have one per se.  If we can play our music to audiences who listen, we’re pretty darn happy.

What/whom are your influences (musical or otherwise)?
Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow is our the No. 1 guy.  We basically take our music and visual cues from this man.  That said, we were originally influenced by a lot of punk, early 90's Riot Grrl stuff, Golden Age hiphop, grunge (of course), and loads of early 90's downtown New York avant-garde music, 60's Fluxus-influenced free improvise music (e.g. German’s FMP label) and psychedelic era Miles Davis. 

We are also inspired by works by artists such as Barney Matthews, director Michel Gondry, motion graphic artist Kyle Cooper, author Chuck Palahnuk, UK TV serials like “Spaced” and “Look Around You”.

How would you describe your sound?
Rockish electronica or Electronica-ish Rock, take your pick.  We use instruments usually reserved for electronica music to play rock music.

Is there a message you want to get across through your music?
We do not have a message per se regarding our music because we trust that our audience is smart enough to interpret our music whichever way they see fit.  When we write a song, or are putting the live visuals together we go for the mood of the sound and try to find the chord movement, melody or footage that would incite a certain emotion.  Hopefully we hit the spot when the crowd hears it.

Tell us about your setup – what do you use?
Two computers each loaded with Ableton Live and Reason, controlled by simple MIDI controller.  A computer dedicated for triggering visuals.  Regina has a pocket-sized theremin hooked up to a Kaoss Pad while Vincent has a Wind MIDI controller with sound coming through a wah wah pedal to emulate the 70s psychedelic jazz horn sound - and if the mood strikes, he’ll throw in a faderboard synth.

How important is the visual component of your shows?
Very important.  Without the visuals you’d probably see two very unattractive individuals geeking out in front of the computer screen in a very static fashion.  It’s just a misdirection trick.

Are you guys a booze, drugs, or abstinence band?
If none of the above, what are your vices?
“Just say no.”…pause…pause…pause…NOT!
We are more into our PSP, NDS, Wii and whatever other gadget that is the flavor of the week.

What gets you excited?
A great beat, a nice melody or a Kyle Cooper opening sequence in a movie would do the trick nicely.

What, in your view, is success?  Is there anything specific you would like to achieve with your music?
At this stage we’d say that the success we crave is just for more people to enjoy our music.  If more people listen to our music and do not think it sucks, then we are happy as a dog.

Favourite gig so far, and why?
Apart from a few recent gigs, every gig we have played has been our favourite because we get to know more new friends at each and we have fond memories about all of those gigs.

Worst ever gig and why?
One of the recent performances at Spring Scream in Taiwan.  The organizer was kind enough to book us to play on every night of the festival.  On the last night we were scheduled to play at the southern-most tip of Taiwan beneath a lighthouse - the setting sound great on paper, right?  But as it turns out, it was raining cats and dogs on the night of our performance.  Coupled this situation with completely uncooperative stage hands and some serious cock-ups with the other acts on the stage (which resulted in a lengthy e-beef afterwards).  It was definitely a low point in our performance history.

The perfect crowd is…
A perfect mixture of those who watch our visuals like a movie scored to live music, and those who decide “screw the visuals, I am going to dance my way out of this band’s performance.”

Weirdest thing a fan has ever given you?
Our friend “cbom” whom we met during last year’s Spring Scream has the habit of showing up after we pack our gear, giving us two cans of Taiwan Beer (just that brand only) for celebration, patting us on our backs, then vanishes into thin air like Keyser Soze in the Usual Suspects, or the character “Wheels” from the TV series “Spaced”.  He has done that in almost all of our subsequent performances anywhere and everywhere in Taiwan.

Do you have any special preparations or rituals you go through before playing a show?
Not really…but whenever we play at Spring Scream, we go to Kenting main street for an Italian restaurant (which takes the longest time to serve food) as well as to have a round or two of Go Karting before our performance.

Do you have any other band traditions you stick to?
We used to have a policy of wearing “Snopants” on stage as our lucky stage garment, a “safety blanket” if you will… But it has been replaced by our usual Snoblind band tee and pair of denims now.

If we gave you an unlimited budget to buy some equipment, what would be next on the shopping list?
A transponder or at least our own private jet.  So we can travel to every corner of the universe without worry about transportation to play our music.  Realistically speaking, we are quite happy with our setup and equipment right now.

If you could create your all time favourite festival line up – who would you include on the bill?
For the not-really-indie, we’d like to see:
DJ Shadow
David Axelrod with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, or Teresa Carpio + Francis Yip and the HKPO doing “Les Fleur” and “California Soul” respectively (a bit strange for a festival setting, we know.)
Uri Caine’s Bedrock trio
Fingathing
Explosions in the Sky
Mogwai
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Alva Noto

For Asian independent artists, we’d like to see:
Kou Chou Ching
Point 22
Nylas
SPS (they are even more enigmatic than Buckethead, so we’re very keen to see these lot live)
Twisted Machine
And as many local HKG acts as one can cram into a 2 day span.

Is it true you went record digging with DJ Shadow?  Tell us about it!
Yes…our friend DJ Kenny got an email from DJ Shadow (referred by his pal DJ Sheep in Brisbane) asking if Kenny can take him out vinyl digging before or after his show in Hong Kong last year.  So we took him to two of our spots for vinyl on the night of the cancelled gig.

Suffice to say it was a mind-blowing experience mainly because we saw the  diverse range of music he bought… which went on to explain the diverse musical style on his next LP “The Outsider”.  At one of the spots, it was almost like a re-enactment of the “Midnight in the Perfect World” promo video.  Many thanks to fellow AMP artist DJ Kenny for hooking us up!

Tell us about your experiences in Taiwan:
Music-wise, it is a great place.  It has a strong audience base for live music and a diverse range of artists from Cheer Chan style singer songwriter stuff  to rock, to jazz and avant-garde.  Although the live scene is equally flooded with commercial rap music, we find it fascinating that there is an equal (if not stronger) demand for independent music.  As a result, there are many exciting and interesting artists flourishing from that music scene.  A truly interesting place for musical activities.

Besides the music, we are huge fans of gigantous fried chicken in Shi Lin night market, and late night television with wacky programming.

What can we learn from their way of doing things?
The general support of independent music and the acceptance of musical activities as a legitimate cultural pursuit.  Apart from the established live houses (although some of them have the authority breathing down their neck), there are many outdoor festivals for indie bands to gain exposure.  If the bands want to take it upon themselves, there is no shortage of public spaces in Taiwan for trouble-free busking activities, which Hong Kong sorely lacks.  We think that opens up a lot of opportunities for bands and performers to perform and showcase their music.

Tell us about the music scene in Hong Kong at the moment:
We think Hong Kong has a steady growing rock and punk scene, but the general audience is still rather conservative for bands like us (i.e. kinda hard to find a proper niche). 

Best thing about your home town?
Great transporation.  We can get to each venue with relative ease.  In Kenting, Taipei for example, we were told to walk straight ahead and turn left for the venue - but what was omitted was that we need to walk 30 minutes straight ahead then turn left.  We also had to worry about the transportation between Kaohsiung and Kenting, and within the region of Kenting all the time.

Worst thing about your home town?
We can be a little more adventurous when it comes to enjoying music and arts in general.

Your favourite local bands are:
DJ Kenny
Little Albert
Nazzy
Neurotic WKY
DJoe
Evade from Macau
SPS

Describe your perfect day:
Any day that we do not have to go to work is a perfect day by our definition.

Tell us something not many people know about you:
Regina has a uber rare white Mathmos lava lamp on her desk, to help get the creative juices flowing.
Vincent has a set of pajamas printed with Cypress Hill logos.

Nice, great mental image we have now. Thanks!
No, Thank YOU!

No, Thank you...

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Whilst we trade greetings with Snoblind, check out the tunes that have made them one of the most consistently popular artists on AMP.