The indie band mixed diverse musical styles with an anti-establishment agenda
~ Levon Kwok ~
In Hong Kong, recent events such as the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill Protests represent young Hong Kongers’ will to protect their freedoms — but during the 1980s and 1990s, the indie band Blackbird (黑鳥) offered a much more radical proposition. Influenced by the student movements in 1968, this group of Hong Kong anarchists and libertarians were actively working together to respond to public issues such as colonial politics, capitalist economy, the establishment, people’s unfreedoms and Communist China.
Founded in 1979, the members of Blackbird included Lenny Kwok (Guo Da-nian) (founding member, singer, guitarist), Cassi Kwan (founding member, singer, bassist), Augustine Mok Chiu Yu (singer), Tom Tong (singer), Chi Hung Yuen (singer), Peter Lee (singer, guitarist) and Ming Pui Lau (drummer) (due to internal strife, most of the members left the band during 1992-93, except for the founding members). Before its disbandment in 1999, Blackbird did multiple gigs at public/university venues around the city and abroad, and released 7 albums in total. These albums are “East Is Red/Generation 97” (1984), “Manifesto” (1985), “Living Our Lives” (1987), “People Have The Power” (1989), “Uniradical Subversion” (1995, co-produced with several activist bands around the world, including Earth Citizen (Zürich), Rhythm Activism (Montréal), Sō Sō (Tokyo), etc.), “Before The Storm” (1997) and “Singing In The Dead Of The Night” (1999/2004) (the first four are cassettes, the rest CDs).
During 2007, “Blackbird: Body Of Work 1984-2004”, a CD compilation of all Blackbird songs, and Singing In The Dead Of Night (Hong Kong: Ming Pao Weekly), a collection book containing feature interviews, articles, photographs and hand-written music scores plus a bonus CD album, were successively published as the codas of Blackbird’s cultural activism.
As the albums’ names shown, Blackbird’s music works have strong political overtones, and they clearly suggest the band’s two key concerns: Hong Kong (and Chinese) politics and anarchist values. For example, “East Is Red” (1984), a rock-style adaptation of “The East Is Red” – a de facto Chinese anthem for the worship of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, denounces Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping’s dictatorial rule over mainland China; “Generation 97” (1984) is a Pink Floyd-style song on Hong Kongers’ “indifferent” attitude towards their political future; “Manifesto” (1986) expresses sincere hope for human solidarity and unity; “Never” (1987) criticises capitalism for ruining people’s lives; “50 Years Unchanged” (1987) satirises the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which regulates Hong Kong to be handed over from the UK to China in 1997; “People Have The Power” (1989), which is adapted from Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”, is sung for the Chinese students and citizens who struggled for democracy in Beijing during the summer of 1989.
Interestingly, Blackbird played not only rock, but also different styles of music, ranging from Cantonese Nanyin (Naamyam) to electronic music, experimental, blues, punk, folk, etc. Notable examples include “Nanyin: The History Of Hongkong” (1984) – a Cantonese Nanyin tune on the city’s colonial past, “Run, Ran, Running”/“Migration Song” (1987) – two electro-style English-language songs on Hong Kong migration waves during the 1980s, “Lament Of The Autumn Wind 97” (1997) – a Cantonese oldie tune for Hong Kongers’ gloomy future and “Ling Lum Luk” (1999/2004) – a lovely satirical melody on the city’s illusive economic upsurge after the handover in 1997.
In fact, Blackbird intentionally did not stick to a single style of music in order to remind the audience of the diversity of contemporary music culture, in which there should be “no domination of one particular form of art over other forms of art”, as Ronald Creagh said in “Briefing Anarchism” (1987).
Blackbird’s strong sense of anarchist identity was also expressed in the band’s negative attitude towards the establishment: Blackbird never comes to terms with any record labels and government bodies. The band’s members believed that, in this way, they can be free from any kind of control, and their works can therefore have real power to influence the audience. This is the purest form of communication: direct contact between people.
Seeing their music as an activistic practice, Blackbird’s members spent much time working not on the improvement of their playing skills, but on the interpretation of what they desire to communicate – anarchist politics. Because of this, Blackbird’s music is – despite being raw in a technical sense – powerful and influential in inspiring people. All in all, Blackbird, as Maximum Rocknroll reported, “is the only politically radical band in Hong Kong”, differentiating itself from other rock bands in Greater China during its heyday.
Today, Hong Kong is in a more complex situation, no matter which aspects – political, cultural, social, environmental, economic, etc. – of the city are concerned. However, it’s not the end of the story. Here, Blackbird had left Hong Kongers unique works of music that directly expose the absurdity and irrationality of politics, reminding the people of the necessity of giving up relying on political powers and actively standing up for their own political future (as they have again and again been betrayed by different rulers).
Further, being widely shared on multimedia platforms, forums and websites, the songs by Blackbird not only serve as historical records for the world to understand about the city’s past from an anarchist perspective, but also continue to inspire today’s young and veteran activists to push forward with their resistance work at home and abroad, until the day of the realisation of the freedom and liberation of all humanity.
