GEORGE VAN WETERING (MONOKINO) IS BACK Home in Holland WITH NEW MUSIC. HIS LAST ALBUM "FAKE VIRTUE" WAS RELEASED ON ZIP RECORDS IN 2015. SINCE THEN GEORGE HAS TOURED THE USA AND China, TRAVELling BACK AND FORTH FROM HOLLAND TO CHINA FOR MUSICAL COLLABORATIONS, Live appearances AND dramatic art projects. NOW LIVING IN DE PIJP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND LINA - UNZIPPED CAME OVER FOR TEA AND AN INTERVIEW.
What is your new music about?
It is about how we could be exploring the relationship between a postmodern COVID-19 discourse and the experience of emotional memories stemming from my own preconceived hierarchy of cultural values… Haha, just kidding. They are pop songs with some uncomfortable elements, I think. All my new songs have been written and produced over the last year in order to keep me sane despite the chaos that other people have created, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. You know, people who claimed to know right from wrong. When writing new songs I always try to step outside myself to ensure that version of me would like the song if he listened to it for the first time. With that usually other people like it as well – but sometimes I am wrong. I really love composing and can spend hours on finding the right sound or chord. When I write a song that resembles a ballad, I try to make it into something danceable and vice-versa. Sometimes I do end up making things too complicated, but I like to have my own style and enjoy losing myself in composing. I can easily think my mind isn’t my own, as if I don’t have free will, but when I'm recording or on stage that all falls away. I think you can really hear that shift in the new songs.
Lyrically, for almost every track I thought back to how I grew up, comparing that to how society is now. There is one track called 'the boy nobody wanted' that deals with my high school teacher who publicly defended marginalized communities with all the clichés being involved in it. But the truth is he wasn’t always like this, as he was quite aggressive to my classmates from other countries or even to kids from other villages. So it's ugly to see how people bought into it, not knowing how sick he was. It’s something I remember really resenting. It may have been a change of heart, but for me people don't change so easily - and this is a thought you can find throughout all the new work. During the writing process I kept thinking back: on the one hand, I had always wanted to participate with my peers, but on the other I was constantly opposing them. For example I would always listen to synth pop when grunge was popular. I grew up in a very small place where kids made music with expensive guitars and amps and wore expensive clothes and shoes. We now see that that is supposedly changing due to social issues, but ultimately the music industry is trying to sell the same thing. But now that I see this it’s easier to oppose it. I do think the new songs show a fear in me that has arisen during the pandemic. Fear towards things like the visible increase in authoritarians and nationalists, not necessarily politically but rather about how people deal with them. I'd rather investigate how people respond when forced to talk about diversity and inclusion than sing a song of protest, because I find the latter is too easy.
So yeah I think a lot, but I’ve learned to cope with that now. In short; you could say all the songs are about my past and the way I grew up.
Tell us about your home and the neighborhood you live in
I think when they finally finished building the north south metro line a lot of people in De Pijp had hoped for some big change or that things would go back to normal again. Instead we got neither and a lot changed or was rebuilt really quickly leaving locals not fully understanding what De Pijp’s identity is, or should be. Well, to be honest, there are hardly any locals at all. There's a coffeeplace around the corner called 'locals' – but ironically hardly any locals go there. Some shops and eateries are very nice. There’s a shop that sells Japanese snacks, but absolutely no sushi – that’s written on the shop window. If you walk in and ask the owner whether he has sushi (I know that's very childish to do, but also kind of funny) he gets really angry – he's quite a character - but he's great. I also do like the Albert Cuyp market and a bunch of new places like 'tea guys' but I do wonder how many people can afford the 6-euro tea drinks when they need to pay for their Swapfiets, Spotify and gym membership as well. Regarding the rapid change of De Pijp, though, they say that no one wants to live in poor neighborhoods or look at an ugly square. So they keep calling the gentrification a “good” and “spontaneous” process, but I don’t think gentrification really brings the old vibe back or helps people live in affordable houses. People simply move away and start a life somewhere else. For sure, if I move out this place I’m living now it will become a hotel as well. I think it's a political thing that De Pijp is changing, not a spontaneous thing. I do like how the renovated streets and houses look, but sometimes I miss the ugliness of the Chinese cities I lived in. In De Pijp I always feel like going out for a drink, like I’m on a never-ending holiday! I do have a pretty nice house, but I’ve got my noise canceling headphones on as I work, so sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m here. I'm not sure where I will go next, but I haven’t given up on De Pijp yet either.
Tell us more about the cats you collected ;)
They are very cute aren’t they! The cats are from the Forbidden City in Beijing - the former Chinese imperial palace. There are over 200 cats who live in the palace. It’s said that they’re very helpful at preventing mice from burrowing through the ancient wooden buildings. People love them and call them "cat guardians". It’s definitely interesting to see that in recent years, these cats have become Wanghong (internet celebrities) and have attracted a lot of attention.
What’s it like to live in China and record music there?
It's interesting, sometimes bizarre and most of the time quite difficult. I've got so many great memories of China, but I often forget that it takes a lot of creative problem solving to stay there for a long time as a foreigner. It’s very sad to see that friends who tried really hard to make lives out there have been really struggling since the start of the pandemic. China is a very different place now compared to when I first visited to play shows and record music. It was a very exciting time back then, until the government started closing down venues and bars. There was a really great indie scene developing and the people who started it really started with nothing, without local or government support. I lived and worked in both Shanghai and Nanjing but I played at a lot of venues and festivals all around the country, and albums were released by Modern Sky China, a big player in their market. But, weirdly, I have no idea what they are doing now. In Shanghai I was pretty aware that when Chinese musicians or companies work with you, you become a component of Shanghai’s image as a creative city, a place where Chinese people work with foreigners as if that's a normal thing to do within the Chinese creative industry—but it's not. And then when you finally land what you think could be a successful collaboration, there's always someone with a lot of money that thinks things should be different, reducing you back to the foreigner that doesn't know anything. Then once they’ve had enough you’re eventually kicked out. The good thing is that there are a lot of people over there that truly value some artists and do things because they like the art the artist is producing. So, if they like you, there are many exciting opportunities. But, that said, there’s also a ton of boring work that takes a lot of time. The kind of work people in Holland would never do without at least knowing their time/money investment is worth it. Most people I worked with were very adaptable, extremely entrepreneurial and filled with passion. I worked with a singer in Nanjing who could wake you up in the middle of the night because he had a great idea he wanted to share. When I mention this to my Chinese friends here, they immediately understand – but I was always like 'can't we discuss this tomorrow', maybe because that’s the European way of doing things.
Are there other artists that inspire you?
Yes of course, but I'm always more inspired by places I visit or things I see. You know, sometimes you smell something and it brings you back to a place in your head and a certain time when you listened to an artist a lot. Sorry, that sounds a bit vague, but I mean I admire a lot of artists, but for inspiration I don't necessarily look towards other people's work. I do for technique, though. I recently started listening to Ennio Morriconne loads and I think I 'borrowed' a lot from him in some pop music kinda way. But in the same way I've got many unfinished songs that sound like artists that inspire me. But I also take inspiration from visual arts. My favorite Dutch artists are Paul Verhoeven, Willem de Kooning and Zea.
The lyrics to your new single “No Return" are in Chinese. Why? And how did you manage to write and perform in Chinese?
Well, I was doubting my ability to stay in China before Corona, and then the whole pandemic came along so I didn't have to make a decision anymore, I had to come back. The decision to write and sing in Mandarin was a bit bizarre, especially considering that the country that had opened many doors for me once now seemed to be closing many, career wise, considering that I didn’t even speak the language. But when I returned to Amsterdam, because of the pandemic China was big news all over the place, so, for me, it seemed very logical to sing in Chinese. That, and my friend Xiao Nan, a singer in the band Cobra, encouraged me to sing it in Chinese, and even helped me with the translation. I actually originally wrote it with singer Li Liangchen in mind, who’s known for his work in the Chinese TV show “Sing my song”, but we had some creative differences due to the fact my musical roots don't go hand in hand with the stadium rock he’s focused on. So I decided to take on the performance myself. I first performed the song during an alternative Chinese New Year celebration in Amsterdam that I had organized – and people liked it. Chinese audience liked it and so did Dutch people, who said it was the set's best despite it being “kind of weird” – so I liked that. For me there was always an urgency to release the track, it was like a way to breakout of the negative emotions and stresses the virus had brought upon me, and everyone, really. In the song, I present myself as a person who floats between East and West, exclaiming “there is no way back” to a time before globalization, but that also stresses me out. In some ways you could see the song, and the reason it’s in Mandarin, as a tribute to the many china tours, collaborators and fond memories I had in China – I really don't want this pandemic to take that away from me.
You also organize concerts in Amsterdam, don’t you? Could you tell us more about that?
I’m the founder of GAGgroup. We organize music events in Amsterdam and I've been organizing our popular alternative Chinese New Year event for about 6 years now in Cinetol. I've also created a series of musical programs to promote exciting upcoming music from Holland, Europe and China. We even had a showcase at SXSW alongside Public Service Broadcasting and The Mystery Lights. Throughout this my focus has been firmly on contemporary music, contrary to other more traditional Chinese music events others focus on. So it’s great to see a large number of music fans attending and enjoying the modern events we organize.
Monokino or George van Westering?
Monokino became sort of the alias for my own name. It's also way easier to remember!