Trash a Go Go are Shanghai's most prolific rock n roll promoters, putting on monthly (at the very least) shows that showcase both local, up-and-coming talent and exciting new bands on the international circuit. They also help to tour these international acts around China and have been responsible for providing a space where lovers of genuine rock n roll, garage rock, punk, hardcore, 60's beat and surf can truly feel at home. Tech? No.
We caught up with Misuzu, Toshi and Brian (aka DJ B.O.) to talk about how TaGG has grown over the last couple of years, what spurs them on and how they want to take over the world… or something like that!
S24/7: What do you think sets TaGG apart from other promoters?
BO: What I like about TaGG is the consistency and quality; it’s all about real quality, consistent rock n roll shows, made as cheap as possible. And when I say ‘cheap as possible’ I mean cheap - like none of us make a dime out of this. Hopefully, even if you don’t know the latest TaGG band we’d like to think that people will know that, because we’ve attached the TaGG name to it, it’s going to be a quality rock n roll show.
S24/7: Like branding?
BO: Aha, I fucking hate that word “branding”! But yeah, kind of, I guess. Quality surf, punk rock, garage, 60’s, rockabilly – the real rock n roll shit, and if we’re going to do it you can expect a high level of quality.
S24/7: So ticket sales are just there to cover your costs?
BO: That’s not even the case for a lot of the gigs. But if we do make any money it goes straight into the next show. Our bank account is not over flowing by any means! There have been times where Toshi and I have had to invest, not only time but also our money to keep TaGG going. I would love TaGG to be self-sustaining of course…
And when bands come here we try and give them a really good experience. Bands from Japan they don’t know what to expect. Maybe in Japan they do gigs and they’re very different from here, so we try and make sure they are really comfortable.
Toshi: Also, Japanese bands are not doing it for the money. They don’t expect to make money; they’re just here to play and to share their music. When they’re here I try and take them to all the tourist spots, give them a real experience.
BO: It’s the same with the Mongolian bands…TaGG is basically our investment in the Shanghai music scene. It enables us to bring quality shows to Shanghai, and we do that very often.
But when I came I wasn’t expecting to DJ and join up with a promoter. I’d done that before but I just randomly met them at a show where I was dancing around. I spoke to them and told them what I had done, we then met up and from there we decided to work together.
S24/7: So you weren’t looking to do something like TaGG?
BO: Not consciously! I expected to maybe get involved with that but I wasn’t really searching it out. I literally went to these shows to have a good time; I didn’t go to speak to the bands or whatever. In retrospect, it’s something that Simon (of The Instigation) points out – for Toshi and Misuzu they’re looking for people who “get it” already. It’s not that they’re not interested in nurturing, but they want people to be into the music first before they join TaGG. Like Battle Cattle - they wanted to check out some of the shows first, then, once they’ve done that they’re like “OK, come join us”. I guess they saw that in Simon and they also saw that in Battle Cattle, and me.
S24/7: So how did TaGG come about, it was set up by you guys right (Misuzu & Toshi)?
Toshi: Ok, so I met him (Misuzu) and we started a garage punk band – then we both wanted to play other music; I wanted to have a kind of gang, a gang of people who love garage punk, 60’s/70’s punk or rock n roll. I thought if we had a gang we could have three or four bands that would be part of it. But it was tough because at the time not many people really seemed to like that kind of music. We wanted to start something for those of us who do.
BO: February 2010 was the first one, I think.
Toshi: Yeah, I think it was about then.
S24/7: Did it take off straight away, was it immediately popular?
Toshi: In the beginning we weren’t so organised. I just used to make the flyer, put it on Douban. That’s about it. Actually before Brian joined we didn’t do a lot of advertising or promotion. Because we organised the shows at YYT and LoGO there were a bunch of people already going regularly each weekend so we just put our flyers and posters there – even if they didn’t know us they’d go and listen to the bands. But then Brian joined, and because he can DJ we had more to offer. After he joined we decided to do some more advertising; promotion became more important.
Misuzu: Before we started doing the parties I never expected it would be as popular as it is now. Before we met Brian we just took care of things ourselves. It all began because we shared a love of this kind of music - garage punk, etc. - so I never thought too much about this is becoming a big thing. We met a very interesting guy from the US – a really funny and weird guy, very big in the garage scene in US – he was really helpful to us, encouraged us a lot. He posted about us on a site called www.garagepunk.ning.com– a really big thing for us. It was after that that we were able to invite big bands to come and play in Shanghai, The Routes for instance. And after that we thought we could maybe do a monthly party.
S24/7: Is it difficult, bringing foreign acts to China?
Misuzu: To invite a rock band from outside of China is really difficult I think. You have to pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time, booking everything etc.
Toshi: Well, the Japanese side is quite easy as I’m Japanese. Before I started TaGG I had some contact with some Japanese bands, I asked around if there were any bands that played our kind of music that would be interested in coming to Shanghai to play. As we’ve got to know more bands, they go back to Japan and tell their friends about us, so more and more people have heard of us.
BO: Yeah, other bands will want to come to China and the other promoters know what we do. They’ll contact us and TaGG will support their shows – like when The Buzzcocks came – TaGG supported that, The Morlocks etc. Because people know about us now they’ll come to us.
S24/7: Is that the same with bands from Europe? VOM from Norway etc, did you ask them directly?
Toshi: Actually the singer from VOM is my friend, and they are interested in China. She came here to travel over a couple of summers, so we arranged for her to also bring the band!
BO: It’s definitely a mix. We have Mongolian bands, European, Japanese. Sometimes they come to us and sometimes we go to them.
Check out VOM - Hvorfor er du
S24/7: Could you present some of the main bands involved with TaGG?
Misuzu: The Beat Bandits… Before we began to throw the parties I was thinking about doing a really good garage revival band, and then I met Toshi. The first band we started was called The Snots, but it wasn’t really what we wanted to do. After that we found a new drummer, Dave, and The Beat Bandits came about.
The Snots - Tutti Frutti
Toshi: Before I had The Dropkicks, haha, but we were only so-so! Then The Snots with Misuzu, but what we really wanted to try was a surf band. In the beginning, we were surf, very instrumental. Then Rina joined on keyboards, now we’re seeing where it takes us.
The Dropkicks - Qianbo
BO: So yeah, The Beat Bandits are a surf garage band! They’re mostly instrumental but now they have a couple of vocal numbers, with the new keyboardist. You have them, and Pairs – they’re really kind of spaz punk! They kind of suck but we let them play!
The instigation is a hardcore punk band, again with Toshi and Misuzu, along with Simon and Tyler. They’re Californian punk… like Black Flag I guess…
Toshi: Actually, my influences are not so hardcore. I had an idea to start two bands, one being The Instigation, the other one with a dirtier, more distorted sound. We met a very good drummer named Papa, our original drummer for The instigation. The other guys in The Instigation – Simon and Tyler, they’re very into hardcore. Before we were more garage punk, but when Tyler joined our sound went more hardcore.
Misuzu: After starting TaGG we realised that it’s really difficult, to find the support band for the headliners. I’m local; I’ve been involved in the scene since 2002. After 2005 I really wanted to be a part of the garage scene, not just in Shanghai or China, maybe all over the world! But there’s not so much interest in this kind of music in Mainland China – I may have been the very first guy to try it, except for in Taiwan or Hong Kong.
S24/7: So is that your aim – to take TaGG further? Abroad even?
Misuzu: Right! Yeah, I think it should be part of the scene everywhere! But apart from The Beat Bandits, although we are able to invite very good rock bands from outside of China, there are absolutely no garage bands we can invite from within China. In Shanghai there are none. Maybe in Beijing you can find a few bands – garage, swing, whatever. They don’t care about the music though; they just care about money and fame. If we invite someone from Beijing we have to pay more than 3000 RMB!
Toshi: We asked a band from Beijing to come and play; they are good friends of a friend of ours. But the band said all the expenses needed to be paid. They wanted 3000 RMB for the show, but then all in all it was 7000 RMB! That’s the same as a Japanese band and they’re much better than those shitty Chinese bands! And they come all the way from Japan!
BO: Two things. The first one is, on a positive note I’ve had people tell me secretly that The Beat Bandits, The Instigation, have inspired them to go check out more of this music, and I think that’s great. I couldn’t ask for more, it’s one of my biggest goals to get more people into this music.
Second thing, on the negative side – and I hope everyone reading this who is involved in the music scene takes this to heart - is that we put our heart and soul into this stuff, we’re not making money from this and we work our hardest to get bands to play shows and try and get this music going and it would be really great if people reciprocated and added to things in other cities, and even in Shanghai. You know, we keep our costs as low as possible; we give it all back. So if you’re reading this, and you hear that, then get off your fucking asses and help us too!
Toshi: I think a bunch of people say, “There are no good live shows, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah”. But if you think there are no good bands, no good shows, then try to bring it yourself. DIY!
It’s much easier to say, it’s harder to do! “I want to be famous! Easy to say, harder to do. Or “I want to be rich!” Easy to say, harder to do. But actually, maybe people don’t have the connections with the venues or bands so it may be harder for them to do it. In Shanghai though, to be honest, the level is not so high. In Japan or the US, the level is higher. Here a band can play quite easily. For a beginner it’s easy to start so if you want to do it you just need to ask around!
If you really love music, you’d surely love to do it, for yourself or for others, you’d enjoy doing it!
BO: Nothing makes us happier than when we see other bands that we’ve brought in get fans and be successful. We’re always at the front of the stage watching. There’s never been a moment where we’ve brought a band in and thought, “well this would be quite good financially but they’re a bit shit” – quality is absolutely number one.
S24/7: Speaking of which, what have you got coming up?
Misuzu: Next show we’ve got Les Terribles, a French band. We got to know about them through a girl studying in France last September. It was funny, she commented on a lot of information on our douban page. In France she heard a lot of cool stuff and was just looking for a garage scene in China…
BO: They’re good; they’ve got the right stuff! Then we’ve got Rock Tigers in September. I visited South Korea for a while; they are a Kimchi-billy band – a Korean rockabilly band. They are just really great, great sound.
Toshi: The Fadeaways from Tokyo, 90’s garage punk, in October. We’re also looking to help Japanese bands distribute their records in China. I spoke to Sacco who’s recently opened Uptown Records. I asked him if he had any opportunity to put some Japanese 7’’s in his store and he said, ”OK”. And now I’m figuring out how else we can do this.
Rock Tigers - Come On Lets Go
The Fadeaways - Live - UFO Club
Toshi: Next year we will have bands from further a field, from Italy, Germany and the US. We’re also planning to set-up a separate promotion operation to TaGG. TaGG is garage; I think The Instigation is a bit too hard for TaGG, so I really want to start something else for the hardcore scene. The Instigation is going to release a record in Germany with a very good Japanese hardcore punk band. I also asked that band to see if they’re interested in coming to China.
S24/7: And you’re going to Japan with TaGG?
Toshi: Yeah… (an argument ensues about whether it’s actually a TaGG tour, which seems to resolve itself with a definite yes, it’s a TaGG tour!). Because we have invited so many Japanese bands to come and play there are lots of people who want to help us out.
S24/7: So do you guys generally get on then?!
Toshi: Haha, yeah I think! I’m more punk; he’s (BO) more into rock n roll. But I think it’s very good!
BO: Our hearts are in the right place. Chinese, American, Japanese… for the most part we all know that we’re doing it for the right reasons, so it all usually works out!
Toshi: Also, Japanese bands are not doing it for the money. They don’t expect to make money; they’re just here to play and to share their music. When they’re here I try and take them to all the tourist spots, give them a real experience.
Toshi: In the beginning we weren’t so organised. I just used to make the flyer, put it on Douban. That’s about it. Actually before Brian joined we didn’t do a lot of advertising or promotion. Because we organised the shows at YYT and LoGO there were a bunch of people already going regularly each weekend so we just put our flyers and posters there – even if they didn’t know us they’d go and listen to the bands. But then Brian joined, and because he can DJ we had more to offer. After he joined we decided to do some more advertising; promotion became more important.
S24/7: Could you present some of the main bands involved with TaGG? 
RMB for the show, but then all in all it was 7000 RMB! That’s the same as a Japanese band and they’re much better than those shitty Chinese bands! And they come all the way from Japan!
Misuzu: Next show we’ve got 
