BJ Allstars

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BJ Allstars or Beijing Allstars were one of the first Beijing rock bands

Contents

Lineup

guitarist and singer Graham Earnshaw, the band's founder, who went on to claim to be the first person ever to play the kazoo on the Great Wall of China[1]

guitarist Michael Schoenhals, later to leverage his collection of Chairman Mao buttons into a position as Scandinavian expert on China's Cultural Revolution[2]

Palestinian lead guitarist Nassir, who took a sabbatical from the band in mid-1983 to drive tanks against Israel in southern Lebanon, and committed suicide in around 1991

American guitarist Tad Stoner, who later became a journalist and bar owner in Hong Kong and elsewhere

American bass player Fred Burke, who went on to become a prominent coprorate lawyer in Vietnam

U.S. guitarist Larry Vest, who just disappeared one day

Swedish sax player Frédéric Cho, who went on to become one of Scandinavia's top China financial experts and Asian Manager at HQ Bank[3]

Madagascan drummer Robinson, who went on to found his own band named Nogabe that is currently based in London


History

The Peking All-Stars were a rock band formed in Beijing in 1979 by a number of foreigners then resident in the Chinese capital, and was the first rock group in China. The band was formed by Graham Earnshaw, on guitar and vocals, a Brazilian drummer named Chris and Richard Thwaites, an Australian bass player who doubled as the China correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). It played the first rock concert in China at a university campus hall in Beijing in late summer of 1979, a performance that is commemorated by a photograph in the book China After Mao by Liu Heung Shing.

The band dominated the Beijing music scene in the very early 1980s as there was no one else playing western rock music in the city at all. The lineup changed regularly over the years.

The band played a number of performances at the Friendship Hotel, the Jianguo Hotel, the Foreign Languages Institute and at embassies, but restrictions on cultural activities resulting from the so-called Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983-1984 made it difficult for the band to find opportunities to gig.

Earnshaw, who owned the band gear, eventually passed on the drums and amplifiers to a Madagascan band that was starting up in 1984, while his Fender Telecaster went on long-term loan to the Madagascan guitarist Eddie, who later became the lead guitarist with the so-called godfather of Chinese rock, Cui Jian.


Further information

Other pages

References

  1. ↑ http://www.earnshaw.com/who/longbio.php
  2. ↑ http://www.sol.lu.se/staff/person.html?personid=221
  3. ↑ http://www.establishingabroad.com/Bazment/1012.aspx


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