I love rock music, but who loves me?
Text | Internet refers to the North, by Wu Feiyan, edited by Pu Fan.
In the short history of local rock industry in China, I love rock music, a monthly magazine, has a decisive and contradictory position.
On the one hand, it is a red book in the minds of a generation of rock youth, and some people in the "Moon Group" call it the number one rock magazine in China. According to the investigation, in the most brilliant year of 2008, its sales exceeded 100,000 copies-of course, this is obviously incomparable with the Maxim and Yilin, which sell millions of copies, but considering the "almost underground state" of "local rock" in the post-Hung Hom era,
(It’s glorious to be on Love Shake)
On the other hand, Love Shake is not an absolute "rock magazine". Unlike modern sky, popular songs and extreme music, nearly half of the whole book Love Shake will have nothing to do with rock music at all.
It collects online jokes, ridicules social events, and publishes letters from readers, and then cuts the title page into small pieces of tofu to become a "confession wall" for readers, or sets up a section for readers to answer questions in the editorial column of the first few pages of the catalogue, which is similar to a bosom brother’s style-so that even if you don’t know anything about rock music, you can read it without barriers-which is obviously not hard-core. When people recall Love Shake, you can say bluntly.
(The editor’s imitation of "Jing M.Guo Style" has nothing to do with rock music)
And its disappearance is also very sudden, with no official statement and no hint in advance. Now many fans recall that they can only locate the very vague time point of 2013.
At that time, many readers found that they couldn’t buy magazines in newsstands for several months, and then they couldn’t bear to go to the Douban group of "I love rock music" to ask about the situation. As a result, in 2014, they finally waited for the post "Goodbye, I will roll" edited by Aiyao.
Only then will everyone know: Oh, the original Love Shake is gone.
01 struggle
Peng Fang told me that if you don’t understand why Love Shake can become a red book of a generation, you can go back and have a serious look at Legend of Wulin.
The general logic of this idea is: No matter how you understand it from any angle, The Legend of Wulin tells the stories of children in Jianghu, including Cuiwei Mountain, where mountain thieves are everywhere, Xiliang River, where Du Shiniang’s treasure chest is filled with anger, and four mafia families who employ gold and silver parents and Shangguan Yundun. However, when Guo Qiangwei and Tong Shitou are clamoring for Jianghu, Tong Xiangyu and Bai Zhantang always ask, "Do you know where Jianghu is?"?
In other words, the whole drama is actually telling you that there is no specific definition or specific place in Jianghu. It’s more like a spiritual core, which can be embodied as a person, a thing, and a certain way of behavior-if there are still rules and regulations in the Jianghu, you must deliberately "wander" and deliberately "be happy and hate". This is not "flying the red flag against the red flag" and deceiving yourself.
(Peng Fang said this train of thought, and The Legend of Wulin was pointed out at the beginning of the film.)
For that generation of rock youth,Love Shake helped them complete the same enlightenment..
Peng Fang probably got this feeling in 2009. At that time, "Love Shake" once interviewed an underground band from Shijiazhuang, and generously gave the band several pages of versions to introduce their group experience and important representative works, but when Peng Fang decided to listen to the song samples included in the accompanying CD, he was surprised to find that:
It seems that this band can’t arrange music?
Or can’t arrange music. Based on the interview with the editor, Peng Fang boldly speculated that no one in this band even really used musical instruments, and the melody was composed of various strange reverberation sound effects-such as plastic bottles with stones-and the lyrics were even more complicated. It seems that the author didn’t match the meaning of music, and it was full of howling chanting, such as "Die together, die first is boring".
To Peng Fang’s surprise, he was not disappointed with the band because of such "pseudo-music", but felt a sense of "being a punk" in his heart. In his words, it was the first time that he had a concrete understanding of the abstractions of "punk" and "rock":
"You say,Can rock and roll actually be an attitude, a spirit, and music is just a form of expression? It’s just that the rhythm of heavy metals, heavy bass and strong blows is more memorable?"
(Peng Fang went to a stall to sell used books when he graduated, and Love Shake in the corner was also on the shelf.)
Xiao Zhu, the former editor-in-chief of Ai Yao, may agree with Peng Fang. When interviewed by other media, he made it clear that "Love Shake is a rock magazine, not a rock magazine".
But from the perspective of God, this refined rock spirit may be more suitable to be described as "bondage" than the brilliant position of Love Shake:
The content of "spiritual rock" is indeed the biggest memory point that distinguishes Love Rock from other rock magazines, which helps them to greatly broaden their influence. For example, in Peng Fang’s memory, almost every book of Love Rock won the "courtesy" circulated by the whole class, and there are many readers such as class committees and class flowers who seem to be "upright" non-rock vertical audiences.However, a large number of contents are not suitable as the basis of content model, which supports the linear development of publications..
For example, "fruit culture". As an inseparable part of the rock culture circle, Love Shake never spares space to talk about sexual psychology and behavior boldly. In the "Welcome to do it" section of readers’ letters, they boldly published a reader’s experience of "treating love as an airplane cup" and often "she to magazines".
In the column of the shovel players (that is, editors) on the title page, some editors specially wrote about the experience of making a gun appointment, describing themselves as "knights with guns in battle" and saying that they had "got calluses in their jaws" before that.
You can easily find theoretical support for these contents, for example, it can be traced back to the hippie movement, which can lead to the color of "sexual liberation", or more bluntly, "encourage young women to die boldly for young artists" and "young artists express their sexual needs frankly and frankly".
But the depth of the topic behind this is simply not something that a monthly magazine can complete. So that the final result is that "Love Shake" published a large number of sexual and even pornographic content, and then circulated every month, with little growth.
(The second half includes all kinds of sensitive words and mosaics.)
Similarly, there is "So read!" in the second half of Love Shake magazine. A large number of sharp articles are reprinted in the section, which are aimed at discussing current affairs hotspots and public opinion trends. These contents really perfectly conform to the "rebellious spirit" and "questioning spirit" behind rock culture, but there is obviously a big gap between "magazine reprinting" and "rational participation".
Peng Fang also thought about this problem, the conclusion is that"Later, Love Shake was full of second-rate sense. Compared with Shake Green, angry youths liked it more easily.".
Under the bondage, the "struggle" of Love Shake is almost inseparable from the lifeline of the magazine.
From the beginning of their publication, they are used to publishing false magazine addresses to prevent sudden "seizure", and editors will frankly say in their columns that "this is a magazine that says nothing." They also adopted the form of "magazines are given with CDs" to ensure the publication.
At that time, because the CD (audio-visual products) version was easier to apply than the magazine version, a large number of publishers who could not get the magazine book number for various reasons settled for the second best, and replaced the magazine book number with the CD number to complete the publication. For example, the Practical Technology of Game Machines, which is also regarded as a classic, is able to introduce a large number of standard "edge ball" contents such as games, game cheating cheats and game cracking methods introduced by unofficial channels to the first generation players in China through this way of "saving the country by curves".
But even so, Love Shake, which can’t develop normally, will eventually lose money. They have thought of new struggle schemes, such as launching an electronic version of Love Shake.
On September 5, 2013, the first issue of "Love Shake" was put on the electronic version, and the content was the selection of the first issue in 1999.
However, this plan was also declared bankrupt after it was updated to the third phase. Now, the electronic link posted by "Hunter Talepool" on the Douban group has shown that "the page does not exist".
Part of the reason is that the electronic version of Love Shake was mainly based on the originality of classic rock music at that time, but because the original magazine was more popular in the second half of the social youth culture, and this part of the content could not pass the trial on Douban reading platform, the cooperation was finally terminated.
The other part, in Duan Lang’s view, is related to people’s reading habits and the concept of charging for reading at that time. At that time, everyone was used to paper reading or free reading, and there were many free books to replace e-magazines, so e-magazines were not very popular and their sales were not very high.
The fate of the paper version and the electronic version is similar. The paper version was closed after the publication of the 135th issue. That day happened to be the day when the electronic paper version of Love Shake stopped updating, October 20, 2013.
Cover of issue 135
After that, it’s probably not even a "struggle", but maybe it can only be called "death without rigidity"?
The editorial department still existed for some time after the publication was closed. Shovel players once wanted to try the APP or do some livehouse to maintain the operation of Love Shake, but in the end it was not feasible. Equivalent to the whole year of 2014, only Douban Station and Taobao Store were operating in Love Shake. Until the Spring Festival of that year, the last on-the-job team chose to be completely dissolved.
Colleagues also rushed to their own fields. Xiao Zhu, the first editor, returned to Yunnan, and Zhao Liang, the fourth editor, went to Modern Sky to work as a broker. Now the executive editor-in-chief, Ugh, worked as a reporter in the Southern Newspaper Department after the suspension of publication. Crow and Wang Erchao became monks. In 2015, Duan Lang was authorized by Xiao Zhu and began the transformation of Love Shake.
02 transformation
The process when editor Duan Lang joined Love Shake was very "rock spirit".
His first visit to the editorial department of Aiyan was in May 2009, when he was about to graduate from junior college. He went to Shijiazhuang in the spirit of pilgrimage, hoping to visit the editorial department of Aiyan. But when he reversed several trains and arrived at the address published by the magazine, he found that it was a fake address.
Duan Lang immediately contacted Mr. Yang Kai from the distribution department, and then continued to reverse the car. After two trips, he arrived at the editorial department of Love Shake, and then the "pilgrimage" suddenly became an "interview". After the editor-in-chief Zhao Liang warmly received Duan Lang, he quickly changed the topic to "Would you like to join Love Shake"?
In fact, at that time, Duan Lang had applied for an administrative teacher in a university in Baoding, his hometown, and got an internship. And he also has plans to take the undergraduate course by himself, and may continue to study. To paraphrase Hulan’s joke in the third season of the talk show conference, this invitation can be translated into a wage earner to persuade a serious person to "stop working and come to work together".
You can take Duan Lang’s scene at that time and taste his state of mind of "you can try".
Zhao Liang left some writing assignments for Duan Lang, which was considered as a written test. A month later, he was told by Love Shake that the article met the requirements and was shortlisted and qualified to work in Love Shake. In addition, Duan Lang himself needed to study in Shijiazhuang as a self-taught undergraduate in Normal University, so he resigned as an administrative teacher and officially became an editor of Love Shake.
Shijiazhuang, rock home town.
Of course, there is also a compromise and a less rock-and-roll side in this story.
After working in Love Shake for two years, Duan Lang’s family refused to allow him to stay in Shijiazhuang on the grounds of "no social security at work" and "extremely low salary". He was asked to return to his hometown Baoding in 2011. Duan Lang accepted this result, and his relationship with Love Shake changed from "alienation" to "remote writing" until the magazine closed in 2013.
But this "working relationship" with the characteristics of the new media era has become the beginning of a new story.
On November 11th, 2014, Duan Lang posted a post in Xiaozhu’s Douban Group to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Love Shake. At that time, Duan Lang was unhappy working in his hometown. He thought he didn’t like the industry he was in, so he decided to take the opportunity to apply to Xiaozhu to continue to run Love Shake with new media.
The next step is "all in so Rock!" .
In the first half of 2015, Duan Lang started with third-party platforms, and started with WeChat, Weibo, Douban Post Bar and the community. In the process, he recruited a group of partners, some of whom were the original editors of Love Rock, and some of them were some fans and some young readers of Douban Group, who successively shaped the new media version of Love Rock and became "I Love Rock Fanzine" which can be found on all content platforms today.
Duan Lang also began to do "love to shake the brand". In fact, Love Shake was designed and performed during the magazine period, but it was not done as a project. The colleagues in the original magazine are relatively introverted, so the general on-site and outreach work is handled by Duan Lang, who is more outgoing. With these experiences, Duan Lang is more handy when he is doing "love to shake the brand", and there will also be some fans and readers to help him.
In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, the unpacking performance of "Love Shake Factory Brand" was not opened until August 1. The tianjin railway station event with the theme of "Post-Rock Soul Night" chose a silent and restrained instrumental/post-rock orientation, which was well received by the audience. You can easily find people’s encouragement in the comment area of the large Myyule digital music cloud with 1.1 million fans.
Comments under @Myyule Digital Music Cloud Weibo
The Weibo account of "I love rock music Fanzine" has 20,000 fans.
Of course, the number of fans is not comparable because of the different nature of their work. "Love Rock" has less than 10 staff members, all of whom are voluntary workers, with no salary, no office and full soho. Everyone is doing what they can based on their interest in rock music and their feelings for "Love Rock".
In the second half of 2018, Teacher Mi joined the work of new media. At present, she and Duan Lang and several typesetting editors are mainly responsible for the operation of "I love rock music Fanzine" WeChat WeChat official account content. Weibo is operated by Grape and Duanlang. Besides, Duanlang also needs to operate platforms such as Douban, bilibili, Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker.
They also have a more ambitious plan than "becoming a new media editor", and they love to shake online schools.
On July 30th, 2020, WeChat official account and Weibo, Wechat of "Love Shake Online School", both launched the news of going online. The Weibo account of "I love rock music Fanzine" also forwarded the Weibo the next day, and the official announcement that "Love Rock Online School" officially started operation. Zhu Qinghua is the person in charge of this project.
As an editor of Love Shake, Zhu Qinghua is much more senior than Duan Lang-this can be fully reflected from the salary standard when she first joined Love Shake-300 yuan, full of food, flexible working system, it is not a thing of this era.
In particular, the combination of "flexible working system+package" is more worthy of refinement. "Love Shake" implements flexible working system, largely because the work intensity is not small, and wrapping can maximize the working hours of editors. When Zhu Qinghua first joined, there were only three editors in total. In order to cope with the pressure of monthly publication, she has been honed to drink water for 35 hours without eating, not to mention staying up late.
This style of punching and punching has become the biggest legacy left to her in the era of Love Shake magazine. In the new media era, in order to promote the new media platform of Love Shake, she sorted out 108 rock-related documentaries by herself, and opened them as chips to attract attention to all fans who are willing to let three friends scan the code to pay attention to WeChat official account.
However, the bad side is that people who grew up in that era are used to coming to subsidy income with affection, which exerts a subtle influence on their every decision.
Take these 108 documentaries as an example. In fact, they also expect to make profits from these resources. They set that fans can also get documentary resources by purchasing members, and intermediate and senior members of "Love Shake Online School" can have them, starting at 399 yuan.
Obviously, not many people will choose this scheme, including fans’ attention and loopholes, because people can choose to find a few friends to pay attention to, and then let them get the resources.
I expressed my concern about this situation, but Zhu Qinghua advised me not to look at it too much with "business": "Although it is said that there is no traitor and no business, you have to say that you are too traitor and you can’t eat any losses, so you can’t do anything that really benefits the public."
Hoping that "the benefits will benefit the public", she is also willing to become friends with all those who receive resources-no matter which way they receive them-and invite this person to join the exchange group to grow up together and chat and gossip together.
Then Zhu Qinghua entered the life rhythm of the biological clock defined by "feelings".
A fan base at 1 a.m.
The "Love Shake Online School", which is more straightforward about business interests, is the moat of this philosophy of life. "We don’t want to be in a particularly difficult state all the time. In the short term, teachers can’t stand it in the long run, and staff can’t stand it."
So far, Zhu Qinghua and her colleagues have basically designed the membership card system, and set up the background of "Love Shake Online School", waiting for the entry of "funds". After all, without money, it is difficult for her to provide good benefits to her colleagues. "You can only take one step at a time."
Lack of money and lack of people.
On the afternoon of the telephone interview with Zhu Qinghua, she was working in a coffee shop near a 7-day hotel. Basically, her office hours are from noon to evening every day. Like in Love Shake magazine, staying up late, going on business trips and catching up with the show are commonplace. That night, Zhu Qinghua drove out a recruitment tweet. She wants as many people as possible to know who they are and what they need, and strive for more resources.
She is even willing to start "community operation" for the development of online schools. The latter’s positioning in the industry context is very contradictory, and it often jumps repeatedly between the two extreme concepts of private domain traffic and harassing users.
"Because there are no students, the income of our online teachers can’t be guaranteed." Zhu Qinghua is currently responsible for nearly 40 teachers, but the number of students is currently less than 100. "If we can’t bring real benefits to our teachers through our online school, there is no better blueprint."
Zhu Qinghua is frantically looking for various communities during this period. At present, the audience covers the student communities of primary schools, middle schools, technical secondary schools, junior colleges, art schools and undergraduate courses.
"I plan to recruit a group of school representatives. If anyone has the community resources of these schools, I especially hope that they can join our team as soon as possible." After hearing that I had just graduated from college this year, Zhu Qinghua asked me if I had a school community. I said I had already retired.
Zhu Qinghua was looking for an exchange group in a circle of friends. It was Teacher’s Day.
03 rock
After learning that I was going to interview Duan Lang and Zhu Qinghua, Peng Fang once asked me to "confirm" a question to Ai Yao’s editors: "Do they all watch Summer of the Band?"
Because in his mind, "Le Xia" is only the prosperity of variety, and "Love Shake" is the most real rock status quo-"Some people must enjoy rock-and-roll expression, but certainly not everyone enjoys rock-and-roll expression, which is bound to make rock spirit and the public become antonyms"-and so on, those editors of "Love Shake" who enlightened his "rock spirit" will also have a high probability of "Le Xia"
Actually, I quite agree with him. Because even with the "Le Xia" variety show leading, rock life is not good. Similar to Wild Kids, the dada, Joyside, Trojan Horse and so on, they were dissolved without exception until Le Xia appeared to get a chance to reunite.
Moreover, the setting of variety, popularization and musicalization of Le Xia essentially determines the limitation of "musical expression".
On July 27th, another rock star, mr. six Zhou Yunpeng, questioned that he had repeatedly sent 11 Weibo, saying that he didn’t like Le Xia, thinking that it was prematurely consuming and overdrawing the just-right China market, which affected the development of independent music and worried more about those music that obeyed the market.
But after much thought, I still didn’t bring this problem to Duan Lang and Zhu Qinghua. After all, didn’t Xiao Zhu say, "Love Shake" is a rock magazine, not a rock magazine ",so why bother with the form?
Or maybe this kind of mentality is just another kind of packaging form of "thick ancient and thin today"?
After all, today in 2020, seven years after the publication of Love Shake was closed, there are still people posting in the Douban group of Love Shake: I miss that era and miss Love Shake 20 years ago.
That was 20 years ago when there was no wifi, no ns, no take-out, and broadband speed was calculated by the hour. What do you think people are missing? (This article is the first titanium media APP)
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