[hot on a cold day] I want to talk about a series of concerts – Dark Entry

Bun Ng takes you back through Hong Kong’s independent music history, to dig through the cold past and uncover some of the scene’s warmest moments and memories.

It seems like the word concert has taken a different meaning in the indie community nowadays, maybe it’s because the indie music community has more gigs than concerts. Most shows are now held at bars or live houses. Some are held in concert halls, and theatre-like venues. But those are less common.

The early days of indie music in Hong Kong was dominated by concerts. If you play in a band, and you’ve performed live on stage, you most likely played in a concert, sometimes as big as ones held in the Hong Kong Coliseum. Today bands don’t really look forward to playing in the Hong Kong Coliseum, or the Baptist University’s A.C. Hall, although they actually might get a chance to play a huge stage at the AsiaWorld Expo, or similarly big stages like KITEC in Kowloon Bay.

Some bands did play in Discos, but we can talk about that in another article.

Anyhow, I’ve forever wanted to talk about the series called “Dark Entry”, which ran between January 1989 to August 1997. You can say it pretty much lasted 10 years, but in fact, after the first “Dark Entry” in 1989, it would be 1993 when the organizers did the second Dark Entry. A gap of four years.

Dark Entry was organized by the Heavy Metal Association 重金屬同學會 (HMA). I met with chairman of HMA, Zys Cheung (張以式). Among indie music events, I actually knew very very little about Dark Entry, so the majority of this story is what Zys told me.

At that period of time, I was clearly an outsider audience. I believe I went to at most three Dark Entries (there have been a total of 12 Dark Entries, 2 of them lasting 2 days, see table). So you can easily guess when I started listening to HK indie music in a fringe manner.

And so you may ask why we need to care about these series of concerts? It is because at that time these mainstay concerts were the only opportunity for people to listen to indie music. In fact, the order of matters at that time, according to Zys, was, first there was “From The Underground 地下音樂會”, organized by Music Week 音樂一週. “I really started Dark Entry after Music Week stopped doing From The Underground. The other shows would follow us; those would be Radio Free Hong Kong, Collected Monster, etc.”

The different environment back in the late 80s and early 90s would make history that way. “I really wanted to support the bands. But the key was that I was not in a band (in the 90s), so I could be the one who did the hard work. Out of all the venues, Ko Shan was cheaper because there was no air conditioning. Lastly, because it was easier for an organization to book a venue, than an individual, so we created HMA. It was an administration need, and HMA existed for no other reason.”

Zys explained the “members” of HMA, at its onset, were mostly members of Anodize and Zig Zag, two metal bands at the time. And if you look up the list of bands, these bands would be featured in many of the shows as well. Although there were other bands at the same time, HMA was careful in the band selection too. “I wanted to make sure they are bands with “colour”, bands that have a stage presence.”

Something that may tickle your brain is early 90s promotion practice, am I right? One key member of the HMA was Prodip (The Martyr, LMF). “All the posters and artwork were designed by Prodip. He’s really talented, but in the end he got too busy. Tim Leung (….Huh!?) did the last two posters.” For me, I have a personal story to tell, I once saw a Dark Entry poster in a friend’s home, and I was thrilled to meet someone who also liked indie music. It turned out he put up the poster only because he thought it was beautiful. Zys would make sure the bands get some copies of the posters. I asked him if he sold any posters, “I thought that was too commercial, so I wouldn’t do it.” Ads were put in the most popular rock magazine of the time, MCB. There were people who left mailing addresses, and Zys would send them a notification of upcoming show by mail. You can probably guess that I find that “very expensive” by today’s standard. “Each poster, inclusive of the labour to put it up in, say, Mongkok, costs HK$10. Sending a letter is really a very economical way, and very direct.”

I assume you, my beloved reader, already know what a rock and roll concert is like, so I’ll spare you the details of band’s coming, and going, and in between. However, the attentive reader should notice that every Dark Entry has a band called “Lazy Mother Fucker” (or LMF, or Lazy Mama Fxxker, etc.) This is, in fact, where one of Hong Kong’s most well-known rock and roll/hip hop band LMF is from. During each show, some members of some of the bands would join together and play a few songs, usually covers. Prodip came up with that name, and the whole idea was just fun. There was even one Dark Entry which was completely covers (Dark Entry 4). Eventually, in 1999, members from Anodize, NT and Screw adopted the name LMF (Lazy Mutha Fucka), and formalized the band. The side-story is, members of the three bands who did not join LMF formed the band Family.

Were there bad moments? “Certainly, the crowd can get excited, and may even stand on the chairs. You are NOT allowed to stand on chairs.” Rarely did that happen, and when it did, the venue management would quickly go to Zys. “To be fair, the crowd maintained fairly decent self-discipline.”

“The bands were very ” Zys talked about the stage. “We had excellent professional stage people. We had APA (The Academy of Performance Arts) engineers, who knew how to manage a good show. Basically it was like there was an excellent producer.”

How about criticisms? “The social atmosphere at the time was unlike today, with non-stop complaints. If a show is not good, audiences just won’t come to the next show. The audience today talk like they own part of the deal. In general, social atmosphere in the 90s was simply better.” By better I believe Zys means less confrontational.

When I talk with some of the indie rock stars today, they all talk fondly of Dark Entry. If you look at the table of shows, you will notice there have been only 3 shows per year in the three years with the most activities. These current rock-stars explained that they would finish their school days, go home, change into the proper concert-going clothings, and attend the show almost like a pilgrim. Most of them felt there has not been any more show that garnered as much admiration.

The last Dark Entry, “Dark Entry 12” was held on August 13, 1997 (quite close to the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR), 2.5 months after the previous 2-day Dark Entry. After that, there was no more. What happened? Zys explained, “when something’s gone, people would pine for it. Things are often like that. Legends always “sound” grand.” The fact was, the last two Dark Entry were simply poorly attended. “There were just not enough audience; we were losing money, so I moved on.”

Zys moved on, and no longer did anything related to music. He was doing production work, sometimes lighting, for concerts. That lasted for around 10 years, until Jun Kung left Paul Wong’s band, and Wong asked him to join, and sit behind the drums.

Was there a special success factor of Dark Entry? The social factor? The people? “Yes, Ko Shan and the staff there really made a difference. They are just of higher quality. They thought of Dark Entry as very special. To use a Chinese saying, “connection makes a difference”. They give us flexibility in scheduling and money matters. They know what Dark Entry wanted to do, and would go out of their way to help. After the big renovation, it was too difficult to go back. We were simply lucky to have such “good” people: three girls and their boss, and an assistant boss. In the “Goodbye Ko Shan” (再見高山) show (Dark Entry 8), there was a dramatic schedule conflict (conflict with a Commercial Radio show), Ko Shan actually extended closing for two days so they could have that show.

Then I asked a smartass question. What does Zys think of LMF taking the name from a Dark Entry performance? “To begin with, Prodip (also a member of LMF) named it. He started it and he continued the spirit. From the beginning, Dark Entry belonged to Prodip and me. I should only be happy about it! In a way, LMF extended Dark Entry. Everyone is a good friend, so it’s a righteous thing to carry it onward. I like it this way, and they’re doing so well.”

Any thing about any band? “Every band is a something … and they’ve all split too, now.”

-Bun

Please click on the next few pages to see a gallery of rare Dark Entry posters and leaflets throughout the years.

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