Welcome to my site dedicated my students and to the history of Chinese punk rock.  You'll learn a little bit about me while you're here too.  Check out the photo and video galleries as these are treasure troves of rare punk oldies.  If you have any questions about Chinese punk rock, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll help out as much as I can.

Who is Dave? I'm originally from Austin TX and was lucky enough in college to travel to Beijing China for a semester in 1995.  That semester ended up lasting nearly 8 years, I finally moved back home in 2003.  My luck was red hot as I worked at some of the most innovative companies in the country.  I was the entertainment column writer and designer for Beijing Scene, the first foreign entertainment newspaper in Beijing.  With the connections I had in the newspaper I was able to promote the burgeoning punk rock scene that I had also become an early member of alongside some amazing pioneering musicians and supporters.

I was lucky again as fate would have it to meet Gao Wei and Underbaby, China's first punk band at a party I threw in 1996 at the original Solutions Bar (when it was still a small tiny bar next to Moon House).   Gao Wei and I became very close friends and moved in together, later on forming another punk band called Foundation.  We organized the first punk concerts in Beijing with help from the local musicians as well as other notable forieigners, Anna Sophie Lowenberg, Rusty Mahakian and Jenny Chang.  We organized the first punk festivals called "Punks Not Dead".  In 1998 the second generation of punk bands formed from the audiences we had garnished from our early shows.  Mike Tu Qiang and I became friends and he introduced a timid young curly haired boy named Xiao Rong to me and said they were starting a band called Brain Failure.

Years later Xiao Rong grew out of being the timid teenager and I joined Brain Failure in their 2nd incarnation.  Yes, many people don't know, but Brain Failure once did have a foreigner!  I was definitely the crappiest bassist in China, but I was more supportive than anyone on Earth for these Chinese punks.  We quickly became the best live band to see for about 2 years until I had to leave the band due to my work schedule.  This would answer the question, why does this site have so much Chinese punk stuff.  I was deeply involved and appreciated every moment with the bands and regulars in the punk scene.  Most of the pics I took myself, if not I mention who took them.  Nearly all the video I shot myself in order to preserve the memories of the birth of Chinese punk rock. If you want a very broad and detailed look at Chinese rock and roll history, go here.

What else did I do?  Well, I worked for Pearl Printing, where Bjorn Stabell and I were hired as the two-man technology arm which formed into Made For China, which subsequently formed into 51go.com.  From this we were poached to work for Ogilvy and Mather Advertising to originally just handle the IBM site, but then were invited to New York to beg for the seed investment money for the new national Interactive department.  Bjorn, Scott Silverman, Simeon and I along with some incredibly talented designers started a department that would get Asia Ad Agency of the Year for 1998.  The department still exists today even though all the original founders have gone on to other amazing things.  Bjorn went off with Enjia Yue to form Exoweb.  Scott is a consultant and I'm not sure what happened to Simeon.

After Ogilvy I went to work my dream job with Rock Records.  If you don't know exactly who Rock is, I'll explain.  Sony, BMG, Virgin and countless other major labels have been in Japan for many years, nothing new.  However before any of these were even major players, Sam Duan's Rock Records was already huge in Taiwan and China.  Rock Records owns the largest volume of Asian music on Earth, and they are the largest distribution hub for western labels to push their music into Asia.  This was cool and all, but not the reason I wanted to work there.  Rock Records had an employee named Landy Zhang who along with Niu Jia Wei helped produce and release China's first major rock albums as well as the first alternative rock albums.  Before Landy and his sublabel Magicstone Records, their simply was no major label support for any rock and roll in the entire country and the region.  I was honored to work for them.  My main job was to develop print and web promotions for their bands, as well as find new bands for the label. As well as working for Rock, I was able to work alongside Peter Loehr and his IMAR Film company.  IMAR Films was the first independent film company in China and one of the few in Asia.  It was also an honor to work in the same office with Pete, I didn't do much film work at the beginning but later on with Pete's encouragement I ended up doing some crazy stuff later on.

With the first recession and dot com bust, Rock Records pulled the plug on our projects in Beijing.  I  decided to move to Shanghai and try film work with Michael McDermott who I worked with at Rock Records.  Michael had just started his Gung Ho Films company and I was ready to learn something new.  I worked with him on a few of his first gigs and now he is considered one of the best commercial producers in China.

I had done piecemeal work on commercials, music videos, some voice over stuff, but Mike called and told me that Quentin Tarantino was doing a film in Beijing called Kill Bill and they needed an extra hand holding the microphone for a sound guy out there.  I naturally said I'd do it, but then the job suddenly changed, I wouldn't be holding the sound boom (I'm tall and skinny, definitely fit for the part).  I was now the 3rd assistant director, directly under the 2nd AD and the 1st AD and Tarantino himself.  I was responsible for getting all actors and actresses into costume and on set on time all the time...  Easier said than done...  So if you're curious, and you watch the credits of KB, you'll see Texas Dave near the end...

I'm now in my hometown of Austin, became a Realtor and eventually got my Broker's license and started my own small shop here.  I am going back to school to study Chemistry and Physics (my original major before I got my degree in Chinese) to qualify to become a High School Science teacher - yes, another one of those dreams I've wanted to do.  I still travel to China usually once or twice a year, sometimes for work, more often just to connect with old and new friends.

UBERGeek fact about Dave: None of this ever would've have come to fruition until I started doing web pages when NCSA Mosaic was the only browser and the BLINK tag was considered "web design".  In 1993 a good friend of mine introduced me to "email", my original email address was " This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ".  We had to pay a high price for space on the ccwf machines.  I was one of the early beta-testers for this new fast browser called "Netscape".