Hang On The Box - For Every Punk Bitch & Arsehole

China has this rule that each family may only have one baby each, to control population numbers, and as far as I can make out, this means that the generation divisions are much more defined than they are here. I don't know much about China, but it's not like Japan where thousands of punk bands, kids in crazy fashions, insane tattoos and eccentric artists are pretty much the norm. Punk bands in China are much rarer, and most of them seem to have appeared quite recently, catapulted into existence by the opening of the famous Scream Club in Beijing in 1998. The same year, three girls announced they were the only all-girl punk band in Beijing, despite not having ever had a practise together. They were the original Hang On The Box, and having gone through some major line-up changes, are still playing to this day although whereas originally they sounded like a Manga cartoon of Bikini Kill covering Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tracks, their sound has since changed.

But that's neither here nor there since the record in question is an early album, the only one I've seen available in Europe. The band-members are like Ghost World meets Digimon, and I hate to say it but the music is pretty much really great riotgrrrl, before it got crap. I do prefer this to most of the Bikini Kill stuff, even if they can't really play their instruments and they sing like someone would sing if they were trying to take the piss out of a Chinese all-girl punk singer. But it's great. I don't think they really care what people think of them. The lyrics are mindless, but great. The guitars are dumbed down Guitar Wolf, but fantastic. I should have grown out of this when I was 15 but at the end of the day, it's impossible not to love this.

Kill Your Belly
Ass Hole, I'm Not Your Baby

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