Genres Rock Labels none Genre Rock music | Years active 1979–1984 Origin Beijing, China | |
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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, Chris, a Brazilian drummer, and Richard Thwaites, an Australian bass player who doubled as the China correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. 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.
Contents
The band dominated the Beijing music scene in the very early 1980s as there were no other bands playing western rock music in the city at all.
Members
The lineup changed regularly over the years, but members included:
Dissolution
The band played a number of performances at the Friendship Hotel, the Jianguo Hotel, the Beijing 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 bands 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.