Rock Meets Rhyme at Inaugural Spit-Tunes Night, Feb 23

Spittoon is fast becoming a familiar brand in Beijing, having already branched out from a poetry night to a fiction night, then a literary magazine. Now their latest venture brings music into the mix, pairing poets with bands for a night called Spit-Tunes. We asked head honcho Matthew Byrne where the idea came from.

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“On my MA Creative Writing course there was a competition called the Rosamund prize,” he told us. “Poets on the course visited the Royal National Music College in Manchester and gave a reading to a group of composers who wanted to take part. The composers would then pair off with the poets and make a new composition inspired by the poet’s poetry. I thought that Spittoon could do something similar, but with the varied and talented selection of bands and artists that Beijing has to offer.”

How did you put the musicians and writers together?
I paired them by first gathering together poets who were interested and then finding bands who were interested. I then put the poets work together in a document and sent it round to the bands, who decided which poets to work with based on how suitable they thought particular poets were for their music.

And did this lead to any creative tension?
All the relationships have worked, with each group producing work in their individual styles. I'm very excited myself because of how varied the styles are. It's also gratifying to see the partnerships working, because in the most part neither poet nor musician have worked in this way before.

So it’s a real mixed bag?
There's lots of variety with the musical acts, with four very different musical styles or genres taking part. Eric, the frontman of The Peppercorns will bring his trademark ethereal and progressive sound, anxt brings his host of textured soundscapes with minute detail and sampling, Macondo will bring their own brand of high-octane post-rock/post-metal and Sardine Is Back & The Wheel Is Broken will bring their off the wall and madly inventive style of alternative rock. The poets are equally diverse, with a mix of poets from four continents who will read 'page' poetry to spoken word.

We asked Byrne what plans he has for the future of Spit-Tunes.
Plans for future development involve finding equally interesting bands and poets and partnering them together, creating interesting collaborations and also hopefully fostering new and enduring creative partnerships in the future. If this idea endures, we can always record or make some kind of compilation of all these collaborations which I think people would be interested to check out.

The first Spit-Tunes event takes place on Thursday, 23 February from 8pm to 11pm, at DDC. Tickets RMB 40 at the door, or RMB 30 in advance.

Images courtesy of Spittoon