Nugget Makes a (Brief) Return with Nugchella 2024!

Ana Padilla Fornieles | Sep 10, 2024 12:00 pm | Add a comment | 142 reads

Dear reader, I feel like so many of my blog posts gravitate around this one certainty: Beijing is a transient city. Call me the guardian of nostalgia, the anxious watcher of time…call me every time some of our legendary digs close, but also, call me if they come back!! BRAT summer is (almost) over, but fret not if you doth be back to school…instead, rush to DDC on Monday, Sep 16 at 7pm for a new edition of…ahem……Nugchella 2024!!!!

Yes, that’s right. Do you still remember nugget? That tiny but mighty bar and cassette label that used to be at Huayuan Hutong Courtyard 8? Yes, nugget—temple of DIY art and culture, meeting point for cool kids and alternative cats of Beijing. Sigh, nugget. In August 2023 they decided to relocate to Europe, and though we were excited for their future, we couldn’t help but shed a tear. Things haven’t quite been the same for the local indie scene ever since, but luckily not everything is lost. For one night only, you get to bask in the tunes of some stunning bands — lost memory machine! SOURTOWER! 2D Foil! Sphinx of Third Party! Haidi Blank! —, with some of ye olde nugget team on hand to provide your fix of tapes, merch and…what’s that I hear? Cocktails too?

It really is a beautiful night ahead for those of us who forged valuable memories together at that little hutong space. And look, I really want to savor that feeling in advance, so here I am, chatting to David Carey, co-CEO of nugget records, adept musician and songwriter and dear friend of mine. You can read the interview ahead. You should. You must. Trust me.

Hi, Dave! Welcome back from…Berlin, is it? Okay, first things first. Will there be old school nugget cocktails available again at DDC for Nugchella 2024?
Hey Ana! Super excited to be going back to the old neighborhoods of Beijing! I just really needed a jianbing… We’ll be serving up two of our most classic cocktails on the night, the Sourtower and the Strawberry Papa! I think they are the two drinks that encapsulate our little label the most, and they’re the yin and yang of our menu. The Sourtower is our spin on a whiskey sour, with a note of ginger cutting through, and the Strawberry Papa is an unabashed boozy strawberry smoothie, made with none other than Buckfast! It also sort of pays homage to the creators of nugget because, while I made the Strawberry Papa, the Sourtower is a creation of Jen Rao’s (the other founder of nugget), so it’s nice to have some part of her in this too.

Back to you, though. Catch us up on what you’ve been doing since nugget closed last year. Fill us in the present and the future!
Honestly, nugget’s closure was very sudden and unplanned. It’s certainly not what we wanted at the time, but that’s how circumstances made it. And it was a hard blow to me. I spent three years running the store, and another year and a half before that running nugget as a cassette label in my house. It was this large part of my identity, how I define myself as a person. The closure really impacted that self-image because without nugget’s Beijing store, who even am I anymore? A place that I was so proud to represent, gone. I struggled with that for a long time after.

But with the benefit of some time and distance, I’ve been able to recuperate and re-assemble the disparate ideas and desires I have for nugget. I’m in Berlin now indeed — a wonderful city that in many ways reminds me of Beijing and yet thankfully doesn’t in just as many. Berlin nugget is slowly starting to take shape, except this time it’s not a physical location, but rather an online tape label. Nowadays nugget has a mission to promote Chinese bands in Europe, hopefully and eventually serving as an event organizer to help those bands come and tour here.

I hope nugget, as it will come to exist in Germany, will act as a cultural bridge to allow people in Europe to gain a deeper understanding of the many, many beautiful things that exist in China and yet struggle to make their way out to the wider world. Hey, worst case scenario, if only we make a few euros out of slinging tapes, it’ll support my current kebab addiction that came to replace my former jianbing dependency…

Awww. Now we’re hungry, dang. Be sure to fill up on jianbing on your whirlwind visit to Beijing though! Why should people give their hard-earned RMB to DDC on the wondrous night of Nugchella 2024? What kinda music genres can we expect to see on the stage? Any nugget merch to look forward to that we may not be able to snag afterwards?
nugget was an incredibly special time in my life, and the two previous Nugchellas we did were the highlights of that time. If you connected with what we did in any way over the years, this is a night for you too. We want you to remember that feeling of community we once forged together in the hutongs.

Genre-wise, we have everything from coldwave electro to dream pop to indie rock, all filtered through the lens of what nugget strove to represent over the years.

Merch depends on how much space I have left in my suitcase, hahaha. We’ll see what surprises are in store!

Excellent. You know, Dave, today as always I just marvel at nugget’s musical and cultural legacy here in Beijing. I really gained an education of sorts in Chinese indie music thanks to you guys, so for our broader audience, tell me—how can they discover all these talented musicians and bands? And for us creatives, what’s the way to carry that glorious nugget spirit in our work?
There are a few resources out there that promote the Chinese music scene. But, I really think the best English-language one would be coming from an old friend of the Beijinger, Will Griffith, doing a wonderful job at his WeChat account LiveCNmusic. He does album reviews, shares music videos, and announces shows and tours for all over the country. He’s the rock that the scene is built upon! And a lovely person to boot!

Nugget will still be doing occasional releases. You can follow our WeChat account at 小块儿唱片, and fret not because all our all articles are bilingual.