Podcast Alert: Talking Women in Music With MusicDish

Ana Padilla Fornieles | Sep 11, 2025 11:30 am | Add a comment | 57 reads

Eric de Fontenay is no stranger to the Beijinger. The founder of creative music agency MusicDish (独立小炒), he is one of Beijing's longest-standing music entrepreneurs, always cooking something in his mind. That is certainly the case nowadays, with a project he's officially launching very soon. So, let's ask ourselves the Five Ws and One H! Who? See above. What? A new podcast named She Rocks, centered on Chinese female musicians and professionals in the industry. When? This Saturday (Sep 13), from 7pm until late. Where? BieBox (别的盒子), a sleek café-pub on the rooftop of The Box, a hub of eateries, shops and bars with some proper Gen Z and Gen Alpha flair.

I know, I know – I am missing the how! Be patient with me, dear reader; it's coming in my interview with Eric. The event this Saturday will stand for the fourth episode of the podcast, recorded live for the audience's pleasure to grab a cocktail and tune into a panel with indie singer-songwriter Wang Yiling (王忆灵); pioneering musician Chen Nian, also known by her stage name CASEE (陈念CASEE); and modular synthesizer artist TamiX. You do need to be Chinese-speaking for the panel portion, but the live performance that will ensue is sure to be universal.

Eric is a treasure trove of stories. Every time I talk to him, I am under the impression that the guy has lived a thousand lives, which maybe he has, and that he's chosen music to feature prominently in each of them. Eric de Fontenay, everyone.

Hey, Eric, how are you doing? You guys sure have been busy lately, but now it's time to reap the fruits of your efforts. Share with us the details about She Rocks, your new endeavor.
Sure! The podcast began brewing in my mind when I was reflecting on a series of things. I've devoted my time in China to what you could call the sound of the underground, and it's a never-ending journey to me because it's a world brimming with so much talent. Here, I am talking about the stage side of things, for sure, but also about the industry at large. Women are an important part of that industry, too. Musicians, entrepreneurs, all over you will find women who are so inspiring and bring so much to the table. But we don't hear about them enough, just like it happens in plenty of other fields, which is unforgivable to me. So, I thought, we need a platform for these women to take the floor. We need to amplify their voices.

With She Rocks, we are rolling on a very basic premise, or rather a motto: Let's see more, and hear more from, women in China's indie music scene.

I can vibe with that. And yet, even if you identified this need, you are not a fan of adding certain tags to the initiative.
Yes, that's right. If I must be honest, I go my own way in life about a lot of issues. I don't want to attach a label to She Rocks as a this or that podcast. I just really don't like labels very much. There's this issue, right? So, we can see it, we can be honest about it, and we follow up with action. We should listen to these women because we should, in fact, listen a lot more to each other in general, if it makes sense. To each of us, there's a background, an identity or mix thereof, a story. We're never neat little boxes to be stacked. There's so much to each of us, but sometimes we let ourselves get tangled in discourses, and we apply this fine print to our interactions. I find we lose spontaneity. Let's just mingle together, listen to each other and act.

Choice of words aside, I think I see your point, and I like the spirit behind it. So, how long was it from when things got cooking in your mind until you came up with something ready to launch?
A year or so, I believe. Of course, as the podcast grows, we will see where it goes and where we need to fine-tune things. What's interesting here, and I am kind of tracking back to your first question above, is that She Rocks is actually a spin-off from a previously existing initiative called Women in Rock (滚圈女子图鉴), launched in 2024. This is an in-person long-form discussion format modeled in part on the podcasts of people like Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan – so two- to three-hour conversations distilled into a written interview. So far, Women in Rock has featured the stories of 12 female musicians and industry professionals: Xiao Yingzhu, Xiao Hang, bbf3, Guo Xiaohan, Shi Xiaofei, Cong Cong, Fang Ziwei, Yan Yuchen, Wang Yuchen, cotton, and two of the three women who will take part in this Saturday's event, Wang Yiling and Casee. The music and career choices of all these women speak of independence and tireless courage in paving the way for themselves and for others.

And it's actually my team who thought that the discussions would be great for the podcast format. So, with that in mind, I enlisted Beijing-based American music producer and audio engineer Daniel Finn to help make it a reality.

Awesome. You know, nowadays everyone's launching a podcast, or a Substack, or both. I won't exactly ask what makes yours stand out, because I think you've answered that already in your intro to She Rocks, but I'd like to know the main challenges you've faced in making your own podcast happen.
Well, there's no skipping any and all [of] the usual bumps on the road to launching any podcast: Conversation-wise, everything has to flow and keep your audience's interest, and then you must ensure an enduringly good recording quality; there's also the editing and post-production. My team at MusicDish and Daniel Finn have been key on these issues. Then there's – perhaps most importantly – promotion. I think we do have the advantage that we didn't just say one day, “Let's do a podcast!” It grew organically from the Women in Rock series, which has received great feedback. I think my team and I learned a lot from doing this series, and I hope that's reflected in the podcast. And because of this, I hope the listeners can feel our authenticity in our mission. This is not just some gimmick.

I can feel it! What should we expect on Saturday?
So I'd like to highlight that we envision this event as a collaborative effort because the roundtable with our three panelists aims at involving the guests, with an audience Q&A and live recording that will then be condensed into that fourth episode of the podcast. We want to make memories together, to set out the tone for our future trajectory.

In addition, these three women are at the top of the game in their individual genres. So we wanted to make sure that we delivered a post-roundtable performance that would be one of the best in Beijing, with music that could fit all tastes.

Sounds like a neat evening. Please give us an intro to each of these panelists.
Wang Yiling is a powerhouse, combining her own career as a singer and songwriter with her role as a producer. Her creative aesthetic combines influence from classic works (think the '60s and '70s) with Chinese culture, as well as elements from her own life experience and womanhood. From the streets to the livehouse, her music isn't constrained to a single arrangement, but rather it's constantly shaped by the extent of her collaborations.

tamiX describes herself as a Buchla improv performer and doubles as a visual artist as well as a self-described photo idol and skate coach. She's the founder of Midifan.com, a popular Chinese site for all things computer music, high-tech music production, and digital recording, and [of] Modular Commune, a series of events about modular synth and other electronic instruments, arranged here in Beijing.

Chen Nian (CASEE) followed her childhood passion for music and shaped it into a distinct career as a singer-songwriter. While she acknowledges the influence of international artists such as Nirvana, Green Day, Metallica, Grimes, and Marilyn Manson, it is her own acute perspectives on her inner world, society and the humanities that turn her work into this unique thing. Her musical style is just as diverse, lumping metal rock with avant-garde electronica and even the more recent wave of hyperpop.

She Rocks will take place at BieBox (The Box, Dongdaqiao) on Sat, Sep 13, from 7pm until late. Early bird tickets are RMB 78 and standard tickets are RMB 98. You can purchase them by scanning the QR code below.