Torturing Nurse, strangely enough, was one of the artists I had known about before actually arriving in China. Strange because the type of music Junjun Cao (Junky) makes, doesn’t lend itself to social appeal, being as he calls it, “extreme, harsh, nihilistic noise” so to even be aware of such an artist meant diving down a little bit of a rabbit hole when wanting to discover new musical interests.
I lived in Beijing from 2013-2014. I saw several shows there but none that could be considered industrial, electronic or noise. Still, I thought about Torturing Nurse, and knew that he was based in Shanghai, meaning that most or maybe all of his shows would take place there.
When my contract at my current job came to an end, I decided I needed to see more of China besides the capital, so took up a job at an English training center in Suzhou. Suzhou is known for its frankly outstanding Chinese gardens and is about 30 minutes away from Shanghai via high-speed train. While Suzhou itself, I soon found out, didn’t have much of a music scene, Shanghai wasn’t far away and I started looking for Torturing Nurse shows.
NoiShanghai LXIX – (696 Livehouse, 2014)
The first show I encountered was NoiShanghai LXIX at a venue called the 696 Livehouse (via Torturing Nurse’s Facebook, where he would routinely post his shows, in contrast to other Chinese artists who don’t often use Facebook. I believe this is another reason why I knew of Torturing Nurse: other Chinese artists aren’t as internationally inclined and stay rather insular). I would come to learn that NoiShanghais are events arranged by Junky which focus on experimental artists.
As it was the nineteenth version of NoiShanghai, I felt that the regulars would be established, but who would they be, how would they react, and who would join Torturing Nurse on stage at this show? I imagined, based on the images of Junky performing, and the name of his project, that the crowd would be the same you might find at a fetish show – lots of latex and leather, with perhaps fans who are into chaotic music of the metal variant going as wild as he does on stage.
I went to the train station right after my shift of teaching little kids about the words “ball” and “bear” and took the next fast train to Shanghai. The show was on a weekend, so I didn’t need to rush back to Suzhou to teach children the next morning (something that would cause irritation during the next two NoiShanghai shows). Thus, I found a hostel close to the 696 Livehouse, which was relatively easy to locate.
The metro system in Shanghai is massive, but it was relatively easy to find the stop closest to the hostel. It was a bit more difficult to find 696. I walked in the rain for a good 30 minutes in the area before finding it behind a canal, which are common in Suzhou, though Shanghai also has some.
The 696 Livehouse looked like a well-used venue. It wasn’t very large, had a small stage in the back and several sofas to sit on. The people there weren’t what I expected – mainly clean-cut looking individuals, possibly art students. A few had band shirts. There was a white board with various messages written on it including band names such as Torturing Nurse.
The first act was a solo noise artist from Shanghai. His musical item of choice was the guitar. He sat down on stage and unleashed a wave of distortion on the audience, who were mostly still sitting. I spoke with a girl who sort of wandered in looking for something interesting, and she shielded her ears from the noise on stage.
Next were a group of clean-cut foreigners, who I would find out later were named YoYooYoY, from Denmark. They gave out esoteric pamphlets to the audience and prepared their various instruments on the stage. They began with an aerobics routine, which then spiralled into a rather discomforting crescendo of wails and screams. Looking at their website now, YoYooYoY were active from 2001-2016 and they described their presentation as, “YoYooYoY is an art collective, free of genres and art forms. YoYooYoY is about finding new connections. YoYooYoY is one expression in different forms.”
A table full of distortion pedals was then placed in the middle of the room. These were the noise toys of Torturing Nurse. Junky, in his trademark Facekini, then set himself in front of the table. The lights dimmed – just a piece of flaying meat behind a table, twisting knobs and letting the chaos emerge through the speakers and into the heads of those at 696. The people were more restrained than I anticipated, watching intently but without the intent to slam into each other, which of course is common at metal or punk concerts. I imagined that Junky wanted the crowd to get more into it – to get as unhinged as he was during the set.
Torturing Nurse would perform this set of improvised madness for roughly 15 minutes – exactly long enough to get aurally fucked, but not long enough in general, meaning that I needed to see more.
NoiShanghai LXX (696 Livehouse, 2014)
For this second NoiShanghai show at the 696 Livehouse, I felt a bit more comfortable with the situation – I knew where the venue was and I knew how the show would go from an atmospheric and social standpoint.
As it was on a weekday, I had to work the next morning, so after the show I would have to rush to take the train back to Suzhou to teach children about “ball” and “bear” with a mind full of feedback the next day. I often thought about this strange dichotomy of being interested in events such as Torturing Nurse shows and then going into an atmosphere which was nearly the complete opposite for work.
Prior to this show, I notified Junky I would be coming and upon my arrival, he presented me with a t-shirt. It was gray and depicted an alien-like creature twisting a single distortion pedal with bloody limbs around it.
The guests Junky invited for this show were more conventional than YoYooYoY, as far as experimental musicians go. It included Apparatus from the USA, Yan Jun from Beijing and Jonnyhawaii from Austria. Jonnyhawaii, if you see his YouTube videos, makes noise with self-made instruments. For this show, he used a shovel for a guitar. Yan Jun used a pedal board for his expression of noise while Apparatus took to the guitar.
As I was more prepared for this show (anticipating the short set time), I took a lot more photos of Torturing Nurse this time around. The set was as chaotic as before, with Junky ending the set with having the crowd take part in the noise and allow them to twist his knobs themselves. He then tossed the whole lot of them on the floor and pushed the table over.
NoiShanghai LXXI (Inferno, 2015)
The Inferno bar is a metal hangout in Shanghai which opened around 2011. Dubbed Shanghai’s “only metal bar,” it, in addition to having bands play, has thrown themed nights including anime nights, Viking nights, electrocore nights and even China’s first ICP-themed night.
I had trouble finding Inferno, much like the first time finding 696, but did arrive in time for the evening’s festivities. The bar was more modern and cleaner looking than 696, with foreigners running the bar and a bigger stage in the corner. The show was again on a weekday, meaning I had to leave before it ended. If I saw any other acts perform, I don’t remember them.For Torturing Nurse, what made this show different was that a girl wearing a facemask took position right next to a speaker and started swaying and convulsing almost to the point of orgasm as Junky took to his pedals. I felt that Junky was encouraged by this, and was more active than the other two shows, running from one side of the venue to the other and engaging with the audience members.
After Torturing Nurse’s set, I went to find the subway back to the train station through the noise of the city.
Sometime later, I asked Shanghai punk band Round Eye what they thought of Torturing Nurse, “I appreciate the fact that he’s been doing his thing since the late ’90s in China, which takes huge balls as a Chinese man,” said bassist Livio.
It’s hard to disagree. To put it into perspective, think of the amount of people in China not doing what Junky is doing – basically all of them. This guy single-handedly created an experimental noise scene in China and through diligent self-promotion via using websites blocked in China, became internationally known.
Noise is open to interpretation, as there are no lyrics within the music, but it would be foolish to ignore the feelings derived from both this abrasive style of sound and the performance that ensues. I imagined before that Torturing Nurse represented the constant noise of living in a Chinese metropolis, but think it could be bigger than that – this raging performance art comes off like the sound of a billion frustrated souls manifested into one being, Junky. Sometimes, all the people can do is watch. It is hard to take in, which is understandable. The feedback will still follow them.
NoiShanghai shows continue to this day, with NoiShanghai XCVII taking place on August 3, 2023.
