Painkiller (magazine)

Painkiller (Chinese: 重型音乐; pinyin: Zhòngxíng Yīnyuè; literally: "Heavy Duty Music") is China's first heavy music magazine and a legally registered enterprise for print media productions by Chinese State Authority.

Based in Beijing, it was founded in September 2000 and started off publishing quarterly; the frequency in 2006, is now one issue every two months.

Their current average circulation is 40,000 copies; sold in all major cities of mainland China (Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an...), as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The magazine's language is Chinese, and has correspondents, foreign editors and contributors in the USA, UK, & Germany for interviews, foreign news, and features. The magazine has a front cover with the title in Chinese and a back cover with the title in English; normal publication is 204 pages in full color with a fold out color poster.

Every issue also has a cover CD and a 'Metal In China' section which promotes and introduces bands on the local Chinese heavy metal scene in which several city scenes are presented and Chinese heavy metal is explained including its function as a 'rebellion of denial' due to the new sound movement.

The content focuses on articles and interviews, photographs of live concerts from around the world and in China, CD reviews, and posters – mainly with foreign metal bands from the genres: Heavy metal, power metal, progressive metal, nu metal, hard rock, metalcore, darkwave/gothic/industrial, hard core, thrash metal, death metal, black metal, grindcore, etc.

Further activities include the support of the local metal underground, the organization of concerts, CD distribution throughout China, and certain internet activities. Painkiller co-promoted the German band, Edguy, for a concert in Beijing in March 2006 which marked the begin of Painkiller as promoter and live show producer in China.

Previous cover artists in 2005-2006 have been:

• PK17 : Front cover – montage of Anthrax, Arch Enemy, Sentenced & H.I.M. / Back cover – Nevermore
• PK18 : Front cover – SOULFLY / Back cover – CHILDREN OF BODOM –
• PK19 : Front cover – DESTRUCTION / Back cover – NIGHTWISH
• PK20 : Front cover – LACUNA COIL / Back cover – NAGLFAR
• PK21 : Front Cover – Alice Cooper / Back cover – SATYRICON

History

Painkiller 《重型音乐》杂志 (zhòng xíng yin yuè zá zhì) was originally formed by some metal fans in Beijing in 2000. After almost a year of preparation, the first issue came out on a huge release party concert at Volcano Disco (火山迪厅) with 22 rock and metal bands from Beijing. The first issue turned out to be a huge success and sold out very soon, even though due to the high print costs, the retail price was 30 RMB (back then not cheap at all).

Painkiller kept issuing the magazine in irregular publishing periods at first and within two years, it settled by 3 issues a year. The quantity also rose from 3000 copies of the first issue to later 20.000 at its peek time before SARS happened in 2003. With the increasing popularity of online and new media, print numbers of all periodicals in China dropped down dramatically, but Painkiller managed to stay stable with issuing quantity of currently about 12,000 to 15,000 copies.

Yang Yu, who had his own metal magazine "Evil Message Mag" and worked long years for AFM Records when he was in Germany, brought in his old contacts from Europe to help Painkiller build up his recognition outside China and improve its content. A small network of oversea corresponding editors and reporters slowly emerged with time with Sun Yue in the U.K. and now Denmark, famous photographer George Chin in the U.K., Micheal Sean in the U.S., Al Di in Canada (till his return in 2007), Yang Yu's former colleague Andreas Stappert (now editor at Rock Hard) in Germany, etc.

Since several years, long term relationships between famous international labels and record companies has been established, e.g. AFM Records, Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Wacken Records, etc. As one of the first and still til today almost the only music magazine in China, Painkiller remains in regular contact with the international scene and conduct CD reviews and interviews with international labels and management/promotion companies directly. To each issue, there will be an exclusive label report featuring interviews of bands and song contribution of the label on the cover CD.

Meanwhile, Painkiller's artistic supervisor and designer Zakk Wu started a project to print metal shirts for the readership, mostly with his own designs. Occasionally, bands shirt deals were also done for both international and local bands. Dragon Skin is the establishment for those shirts. Due to increasing activities in the live show production, less time could be spent on doing new designs, but whenever you go to a local metal show in Beijing, you will still see kids wearing one of the Dragon Skin-shirts.

Since the beginning, the Painkiller crew would also do local concerts with metal bands regularly. Mostly in the old Get Lucky Bar, where they provided a new home for metal bands, who previously didn't have a steady place to perform. Later now, new clubs opened such as Nameless Highland and 13 Club. In 2004, an offer came in to do a concert for an Italian power metal band, Labyrinth. Painkiller as the first local institution took the opportunity and enacted a great show for all metal fans and like-minded peers in the scene. 2 years later, the first real challenge came in, to do a show with the famous Germany metal band Edguy, which turned out to be a success as well and boosted Painkiller's reputation within the domestic scene. A lot VIPs of the local music business and media attended the show and they were thrilled by the quality of the gig. Since then, Painkiller has mapped themselves as local promoter for foreign bands. German gothic giants Lacrimosa followed in October that year which broke the record for visitor numbers in Star Live. Before long, Painkiller started to do shows almost non stop.

With the success of its live shows, a lot other companies and organisations outside of the metal realm started to pay attention to Painkiller's quality and ability to organize concerts and live show. Soon, a lot of collaboration projects came in, where Painkiller Productions worked as production team. At first in collaboration with Midi Festival, later Pilot Records, InMusic Festival, Goethe Institute/Germany Embassy, Danish Rock Council ROSA, MuSex/Finnish Embassy, the British Embassy, etc., which also led Painkiller to get more and more involved onto the area of cultural exchange. And with the fast development of Chinese festivals, more and more festival organizers engage Painkiller to be their booking agent and/or production team, e.g. Westlake Festival, Kama Love Festival and Yixian Music Festival.

In 2008, a collaboration between Painkiller and Wacken Open Air was initiated for W.O.A.'s international band contest project Metal Battle. Painkiller therefore started to organize a series of band competition events under this banner and contributes the winning band of each year to participate on the international final battle on the annual W.O.A. festival in Germany.

The more shows Painkiller is doing the broader the spectrum of band choices and it goes beyond the limitation of the metal genre. In collaboration with different local partners, Painkiller is now also often involved in live shows featuring a diversity of music styles including indie rock, jazz, electro/DJ, pop, etc.

After more than a decade since its establishment, Painkiller has become a solid institution in Chinese rock and live music market. Future focuses are to expand the live show sector, building up a better international network for culture exchange purposes and construct a new online platform to combine sources for better communication.

External links

• Official website (Chinese)
• more information about Painkiller Magazine on Rockinchina.com