There's clearly a western bias to the fact that before Covid the only thing that non-Chinese people knew about Wuhan, if anything (and I'm including myself in that), is that it's the Detroit of the Chinese music scene. I asked a colleague from Wuhan about it once and she said she had never heard anything about it at all.
That said, this morning Google Nest read me some variation of this story about how the indie live houses opening up again, and I was just glad that there was a national news story about Wuhan that was about anything other than Covid -- I guess this does also count as a "life getting back to normal" Covid story, but I'll take it.
So what are the Austin, Seattle, Chicago, Nashville, and Portland of China's music scene?
Shanghai is Portland. Seattle is Beijing. I already said in another response that Chicago/Detroit/Minneapolis is Wuhan, so I guess Wuhan is the entire Midwest?
Austin is tricky. I'm going to say Dalian in the NE just for kicks since the post-rock band Wen Wang is from there. Plus I think they got a pretty high profile fashion week a few years back, and when I was first in China it seemed weirdly expensive and hard to find a hostel in Dalian, so I never went. Just like I've never been to Austin. So let's go with Dalian.
Lol this is all just a bunch of free association (some of them aren't wrong though). Also I saw a good folk band at a quasi-open mic in Xi'an once, so I'm comfortable saying that Xi'an is Nashville. Plus, I had a boss from Dongbei (NE China, kind of the stereotypical man's man land of China), and he got really drunk at a department party once and nearly wept while singing John Denver's "Country Road," so I think it checks out.
Seattle is Kunming for sure
Would you settle for Olympia, WA instead? Not to besmirch my big spring boy of a city, but Seattle seems like punching above its weight class.
Alternately, I am happy to give Kunming/Dali/Lijiang the title of honorary Miami. Suck it Shenzhen!
as someone who never leaves their basement - what's significantly differently about those cities' music scenes?