Meg Lee Chin

Meg Lee Chin, whose real name is Margaret O'Leary, was born on 16 March 1960 in Taipei, Taiwan, to a US Air Force electronics engineer and a Taiwanese mother.[7] She worked as a sound engineer while studying experimental art and video production at San Francisco State University, forming her first band, Felix Natural, during the early 1980s. Chin went on to co-found the short-lived Teknofear with Lunachicks drummer Becky Wreck and Swans guitarist Joe Goldring; frustrated with American life, she spent the late 1980s living in London, and eventually formed the all-female band Crunch.[8]

She has been recording since her college days in San Francisco, when she recorded Faith No More's first demo on her 4-track, which featured Courtney Love on vocals.[9]

In 1990, her home-produced music video entitled "The Ocean" was featured on MTV Europe's regular rotation. It may have been the first MTV Europe music video to be home-produced in super8 and transferred to video on a budget of £200. When asked by the producer how she managed to create a £200 video which was in his opinion "better than Duran Duran's £200,000 videos", Chin simply replied, "I've got pretty good taste".[10] The video was later featured in an Institute of Contemporary Arts festival of film shorts.

She is perhaps best known for her work with the anarchic industrial supergroup Pigface, headed by Martin Atkins of Invisible Records.[11] As a core member, she toured the US extensively and shared the stage with industrial music notables including Nivek Ogre (Skinny Puppy), Genesis P-Orridge, Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks), Geordie (Killing Joke), En Esch (KMFDM), Danny Carey (Tool) Charles Levi (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult).[12]

According to a March 23, 1998, article in the LA Times, "If you're looking for star potential, singer Meg Lee Chin".[13][14][15] After appearing on Pigface's 1997 LP A New High in Low and their 1999 follow-up, Below the Belt, she released the solo debut Piece and Love on ex-Public Image Ltd, Ministry and Killing Joke drummer Martin Atkins' Invisible Records label.[16] Recorded in her Soho, London flat and released in September, Piece and Love achieved critical acclaim on the darkwave, industrial underground scene and was hot-tipped in Billboard magazine's "Heatseaker" section.[17] The album peaked at #60 on the CMJ Radio 200 in the U.S.[18]

The track "Nutopia" paints an apocalyptic vision of the future as a twist on Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". Other tracks have appeared on Showtime's Queer as Folk,[19][20] Warner Bros. Witchblade[21][22] and Sleeper Cell.[23]

An album of remixes, titled Junkies and Snakes,[24][25] was released the following year again on Invisible Records.[26]

Chin contributed tracks for Underground, Inc. releases such as the 2004 release of What's the Word, Volume One, featuring Jello Biafra, Mike Ladd, among others.[27] Other works include a remix album Junkies and Snakes,[28] also released on Invisible, along with some remixed covers of Ministry, David Bowie and Dead Kennedys tracks.

Signed to Invisible for five years, she left the label in 2002.

In 1992, Crunch had the distinction of being the first British-based band to perform in Ukraine after the small country's freedom from the former U.S.S.R. This was just after the Glasnost period of Mikhail Gorbachev and before Vladimir Putin took the reins of power as the president of Russia. The band performed in Kyiv at the Palace "Ukraine" Concert Hall during the "Miss Rock Europe 92" festival.[29] They also performed the infamous women's prison in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Crunch's spirited, anthemic hard rock songs seemed to resonate with the new found freedom of the Ukrainian public who became fascinated with the women from the west. They travelled by were interviewed in Moscow on Russian State TV and Pravda called them "The Rock Stars from the West".

At a large press conference, the band were interrogated over questions of geo-politics. They all wanted to know the band's opinions on world affairs, but to this Chin replied "We are simply musicians and do not pretend to have the answers to delicate and complex geopolitical questions. We'll leave these answers to huge male egos like Sting". This prompted smiles from the female members of the press who began to scribble with renewed vigour in their notebooks.[30] After the tour the band gifted their Ukrainian and Russian hosts with a DAT tape of an album's worth of their music to be distributed throughout the USSR copyright free.[9]

In 2002 she built, developed and co-created Gearslutz.[31][32] Gearslutz (now Gearspace) is the largest pro-audio producer and sound engineer's forum on the web. On 18 June 2010 in the High Court of Justice#Chancery Division in London, England, Chin won a claim against her former business partner Julian Standen. After three years where she battled for her right to co-ownership of the Gearslutz business, Judge Master Justice Briggs ruled in Chin's favor for claim #HC07C03181.[33] The settlement amount was agreed out of court.[34][35]

In 2021, Chin responded to a petition where a group of women made a request for a name change to the site due to accusations of sexism. Chin surprised the audio community by revealing that she actually built the site.[36][37] The name has since been changed to Gearspace.

In response to interest stemming from the name change controversy and in order to provide insight into the injustices of the legal system, Chin created the Gearwarz website.[38]

Chin's work has become increasingly political. In 2014 she released an anti-war music video using Vietnam-era war footage. "I Can't Pull the Trigger" was produced by Chin in London, England.[39]

Chin has released 5 homegrown music videos.[40] True to her DIY underground ethic, Chin produced, filmed, directed, and edited all videos and music. A highly controversial political video, "England's Mask", was featured in a talk at the Tate Gallery in London where she appeared on a panel of artists speaking on the topic "Artists Explore Brexit".[41][42]

In 2019, she created a political documentary/cartoon entitled England's Mask which expands upon the song of the same name. The video demonstrates why Britain is in danger of losing its status as global creative leaders in street art, fashion and pop music. Solutions include an unconditional basic income, land tax, legal reform. Chin proposes the democratization of money printing by transferring money printing powers powers away from central banks.[43] The film screened at the Bookery Art Gallery in London on June 16, 2022. The event was called "Hack the Economy" and offered the public an invitation to talk, debate and brainstorm the future. An interview Q&A and discussion was hosted afterwards by art curator Manick Govinda.[44]

Chin created a genre called "Word Drops" which are short spoken word and commentary pieces, often of a political nature and mixed with an assortment of beats and sound effects.[45][46][47]

In 2021, she released five standalone singles through DistroKid.

Chin currently lives in London, England.[48] She blogs regularly[49] and has also written articles for Country Squire magazine in the UK.[50][51][52][53] After the UK's 2016 referendum to leave the EU, Chin formed the "Brexit Creatives" along with The Football Factory novelist John King, independent arts consultant Manick Govinda,[54] Arts and Society Forum convener Dr. Wendy Earle.[55] On March 29, 2019, Chin appeared as a panelist on a "Uniqlo Tate Lates" discussion at London's Tate Gallery along with three other London artists. The discussion, entitled "Artists Explore Brexit", was to explore contemporary European identity in the work of the panelists.[42]

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