January 25, 2012 0

Holiday Quickslants: Temple Rules… Modernista Helps…

By in Quickslants, Tunes under the moon

well my darlings, last week was i think the first time in over two years that the blog didn’t have quickslants… can you believe that? truth be said, pretty much all live music venues are closed and/or all musicians have taken the week off…. expect a few hard working souls over at Temple who have managed to keep the flag high and provide us with some decent rock n roll as we welcome the Dragon Year of Armageddon. It’s still slim pickings but at least, there is some stuff going on:

image from LEmonGraphics

Wednesday Jan 25th

Bluewolf @ Temple:
They’re described in the following words: “Bluewolf music style is a blend of flamenco and gipsy mixed with some touches of reggae & Xinjiangese folk music”.. sounds intriguing enough for me to check them out. Thanks to T, I’m getting into more minority music, especially Uighur and Kazakh.

Blackwater @ Modernista
Up on Baochao hutong, Modernista is starting to make some noise with their mix of style, drinks and personality. They’ve also been getting a steady diet of chilled mellow music! Tonight, they got the Irish flavored melodies of Blackwater. I haven’t seen Desmond and his gang play in quite some time so this could be a good day for that.

Thursday Jan 26th:

Saudade e Alegria @ Modernista
How about some Brazilian bossa nova? Again, I don’t know much about these kids but they’ve been the resident Thursday band over at Modernista and they can’t be that bad if they’ve played a few weeks in a row.. right? That’s what they tell me. Maybe a good opportunity to be open minded and check something else out.

Djan San @ Temple
Ze Frenchie is at it again with his mix of electro folk weirdness. I’m not the biggest fan of his experimentation but then again, I’m not a fan of sampling in general. Some people do like it so it’s worth a listen at least once. I know, it’s a resounding endorsement!

Friday Jan 27th:

Toy Head @ Temple:
From what I hear, it’s SKA flavored tunes by some folks who’ve been around the music industry for a while… again, sorry but not much to go on! slim pickings baby

Saturday Jan 28th:

Beijing Beatles @ Temple
Alright.. finally a band we actually know and can guarantee. These cats have taken Beijing by storm and their act works… everyone knows the songs and tends to sing along so what’s not to like? Get a few drinks, a few laughs, a few sing alongs and a lot of good times.

As you can see folks, it’s Temple, Temple and more Temple with a little Modernista thrown in there. The Electro Disco crowd is in much better shape with a few parties at Haze, Spark etc… but we don’t get into those, do we?

Share

Tags: , , , , ,

January 20, 2012 0

Miji No.7 – The Tea Rockers Quintet & Makoto Kawabata at 2 Kolegas

By in blabbers

If you’ve been to 2 Kolegas before, you’ll know things don’t really start happening out at the drive–in before around 10.30ish. And if you’d turned up around that time last Saturday you would have seen a great show from Sparrow, DH & the Hellcats and The K that stretched on until the early hours of the morning. But you also would have entirely missed another show, a very different show from the normal 2 Kolegas rock/punk/blues sets.

In-conjunction with Pangbianr and Subjam, Japan’s Makoto Kawabata, France’s DJ Urine and China’s The Tea Rockers Quintet brought us Miji concert No. 7. That’s a lot of names, and some you may not have heard of, but you can find a very detailed writeup of who everyone is and how this show all came together over here at Pangbianr.

I arrived around 8.30 to find the drive-in nicely full, without being crowded, quietly listening to the opening act, The Tea Rockers Quintet. On the main stage were Wu Na with her guzheng and guqin and YanJun with his table of dials and assorted sound making goodies. At the back of the room another small stage was set up beside the sound desk with Xiao He, his guitar and laptop, and Li Daiguo with a double bass and various other stringed instruments. I didn’t actually see Lao Gu and his tea ceremony though, possibly he was out the back?

They played for an hour and had the audience completely under their spell, each instrument blending in with the others and taking it’s turn to lead. Li Daiguo and Xia He provided some vocals, although it was more using their voices as another instrument adding to rather than singing over the music. I could have listened to this for much longer, and will be looking forward to the group’s first album being released later this year.

The back stage was quickly packed up and everyone’s attention moved to the front stage where Makoto Kawabata was setting up his pedals. Unfortunately DJ Urine wasn’t able to join him on stage as planned, but he first played solo and then was joined by friends, Mafeisan. He was playing what looked like an electric guitar with the tuning at the top cut off, something I’d never seen before, and was playing it first with a metal pipe and then a violin bow and a lot of pedals to create an amazing psychedelic, experimental soundscape. I was standing up front beside Mamer, someone who also uses these kind of objects when playing his bass, and he too was also watching intently.

When Makoto finished the stage was quickly packed up and in the blink of an eye the scene at 2 Kolegas changed. Musicians and audience disappeared and at the same time were replaced with a whole different crowd. I was planning to head out at that point too, but the sound of a post rock guitar tuning on stage enticed me to stay on for Sparrow.

Share
January 19, 2012 1

Michelle Dai Leaves Beijing – Goodbye and Thank You

By in Beijing 人, blabbers

We talk a lot about bands breaking up, artists starting new projects, new albums, etc… all the news from the music scene! What we don’t bring up often enough is the people that keep us informed about the music scene and how important/influential they can be. We also rarely take the time to thank them, mostly because they stay behind the scenes and we rarely know who they are!

Well, one of these people is leaving us and it’s quite a sad thing in my book… a big loss: Michelle Dai, who has brilliantly held the post of Live Music Editor at The Beijinger, is leaving the job and the city in pursuit of other adventures!

I still remember when Michelle first made an impression on yours truly, with her live music roundup that covered the reunion of giants (he yong, cui jian, etc…)

Earlier this week, while I was having dinner in a restaurant in Gui Jie, He Yong walked in and sat at the table right next to ours. All of a sudden I felt my heartbeat accelerating. In order to explain my feelings to my friend – a financial journalist who has close to zero interest in rock music – I said: “Imagine if the ex-managing director of China Citic Bank just randomly walked in and sat down next to you.”

More than 15 years ago, in the spring of 1994, three men – He Yong, Dou Wei, Zhang Chu (aka “The Three Heroes of Mo Yan” 魔岩三杰 ) – released hugely significant albums at the same time. Later that year, they went on tour to Hong Kong along with Tang Dynasty. That concert is still considered a milestone of Chinese rock music. In the same year, Cui Jian released his third album, Balls Under The Red Flags. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call that year the climax of rock music in China. Too bad that the milestone probably marked the end of a highway. There have been many long discussions about whether the rockers walked further and further away from Chinese people’s impression of rock music or the struggle against “the powers that be” sealed the fate of rock & roll in China. It didn’t take much time for rock music to go back underground.

Why am I repeating all these clichés? Because all the abovementioned rock stars (except Dou Wei) and nine other bands and musicians are likely to set another milestone tonight at Workers’ Stadium at the Rock Heroes’ Concert. The roster also includes names like Xu Wei, Wang Feng, Black Panther, Pu Shu, Zheng Jun, Shuang Zi from the mainland; Qi Qin and Xin from Taiwan; and Huang Jiaqiang (Beyond) from Hong Kong. If Dou Wei were to show up (as some rumors insist he will) along with Luo Dayou from Taiwan, and if Huang Jiaju, the former lead vocalist of Beyond, were to be resurrected for a single evening, tonight’s stage would feature practically everybody who has had an impact on Chinese rock music in the past 20 years.

In any case, you will be able to see Luo at the Greatwall Tanglewood Music Festival. And I was so curious about the rumor of Dou Wei (and Faye Wong?!) presence at the Rock Heroes’ Concert that I screwed up my courage, turned to He Yong at the next table, and asked him if it was true. He denied it.

This is still one of my favorite pieces of hers… it’s got personality, personal story and good/solid background knowledge!As the year went, Michelle’s coverage of the music scene got better with each article, each post and each interview and I’ve learned to seek and respect her opinions…. now, I’ll miss them. I’ve also enjoyed the brief conversations we’ve had about music, tattoos and other random blabbers.

Thank you Michelle! Here’s wishing you the best of luck and success for your future endeavors…

Keep on Rocking!

Share

Tags: , ,

January 18, 2012 0

IZ ( Mamer) at Temple: If a Steel Mill Could Sing…

By in Gig Reviews, Tunes under the moon

Since they came back from their world tour, IZ has been keeping a very low profile. A few things bearing mention was that they got a weibo for the band as opposed to having Mamer be the mouthpiece all the time. They’re also just using the name IZ instead of Mamer & IZ… I like that!

Their show at Temple, on the first week of the year, will probably go down as one of the best ones for 2012 potentially: When they were underwhelming at Jianghu for the CD release, they sounded great at Temple.. no doubt that the cavernous nature of the room provided better acoustics to match their dark, industrial, metallic rumbling sounds.

There was actually quite a turnout for the occasion, most of which were faces i hadn’t seen at Temple before so you could tell that they came specifically for IZ.. An audience that was very much well behaved and in a trance-like state during most of the performance. They barely broke the silence from time to time to clap but otherwise kept the conversation to a minimum. Much like the band one could argue. An interesting change in dynamics was with 努尔太 Nuertai singing a bit more than usual, almost more so than Mamer himself (if we can call his mumbling singing).

I still struggle to describe these guys but I think i might be settling for this sentence coined by my friend Beagleboss: If a steel mill could sing, that’s what it would sound like. It’s growing on me! It’s quite fitting, especially with the dark images they tend to use as a backdrop.

As much as I like to call it Industrial Kazakh Folk, I see the steel mill analogy as more accurate. How else would you describe a band that has two bass players and a drummer? and no, Drum n Bass, however semantically correct, just doesn’t cut it.

Either way, this band is amazing and there’s a reason why their latest album made it in my TOP 5 Chinese Albums of 2011. It’s that freaking good!

Share

Tags: , , ,

January 18, 2012 2

Gig & CD Review: Muma & Third Party Returns – A Musical Evolution

By in Album Reviews, Gig Reviews, Tunes under the moon

I’ve been meaning to get this one out for a while but it’s been a bit hectic. I mean here I am in 2012 doing the write up for a gig from 2011. I would normally skip it altogether but we don’t get Muma & Third Party playing that often lately so here comes.

I had been waiting a long time for this gig where Muma & Third Party, latest incarnation, come up to Beijing and give us the goods they’ve been working on for a few years. It’s pretty much a whole new band with new dynamics, even between the only two remaining members who are Muma himself and Mico ( I stand corrected on the original members). Yugong was decently full for the occasion despite it being a cold december wednesday evening. The place was decked out with floating banners that reflected a matrix-esque random pattern of numbers.

The band is all grown up, wiser and quite dark… The voice still sets the tone for everything else around but now, the music follows and matches. it tiptoeing a line between industrial and gothic sounds, very much along the lines of NIN and Joy Division… heck, i might be able to argue if i cared enough that that particular wednesday, MTP did Joy Division better than Joy Division on some songs.

The concert lasted almost 2 hours with the band going through some classics. I especially liked the reworked, more organic version of “feifei run” that had the audience singing aloud along. It worked amazingly well with Muma on vocals and Guan Wei (who’s not bad) on acoustic guitar, I mean that’s the Muma I love, making use of his most powerful instrument: his voice! and make no mistake, that voice is freaking good! Not to mention his style is just as intense as ever…

The new stuff got a bit of a humho reception with the audience just not expecting the extra effects and all that industrial noise added. Neither did I… One exception was the song 纳迪 (Nadi) which had that slow grind groove going for it and had Miserable Faith’s Gao Hu helping out on vocals.
As an example, 无可救药 (Hopeless) sounds much better on the record than live: Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy’s voice and I’m a big fan of the music on the new record but they’re not always on sync… he’s pretty much singing at the same tempo no matter how fast or how slow the song is and that just doesn’t work. On another note,Gao Yufeng, of Brain Failure fame, is really proving to be one of the better Bass players in China right now… I’m digging him onstage.

Evolution ( THe new record) is definitely a big departure from the previous release, Velvet Highway, which i still consider the band’s better work… a beautiful dark, fascinating and powerful record. While Muma himself is still the main creative source of the band, you can’t help but notice that the other players have also made some marks on the music, especially Mico, as evidenced by some of the live stuff. I expected better out of the record but I liked the live show!

Here is the live version of feifeirun from that evening… good for chills down a spine:

This version of Third Party has some really good growth potential IMHO and Muma himself has grown wiser by the sounds of things. The Evolution is underway (pun intended)… It really feels like this is a band playing and doing things as opposed to one lead singer and his hired guns… and that’s not bad!

Let’s hope we don’t have to wait almost 4 years for the next CD.

Share

Tags: ,

January 13, 2012 2

We Are Shanghai: Discover the Bands through a FREE 20 song sampler

By in blabbers, Freeloading

Something is brewing in Shanghai and I don’t mean the same stuff they’re doing at Great Leap… The music community there seems to be toughening up and finding creative ways to get people involved and get the audiences out to the shows! And that is commendable…. I’ve gone on the record calling Beijing-based bands “lazy” and I stand by it… I’m not sure I can say the same about Shanghai based ones anymore:

- A while back, they organized a concert where the bands paid the audience members 1 RMB to come and check them out! That is freaking awesome marketing! I can only imagine that they have a hard time drawing crowds down there despite them only having a few live music venues. That’s a display of creativity, the likes of which i can definitely get behind.

- Now, 20 bands have teamed up and put together a 20 song FREE sampler for people to listen to them. This album is a joint effort by Shanghai’s own Zangnan Records, Luwan Rock and Twin Horizons. It looks like the guys behind the album reached out beyond their own immediate circle to get some real diversity in there. I’ve managed to hear about most of those bands all the way up in Beijing, especially Friend or Foe, Pairs, Rainbow Danger Club etc…

Read an interview on Shanghai 24/7 by the man behind the project, Ivan

Here’s the track listing:

http://weareshanghai.bandcamp.com/

1. Duck Fight Goose – Light is God’s Bread
2. Boys Climbing Ropes – The Knitting Song
3. Stegosaurus? – Stinky Tofu
4. The Beat Bandits – Sukiyaki Beat
5. Break for Borneo – Complicated
6. Friend or Foe – Crazy Eye
7. The Dangxin Mofos – Geeky Boy
8. Rainbow Danger Club – Drown The Creatures
9. X is Y – Never Sever
10. Pairs – I Wanna Die in the Ocean
11. Dragon Pizza – Bomb Cola
12. Moon Tyrant – I am the Way
13. The Fever Machine – Heartbrokenbleedin’ Again
14. The Instigation – No Way Out
15. The Horde – Beijing Sucks
16. Sonnet – Perfect Son
17. The Song Dynasty – Slow
18. Top Floor Circus – 进来白相相 (Jin Lai Bai Xiang Xiang)
19. Baltic States – The North Sea
20. Little Punk – I’m Not in the Mood for Making a Song

Sadly, I’m not sure beijing bands have it in them to do anything like this… we had the AIDS CD which was the closest thing so far! So there you have it folks, head over to Bandcamp and download your sampler!

If you’re in Shanghai tonight (13th) or tomorrow (Jan 14th), make it to the launch parties for the CD.. Listings and times on The Shanghaiist

Share

Tags: , , , , ,

January 13, 2012 6

iPhone 4S Launch in Beijing – a Sea of People Hits Xidan Apple Store

By in Geek matter

Mass Consuption is here folks.. it’s alive and well in Beijing China and what better proof than these pictures?
What you’re looking at is the lines ahead of the iPhone 4S launch tomorrow at the Xidan Apple Store in Beijing.
THere are literally thousands of people waiting to get their hands on Apple’s latest baby as it makes its official mainland release.
this is just nuts….. look at the pictures!

picture from weibo user http://weibo.com/1457478803/y0tXSyH2K

Here is a picture from the Sanlitun Apple Store earlier today ( yes, there’s more than one in Beijing)

Keep in mind that we’re deep in the winter and temperatures are around -8 centigrade folks… that’s some dedication

It wasn’t that long ago that yours truly had a hard time getting his hands on an Apple branded laptop in Beijing.. now, we’re looking at official apple stores all over the city! My oh My, have things changed!

Share

Tags: ,

Older Posts