Zippo sponsored a whole series of events a few years back.
Tiger beer went out and organized their own battle of the bands.
Converse reached out to Da Bang/Bigger Bang last year.

Adidas made a splash by getting the extremely independent SUBS to be featured in their line of Adidas Originals. ( ht/ Neocha)
and now, just this week, I noticed Gap has picked Muma alongside starlett Juliet Simms

sure, I hate to see rock n roll’s image compromised and tainted with commercialism but when it’s done properly, I like it and think it fits.

There will be a full review of the show at some point but i can tell you I’m already looking forward to the next one.

From Weibo:

曾经的CD咖啡就要成为历史的上一页,这个承载了很多人音乐梦想的沃土将因政府改建被农展馆收回.但我们的音乐梦想还在延续新的CD BLUES也将很快与大家见面.2012年5月5日我们在被断电的情况下租了发电车,这一天也将成为这所老房子营业的最后一天.希望所有与老房子有情缘的朋友都能来参加这最后一次盛会.

Address and Directions at http://www.cdbluescafe.cn/

So if you have time tonight, stop by for one last drink and one last dance…
another one bites the dust

- The new location is superb… The rowing park in shunyi is amazing and I’d go back in a heartbeack.
- It takes about one hour and half to get there from downtown Beijing.. not really that much more time that before and the shuttles were well organized. It took us just as long with a Taxi and cost 150RMB
- Plenty of foods to go around at an average of 20 RMB per serving
- Tiger Beer at 10RMB/cup & Wine from Cheers at 20 RMB a huge cup. Wine was actually beyond decent.
- 3 Main Stages: Tang (biggest) Song (mid-level) and Qing (smallest) all had their crowds throughout the day. Even late at night when Yaksa and Cui Jian were playing, the small Qing Stage was hopping
- The sound on the Song Stage was the worst i’d heard in a while.. too muffled! Even bands like suffocated came out tamed.
- The Tang Stage had the biggest names of the day and it was not bad overall. They did a great job with Twisted Machine, Useless ID and La Souris Deglinguee. unfortunately, whomever was doing sound for Cui Jian sucked big time. We ended up leaving halfway through.
- Good turnout with probably a good 10,000 people inside the park.
- It was pretty much impossible to go online from the venue but u heard Strawberry had the same problems.. we won’t be making any over analysis of the thing.. by 8:00 pm, we could finally do things again.

I heard through the grapevine that Strawberry was plagued with the usual problems of logistics and lack of drinks so I’m really tempted to change gears and head to MIDI for day 3.. They’re just so much nicer people there!

Jiang Wei, the heart and soul of Guitar China, took to the web in defense of their company posting a detailed account of what happened and where things went wrong:

http://bbs.guitarchina.com/thread-1401648-1-1.html

Reading it, you just feel bad for both parties because it really seems like lack of trust did this: The band received approval for the ministry of culture for their gig, logistics were taken care off and it really just came down to one little fucked up detail to derail the train. They could have applied for the F–ing visa

I can see why Jiang Wei is giving up bringing in foreign bands…

(pic shamelessly ripped from http://www.zazzle.com/

Thursday April 26th

La Souris Deglinguee @ Yugong
Talk about a blast from the past. This band was a crowd favorite in France and I never thought i’d catch them in Beijing of all places. These French punks have been around since 1976 and they’re still rocking their ass off with some cool live shows. If you can’t catch them at MIDI, this is your chance to see them on their own. I expect a heavy French presence tonight.

Friday April 27th

Acoustic Brain Failure @ Jianghu:
Last time these cats got together to do this, i missed it. Thankfully, they recorded the whole gig and put it online as a proof that they got the chops and can play their instruments. I like what they do and I love how they’ve been doing it lately so I would expect Jianghu to be extremely packed for this one.

Nova Heart EP Release @Yugong
Somehow, other than Christmas 2009 where she tore 2K, Helen’s best shows have been at Yugong Yishan. I expect her to be in top form Friday night as she is set to release the first Nova Heart set of songs. I enjoyed the band’s last outing on the lead up to SXSW and i have no reason to think they can’t top that, especially after the months they have put in touring. Residence A, themselves fresh from a China tour, will be on opening duties. This is gonna be a dance screamer folks… Apparently, a director is involved so expect a visual feast as well.

BackYard Surgeons/SUBS @ 2Kolegas
The Backyard Surgeons are back for a second round of touring through China and they’ve brought along a documentary of their last China/SE Asia tour ‘No Anaesthetic’. The film will be followed by a show from the band themselves, along with The Flyx & SUBS in support. I’ve missed them on their last trip and i haven’t seen Flyx in a long time so quite curious there. SUBS played 2 weeks ago at 2K and gave one of their weakest performances ever.. I’m hoping they can make up for it this time.

Saturday April 28

Mamer @ 2Kolegas
part of his Beijing tour supporting 5 new albums, the khazakh master of darkness will descend upon the drive in and deliver dark industrial melodies… As my friend beagle-boss said it best: If a steel mill could sing, it would sound like a mamer/iZ show. I wrote enough about this one earlier this week.

Grand-master Flash @ Yugong Yishan
woa baby.. is this our 3rd rock n roll hall of fame inductee to hit Beijing in under 3 months? yes it is! This is IS hip hop and deserves massive amount of respect! I’m a bit fearful of how many people might show up for this one but in the end, it should be worth it. dancing, hopping, jumping, jiving with one of the best in the business, worldwide.
It’s grand-master Flash y’all… can you dig that? now can you dig that?

Sunday April 29th

Hide memorial @ Mao
Hide was one of the more influential guitar players to hit Japan, playing with some cool cats like X Japan and Saver Tiger, not to mention decent solo career. Caffe-in, Nao, Ever Lasting, and Ophelia will be paying tribute by covering some songs out of his catalog. If day 1 of the festivals didn’t kill you, this would be a cool event to check out some of the young guns.

Monday April 30th

Ningxia Super Night @ 2Kolegas
Buyi, Skarving. Li Dong, Nucleus, Zhao Laoda, Wu & the Side Effects and WHAI will be on hand for a long ass party at the drive in. It’s the perfect way to follow up a nice chilled day over at Ditan Folk Festival. All the Ningxia friends, all the Ningxia songs, some good old noodles and drunken rowdy music. That’s how we like things.

Acoustic fun @ Blue Stream:
If you’re feeling more mellow, band members from The On Fires, Backyard Surgeons and Arcane Saints will be on hand to play some impromptu songs in a chilled setting. Also a cool option if you’ve spent the day at Ditan and don’t want to bother with traffic.

Tuesday May 1

you get an award if you survived this whole 4 days with festivals and gigs… go home, sleep!!

let’s forget folks, there’s also 5 freaking music festivals happening at the same time

http://www.douban.com/event/16152298/

I dont know about the rest of Chaoyang Pop Week, but MMAX is a three-day， all domestic line up, including Queen Sea Big Shark， Miserable Faith, Carsick Cars, Hedgehog, Hanggai, Hao Yun, The Life Journey, New Pants, Pop duo Yu Quan and Hong Kong popstar Huang Yaoming.

Also comes equipped with an electronic stage, including usual suspects Elvis T, Sulumi and Terry Tu.

(pre-sale 80元　at gate 100元　three-day pass 220元)

The festival has managed to bring the reclusive Pu Shu out of hiding to headline, who unlike his “Back To Basic” concert in Worker’s Stadium in 2010, has thankfully put together a live band.　Pu Shu is revving up to release his long-awaited new album, his first in nearly 9 years.

Although 2007′s fest with Nine Inch Nails is now legendary, if anybody remembers Chaoyang Pop last year, this brand has been tanking． Now I’m just hoping the beer comes through. Day 2 with Pu Shu seems most promising, and you’re sure to be home by 10pm, but many of these guys you can catch while at one of the big boys.

UPDATE： This is a dry fest. no beer.

If tonight is half as good, I’ll be extatic…

Event Douban: http://www.douban.com/event/16197716/

So, the dates were unleashed today and looks like the good old Dong party is gonna stand toe to toe with the two big boys of music in Beijing for the may holiday! That is one hell of a ballsy move and it makes a lot of sense.. it might even hurt attendance on the other festivals ever so slightly:

- Ditan is family friendly with a an open air chilled athmosphere
- Ditan Park is more conveniently located than any of the other venues… those of us who tried getting to tongzhou many times before know about this.
- Bring your own booze/food: with the big two having all kinds of scrutiny and extra security/mafan, this might turn out to be a winner
- Good acts, foreign and Chinese alike

Seriously folks, this is gonna be a tough call this year… with MIDI still not getting their shit together, I like the alternatives more and more. Day one looks like a winner with Shan Ren, one of Jean-Sebastian‘s incarnations, Randy Able Stable, Xiao He and Dolan among others. Day 2 sees Lidong, Traveler, Buyi and Yerboli along with the likes of Nancy Brown.

Tickets remain cheap and affordable at 60rmb/pop

The National Copyright Administration published a preliminary amendment draft to revise China’s copyright laws on its official website on Mar 31. Posted to collect public opinion and constructive feedback, bloggers and music producers singled out Articles 46 and 48 for closer study.

According to Article 46, any record producer who acts pursuant to Article 48 shall have the right to make recordings of musical works owned by another, without needing authorization from the original owner, given that the content had been published for three months or longer.

Article 48 stipulates guidelines for individuals or corporations who use non-original content: contact the National Copyright Administration department under the State Council; specify the original author and source of material; and submit a usage fee to the copyright collective administration organizations as stipulated by the National Copyright Administration within one month of use. The copyright collective administration organizations will then transfer payment to relevant parties.

Article 46 has dropped a bomb on the music industry, and has generated negative feedback from famous artists such as Li Guangping, Gao Xiaosong and Wang Feng. They believe Article 46 will harm the interests of original music producers.

There are a couple of things to consider here:

- This is just a proposed draft. Nothing is official yet!
- Essentially, after 3 months, artists would lose control over their work… this is the part that most musicians i spoke to were pissed off about. They’re used to having covers of their songs but there were means to stop unfair use! Now, they legally have no right to say NO. So, if a brand wants to use your song for a commercial and you can’t agree on fees, they can hire someone to cover it and get away with it.
- The Usage Fee is another contentious point! How will original content creators get paid? and how much? Who would be held accountable?

I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this… I’m curious to see how it will unfold! I’m also quite surprised that the foreign media has not picked up on this yet. Usually, they have a field day with IPR related stuff.