Joker | BeijingDaze

Jan
5thQuickslants: IZ returns, Book Swap, Olympic Rock, Simple Plan, Folks of the World and more

Welcome to 2012 darlings… let’s make sure it rocks! For this first edition of the quick slants, we find ourselves all over the spectrum with choices. Some of them definitely rocking! It might seem deceivingly underwhelming but there are some real gems hidden out there. Let’s kick it! Thursday Jan 5th IZ @ Temple As you might have noticed, Temple is making more and more noise out here! This week, they’re scoring huge points by getting IZ to make an rare appearance in Beijing. The band is fresh off their world tour in support of the album Kolengke that I’ve shortlisted as one of my favorite albums of 2011. Temple will be an interesting space for them to do their space/kazakh/improv rock. Potentially the best gig of the week. Friday Jan 6th Folks of the World @ 2 Kolegas: Appalachia, Ningxia and Mongolia come together on this night at the drive in in the forms of The Randy Abel Stable, Lidong and Ajinai…. I’ve been keeping an eye on this date for quite some time now and I’m definitely looking forward to it, mostly because I have not seen Ajinai in a while. Lidong are sure to light up the crowd with their folksy tunes (becoming ear-worms to some extent) and the Stable speaks to my inner redneck. Simple Plan @ Yugong Yishan: I’m not a big fan of pop-punk but I must admit these kids are intriguing: Been together for almost 15 years, getting a worldwide following and staying [...]
Jun
18thNanwu wins out at Mao Live’s Summersonic Competition

I was a bit of a crazy night yesterday at Mao Live with the Summersonic Finals… some really good bands and performances throughout the night and huge surprises. I’ll have a semi-full recap later on next week. The most important thing is that Nanwu, with 206 votes, took the crown and thus won the rights to represent China in Japan at the Summersonic festival. Here are the final results of the voting, which was weird to say the least… Voodoo Kungfu, which i expected to win, ended up dead last in the voting…. Army of Jade Kirin was freaking awesome!
Jun
16thSummersonic Competition at Mao under the radar

apologies, yours truly has been a little busy lately with grad school applications and the such and this one almost flew by! Mao Live has started holding the summersonic elimination rounds earlier this week to determine which bands will be sent over to Japan and bear the Zhongguo YaoGun (Chinese Rock) flag high and proud! Things kicked off Tuesday night with Joker, Nanwu, Twisted Machine amongst others competing in the first round. Tonight, thursday June 16th, see the next round of battles with some pretty darn good names on the bill starting at 8:30 • The Falling • Birdstriking • King Statue • DF & Skyscraper • Voodoo Kungfu • Strange July Friday night, June 17th, it all comes to a close with the final elimination round that will have, amongst others, one hell of rare rare rare appearance by Muma & Third Party. I have not seen Muma on any listing in over a year as they just retreated to deal with various businesses and write new songs. Muma is one of the most intense performers I’ve seen in the mainland, channeling a mix of Jim Morrisson meets Joe Cocker… definitely worth a stop folks!