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Oct
22ndTemple of Nomad bring their traveler’s tunes to BeijingBeijing is blessed with a great variety of musical offerings, you can get your fix of metal, folk, experimental, punk, reggae; anything you fancy. But it’s been awhile since I saw a show I could call ‘World Music’, so when BD mentioned Temple of Nomad in the Quickslants this week I was keen to check them out. I got to Gulou 121 a little late walking in 2 songs into the set to find a couple of long-haired laowai on stage playing to an entirely local crowd. The venue wasn’t packed, but those that were there, were quietly listening to the intricate guitar plucking and flute melodies without any of the normal annoying chatter I hear at small shows. Aussie Jack and Brit Ed do have the right to call themselves nomads, they’ve travelled through over 60 countries and you can hear remnants of their travels in their music. They’re currently dividing their year with 6 months each in India and Yunnan, and are touring around China for the second time. Their set included many of the songs from their newly recorded album, some instrumental compositions and others with vocal interpretation and storytelling. Both Jack and Ed have recorded solo albums as well and I would have liked to have seen them play some of those songs as well, especially when Jack mentioned he also plays didgeridoo. (from Temple of Nomad’s douban) The crowd was small, but quite a few bought CDs, had them autographed and got photo’s with the [...]
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Aug
3rdFestival’d out? No way! Long Live Rock in the Grasslands!There’s been a lot of talk about the over abundance of festivals in China this year. Jon Campbell and China Daily, both have interesting posts on this. I agree 4 festivals competing in one weekend in Beijing is just stupid, but this my year of seeing more of China, and taking advantage of festivals and shows outside the city is a great way to see a little more of this country. BD went to the West Lake Festival to see his beloved Concrete Blonde last month and last weekend’s In Music festival in Zhangbei was my perfect excuse to escape the oppressive heat in Beijing and chill out under the blue skies in Hebei. My at first eager friends were all put off by reports of last year’s mud fest, trash & transport problems and bailed on a three day camping trip, but I managed to find one metal-head buddy willing to go for one day, so we planned to make our way out on the direct bus put on by the festival on Sunday morning. We arrived at the long distance bus station 5 mins too late and watched the first bus pull out as we walked in, meaning we had to wait for enough people to arrive to fill the next bus. By the 2 hour mark there was a group of angry festival goers arguing loudly with the organizers to let us on the bus, finally they caved in and the bus took off at 12noon. We [...]
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Jul
13thJurat: Echoes of classic rock melded with the sounds of North-West ChinaIn a city of over 22 million people, I’m constantly surprised how small this city is. Or maybe that’s just the expat community, or maybe it’s even just the circles I move in? Anyway, I thought I’d head out and see something different on Sunday, a band whose name I’d heard a couple of times recently, but whose music I knew nothing about – Jurat, according to their douban a Uighur psychedelic rock band. Imagine my surprise when I walked into VA Bar to find I knew both the drummer and the bass player! I’m a big fan of psychedelic rock, so I was interested to hear it with a Xinjiang spin. One look at band’s leader and namesake, Jurat wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt and I knew I was in the right place. Jurat has been in Beijing playing different genres of music for around 10 years, (including playing with Kazakh musician Mamer who is due to release his new album tomorrow) and his current band shows that, bringing together a fusion of rock, blues, and folk. All the songs were sung in Uighur except for the last one in English and all were Jurat’s own compositions except for one traditional Uighur song which gets the rock treatment. For two of the songs he played a different guitar, which was tuned to sound like a traditional Uigher instrument, giving them a really original feel. Unfortunately due to the transient nature of Beijing, it’s hard to keep a band together, [...]
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Jun
15thTaking the Beijing Blues to America – Alan Paul talks about his book ‘Big in China’Not many laowai can claim to have become ‘Big in China’, the only person I can think of would be DaShan maybe? Well, Alan Paul can also claim that title, or at least he does in making that the name of his book about life in Beijing as a trailing spouse and ‘rock star’. I’ve only been in Beijing a little over 2 years myself, so I missed the phenomena that was the Woodie Alan band and have only heard stories about the good old days of the Beijing music scene, back in the times of the old Yugong Yishan and The River Bar. So a little bit of curiosity about City Weekend’s Beijing Band of the Year 2008, and a love of the band Alan refers to as starting his Beijing music career Sand, brought me to The Bookworm on a stormy Beijing night to see what all the fuss is about! Now, I haven’t read the book or even heard Woodie Alan’s music before, so I was coming into the talk completely without doing my homework! Normally before a show I little to do a little research, listen to douban, check out Rock in China wiki, get a feel for what I’m going to see. But in this case I wanted to appreciate this from fresh eyes and ears, the way someone from outside China would when reading the book, although living here and understanding the music scene does give me a little head start! Alan started off [...]
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Jun
15thWelcome to the City of Heartbreak & Horror – Take 2!BD and I both took the chance to get out of the city last weekend, but early morning flights didn’t stop us heading out to Friday night shows! While he was checking out AIS, Ghost Spardac & Candy Monster at the drive-in, I popped into the newly re-opened Yugong Yishan to see Daze Central favourites Rustic have a second go at launching their first album, City of Heartbreak and Horror. I got there a little late and missed most of the warm-up band Birdstriking, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve seen then a couple of times now and they’re just not my thing. You may call it experimental, I call it three guys each playing different songs and competing to see whose instrument is louder – with screaming over the top. I’d rather listen to donkey’s …. But I have to admit they’ve got better than last time I saw them, not great, but better. It was cool to see them joined by an electric violin for the last song – but it would have been nice if we actually could have heard the violin! Time for the main act, Rustic. These boys always put on a great show and a month touring China has improved their stagecraft no end. They’ve finally gone wireless, which means they can run around the stage without getting caught up in each other’s leads! The usual antics came out, playing between Ricky’s legs, swapping mics etc, but being wireless meant they could [...]
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Jun
13thS.A.M.E – bridging the gap between China and AustraliaBeijing has seen an influx of French and Canadian indie acts touring over the last year or so, now it’s the time for bands from downunder to get a chance to bring their music to China! S.A.M.E. (Sino Australian Music Exchange) made up of tenzenmen records and Chalk Horse Gallery both from Sydney have teamed up with Beijing based This Town Touring in an initiative to bridge the divide between these two very different musical scenes and give bands from both countries a chance to tour and experience each other’s music. Die! Die! Die! from New Zealand who played D22 just over a week ago, was the most recent act organized by S.A.M.E. who also brought The Vasco Era, one of my favourite Melbourne bands, East Brunswick All Girls Choir, who I caught at Jianghu last year and a few others as well. Check out this article by Dan Shapiro in CNNgo on what S.A.M.E. is up to. I think this is a great idea and can’t wait to see more Australian/Kiwi acts touring here! I’m also looking forward to letting my Aussie friends know when they can see some of our Chinese bands there. Since tenzenmen already have agreements with Maybe Mars to distribute their catalogue in Australia, I’m guessing most of the shows will be out at D22, so I may be heading out there a lot more this year. Your can find out more about S.A.M.E. and the people involved here: S.A.M.E. – http://s-a-m-e.tumblr.com/ tenzenmen records – [...]
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Jun
8thToo many shows, too little time – just another weekend in the ‘Jing!I was a little surprised when BD described last weekend as “underwhelming” in the Quickslants! From what I could see it was shaping up to be a great weekend with many shows I wanted to get to. Maybe he needed a weekend off, but I was making the most of what was on offer and here’s what I got up to over the long weekend. Die! Die! Die! @ D22 My second trip out to the Wu this year was for a punk band from my hometown, Dunedin. I’ve been away from home long enough not to have seen these guys play live before, but had heard the name and a check of their douban & myspace during the week confirmed they were worth the trip out north. A friend had pre-warned me their shows are infamous for using every inch of the venue and they definitely did that. First song started and lead singer Andrew was already climbing the speaker stack to play to the people on the balcony! Check out this video Alex from www.beijinggigguide.com got of the last song from where we were standing, just out of the moshpit. And the music? Loud distorted noise punk, very bass and drum heavy, and a lot rawer and heavier than their current record Form, which I had been listening to during the week. Randy Abel Stable @ Hot Cat The Randy Abel Stable is made up of regulars from the bluegrass jam sessions at Great Leap Brewing every second [...]
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Jun
8thKama Shows Us The LoveLast weekend’s Kama Love Festival almost slipped by under the radar, popping up on this and other blogs only in the last few days before it happened. My Canadian buddies were possibly the only ones getting excited about seeing Cowboys Junkies! Well, I’m always up for a day in the sun listening to music, so I decided to join them and check it out. First thing I can say was the organization was some of the best I’ve seen in China! The venue at the Olympic Stadiums was easy to get to, right outside Anzhenmen Subway exit on line 10. It took us only 30mins door to door and only Y2 to get there from Gulou, much better than the locations we dealt with earlier in the year for Midi, Pinggu and Strawberry! Arriving at the venue, there were no lines, minimum security checks and probably the hardest bit of the process was getting past all the scalpers around the gate. There was a lot of security guards inside the venue, but they mostly left the crowd to their own fun, sitting under trees or taking photos themselves. The only issue I noticed was at the end of day one when they tried to manage the amount of people in the Love Stage area and a few fans were getting angry about not being allowed in. The venue itself was a bit of a dust bowl, despite the extra turf the organizers had laid around the stages and there wasn’t [...]
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Apr
18thMezmerizing sounds from the southern Swamp: Guangzhou’s Zhaoze captivate at MaoOn Friday night BD and I were enjoying WuFei’s performance at the Ephemerals show when he made the comment that he’s still getting his head around the guqin, still learning how it sounds and understanding to expect from it. I had to agree with him. I’ve seen WuFei perform 3 times now, by herself, with Abigail Washburn and with Hanggai, each time I find myself amazed by the sounds and tones that she brings out of this instrument. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to catch Buyi at JiangJinJiu on ones of the rare occasions that Zhang Wei had his Guqin on stage. None of these shows could prepare me for what I experienced at Mao last night – it completely blew away anything I thought I knew about how this instrument could sound. Zhaoze (沼泽, The Swamp) are a 4 piece from Guangzhou, who have been performing together since 1993. I thought they said during the show it was only their second visit to Beijing – but I’ve since been corrected (yes, my Chinese is not great!) that they have ventured up to the Capital a few times for shows and also festivals including last year’s Midi and also Modern Sky where my buddy Froog happened to catch them and was very impressed. Rock in China Wiki describes their sound as ‘electronic and psychedelic, combined with progressive rock, post rock, and avant-garde electronic music to produce detail, touching, passionate, and boundless tension in the everlasting sadness.” But [...]
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Mar
7thBeautiful folk to end the weekend @ MaoWe love SUBS here at Daze Central, so when we heard Kang Mao has a new project in the works we were excited to hear what she was up to. I managed to pop into Beautiful Folk night at Mao on Sunday night for the debut of ‘So long and thanks for all the Fish‘ In true Mao fashion the show kicked off on time, so we missed the first couple of songs from indie chick Wu Yongfeng. It was a little bit of a slow start for the night, not many people in the house and most of them talking over her. She has a beautiful voice and was accompanied by a friend on guitar. If you like indie-pop check out her douban page. Platanus was up second, more indie pop/folk accompanied by acoustic guitar. I’m not an indie girl, so he wasn’t really doing anything for me, especially when he covered ‘Yesterday” … I was just waiting for ‘Hotel California’ to come next, but luckily he didn’t go there! So after two nice inoffensive indie-pop acts it was time for the band I’d come to see So Long and Thanks for All the Fish with Kang Mao and Wu Hao from SUBS and another guy, whose name I didn’t catch. Last time I saw Kang Mao perform was at the Mao Awards a couple of weeks ago and she was wearing leopard print bodysuit complete with hood. Not many people can pull off an outfit like that, but [...]
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