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Jan
15th65daysofstatic: intense euphoric electronica
“This is the last show of the tour, we’re going home tomorrow,” 65daysofstatic’s guitarist Joe Shrewsbury told the crowd at Yugong on Sunday night. But this wasn’t an excuse for the band to give anything less than their usual intense energetic live show. After a disappointing night in Shanghai with only 300 people and some sound issues, they seemed to want to end their Australia/Asia tour on a high. The band’s latest album ‘We Were Exploding Anyway‘ has seen them move even further away from the post rock tag they gained starting out as an instrumental band nearly 10 years ago. If you had to give their sound a name it would probably be something like instrumental-electro-dance, much more in the vein of The Prodigy or Pendulum, than Mogwai or Mono. ‘Piano Fights’, probably my favourite track from the new album, is really the only one that holds onto their post rock roots. There was no opening act, and looking at the stage set up you could see why, there was barely room for another band amongst all the instruments, keyboards, laptops, extra drums … another sign the band are focussing more on the electronic side of their music. Frank the roadie was on stage almost enough to be part of the band, constantly swapping guitars, checking amps etc, and even joined the band on guitar for one song. By the time they got to the middle of the set and 3 songs from the new album, ‘Crash Tactics’, ‘Dance, [...]
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Sep
23rdThe GAR return: new EP, new sound & old friends
I love The GAR. Let me just get that out there before I even start. I love them so much my entire Oct holiday is planned around leaving the day after their EP launch. BD and I were hoping to get a review up before the show, but due to both of us being crazy busy last week, we managed to listen to it, but not find the time to collect our thoughts and put them together in a review. So this is going to be a combined show/EP review, written in the hours between the show ending and me jumping on a plane for 2+ weeks offline in the west of China. Mr Graceless were on opening duties at Yugong Yishan last night. A band I first saw a couple of years ago as 3 young shy indie kids performing what seemed like covers of their favourite brit-rock bands. How far they’ve come in that time, if you haven’t heard their album, The Tree Ever Green, you should definitely give it a listen. The 3 guys I saw on stage last night seemed so much more mature and confident. Yes, I can still hear a little Blur influence in their songs, but they’ve worked hard to make their sound their own. The GAR opened their set with two new tracks 爱，终将把青春遗漏 Love will lost your love and 后撤 Train, which were posted on Maybe Mar’s soundcloud a couple of weeks ago, so I’d heard them before listening to the [...]
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Sep
18thNews to ooze: international post rock bands visiting this monthPost rock fans are in for a treat over the next couple of weeks with 3 very different international bands visiting Beijing from opposite ends of the world showing just how broad this genre of music can be. Silent Scenery from Malaysia are visiting as part of their first mainland China tour. Their music is more towards the indie end of post rock, a little more upbeat with some vocals. Their latest album 2011’s These Still Moments has been called a hybrid of Death Cab for Cutie & Thursday. Check out the tracks Festival & Twilight Pulse on douban: http://site.douban.com/silentscenery/ Silent Scenery Wednesday Sept. 19 (tomorrow) Temple Free! Childs from Mexico claim to create ‘electronic lullabies’. They’ve been compared to Sigur Ros and their music has a shoegazey, dreamy almost pop feel. But it’s not all electronic, they use live instrumentation and their performances are said to be very intense. Check out the tracks Yui & Rada on douban: http://site.douban.com/childs/ Childs Monday Oct. 1 Yugong Yishan RMB80 (advance) / RMB 120 (door) Caves of Steel from Norway are playing Splitworks Rabbit’s Foot festival in Shanghai, and trying to organize a trip up to Beijing to play for us too. They’re the heaviest of the three bands, they call themselves instrumental post rock/post metal, but their music also encompasses indie, electronica, and even some 70’s psychedelic influences. Check out the tracks Last Citizen of the USSR and Honey Trap on douban: http://site.douban.com/cavesofsteel/ Caves of Steel Oct 11-12 Date & venue tbc [...]
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May
31stLive Music Quickslants: Ciao bella, Happy Birthday, Farewell and Don’t grow up!With Daze Feast preparations well underway, and BD’s new baby, Cuju, due to open next week, things are little busy here at Daze HQ, but you can be sure that’s not going to stop us catching some tunes! Here’s a few of the shows that have caught our attention this weekend: Friday June 1 HitWeek China 2012 @ Tango 3rd Floor Italian acts La Fame di Camillia and Negrita are joined by local friends Shanren for night two of cross-cultural fun at Tango. The party kicks off Thursday night with Subsonica, La Fame di Camillia along with Zhou Yunshan & Ruins. Goodbye Sister Qin! @ Old What For anyone who’s ever set foot in Old What you’ll know the lovely boss lady Sister Qin is the one who keeps this little gem running,. Well she’s decided it’s time to say goodbye (temporarily we hope!), so all the regular bands are getting together in what promises to be one epic night to bid her farewell! The Age of Innocence @ Yugong Yishan Happy Children’s Day! For those of us eternal children, DUDE, DH & Hellcats, Residence A & Candy Monster will be rocking the house at Yugong tonight. DUDE are currently finishing up their latest album, and about to head out on a massive China tour, so I for one am looking forward to hearing lot’s of new songs from them! Saturday June 2 Book Swap & Board Games 4th Year Anniversary Our baby is all grown up folks.. 4 years [...]
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May
24thYugong Yishan: Still The King.. and more award for 2 Kolegas, Temple, The Stable, Hot Club and Residence Aa lot of happenings in town the last few week have kept me beyond busy with half a dozen unfinished reviews.. They’ll come out sooner or later! In the meantime, a few things have been happening: Yugong Yishan took home the award for Best Live music venue for both The Beijinger and City Weekend Awards. There’s not much that can be said other than Congratulations!! The past year, it’s been a bit better but I’ve also not gone there as much so I’ve had less chances to bitch about it. Still, they hosted Simple Plan, Grand Master Flash, Jorma and more whereas the other Beijing venues have struggled to get any big names that expats recognize. The win makes sense. 2 Kolegas continues to play second fiddle with both an editor’s award ( City Weekend) and an outstanding award ( Beijinger). I love the place and as they get to celebrate their 7th anniversary, I extend my thanks and best wishes to them. This year, they’ve upped the ante quite a bit with renovations, better planning, better promotion overall. They seem slightly more organized but just as fun and crazy as they ever were! See you over the weekend folks! Temple has arrived with a bang and is already making huge waves in Gulou… The place took home an outstanding mention at the Beijinger awards. The gang over there is putting all the venues on notice and forcing them to up their standards i hope. They got a good ear [...]
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Apr
2ndSound of the Xity: Chengdu’s Sound Toy at Yugong YishanWith all the shows lined up for the Qing Ming Holiday (most of which are under the Sound of the Xity 影响城市之声 banner) it would be quite easy to overlook a show because I’m not familiar with the band’s name. Luckily for me a friend happened to give me a heads up about Sound Toy 声音与玩具, a band he described as sounding ‘a little like older Zhaoze albums…” That was enough to peak my interest to check them out, after all Zhaoze (though mainly their most recent 2 albums) are one of my favourite Chinese bands. Sound Toy, based in Chengdu, have been on the scene since around 2001. They’ve been through various line up and instrument changes over the years fluctuating between 3 to 5 members. They released their one and only album in 2003 and from what I can tell this was their first show in Beijing since Strawberry 2009. I got to Yugong right on the scheduled start time of 9pm and edged my way through the surprisingly full venue to get as close to the front as possible. Just as I was getting up to the stage singer Qu Bo walked on to cheers from the crowd and started strumming his guitar, being joined mid-song by his bandmates. Their music is hard to classify, it’s been called britpop, which it’s really not. It ranges from post rock tracks like 不朽 to more prog rock on 奇迹 and a little pop on 伟大说谎者. There’s also a lot [...]
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Mar
8thSign your life away: The return of Amazing Insurance Salesmen (Part I!)It’s been around 8 months since I last saw AIS play, but the long awaited (for me at least!) reunion of last year’s China GBoB winning band finally happened last Saturday at Yugong Yishan, with their friends Bye, Bye Thanks for the Fish and Flaming Heat in support. Even Shanghai’s intriguing performance noise band Torturing Nurse playing a rare Beijing show in my hood couldn’t keep me away from this one! Bye Bye, Thanks for the Fish (or SUBS minus Carl) opened the night with their soft and subtle folk tunes. I’ve seen them quite a few times over the last year and really like this softer side which shows off Kang Mao’s beautiful voice. It’s tough not only as an opening act, but also a folk one at Yugong to make yourself heard over the chatter at the bar and I keep thinking these guys would be much better suited to a more intimate venue like Jianghu or JiangJinJiu. Flaming Heat, the new project from ex-Rustic bass player Ricky Sixx was up next. I haven’t seen these guys before, and 80’s rock is more BD’s scene than mine, but I have to say they are fun to watch! Ricky’s lost none of his Rustic stage antics and his new sidekick on guitar is happy to join in without stealing the limelight. Not sure what’s being left on drumkits in this city, but drummers seem to be the happiest guys around these days grinning and laughing away during shows and [...]
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Dec
15thWu Force: a magical mix of banjo, guzheng, trumpet and guitarIt was almost exactly 1 year ago to the day that I got my first taste of Wu Force at Capital M. With Abigail Washburn based in the US and WuFei here in the Jing, I’ve had to wait until now for them to get back together to get a second helping of their unique blend of East meets West. This show came about because Abigail has been on the road in China with her Silk Road tour along with her friend multi-instrumentalist Kai Welch. If you went to the last Wu Force show (or read BD’s review of it here) you’ll remember Abigail and Fei were joined on stage by a Pipa which added much needed depth to the combination of banjo & guzheng. This time round no pipa, but instead Kai added guitar, trumpet and piano to the mix and Fei had not only her guzheng, but also a guqin. The show started some good old Appalachian foot stomping from Abigail with provided the perfect percussion to accent the plucking of the guzheng. The set moved seamlessly from bluegrass infused tunes where the banjo lead the way into traditional Chinese songs with the guzheng in control. We learnt the best way to choose your guzheng is to stand it up and sing to it, which Fei demonstrated to us while Abigail tuned her banjo and Kai told jokes. Highlights of the night were the fun ‘Uighur Gaga’ and the silly ‘Da Yali’. They even got the crowd to [...]
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Nov
17thTwo Gallants face the curse of Yugong and come out shiningIs it so wrong to see the same band three times in 10 days? In my defense, the first show was to see them, the second to see two other bands and they just happened to be on the bill, and the third was to see an international act who they just happened to be opening for. Oh, and they are one of the better up & coming bands in Beijing … Yes, I think I’ve firmly sealed my spot at Residence A’s laowai super fan (although my gig buddy Alex is still challenging me!) But actually I went to Yugong on Wednesday for Two Gallants, it was just a bonus that Residence A were opening! We got there super early and were surprised to see a decent crowd out for a cold midweek show. Granted it was only RMB60 for a international act, which is pretty good these days, The Album Leaf, here a few weeks ago, were charging RMB200+! It was also a predominantly laowai crowd, which is great for Residence A to get more exposure. There’s not much more I can say about their set that I haven’t already said, except that I hope they’ll have their regular bass player back soon. Their friend who’s filling in is great, but it’s just not the same as the original line up. I started checking out Two Gallants’ music when I heard they were coming and through their 3 albums, they’ve already made me a big fan. With raspy [...]
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Nov
3rdTop Floor Circus: One night in BeijingSure, Beijing has the lion share of good musicians as far as the Chinese rock scene goes but other cities also have some pretty gifted acts. Shanghai based Top Floor Circus (顶楼马戏团 / dǐng lóu mǎxìtuán) is one of those! I caught them earlier this year at strawberry where they were one of the highlights of the day so when they announced the beijing leg of their tour, i made sure to triple mark it. Having SUBS opening for them on halloween weekend guaranteed it was going to be a fun evening… and it was! The show was on a saturday night competing to a bunch of other decent gigs as well as all the major halloween parties in the city but i guess the audiences didn’t not really crossover. Those that showed up at Yugong Yishan were definitely there for the Shanghai band. SUBS kickstarted things around 10 with all band members in costumes of sort, a little nod to the festivities going on elsewhere. Funny thing about these guys is that their Chinese name “sha bu si” literally means “killed but not dead” which is so befitting! They wasted no time getting the audience screaming along, no small feat IMHO as more than a few of them looked to be SUBS virgins who came along for the Shanghainese only. There’s isn’t much more i can say about these guys that i didn’t say tons of times already! They are fun, entertaining and just freaking powerful. Granted, they’re not [...]
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