News to Ooze: MIDI Doubt, Hedgehog Back, Metal Bus, Voodoo Kungfu and Jue
Quite a bit of stuff been happening around Beijing lately, so here are some of the things that caught my attention.
Jue Rocks:
I made it to the collaboration between Jue Festival and the Bookworm at 2 Kolegas for the poetry slam with Omar Musa and a few others… let me tell you folks, I’ve never seen that type of audience at the Drive In… people were getting shushed!!! anyways, it was a fun good time. Ruby had a lot of positive things to say about Shanren’s show last Friday. They’ve got a couple of decent pop shows in the works as well as 2 excellent performances left: Hanggai at yugong yishan this friday and Abaji at Jianghu on Sunday. both should be worth a trip.
MIDI on Shaky grounds?
..Maybe No grounds would be a better wording… I don’t usually entertain rumors but there is a lot of noise surrounding this year’s MIDI… If you were planning on coming to Beijing during may festival just for it, I would hold off on those hotel reservations. That said, the MIDI staff has been out and about checking out bands all over town. Keep your ears open. anyways, the pingu festival might prove to be an interesting competition if we judge by the current list of performers.
Hedgehog back
one of Beijing’s favorite trios is back with their new album. They’ve been playing around China for a while now and just did the Shanghai leg this past weekend. Jake from kungfuology had positive things to say about the band and the new material. Looking forward to their Beijing stop.
Voodoo Kungfu has a new album
One of the most intense (and scariest) bands i know of, Voodoo Kungfu, is ready to unleash a new album, Dark World Music. I’ve heard some samples and it’s dark, melodic, hypnotic and weird.. basically your typical Voodoo Kungfu product which is not a bad thing IMHO. release scheduled for April 23rd at Tango Starlive. They’ve also updated their douban with old and new tunes including live versions from various MIDI festivals they played.
Bad Mamasan unleashed
Bad Mamasan is hitting the road to Tianjin this weekend along with Chunqiu and SAW… this is a nice dress rehersal for the album release scheduled for April 2 with those same bands. This is gonna be a wonderful Rolling Heavy Metal Party with a cool crew of people heading over from Beijing. We might have a few spots left if anyone wants to join so holler through the contact form and I’ll get back to you soon.
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Over at Jue, we won’t take credit for the Hanggai show at Yugong Yishan (they are actually playing in Shanghai the next day at the newly re-opened MAO as a part of the Jue Festival) but we DO have another great show on April 3 @ Tango 3rd Floor (formerly The Star Live) with World’s End Girlfriend, the project of Katsuhiko Maeda.
Thanks for the correction Nada. I got the Shanghai and Beijing shows a bit mixed up!