BeijingDazeTales of Live Music From Beijing's Mostly Underground Rock Scene..

Mar
20thHedgehog, Unregenerate Blood, Fever Machine Music Videos, MIDI Trouble and Dong updates

It’s been one hell of a busy weekend with all the gigs from Jue, BLF and other gigs.. I’ll try and get to them later in the week. There were some gems especially the Steve MacKay and Black Cat Bone Gigs. There were also some good comments thrown around at the Jon Campbell talk that might get their own post later. In the meantime, some news and ramblings

MIDI Trouble
May is around the corner and there’s absolutely no updates coming out of the MIDI camp concerning a location or a lineup. The lineup is more disturbing because pretty much all the bands that matter have been signed to Modern Sky’s Strawberry. I’m sure they’ll pull a big coup last minute but still, I’m worried. Their Shanghai festival is confirmed though for end of April.

Dong Chorus Tours Beijing
Wu Hongfei and the Dong Chorus are pretty much on a mini tour of Beijing…how about that? Instead of playing a bunch of cities, they have decided to cover every major venue in town. Yugong and Mako have already happened, next up is 2 Kolegas Thursday March 22 and Mao Livehouse March 25th and Jianghu on March 29th.So if you thought you missed out like i did, do not despair. 3 More chances to catch them.
In case you don’t know about them: the Dong Chorus was chosen to be the Intangible Cultural Heritage of The World. It dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China, which has existed over 2500 years. It is the only polyphonic music in China using natural multi-voice to chorus in harmony

One of my chief complaints about bands is that they just never do any work for promotion… well, it’s slowly changing. Grated, most of them still need some budget but we’re starting to see about more DIY on it too. Here are some of the newest ones:

Fever Machine: Dance with Deviance
We’ve been bitching the band for a while over here about them never coming to Beijing but that’s about to change: They’ll be up here on May 1st playing Strawberry and we should expect them back in June for a yet-to-be-announced event. They’ve also just put out a new video for the song “Dance with Deviance. I’d really love to see these guys on the same bill as AIS and Devils at the Crossroads. Check out the video:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzY2NzQ4OTUy.html

Hedgehog: 燃烧的心 Heart On Fire

Hedgehog got a new album ready to be released.. I’ve grown to be a huge fan of this trio that i used to hate! These guys are productive, touring, keeping busy and generally improving as musicians which can’t be said for all the others around here. Their new record「Sun Fun Gun」 will be out on April 5th, 2012. In the meantime, they’re heading out again for a China tour before coming back to Yugong Yishan on June 16. See the video for Heart on Fire video:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzY4MDA3ODM2.html

Unregenerate Blood: I love this game
This band is pretty much one of the leaders of the hardcore movement in Beijing. I really love their intensity and their honesty. This video was filmed Feb 17th 2012 at Mao Live when they opened for New York’s Backtrack. It gives a good idea of the core scene in Beijing plus if you look hard enough, you might see yours truly in the middle of the mosh pit.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzU1NjM4MTIw.html