Quickslants: Shanghai Invasion, 16min fame, Dong Chorus, Tyrannosaurus Spring & More

It’s Wednesday folks so time to start planning the weekend shenanigans. If you’re anything like me, this one will be tough! plenty of intriguing choices on offer all around Beijing and they’re all quite diverse. I’m actually torn on this because some of them might be gems in the waiting.. here’s looking at you Yugong on Thursday and 2 Kolegas Saturday!
Without further due, let’s dig in:

Wednesday March 21

Hot Club @ Modernista:
The usual offering of 1920s Django Reinhardt inspired and flavored Jazz in a lovely hutong setting. While description might be mundane, the music is everything but! These cats make their guitars scream, dance and weep all at once. Modernista has made their presence felt over the past few months in Beijing despite the cold weather. I expect things to get even better for them.

UnionBunny @ Temple:
Just for laughs and kicks, if J-pop / J-punk is your thing, you could do a lot worse than check out these girls at Temple. They can be fun good eye candy and the music is palatable, especially if you’re there with a few friends chilling. Last time i saw them play, I really felt like i was part of some Japanese Manga. Worth checking at least once!

Thursday March 22d

Dong Chorus/Wu Hongfei @ 2Kolegas
These cats are really making the rounds in Beijing (as mentioned yesterday) trying to raise awareness about the ethnic minority music. I’m digging what they’re doing and the promotion effort they’re putting through. Also, as a treat, you get Wu Hongfei‘s charming melodies along with Happy Avenue. I’ve been wanting to catch them for quite some time and this seems like the right opportunity. Thursday at 2K is intimate enough where i will enjoy the gig.

Nuruz @ Yugong Yishan
This one is extremely enticing folks… Celebrate the Persian new year with some cool new bands doing my kind of experimenting: Elephant Fresh (formerly Ashtray Lifeguards) evolved from Love’s Tourettes, and carry on their quest to meld divergent sounds. Askar has their own interesting mix of Xinjiang flavored sounds. 16 Min is a band I’m dying to see and haven’t had the chance yet. I discovered them a little while ago and they’re carving themselves a nice slice of Beijing’s music pie. Singer Sindy made an appearance alongside Canadian Indie-man Courtney Wing at Jianghu on sunday where she held her own. Could be a sleeper hit, this gig!

Friday March 23rd

Reloads & Death to Giants @ Hot Cat Club
This is another one of those sleeper hits where you might just hear something really mind-blowing. Reloads or RLDZ is a weird blues/funk/dirty Jazz band with one hell of an eclectic sound. The little I heard of them on their douban has grabbed my attention and I’d like to see how they compare live. Death to Giants starts the Jue induced Shanghai invasion: They’re the drum n bass bastard child of 2 Shanghai Mainstay bands.. In an interview with Shanghai 24/7, they described their sound as: ” chimpanzee face-fucking an elephant seal. Then, add distortion and play it in 7/8.”… I’m interested. This is actually my kind of experimental music!

Saturday March 24th

Tyrannosaurus Spring @ Mao
They keep coming up with these queer names for their special nights and this one should be extremely special: Army of Jade Kirin, SAW, Twisted Machine, Logic Control, A-Boys, Noble Man and Pinocchio. Yeah… 4 extremely good solid bands that could each headline a night at Mao and they’re all here together! AJK and SAW are still the young and upcoming superstars of this generation. A-Boys and Twisted Machine have delivered the goods for years. The other bands i don’t know well but i’d be interested in finding out. Whomever put together this night has good heavy taste.

Shanghai Night @ 2Kolegas:
The seeds for this baby were laid down months ago and it was supposed to be a joint cooperation between ‘daze and the gig guide… Tehn Alex and I got busy 🙁 Thankfully, the good guys from Jue picked it up and made it a reality so ladies and gentlemen, straight from Shanghai and outta space, Rainbow Danger Club and Friend or Foe will come to 2 Kolegas and show us what the fuss is all about. There’s been a good energy coming out of the city for a few months but it’s never translated into good audiences when they came up to the capital. These 2 bands, along with Fever Machine and Top Floor Circus, are the cream of the city for me. You get rock, indie, folk, funk all in one gig. SHOW UP and REPRESENT..

Sunday March 25th:

Devil Ensemble & Eatliz @Tango
I don’t know Devil Ensemble that well but Eatliz, hailing from Israel, has impressed me with their communication and how they reached out to promote themselves weeks ahead of the gig. This is gonna be more art rock so I’m hoping that the folks over at Tango will be able to pull off the right sounds and lights. This is another Jue Festival event, putting their tally at 3 for this week. I’m intrigued enough to show up and it seems like the show is cheap enough at rmb60. I’m not sure we can expect a huge turnout for this one and would have rather seen it at Yugong Yishan… did I just write that?

AS usual, there’s a whole bunch of other gigs all around town at all the venues so don’t take these quickslants as the only game in town. See you in one of the pits..