A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Instead of doing the reg­u­lar one-post-per-gig, I’m going to branch out and start a new method of updat­ing: bi-monthly round-ups of gigs I’ve been out to and maybe a break-out post for a par­tic­u­larly awe­some show. This will hope­fully alle­vi­ate the pres­sure on me to write any­thing huge, which will also mean I’ll actu­ally write things for this blog again. Any­way, with that house­keep­ing out of the way…

Chad Val­ley (Split Works 5th Anniver­sary) @ Temple: I turned up after it started, but I was instantly impressed. It’s the sort of indie elec­tronic that I love, and there is a beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful voice hid­ing behind Hugo Manuel’s unas­sum­ing exte­rior. I wish the set had been longer, but I love that there was space up the front to watch the show up close.

Shan­ren + Lidong @ Mao Livehouse: Shan­ren and Lidong are folk bands from two dif­fer­ent provinces (Yun­nan and Ningxia, respec­tively), and have com­pletely dif­fer­ent per­form­ing styles, but they are two of my favorite folk groups out there. Lidong opened to a recep­tive crowd, and Shan­ren played to a very enthu­si­as­tic one. Shan­ren had a guest rap­per, who intro­duced him­self as a “black Chi­nese”, and they had Sam, their laowai drum­mer, have a song all to him­self. It was a great show, though the rowdy French peo­ple made it a lit­tle awk­ward sometimes.

Duck Fight Goose @ D-22: This was an awe­some gig! I was really too tired to appre­ci­ate most of it, but I do remem­ber being parked up front just let­ting the music wash over me. They were absolutely great and I hope they get back to Bei­jing soon. For now, I have to be con­tent with the CD I got for free with the ticket.…

Win­ter Sol­stice @ Zajia Labs: Not specif­i­cally a gig, but this was a great night which should remind us all that there are always ran­dom awe­some things going on, you just have to keep your ear to the ground. Zajia Labs held a win­ter sol­stice dumpling-making event, where 150RMB bought you all you can eat, all you can make veg­e­tar­ian dumplings until their mas­sive quan­ti­ties ran out, and all you can drink mulled wine and beer. It was an amaz­ing night, rounded off with a lovely lit­tle folk jam ses­sion with Jurat and Xiao Budian from Shanren.

I am leav­ing out two other shows I went to because I barely felt as though I went at all: I was only there for Res­i­dence A and, as men­tioned, there really isn’t any­thing more I can say about how amaz­ing they are and how much I love them. Next up: I’ll write about the D-22 Decem­ber 30 gig, because it deserves a post of its own.

Where: D-22
When: Fri 30 Decem­ber, 22:00
How Much: 60RMB; 50RMB stu­dents
Who: The Gar, Snapline, AV Okubo (More Info)
Why: For me, the switch­ing of The Gar and Our­self Beside Me on the New Years and Dec 30 line­ups was a wel­come change. No offense to PK14 and Car­sick Cars, or D-22 for that mat­ter, but I would rather spend New Year’s some­where closer to home, and the only band I really wanted to see was The Gar. This way, I get to see them, as well as AV Okubo who I have never seen live before, and Snapline, who also barely ever play. It worked out per­fectly. But why is this show good by itself? It’s going to be amaz­ing. The Gar doesn’t play often (the last time was Octo­ber last year), but their sound is famil­iar — because most of the younger Maybe Mars bands learned from them. They do Mr Grace­less bet­ter than Mr Grace­less does. And Snapline (the 2/3 of Car­sick Cars that split late last year) has been kick­ing around for ages, but are hardly ever seen as well. But really, AV Okubo is a big steal, because these guys from Wuhan def­i­nitely get your toes tap­ping. They were the first indie band I saw here and thought it was pos­si­ble to get a dance floor hap­pen­ing. I’ve yet to see them, but their recorded stuff was enough to impress me. I’m sure they’ll be just as good live.

If you want to get down and dirty this New Year’s Eve (and not in a ware­house full of peo­ple), there are plenty of rock options out there. D-22 has the afore­men­tioned Our­self Beside Me, Car­sick Cars, and PK14, 10pm, 100/80RMB; Mao Live­house is host­ing Perdel’s debut album launch with Loco­mo­tive Gen­tle­men, 9PM, 90/70RMB; you can have a folky new year’s at Jiangjin­jiu Bar with Gangzi, 9:30PM, 30RMB; or if you’re a metal head, check out 13 Club’s Dim­fest Vol. 9 for the count­down, 8PM, 40RMB. To blow off your new year’s res­o­lu­tions the next day, check out Happy Avenue at Mako Live­house, 8PM, 60/50RMB; Ningxia Night at 2 Kole­gas, 10PM, 60RMB; or Life Journey’s wel­come to the new year, Good Night 2012, Mao Live­house, 8:30PM, 80RMB.

Where: D-22
When: Sat 17 Dec, 20:30
How Much: 50RMB; 40RMB pre-sale (with free album)
Who: Duck Fight Goose, Soviet Pop, Chui Wan (More Info)
Why: For the last time this year, a Shang­hai band is mak­ing their way up to the cap­i­tal to release their album. Duck Fight Goose has their new album, Sports, and is just giv­ing it away for free this time! Pro­vided you get out there, of course. They’re your aver­age psy­che­delic math-rock group, but that isn’t really say­ing much of any­thing. Their music is catchy, which isn’t always the case for math rock, and while I’m only say­ing that based on their ear­lier Flow, from what I’ve heard they’ve only got­ten bet­ter. They’re joined by Soviet Pop and Chui Wan, the lat­ter of which I have to say are def­i­nitely one of my favorites in the Bei­jing exper­i­men­tal scene, and that’s before Josh joined them on the drums. It should be a great night, and def­i­nitely worth the trip out to 5DK (that’s my short­hand for Wudaokou, it’s a thing okay?).

There’s some awe­some folk going on this Fri­day, too, with Hang­gai say­ing good­bye to 2011 at Dos Kole­gas from 9PM, 100RMB, and Moshi is host­ing per­sonal favorites Shan­ren and Li Dong at Mao Live­house, 8:30PM, 60/50RMB, or else there’s avant-garde WHAI at Jiangjin­jiu Bar, 9:30PM, 50/40RMB. For some­thing dif­fer­ent, check out swing/gypsy jazz troupe The Hot Club of Bei­jing at VA Bar also on Fri­day, 9:45PM, 30RMB. And punk rock­ers Demerit is back from their national tour, play­ing at Yugong Yis­han on Sat­ur­day 9:30PM. Finally, if hard rock is your thing, check out Twisted Machine for their DVD launch (finally) at Mao Live­house on Sun­day, 8:30PM, 100/80RMB.

To be per­fectly hon­est with you, I hadn’t lis­tened to Boys Climb­ing Ropes before I saw them. I’d caught them acci­den­tally at the Straw­berry Fes­ti­val in 2009, but wasn’t so impressed and so I never both­ered with them again. I didn’t let myself be swayed by that, though, and trusted my friends’ opin­ions and went along any­way. It was, as it turns out, the best deci­sion, because I was very impressed by what I saw, and this was when they were play­ing at 12:30 after four open­ing acts.

Yes you read that right, four open­ing acts. There were orig­i­nally only two, and I don’t know where Thru­outin and Cas­sette snuck in, but they did. It worked out okay, though. I only caught the end of Thruoutin’s set, but it was quite good, and a friend of mine told me he was doing some inter­est­ing things with a sitar.… Sec­ond up was X is Y, who I’d seen at D-22 this time last year, but I missed them being upstairs.

Third up was Res­i­dence A, and while I have said almost as much as I can say about them, I must note that this was an amaz­ing show for them. Their reg­u­lar bass player was back after six weeks off for a hand injury, and the entire band was in fine form. I’m not sure what it was — if it was any­thing at all — but it was clear that they were hav­ing a good night. They inter­acted with the crowd a lit­tle more, showed off a lit­tle more, per­formed a lit­tle more, and it all added up to prob­a­bly the best show of theirs I have been to.

Unfor­tu­nately, Cas­sette after them just felt lack­lus­tre and bor­ing in com­par­i­son. The female vocal­ist was clearly going for the Helen Feng effect, though instead of com­ing off as allur­ing and sexy as she played her synth, she just sort of looked like a pole dancer with a Nin­tendo con­troller. A friend noted that with her long black hair, she looked like some­thing out of a Japan­ese hor­ror film. In any case, that dis­tracted from the music so much I hon­estly don’t remem­ber what they sounded like, but I’m not sure that the first impres­sion will have me back to see them any time soon.

Finally, half an hour after mid­night, Boys Climb­ing Ropes took the stage to a small but ener­getic crowd who had all clearly been drink­ing since the first band. There was lots of crazy hip­ster danc­ing and drinks splash­ing around, but I can under­stand why. Boys Climb­ing Ropes were amaz­ing. The energy of Xiao Punk is com­pletely infec­tious, and their sound is down and dirty indie rock like we know and love it. Their lyrics are also great, and I think every­one in the crowd iden­ti­fied a lit­tle too much with “Grow Up” (“grow up grow up stop fuck­ing around” — sound famil­iar, any­one?), and I think I’ve found a new favorite to spin along­side Res­i­dence A. There’s some­thing inde­scrib­able about what hav­ing a prac­ticed West­ern hand in the music does, but you can hear it in every beat. I loved it, and I can’t wait until they’re back in Beijing.

For now, check out their Douban and enjoy the hell out of them.

The last time I saw Hedge­hog was at D-22, at an epic night of rev­elry in cel­e­bra­tion of expat duo Hot & Cold’s time in Bei­jing and to see them off. They played to a large enough crowd, though they (and Car­sick Cars) were meant to be a “secret act,” and it was a decent show. They even got quirky vio­lin­ist Yan Yulong to play with them. The time before that, I got to see them play a seri­ously secret set at Old What? Bar, which felt like I imag­ine their early days in the scene did: around fifty peo­ple crammed in a room the size of a someone’s liv­ing room, watch­ing an awe­some band play a bunch of songs.

This show was com­pletely dif­fer­ent. By the time I got there (admit­tedly late), Yugong Yis­han was entirely packed. Not quite Huun Huur Tu packed, but jam-packed at least three rows behind the sound stage, and there was no way you were get­ting down­stairs into the mosh. Hedge­hog had only just started (by my cal­cu­la­tions from the set list on the sound desk), and they played every­thing. It was almost a ret­ro­spec­tive, from their xylophone-brightness of their 2007 “Toy & 61 Fes­ti­val” (玩具和61儿童节), through their Blue Day­dream days, and all the way to this year’s Hon­eyed & Killed. It wasn’t a good­bye, of course, but it was very reflec­tive of them, which makes sense con­sid­er­ing the epic year they’ve had, and the year they have ahead of them.

The crowd was, nat­u­rally, com­pletely into it. For 80RMB per ticket, you really got the fans who love them, and it was clear with the amount of crowd surf­ing that went on. If there are going to be crowd surfers at a show, there’s usu­ally only one or two souls brave enough to go through with it, and they usu­ally only attempt it once. This time, there were at least five dif­fer­ent peo­ple crowd surf­ing, with as many as three peo­ple try­ing to be held up at once. It was a lit­tle insane, and of course nobody was sus­tained for very long, but every­one seemed to tol­er­ate it. Still, I felt like some­one should have told them that even the biggest crowds can’t hold more than two, and cer­tainly not the crowd at Yugong Yis­han. Any­way, every­one was hav­ing a great time and it made the band play even more ener­get­i­cally than usual. The bass player — new to Hedge­hog this year but instantly part of the fam­ily — was par­tic­u­larly into it, which was nice to see.

And finally, at the end of my time at the show (places to be, peo­ple to see, you know how it is), the adorable pint-sized drum-smasher Atom played us a song all on her lone­some. She was alone on stage with a key­board and her high-pitched voice, but unfor­tu­nately the song itself fairly unmem­o­rable — apart from her mic falling down a few times.

Over­all it was a great show. Though I was a big fan of their ear­lier work, I’m really dig­ging grown up Hedge­hog, and I can’t wait to hear what they’ve got for us next. Appar­ently there’s a new album in the works, to be released in the spring, and I’m excited to hear what they came back from the US.