A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Where: Mao Live­house
When: Thu 31 Dec, 8.30PM
How Much: 100RMB; 80RMB students/pre-sale
Who: The Life Jour­ney, Gar, Candy Mon­ster, Steely Heart, Omnipo­tent Youth Soci­ety (More Info)
Why: FINALLY! This time I will turn up on time to the gig and actu­ally catch The Life Jour­ney. If you didn’t read my review of their self-titled, check it out here. They are a bril­liant indie band, who have just put out a song with Oxfam (check it out on their Douban). Gar is a band I’ve gushed about before, hav­ing seen them at D-22 ear­lier this year and writ­ing up their debut album. Candy Mon­ster I have yet to see, but have always heard good things about. Steely Heart is, of course, a great band — I think I’ve seen them three times already — and they will rock the house. Omnipo­tent Youth Soci­ety is a band I don’t know any­thing about and, because I’m guess­ing they’ll be up first, I’ll prob­a­bly miss out on them any­way (in favor of some sus­te­nance). This is going to be a great gig.

There are, of course, plenty of other gigs going on this week — firsts and lasts abound! My run­ners up are: a bril­liant free gig at The Vil­lage with SUBS, New Pants, and RE-TROS, NYE 8PM; but if you have money and are busy on the ‘Eve, there’s Bearbabes and more Tai­wanese indie rock at Yugong Yis­han Jan 2 8PM 150RMB.

Review: Read it here

Boys and girls, I learned a les­son last Fri­day night. A few, actu­ally. Let me share them with you.

1. Appar­ently, not all music venues in Bei­jing start an hour after their listed time.

2. Star Live is one of those venues.

3. How­ever, Star Live ticket booth atten­dants have no qualms in tak­ing your Y100 for the night, 40 min­utes before the show is about to end.

So I rocked up to the venue just after ten, when open­ing acts are over at Mao and Dos Kole­gas hasn’t even woken up, only to find myself stuck watch­ing the encores. This was an expen­sive mis­take to make, my friends, made even worse by the sting of Y20 Tiger Beer.

How­ever, while I didn’t get to see The Life Jour­ney, who were the biggest draw card for me per­son­ally, I did get to see most of New Pants’ set. Well, it was sort of New Pants. Their sixth album, “GO EAST”, is actu­ally an album filled with remixes of their pre­vi­ous songs. After more than a decade in the busi­ness, New Pants deserves to have a Best Of album, and this one — from what I’ve heard, any­way — is a great way to mark the occa­sion. Get­ting fel­low musi­cians and pro­duc­ers to remix their songs, they’ve given a new spin to their old music, help­ing to pave the way for a new New Pants. Cel­e­brat­ing cul­tural exchange and the way China is slowly becom­ing rec­og­nized in music cir­cles across the globe, the MO of this event — and, indeed, their album and their direc­tion — is to help show­case the East’s ris­ing cul­tural rel­e­vancy both within Asia and overseas.

While I didn’t get to go for long enough to see any of this actu­ally dis­played, I enjoyed what I did see. Which I think, sadly, was just encores. By this point there was no dress­ing up, though the video screens at the back of the stage were still there, on a loop of Tian’an’men, Pyong Yang, the Bird’s Nest, in all their red and yel­low kitchy glory. What I did see, how­ever, was great. Their sound was bril­liant (the fact that Star Live is classy enough to start on time means they have sound engi­neers that are prob­a­bly qual­i­fied to run a sound board, unlike any­where else in this city), and their per­for­mance was tight. I espe­cially liked when they got their friends from other bands out to help with a song (Bye Bye Disco). Check out some great pho­tos of the gig over at the event’s Douban page.

And other than see­ing the direc­tor of the Live House doc­u­men­tary I saw the pre­vi­ous night at D-22, that was just about as excit­ing as my evening got for this par­tic­u­lar gig.

Next time, kids — remem­ber that Star Live starts on time.

Where: Star Live
When: Fri 18 Dec, 9.00PM
How Much: 100RMB; 80RMB pre-sale; 160RMB VIP (300RMB for two)
Who: New Pants, The Life Jour­ney, Sulumi, Dead J, Me:Mo (More Info)
Why: Not only are New Pants one of Beijing’s biggest exports, the rest of the lineup is entic­ing as well. I would not sug­gest a gig over 50RMB with­out con­sid­er­ing all the acts, and this is def­i­nitely worth it. Per­son­ally, as a fan of both New Pants and The Life Jour­ney since before I even arrived in China, I would eas­ily part ways with 50RMB for each of them. (For more about The Life Jour­ney, check my album review here.) Sulumi, Dead J, and Me:Mo are all fairly estab­lished bands; their sounds are more on the elec­tron­ica side of the spec­trum than the other groups, but hav­ing browsed around for a few stream­ing tracks (try songtaste.com for pre­views if Google Music fails), they sound pretty good.

That’s it for this week! The def­i­nite runner-up is not actu­ally entirely a music gig, but a doc­u­men­tary show­ing at D-22 on Thurs­day night (30RMB; 20RMB stu­dents). It’s a doc­u­men­tary about the phe­nom­e­non of the “live house” — a Japan­ese term for their par­tic­u­lar brand of dingy music venue, and an impor­tant part of the indie sub­cul­ture. The doco is backed up by Bei­jing bands the me guan me’s and Trash Cat.

Review: Read it here

Where: Old What? Bar
When: Fri 11 Dec, 9.30PM
How Much: 30RMB (includes one drink)
Who: Gar, Lazy Camels (More Info)
Why: If you haven’t already been out to see Gar, do it. I’ve rec­om­mended them as Gig of the Week pre­vi­ously, and it was no mis­take. They rocked D-22 that night, and I’m sure they’ll bring the same energy to a per­for­mance at Old What? Bar, one of the few indie rock venues I have not actu­ally been to yet. Last time, they played some new songs mixed in with their old ones (a review of their self-titled album is here), so I’ll be inter­ested to see what they play this time. Lazy Camels (recently renamed from, sim­ply, Camels) is a band who claims the Arc­tic Mon­keys as a musi­cal influ­ence. Now, as some­one who felt a lit­tle old when bands started cit­ing The Strokes as a musi­cal influ­ence, that was quite a deep cut, but hope­fully their music doesn’t make me feel old as well.

And that’s my pick! Runner-up gigs for this week are Tag Team Records’ Christ­mas Party, which will rock Dos Kole­gas with bands like Lonely China Day and RandomK(e) also on Fri­day (50RMB, 10PM), and “The More China, The More Fash­ion­able” (越中国 越时尚) at Mao on Sun­day night for some folk music with leg­ends of Jiangjin­jiu Shan­ren, Ma Tiao, and Chuanzi (50/40RMB at 9PM).