Archive for the ‘ Gig Guide News ’ Category
Sorry for the downtime last night everyone; everything seems to be back on track. My hosting service had two matched pair drives fail, which is super 1) annoying and 2) rare, but as you can see everything is fixed and it should never happen again.
But seriously, way to go dead on a Friday evening as everyone’s making their gig decisions…
I’m not sure how much this is being mentioned, but as I spent a large portion of this afternoon updating the gig guide, I have only just come across this. The Tiger Translate Battle of the Bands 2011. Yes, another battle of the bands. First there was GBOB, then there was that mini-BOB for someone to tag along to Summer Sonic, only yesterday I found out that Zippo’s hosting their own, and then this! It’s a little… overwhelming.
At any rate, you can sign up your band here — the cut-off is tomorrow, though. Or, if you’re just in it to see what’s going on, I’ve updated the gig guide with all of the shows, even though a few of them are off my radar. Headliners at this show include: Perdel, Pet Conspiracy, Twisted Machine, Hedgehog, Reflector, and XTX heading up the finals. Check it out over at the gig guide. There’ll be plenty of battling going on this month…
Tonight’s Papier Tigre show will be a solo headliner! Re-TROS’ Korean tour has been bumped up so they will not be at Yugong Yishan tonight as scheduled. Don’t worry, the Modern Sky starlets will be back soon. Check out the French post-rock trio on their own tonight for their third time in Beijing.
Thanks to thebeijinger.com for the heads up on this on Weibo.
Yes, you heard that right, I am celebrating the finishing of a monthly update… nearly two weeks into a month. Sorry for the late update this time around guys, but life has been and currently is a little bit insane. Hope everyone else makes it out of May alive! I’ve got reviews backed up but fingers crossed I get some time to do them this week. When I’m not dying from my day job.
Just letting everyone know that amongst a busy day job work week and my parents being here and May Festivals and a trip to Xi’an this evening, I have updated as much as I can for now but probably will not be able to get on top of everything until May 3 or thereabouts. Hope it’s not too inconvenient! Enjoy your festivals and I’ll catch you all on the flip side! (With a review in tow, hopefully…)
This morning on Weibo (my new favorite thing ever; check me out here), Multi Ego posted an image of the Strawberry Festival 2011 lineup, along with the days. The Strawberry Weibo reposted, and then later on in the morning it turned up on Douban. I managed to get my ass into gear and updated the few artists I needed to and completed the gig listing. Check them all out at the Beijing Gig Guide.
As for commentary, there is a distinct lack of Western acts on this lineup. In fact, the only Western act on the bill is signed to Modern Sky — Arms & Legs. There’s a Japanese pop punk group called Mix Market, and a few big name pop singers from Taiwan and Singapore, but that’s about it for the foreigners. Which is great, because their local lineup is really strong. Up from Shanghai, we will have controversial theatrical rockers Top Floor Circus will be here (check out lots more commentary at Andy Best’s blog), and the amazing Mushroom will be back. I got to see them last year at Mao Live and they were a hell of a lot of fun.
As for local Beijing Modern Sky groups, all the regulars will be there — Queen Sea Big Shark, Re-TROS, Hedgehog (as they all stand poised to take over the world), Bigger Bang, AV Okubo, Life Journey and more. Reflector will be there, as well as some other hard rock groups that I am not immediately familiar with. Rustic will be out there, too, between stops on their album launch national tour, which should be interesting to see on the big stage.
It should be a good one!
Last week, as Jon Stewart would put it, I caught the bubons and was bed-ridden all weekend. Which, yes, did mean I missed out on the spectacularness of last Friday night. But it also means I wasn’t able to update the site with Mao’s Japan Benefit show. It’s on TONIGHT at 7:30PM and has some great acts like Caffe-in, Joker, and one of the guys from Buyi Band and much much more. Check out more details here and get yourself out there! 80RMB isn’t much to donate to a worthy cause.
I do love updating for Chinese New Year…
Here are the break times for Beijing venues that I found:
Dos Kolegas: off all of February
Mao Livehouse: Jan 30 to Feb 10
Jianghu Bar: Jan 28 to Feb 17
D-22: Feb 1 to Feb 11 (but nothing posted until Feb 15)
Old What? Bar: Feb 1 to Feb 10
Yugong Yishan: Jan 30 to Feb 5
Star Live and Jiangjinjiu do not have any shows posted for February at all.
So with the new year comes some updates to the Beijing Gig Guide.
First, I’ve added genres to all artists. This is still in the editing phase, as I’m getting secondary and tertiary genres implemented soon, which will change everything all over again, but for now each artist has its primary genre. You are more than free to disagree — genres are a tricky thing — so send over any feedback you might have about individual artists.
The features that come with genres are: search by genre and venue pie charts. The genres are currently listed (a little awkwardly; we’re working on fixing the list) on the sidebar. Click on one to view all gigs by that genre, followed by all artists in that genre. Gigs with genres are calculated by the prevailing genre of artists performing at the gig (unless otherwise denoted by myself). The venue pie charts are also awesome: go to any venue page — here’s D-22 for example — and near the brief description at the top, there’s a little pie chart that shows the top six or so genres by percentage. Pretty nifty!
I’ve added a Beijing Gig Guide Gig of the Week newsletter signup page to the main page, and the sidebar of this blog. If you want to signup to get the Gig of the Week posts sent to your inbox, just head to the signup page. Pass around the link!
I’ve also added a brief “About” page to the site. Just a brief introduction to what the website is, who makes it, and how it’s updated.
If you have any feedback at all about the updates, please let me know! I’d love to hear back about whether it actually improves the user experience. I got a lot of inspiration from the Tokyo Gig Guide, which I stumbled across recently. Check it out if you’re heading across the East China Sea any time soon!
I know, I know… I’ll stop harping on about this soon. But if you didn’t catch me on the radio talking about my website, here it is embedded. Think of it as for posterity, not vanity. Oh, and if you ever see me at a gig, feel more than free to come over and say hi! I don’t bite, and I promise not to make you buy me a drink.
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