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.

Just a few notes on a cou­ple of cool things that have come across my email lately, before I get to report­ing on my MIDI experience.

1) Shang­hai fun­time whiz-kids Pairs have writ­ten a non-exhaustive list: “Things we’ve learned from hang­ing out with rock­stars.” It’s a good read, though it’s prob­a­bly aimed more towards peo­ple IN bands (or dat­ing peo­ple in bands) rather than any­one else. Good advice for any­one get­ting into the scene, and it’s always good for fans to get a per­spec­tive from that elu­sive backstage.

2) Matthew Nei­der­hauser and Zhang Shouwang have put together a Domus Mix­tape for Bei­jing. Unsur­pris­ingly it’s dark and urban and includes almost exclu­sively Maybe Mars bands, but that doesn’t make it bad. In fact, it’s an awe­some playlist. If you can’t get to the Domus site, check it out on Sound­cloud.

3) Long-term Shang­hai res­i­dents Andrew Field and Jud Will­mont are on the cusp of releas­ing a doc­u­men­tary about the Chi­nese indie scene, this time largely fol­low­ing punk group SUBS. Check out some more info here, and keep your eyes peeled for info about screenings.