New Faces night @ Yuyintang (July 1st)

By
Andy Best
on July 2, 2009 12:31 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
newfaces poster
It's the first day of July and I see that in the U.K. people are already going into panic mode about the temperature going over 30 degrees. 

Well, we get closures and safety measures here too ... when it hits 40 :( I've always found it intriguing that during heat waves the official temp reading never quite gets over 39.8. Hmmnnn.

So, New Faces night. This is a midweek night with no cover charge where completely new and inexperienced bands are encouraged to play. The idea is to give them some experience and encourage them to join the scene proper. 

Tonight there were three bands playing:

K.E.
Subway
Pao (Cannon)

All three played fairly random sets of covers of varying quality. K.E. played pretty tight and their singer really went for it. She especially did well with the rap-rock nu-metal stuff. Pao seemed intent on showing off their fast guitar playing but were very under rehearsed. Subway played J-rock covers. 

The night was definitely worthwhile for the bands and is a good idea. However, I'm always disappointed when new bands play random covers. The size of the scene here, and the community feel, gives us all unique opportunities to write music, be creative and share. No levels or cliques or whatever, you can just do it. Talking to a few people in the venue I found that many members of the bands had not been down to YYT for the better bands' shows when it was busy too. 

Perhaps it means there is a whole group of bands who would be transformed by seeing a show like this and would then join the ranks and boost the scene proper.

Zhong Chi's web release Homeless

By
Andy Best
on June 29, 2009 10:37 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
homeless
Following hot on the heels of her entire first album, Zhong Chi has now web-released her new single through Douban and Street Voice.

You can hear it here:


It's about the plight of Polar Bears, which brings me onto why I like Zhong Chi. Zhong Chi's music is very much produced (by Soma's Lao Yao) and mainly electronic/ambient. I'm not into that at all. I'd go for Boys Climbing Ropes' Polar Bears. However, she sings about the plight of animals and the environment. Something people seem to be very much in denial about. 

There was even a recent seminar type thing, attended by all kinds of intelligent people who perceive themselves as liberal or caring, talking about how we can save the environment through the power of consumerism; a stark and brutal ideology where by the earth and its life are the playthings of the human elite. 

Just as I imagine many people appalled by animal cruelty are raving about the steak at 'M' is their next conversation. We may be mainly trapped in a global system where we can only struggle to make tiny choices. But embracing the destruction isn't going to help.

So there you have it. Listening to Zhong Chi makes you think a bit. And there's no harm in that.

Miniless showcase @ Yuyintang

By
Andy Best
on June 28, 2009 9:22 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Miniless 2009 showcase flyer
Update: oopps. Loud music and shouting in each other's ears. The band with the Beijing mishaps was in fact 8 Eye Spy not Muscle Snog. Same end result.

So, the Miniless Showcase. Before I get into this lets have the intro and the band. Han Han is an unassuming guy from Hefei City in Anhui province. Without ever having been in touch with a 'developed' music scene or been in live contact with any bands from said scenes, he has single handedly put together a DIY label of amazing experimental bands as well as fronting the flagship act, Lava Ox Sea.

The line up:

Self Party
8eyespy

And still before we get to the show. Han Han has been excited lately by the release of two CDs which he says are 'high quality' releases. Well, I have both those CDs. One is Fading Horizon and the other is the new one from Lava Ox Sea. And yes, both of them are high quality and fucking amazing listens. 

The LOS CD was recorded up in Nanjing and produced by Yang Haisong. It has been skillfully put together and mastered with the highest quality. I just can't stop listening to Vertigo right now. I'm listening to it as I write this, in fact. 

So, the show was ... why? ... an STD co-production. I expected it to be bursting but it wasn't. It was still a full YYT, just not sardined like the recent run of shows. I arrived in time to catch Boojii's set, which was short and tempered by some sound hitches at the start. I can't wait to get my hands on their new CD, but tonight wasn't a Boojii night. Not their fault, average sound in general let the night down a bit. Also, I missed the opening set by Duck Fight Goose, a kind of Miniless super-group. You'll have to check out Jake Newby for that, he tells me they were excellent.

The first full set I got to see was from Fading Horizon. They took a couple of songs to get going but things took off from Twice. FH are quite conventional for a China experimental act and at times the pumping bass and mid-range clanging guitars remind me of eighties indie bands. They must be aware of this though, and they decided to finish the set with a massive long repetitive instrumental complete with drum sticks bashing guitars and their female back up singer screaming away.  

Lava Ox Sea came on last. Han Han emerged with a paper bag over his head and his glasses on the outside. He led into the set with a gradually building echo drenched riff and I thought this as really going to kick off. Alas, the sound was just too muddy. The vocals were barely audible at times and the instruments had no separation too. Usually I don't mind or even notice but after you hear how unbelievable the CD is and the sheer quality of the tracks and sounds, anything less is a bit dissapointing. LOS have set high standards for themselves now.

On a final note, the Muscle Snog CD is not out yet and has suffered a further delay. Not going to tell the full story, sorry, but their Beijing adventure has come to a sour and abrupt end. Look for that to be salvaged on Miniless. Then by that time you'll have FH, LOS Boojii and Muscle Snog CDs on your shelf and Han Han will have brought indisputable ruling quality to the Shanghai scene. 

Monroe Stahr CD release live @ Yuyintang

By
Andy Best
on June 27, 2009 11:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
monroe cd rel party
Michael Jackson. Well. There seems to be two camps on this, if my Facebook is anything to go by. People dragging up all the jokes and people who are sad about it. I'm not a pop fan and don't have much to say.

Walked into YYT ... playing MJ's music. Realised that I find a large part of it intolerable. It's tough when you peak at age 11 though and the rest of your career is based on gimmicky videos and concepts ... to be fair.

So. Tonight was newish band Monroe Stahr's CD release gig. And supporting them was Dragon Pizza. Dragon Pizza got on the stage promptly and ripped into their usual manic set of metalcore. They are excellent performers and great musicians. The music goes even beyond the usual metalcore mix. You have melodic punk choruses, thrashy screamed breakdowns, ska sections and even punchy slap-bass with chanting and disco rock beats. All in the breadth of one song. They were good here but the sound wasn't quite up to the last show I saw.

Then up came Monroe Stahr with their catchy blend of rock and acoustic folk. The band have played a lot of shows recently and the first thing I noticed was that their act has developed a lot in that time. The first half went through the best tracks on the CD with the regular line up. Then singer Nicky Almasy dropped his guitar and they played some different tracks that got the audience dancing in a different way. Bassist Andres took off his shirt to reveal We Love You Michael written on his chest and the band played, among other things, a new reggae version of one of their songs with balls-out ragga vocal from guitarist Nathan Denny.

People who turned up for this show had a great time. Yuyintang have also made some changes in the past week. There is now a large central aircon unit in the middle of the ceiling in the main room. This came in response to complaints from last weekend's Joyside show. There are some new wall fans for ventilation too. It all works.

Jake Newby interviews Miniless Records

By
Andy Best
on June 24, 2009 4:28 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
los Not so long ago in a galaxy not very far away, I linked some of LOS's stuff on Neocha and mentioned the upcoming Miniless showcase at Yuyintang.


With the gig almost upon us, Jake Newby has done an amazing interview with label founder Han Han over at Shanghaiist.

The interview is long and in-depth and provides an excellent insight into a more DIY philosophy. The interview and the show are the perfect antidote to all that horrible ideology and jargon being thrown around at certain recent conferences (and cropping up mercilessly in my Facebook feeds).


And here's an excerpt:

There seems to be quite a commitment to the music and the artist side of things - is that more important than being a successful business?

Actually in today's society or music industry, the power of promotion are far beyond music itself, and I think every people with a healthy-normal brain should understand that. But, well, maybe we all had a failed-brain so we think, at least at this period of miniless, we'll focus more on music. And if the music could inspire the others and ourselves, that's a successful business to us.

Hell United in Shanghai

By
Andy Best
on June 24, 2009 2:10 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
hellu old flyer
Sometimes I blog about metal shows. There are a few metal bands in town but they are not a coherent group and cover many styles. However, the Hell United collective want to change all that.

Let me paraphrase from the Chinese language home page (thanks David).

Hell United is the union of three metal bands based in Shanghai / Southern China:


Their aim is to form a powerful union of metal bands and attract more fans and artists alike. Hell United have had two successful shows already, in Shanghai and Hangzhou. This led to their opportunity to open for Suidakra at Dream Factory. A third show will take place in Suzhou soon. The ultimate goal of Hell United is to be able to stage China's first true metal festival.

Here's an amazing gallery of their Hangzhou show.
Here's the flyer for the upcoming Suzhou Show.

I for one would love to see a fledgling metal festival held in Shanghai, even a smaller one featuring the Shanghai bands. This kind of commitment to a genre and culture you love is exactly what we need. So for all of you metal fans out there, here's something to sink your teeth into. 

Douban: Brain Failure

By
Andy Best
on June 23, 2009 6:08 PM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
brain failure cover
Regular readers will probably notice the drop out in posting lately. There's many reasons, but fear not ... i'm doing my best :(

Here's some good news for fans of Rancid style punk and ska. If you click into Beijing scene band Brain Failure's Douban page they have six quality tracks there now. And they all rock.


Also, if you click on the albums under the MP3 player, you'll see a lot of those are availble to listen to online.


For overseas (not in China) readers, you might be pleasantly surprised to find their excellent stuff on Amazon, including a joint CD with Boston's Big D and the Kid's Table.


Ah, memories. In front of me ... a picture's worth a thousand words and i've got three, wait a minute, err ... fucking Big D! Thanks Trisha, wherever you are (Boston) for sending me their demo back in college and changing my life. 

Pinkberry video shoot photos

By
Andy Best
on June 19, 2009 1:25 AM | | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)
Busted! 

Pinkberry have been recording music and making videos up at Soma recently. And when I was checking out some of the photos on Douban I spotted Shanghaiist music writer Jake Newby. That's him in the blue T-shirt.

Actually that sounds a bit different to the reality. I knew Jake was going to be there, in fact we were going to go together but I had la duzi. I didn't know the idea was to be actually in the video though. So ... anyway ... Pinkberry are not really on Soma's label so what's up with all this free studio time and development? Sonnet drummer and Soma employee Lezi tells me that he will start his own label to promote Sonnet, Pinkberry and 21G. It's all early days now but the resources are there for him to use.



jakeinPBvideo

Fearless live @ Yuyintang

By
Andy Best
on June 19, 2009 12:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
fearless maomao
Thursday night at YYT was Metal Night this week. It's not a regular thing, that was the name of the show. I went to see Fearless. Here was the full line up:

Orange
Fearless
Chaos Mind
Death River

From those bands, Chaos Mind are the most experienced and have a quality page up:


I arrived to catch the tail end of a last minute addition band. I know, adding bands to the bill at the last minute in Shanghai gigs ... surely not. Never the less, they were solid thrash metal and I was pleasantly surprised to see a good turn out of the metal faithful. Next up were Orange, who turned out to be a one-off Oasis cover band formed just for the gig cos it's was Dan Dan's (YYT staff) birthday. 

So. Finally the show got going proper. Fearless took the stage and singer/guitar virtuoso Mao Mao (Evilmao on Douban) led us off into an amazing set of fast, hard melodic death metal. There was an impressive first row of hardcore head bangers and when Fearless went into their barnstorming cover of Iron Maiden's The Trooper a proper metal slam and mosh broke out. Great sound, great gig. Fearless are much tighter than the last time I saw them and they are well loved by the metal crowd here. 


Alas, I had to leave after their set and couldn't stick around for heavyweights Chaos Mind and Death River.

Full disclosure: I spent ages 13-19 as a full blown metalhead with long hair and everything. I've seen Slayer live more than once. I'm a long term follower of the Yangpu university district metal scene. Death to false metal!

Zhong Chi's entire first album online

By
Andy Best
on June 17, 2009 8:03 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

zhong chi easyworldBefore Soma started their Indietop label and got into venue management they had Zhong Chi.

Sarah Zhong Chi is a protege of Soma head honcho Lao Yao and months before signing the new bands he wrote and produced her debut album Easyworld. Of course, they then were faced with the fact of there being no industry for the album to go into.

It is pop music that is inspired by ambient and trip-hop sounds with lyrics that focus on the environment. It's quite good, especially the title track. And now, it's available in its entirety on her Douban page - for listening, not downloading.

Check it out

Since forming Indietop, Soma have been promoting Zhong Chi again. When doing shows, she is backed by the rock trio Triple Smash. This band feature ex-Mushrooms guitarist Li Xing (Jerry Li) and David Chiang of Six Shot. This is a bit of a strange reversal for Soma as Lao Yao has taken most of their acts in a more commercial direction.

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