Sorry to start off the post with an insider muso joke but I have to put this somewhere. Last night at our blog party, Zack Smith said, "The wah-wah pedal is a gateway drug to jam-band-ism."
The picture you can see to the right is Chinese folk singer extraordinaire Wu Zhuo Ling (吴卓玲), also a member of A_Z
Listen to her latest tracks at her always active Douban page
Dan Shapiro's new band The Fever Machine also have a new demo out at their page. Check out their excellent brand of desert rock that reminds me of the current new wave of technical-meets-stoner-rock, like Them Crooked Vultures.
Suzhou based melodic death metal band Mo Xie (莫邪/Mo ye) have a new demo and photo gallery at their page. I saw these a while back and was blown away. Believe it or not, death metal is always popular with the university students here and you get to meet a whole different crowd at the shows.
Another feature of Douban is individual members of various bands who keep Douban pages of their own as a kind of notebook for their ideas. They are usually just full of rough demos recorded at home and various thoughts and pictures. One such page is 小宝大宝宝迪瑞尼亚 (Xiao bao, Da bao, Bao di, Reina) ... or more simply, Reina.
Go here and check out the bottom track, minimalist (really) pop track Biu Biu
Finally. Despite being officially defunct for over a year or more, underground pop sensation Gala have put up their old tracks at Douban. I saw them here. So why not revisit their classic track Young For You which was a viral hit with students nationwide. Go on, re-live a golden time when English language songs could be sung completely in the ... err ... reverse Chinese character romanized method. You know, like the way footballer's names are done on the TV.
It's a catchy track and was genuinely popular at the time.
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