There were a lot of shows on over the weekend and a lot of stories to tell. Split's Transmit event was going on, 696 had their show shut down before it started (thanks Haibao) and there was a metal battle at YYT. There was more too.
However, I'm all excited about DIY band Pairs so I chose to go see them at Logo. They didn't disappoint, but Logo did. The whole point is that it's DIY, sure, but I used to play gigs with bands in pubs with our own stuff and also in our rehearsal hall and all that - we still had a mic that worked well enough to hear the vocals and a drum kit that didn't fall apart, ending the set after just four songs.
Anyway, they were good and I really hope they somehow kickstart a bunch of similar bands who just go for it and don't try to be polished genre acts.
If you want to get a proper idea of what I'm babbling about you have to check out a movie called If you want you can. I just watched it courtesy of Xiao Zhong from Pairs via Super Sophia. It's inspirational.
Now I'm going to go all Perez Hilton on you. The usually insufferable ego-fueled drunken douchebag behavior of people at Logo was offset nicely by the presence of PK14's Yang Haisong, who was down with Nevin from D22. They had come on over after the Transmit China show at Dream Factory to try and catch Pairs. I, of course, had to take the opportunity to harass poor Yang Haisong all night like a gushing fanboy.
Also special mention to Photon Fucking Torpedoes who ended up shouldering the entire night by himself.
Re: the sound.
Bit of that was my fault as the defacto sound guy for the night. The singer was running a mic into a crap guitar amp and then running that to the PA with another mic. We discovered with the next band that logo has one okay mic and two piece of shit mics, so i think we were using one of the piece of shit mics to amplify the vocals out of the guitar amp. so the vocals were pretty quiet over the main guitar amp and the drums. my fault... pah!
with the drums falling apart, i'd say they were going to fall apart anyways when you lightning bolt them to death, and the drummer seemed familiar with that and accounted for it pretty well i thought.
alas, i've never been a "sound guy" before and they went over really well, so i'd still check it off in the 'win' column.
to recap: bad sound guy -1; logo 0; pairs 1, for the win.
I agree it was a win overall and you were not to blame, having to basically do everything yourself all night long.
Hence the props at the end of the post :)
As for Pairs, they will always win, I think. Their style and attitude is perfect for an underground scene.
Also, i see your lightning bolt, raise you a fireball and smite you with a Power Word Kill.
Oh sh*t, Power Word Kill is a totally amazing name for a DIY/Garage band. I should have thought of that ages ago.
Morgan did an ace job I thought. The sound from behind the kit was nice, and the poor mic was me using my 50kuai one from Baoshan Lu through a guitar amp and not sound checking properly.
We were only ever going to play four songs, so the kit sliding away wasn't too much of a problem.
It was a cool show and the style means it doesn't matter so much, but there were several people, just regular party goers signalling to each other and at Morgan that they couldn't hear the words.
As a fan, I really wanted to hear "I spent my birthday with a bunch of c*nts". And watching that If you want you can DVD, I noticed a big feature of the scene was they all knew and appreciated the lyrics and made a special point about it.
Next time I moan, you should punish me with a groundhog set. Ha. ;)Oh my god, I explained the concept to Nevin and he laughed his a*s off. It's genius.
The usually insufferable ego-fueled drunken douchebag behavior of people at Logo...
Tell me about it. While we're lucky enough that the douchebag quotient at shows here in Beijing is usually very low (except for when Pet Conspiracy puts on one of their circus acts), Chengdu ska band the Trouble played D-22 last Friday and they somehow managed to attract an army drunken foreign douchebags from out of the backpacker undergrowth.
With Duke hats and LiveStrong bracelets.
They spent the night trying to get behind the bar, exiting and coming back in with big bottles of Tsingdao, acting condescending to the regular crowd and generally acting like, well, drunken college students.
The staff at D-22 have the patience of saints.
I tried interviewing one of them for kicks, but instead got a sweaty bearhug and a stream of unintelligible babble.
Look for an article on that experience soon, I guess. Gonzo-style.
But I am looking forward to seeing Pairs up here on Saturday. Thanks for the tip, Andy.
I saw Pairs last night (Fri, June 11) here in Beijing.
Amazing. I haven't seen such a brutally-explosive band issuing such acute microbursts of energy in a very long time.
"One seems crazy and the other seems... stoned," commented a smiling Chinese boy next to me.
"Yeah, that seems accurate," I thought.
I want Pairs to visit Beijing more often. I want them to be my morning alarm clock.
@andy,
hahaha the "lightning bolt" i was referring to in my earlier comment was the band lightning bolt -- not the dungeons and dragons spell or whatever.
Check this link (from my bag of holding):
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTAzODI5NzQ0.html
this is a better vid:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTAzODM0NjUy.html