March 2012 Archives

Video: Residence A live set

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Here is a video of the complete Residence A set from Yuyintang last weekend. The sound quality is good too. At the least, check out the first track. Enjoy.


 

Youtube: Duck Fight Goose at SXSW

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Duck Fight Goose manager/fifth member Brad Ferguson has been keeping a blog of the band's SXSW festival trip in Texas. Read it here.

Here is a video he posted of the band performing there. Youtube only right now so turn on your VPNs.


Quick note about Twitter

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TwitterFuckYoutoo
I just want to take a second here to mention Twitter. This blog is on Twitter.

@andybest72

Sure, it's my personal Twitter account but most of the stuff I put there is to push the posts or talk about related stuff. 

If you have an account, follow me and just retweet any posts I tweet there, please. It really helps, not just helps me but helps get the bands and the scene out there. The kinds of people who spread the word and have cache are also the kinds of people who carefully follow the social media and know how to use it. 

Thanks.

Residence A live @ Yuyintang (Jue Festival)

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resfly
Saturday night in Shanghai and the Jue Festival was in Yuyintang Livehouse for the show of the week headlined by Beijing's Residence A. Here was the full line up for the night.


I hadn't seen Boys Climbing Ropes for a while and they were excellent. The new material from Summer and Winter Warfare is now at the same level live as the older favorites were last year. I really liked Grow Up and they closed with Two Dogs. There was a new song in there too, one that sounded quite Punk. 

The Mushrooms back in Yuyintang on a Saturday night? This band get a lifetime pass from me for the summer of 2009. It's all in the blog have a look. But, as frontman Pupu said in a recent Timeout interview, the style has changed after working with their new label. They played well, sounded great and are definitely still Rock with a big R. But the raw energy and screamo stylings have been replaced with slick blues/pop rock and more polished vocals. 

Residence A blew me away right there in the first track. They were loud, clear and tight ... and they could perform too. The music was a faster paced version of the China scene noise-indie and post-punk that most defines it - suck it, haters. This band were worthy headliners and a clear cut above most other bands. But something quite odd happened. I suppose there were a few musical hints earlier on that I let pass ... by the end of the set, the material transformed into straight guitar pop that reminded me of Beijing band Gala. Weird. Most people there didn't seem to be bothered by it, probably because the night as a whole had been so good. 

That was the theme of the night, setting aside your personal tastes we had three bands who all sounded loud and clear and gave big performances: Splitworks can bring it with the local talent. 

Video: Hedgehog new album and tour

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This video is a track from Hedgehog's new album Sun Fun Gun called Heart On Fire (燃烧的心).

Hedgehog are a Beijing power trio who started playing catchy grunge tunes in 2005 and have now matured into their own sound and style. They broke through with a (still) endless run of great live performances and Sun Fun Gun will be their 5th studio album. 

Happy Idle Kid
Noise Hit World
Blue Daydreaming
Honeyed and Killed
Sun Fun Gun

There are tracks from all four of the previous albums here on their page, under the music tab.
And they will stop at Yuyintang on the tour - Friday April 13th




Video: Skip Skip Ben Ben @ Yuyintang

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The band have already put up a video on Youku from the Thursday night show. And it's a pretty good representation of the show, I feel. This is the song Kaze. It's a build up type affair so stick with it. Great China style noise indie.

And props to J.C. (the Shanghai based musician, not the fictional character) for finding out what guitar Ban Ban was playing. It was an Italia Mondial.



Video: Shanghai's Must Be Red

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Readers of the blog, or people here who know me, often hear me talk about the Shanghai metal scene. Most of the bands are younger or students but they have Chaos Mind's Sam Dust (Lao Gao) holding things together through his Playful Warrior promoter. The shows are fun and well attended and usually have a good mix of an experienced band to go with the newer bands.

So here's a video just posted by Shanghai band Must Be Red. They are playing at YYT with Chaos Mind on Saturday afternoon.


Jue Festival starts proper today

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jueposter247
If you have had your head stuck up your own asshole this year, it will come as a complete surprise to you that the Jue Festival kicks off in earnest today with Death Cab For Cutie at the Yunfeng Theatre.

Click on the flyer there for large.

Also, Shanghai 247 have a wonderful dedicated page to the festival.


And from that page you can download the PDF of the schedule. The Jue festival is a cross city event that lasts three weeks and includes many music, art and creative events at many different venues.

There is a mix of international and local talent, something for everyone. There are DJ parties by Love Bang including Bicep, there are rock/indie gigs with Death Cab, Boys Climbing Ropes, Residence A and many more. There are photography nights, comps, a vodka mixing event and even a hacker space workshop on how to build your own synths.

It goes on and on and I can't possibly cover it all in this short post. So follow the links, get the schedule and get out and do something which is not part of the work-bar-DVD cycle.

Skip Skip Ben Ben live @ YYT

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benbenskip
Thursday night at Yuyintang was part of the Splitworks' Jue Festival program and also the fifth installment of the ongoing series of shows hosted by Wooozy. The idea is to bring in Chinese acts from other cities who the Wooozy staff think are interesting. Tonight it was the latest project from Taipei musician Ban Ban (斑斑) who is now permanently based in Beijing.


Shanghai's Next Year's Love opened to a decent enough crowd and the high points of the set were the up-tempo tracks like I Know.

Skip Skip Ben Ben used to be a stripped down side project to Ban Ban's old band BOYZ&GIRL, who gave us one of the best shows YYT has seen. Now it's her main concern and they have a full, electric line up. They play dirty Beijing indie and they played loud. Ban Ban, an experienced player whose first band Freckles had a seven year run, is in command of her guitar and playing and she channeled her energy through it the whole set. 

If you go to the Douban page and scroll right down below the events, you can find live recording of Yeah Yeah Yeah, La'lasta and Parking from their most recent material. 

March madness (in music) - starting tomorrow

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tn in hk
Pictured: Torturing Nurse in Hong Kong.

This blog doesn't do previews and is not a guide, so to speak. However, I can't help but notice that the next three weeks, helped partially by the Jue Festival, are packed full of interesting shows. Some weekend nights have four happening at the same time.

It kicks off tomorrow with the most exciting Wednesday night in recent memory. You have two shows:

Duck Fight Goose @ YYT playing a free farewell show before they head to SXSW

And then it doesn't let up until Sunday 25th. There's Skipskip Benben on Thursday and Old Doll on Friday. Also on Friday, a Chinese Folk Roadshow @ Mao and New Vector @ Live Bar. So there's three choices in one night. 

Saturday has four: Chaos Mind, Steely Heart, Beatrice (student Cosplay band) and more Folk roadshow. And it goes on. This is the time to be paying attention ... to other blogs and mags with listings, and Douban.

Next Year's Love EP out

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nylEP
Full disclosure: I was directly involved in the making of this EP. I invite all readers to keep your eyes peeled for independent reviews. Mr Fossy and Pangbianr are in the running.

Next Year's Love are a Shanghai all-girl synth punk trio. After gaining many fans through a string of shows last year they have capped things off with this 4-track EP also titled Next Year's Love. It was organised by Qu Records and produced by Brad Ferguson.

The links:


Again, I'm biased but I think the band and Brad really managed to successfully combine all of their influences onto this EP. There's the synth punk, the retro pop, the girl rock and even the drone/discordant elements. And what's more, when me and Brad had to carry YYT's old mixer desk down the 0093 stairs it was possibly the most dangerous / funny-in-hindsight gear carrying adventure ever. 

OK. Go to one of the links and immediately listen to "I Know" as your gateway. It's my favorite. Enjoy.

Left Rock and Yangpu

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leftrock
Note: The hand drawn map done by the Leftrock people puts North on the left (regular East on a map) so you'd have to rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise to make it line up with any other map you may use.

Recently I went up to Dclub to see Bigong Bijing play. In the post I mentioned something of the Yangpu scene. So I thought I might do a quick recap for readers who are new or whatever.

Click on the images for larger. Yang Pu rough map below.

Yangpu is a district of Shanghai to the North-east of downtown / People's Square. Its commercial centre is called Wu Jiao Chang and is home to many big university campuses (Line 10 - Wujiaochang). It used to be a surreal affair with a stacked car sculpture in the middle, now it's all modernized. To the North of Wujiaochang is the New Jiangwan Town development which has trees, space and SMP - the largest skate park in the world (line 10 Xin Jiangwan Zhen).

The scene used to be centred there pre-SARS and has made a bit of a comeback lately. It has its very own 0093 type cheap rehearsal space where all the equipment is provided - Left Rock (靖宇东路280号 - 280 Jingyu Road East - Line 8 Middle Yanji Road). And, just across the park from Left Rock is Live Bar, the venue at the centre of Yangpu (国顺东路800号 - 800 Guoshun Road East). I used Wujiaochang Station last time I went there.

Then, down by where Live Bar used to be, way back when, you have Dclub (长阳路738号 - 738 Changyang Road - Line 4 Dalian Road). 696 Livehouse is across the border in Hong Kou district and sits next to the football stadium (东江湾路188号 - 188 East Jiang Wan Road - Line 3 Hongkou Football Stadium). 

- end report -


yangpu new map

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from March 2012 listed from newest to oldest.

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