Andy Best

Tianping Dian demo and a nuts weekend

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:59:07 +0800

Upcoming Shanghai band Tianping Dian are getting it together lately. I've been catching them at gigs for a while now and was really happy to see them rip out a great show in front of a decent crowd at YYT recently.

I first saw them here. Then I saw them again at Gua'er here. Finally they rocked the house at YYT.

Video of Tianping Dian at YYT: watch

So now I'm happy to see that Tianping Dian have now recorded a quality demo track and opened up a Neocha page. The song Wo Men (we) is their show stopper right now and I have to admit a soft spot for the style. Although I must admit, if you come to this track knowing they are called Candy Shop, you're in for a shock when you hear it.

Here is the demo at neocha and here are some pictures.

In other news, this is the so-called peak weekend of the peak month this year. Over at his City Weekend blog, Dan Shapiro has posted up a summary. Read it. I just want to add to that though. Those three shows are the three big shows. At the same time as New Pants there is an indie night at Yuyintang that features Nanjing's V-day and Hard Queen. There's always stuff going on in the 'old' music district at places like Live Bar and 021. So yeah, this is a super packed weekend with choices. Talking of big shows we have The Subs and the Indie Top showcase to come at Dream factory.

As an end note, there may be yet another addition to the hipster paradise. It's too early to make any map edits yet, but the bar on Fahuazhen Road to the east of Dingxi Road has been bought out and is going to put bands on. They have installed J-rockers Slappie Toy as their house band. And since there is a lot of confusion about this in the Shanghai mags I want to say: good venues put on original music. No one with half a brain would count a pub that puts on a cover band on Tuesdays as part of a scene. So lets wait and see.

Update: I just noticed that this is music scene post number 108 (hugely significant in Chinese numerology). Did Tianping Dian just get heaven's mandate to become the ruling band on the scene? You know, if you're into that sort of thing. Er mi tuo fo.

Indietop first compilation CD line up

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:42:13 +0800

Recently I have blogged a bit about a new Shanghai indie label called Indietop (part of Soma). A lot of this came courtesy of scene writer Lisa Movius.

The first mention is here and the recent preview of the upcoming showcase gig is here.

There are 13 bands signed to the label including blog favourites like Little Nature, Momo and Crazy Mushroom Brigade. Talking of the Mushrooms brings us to the reason for the post. Mushroom's frontman Pu Pu (仆仆) has just leaked (i.e. promoted) the track listing for the first release from the label on Douban.com.

So without further ado here it is (a lot of Chinese, sorry international readers):

试听曲目顺序：
　　001 蘑菇团-等待
　　002 小自然- Different world
　　003 钟茌-Chain of Desire
　　004 杜佳宣-我
　　005 MONOKINO（德国）- New kid
　　006 MOMO-小妖怪
　　007 王啸坤-菩提树下
　　008 苏丹-我们的爱情
　　009 LOTZ-老老欢喜侬
　　010 IGO-Super Virus
　　011 冷冻街-窃听机
　　012 十四行诗-stupid baby
　　013 33岛-King

I would strongly recommend going to the show and getting a CD too. The inside word is that the label boss needed a fair amount of persuading to sign the younger bands and we should send a message that it's a good decision by supporting and spreading the word. If the label keeps going, Shanghai bands can aim higher in the future.

Youtube channel top views and a Fool's Mountain

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:49:37 +0800

I'm a bit late on this, this month. As well as passing the 100 posts mark, the Youtube channel has passed 50 videos. I'll have to start this with the usual preface. For all those new to the blog, there is a Youtube channel full of clips of the bands.

Why not start with a visit - here.

Once a month I do a round up post on this. None of the vids have really taken off in the way that Youtube vids can. Obviously the rest of the world is blissfully unaware of the joys of being into obscure bands and the hipster currency it carries. I hold out hope though. The music shorts done by Danwei TV get several thousand views. This is probably down to Danwei's professional excellence and mass appeal ... curses. Schokora!

A video cross posted at the popular Shanghaiist site only saw it garner an extra 100 views. While that was a bit of a let down, it did push that video to the number one spot. So, let's have it then. Here are the top six:

1) Rogue Transmission live @ Dream Factory: 270 views watch
2) Self Party play the Miniless showcase at Yuyintang: 212 views watch

3) Bang Bang Tang live @ Yuyintang: 199 views watch

4) Boys Climbing Ropes live @ Dream factory: 185 views watch

5) Hard Queen live @ Yuyintang: 151 views watch

6) Modern Cheese live @ Yuyintang: 135 views watch

In other blog news. I don't always catch other blog posts on the scene at first but posts at sites with high traffic crop up on Google from time to time. Today I came across a new one at Fool's Mountain: Blogging for China. So before I start blathering on:

Read the original article here

The post is just letting the readers know that there's a music scene in China and introducing them to some indie bands such as Hedgehog, Cold Fairyland and ... err ... Faye Wong. Anyway, I have a bee in my bonnet about that blog so just read the article for yourselves. The rest of the blog is shot through with Victorian notions on race and country and might as well be called Blogging for Nationalism. Anyway, lots of people like that blog so don't listen to me.

Lu Chen and Xiao He live @ Yuyintang

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:20:45 +0800

If anything, Lu Chen, formerly of Top Floor Circus, and Xiao He, formerly of Glorious Pharmacy, are not predictable. Tonight was no exception.

Xiao He is touring his solo show which is a multi-discipline avant-garde show that he developed from his many musical and visual influences. Lu Chen has also been striking out on his own with a show that is largely based in dramatic/comedy performance as much as it is music. The previous Lu Chen show at Yuyintang had been a hilarious routine featuring a showdown between the Ol*mp*c mascots and Haibao, mascot of the upcoming W*r*d Exp*. Check out the write up and the video.

So, the poster for the show featured Astro Boy and talk was of another dramatic extravaganza. But like I said, these guys are a touch unpredictable.

Arriving at the show I was surprised to see Ben Hogue who had blogged about going to see 10 play at Logo Bar. It turned out they made a last minute appearance at YYT which I came into right in the last minute. The billed show got going straight away with a short film. I heard they made a short film especially for the show. What I didn't realise was it that it was an actual film. That is, they projected a 40 minute indie short film where Lu Chen played a blind man visiting Shanghai. It was almost painfully slow and detailed in a near neo-realist sense but clearly intended to be Absurd. Without any kind of introduction or context at all, the audience didn't really get it until over half way through when Lu Chen's character was strumming a guitar and chanting without skill but it came out like a Buddhist mantra prompting another seemingly detached character to take him to Jing'an Temple.

After this, Lu Chen and Xiao He separately played straight forward music sets of regular songs. Lu Chen sat with his guitar and was backed by drums and bass. During his first track he used a lot of samples and effects too. I got close to the front and saw that the bassist had a Midi set up beside him that he was operating via some kind of Monome knock off. It was a great set. Xiao He just sang with guitar and no other back up at all. It was perhaps the most sober performance the two have ever put on - but a relief of sorts as these guys are among the top talents in China and you rarely get to hear a solid set of the music itself.

Me and the wife bumped into Lu Chen about half way through the Xiao He set and he told us that indeed they were not making any joint show and that once Xiao He was done his acoustic set, that was it. I left a little before the end to eat. I then got bored waiting for my food and was going through my camera pics, deleting old ones. Joy of joys, I lost concentration and deleted the excellent video I got of Lu Chen and the sole clear photo too. My bad. All in all a great night and a great atmosphere at YYT which seems to attract a good turnout and a quality event every weekend these days. Great to see Jake Newby there too, as well as brief meets with Dan from The Rogue Transmission and Morgan from BCR.

Other people's Youtube: that Torturing Nurse show

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 07:06:57 +0800

Just two posts back I blogged about the "torturing Torturing Nurse" show at Live Bar and linked Ben Hogue's write up. The band members are bagged, tied to a table in a plastic bag and even stripped naked and taped to the mic stand. Yan Jun keeps this going until their contact mics are giving out a sound show to rival the most disturbing horror flick you've seen.

I swung by their Douban page and saw that they posted video footage of the show. Here's part two which is when the sound gets going. Welcome to the far end of the scale.

Lushui Shiyi CD release tour @ Yuyintang

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:58:09 +0800

Zhejiang based indie label Lushui Shiyi (Dew 11) are touring to promote their new CD which is a compilation featuring several of their artists. The style is somewhere between folk and experimental indie. Having been to the show and got the CD I will say it was more Notch and less Miniless.

Here is their official website.

And here is their Douban group.

So, after sick leave last week, I came to YYT on what seemed to be the least hyped/marketed night of this super November. There was a fair turnout. Shanghai's own Mogu Hong seemed to have brought in their own following too. They (she) had a track on the recent Neocha Netlabel release. Did you DL it? The three Dew 11 acts playing the showcase were:

Zhu Sha
Valley
Mogu Hong

On the CD, Zhu Sha and Mogu Hong have full polished tracks including percussion and backing music but for the gig they both did a one woman with acoustic guitar show. Zhu Sha went on first. I mentioned it was just Zhu Sha and her guitar. Let me modify that. It was Zhu Sha and a half broken shit guitar that also happened to sound like a damp-damaged over tightened banjo being abused inside a tin can. However, her song writing is pretty good and a couple of the tracks seemed to shine out no matter what the set up. The song Mr Darcy was well arranged and genuinely haunting. It also caused one excited member of the audience to blurt out that they too had a thing for Mr Darcy.

Next up was Hangzhou based Valley. They had a very modern experimental indie set up with the front man playing guitar and operating laptop. Their first track was just unbelievable and took me right back to watching Efterklang at Notch with Archie. They followed this with a Sonic Youth-esque up tempo track with purposefully dry vocals. The audience were really into it but the third track was to be their last one and was a more sparse traditional indie song. I got it on video.

Mogu Hong's Xiao Hong came on last and we got a second dressed down acoustic set of the night. She played a full set and had fans there. I would like to have seen a little bit more of the style on the CD, even it was just a lap top backing or whatever. I think I'm starting to appreciate the genre a bit more these days and Valley had some good moments. YYT brought in J-rock act Slappy Toy (Wanju Yuedui) to play out the night, it was a Friday night after all.

Ben Hogue, NOIShanghai and torture

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:18:20 +0800

When I was last at Yuyintang I finally got to meet Ben Hogue in person and have a chat. He was telling me about a gig in the noise scene where Torturing Nurse had a guest artist actually torture them, so to speak.

I have covered a NOIShanghai show before here. They do their own thing apart from the rest of the scene and have gotten up to their 20th show. I noticed today that Ben has covered the show in his new blog. Here's an excerpt.

I also caught Torturing Nurse's gig the week prior, quite an usual set for them. At this, their 20th NOIShanghai concert, sound artist Yan Jun 颜峻 (who was down from Beijing to play with me and Bruce Gremo in a performance of Christian Marclay's Screen Play, part of the Shanghai eArts Festival 2008 in Xujiahui Park) decided he was going to turn the tables by torturing Torturing Nurse (in his pajamas). Xu Cheng 徐程 was tied up in a bag with a microphone, Junky was tied to a table in a raincoat with a contact mic taped to his throat, and Jia Die 蛱蝶 was taped up to a microphone and chair. (And that's all she was wearing; as an unintended encore, we got to hear her improvised offstage vocalizations as the tape was removed from her more sensitive regions.)

You can read the full post here. Oh, those crazy noise scene people. But let's be honest, who can read that write up and not be at least a little curious to get to the next show?

More Barfly, pictures and chat

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:20:48 +0800

Another update on the New Pants thing: I decided to follow up this story by contacting Kenneth Tan of Shanghaiist for a comment. He declined to answer at all so it's snubs all round. Hooray.

End update

I'm all excited. My cold is clearing and the worst is behind me. This weekend - shows! Great. So, before normal service is resumed let's clean up some odds and ends.

I recently spotted a small-ish column in Enjoy Classifieds talking about the scene. Check it here. So, Barfly continued to have a look at the music scene this week too.

I'm glad he did. I don't like to be negative and Barfly had a very similar experience to me in a certain area, so I can quote him instead of posting it as my own.

What the f*ck am I on about? Check this out first: adventures in cabaret

So, Bar 288 (Melting Pot) has recently opened a new location right on Hengshan Lu in the main bar area. I have been avoiding this for the same reasons I laid out in the linked post. At the bottom of this post you can see how it turned out. Barfly went there last week and here's what he had to say about it.

Barfly was going to be about the Melting Pot's new Hengshan Lu location and it's live music potential. I had it completed, and then decided it could be summed up in one sentence - the new Melting Pot has little potential aside from the funny sensation you get when walking into a Chinese club laced with purple velvet walls and disco lights, with Irish fiddles playing in the background.

That about sums up what everyone is saying except for the odd stage placement in there. The column is joking about Chinese mainstream clubs. This is not a cultural thing. YYT and Live Bar don't seem to have any problems. I personally just think the owners are just more club than venue, that's all. Also, Bar 288 on Taikang Lu is a pretty cool place to hang out, they just don't have any idea how to put on a rock show beyond letting a band play inside the building.

So, talking of YYT. Gemnil, a performance manager there, is starting to dip into some band promotion and photo shoots. YYT owner Zhang Haisheng only officially manages one band, Yu Guo. But now, together with 0093 studios, they will start to get more into developing talent. With 0093 releasing their first EP for the band Joker and Indie Top recording for 13 acts at the moment we may be able to double the amount of true albums from Shanghai based new generation bands by New Year. So above and below are some shots of Hanging Garden (Kongzhong Huayuan). See a video of these mellow indie balladeers at Yuyintang here.

Update: A sample of Gemnil's Pinkberry shoot added below

"Handbags": more gossip updates (and 100 posts)

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:43:25 +0800

I have some follow up here on the New Pants - Abe Deyo story I broke after reading the Shanghaiist post which has since been taken down.

Confused? Here's the full story.

The story has done the rounds now and we have some new comment and quotes from both Jake Newby at SH Magazine and Archie Hamilton of Split Works at his China Music Radar blog.

China Music Radar is a professional blog that deals with 'the biz' end of the scene. Readers of my blog should be following it too as it fills in a massive area of the scene that I don't cover much at all. What's more, it's written by people who are full time pros in that field.

Here is Archie's post on the story: Handbags

Archie makes basically the same disclaimers that I did in the original post. That is: it's gossip, it's based on Abe's personal principals and not on direct quotes from the bands and also that ultimately you should judge the bands themselves based on the music. He also brings in some slang from the footy terraces and inspires the titles for both this post and Jake's article. I do want to stick by the fact that I like gossip and that these kinds of stories are par for the course in the world of music. Archie nails it, though, when he implies with his post that it seems mismatched to the size of the scene here.

Jake's article at SH manages to get a quote from one of the sources, but still not one of the bands.It's from S.T.D. the promoters of the upcoming New Pants show in Shanghai. Conflict of interest warning.

Reggie from STD (the promoter behind both shows) has said that The Gurge "were all delighted with their recent tour through China. They had an amazing experience, and as professional as both bands are, I would find it hard to believe that they would let this sort of thing come between them."

Good follow up from Jake but the quote doesn't really answer Abe's point. Abe didn't make any claim to representing the bands themselves rather he was talking about his principals and views on the matter. It seems obvious why it would be pulled from Shanghaiist but stories don't get directly posted there, they are stored and then scheduled after checking by the editor. It has been pulled from above following a complaint. Hence the intrigue. Anyway, it's a bit of a story for people like me to blog about, isn't it.

Jake then goes on, in his excellent post, to pick the Xiao He feat. Lu Chen of Top Floor Circus show. Great pick. These guys are great musicians, great performers and they're funny as f*ck. A warning though, I've recently chatted with some of the people involved in the upcoming show. It will be an expanded version of their recent Haibao drama act based, this time, around Astro Boy. Last time this meant large sections of drama/comedy with some token songs along the way. Perhaps we are going to get a third rendition of Punk Rockers Suck with Astro crushing our balls.

If you want a great night out with a real 'local' experience you should not miss this show. Lu Chen and Xiao He are gods in the scene. Well - that's 100 music scene posts for me and plenty more to come! I leave you with the video of Lu Chen's last show.

Xinhua hipster paradise: update

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:57:09 +0800

A while back I made a post highlighting why my Xinhua neigbourhood was the ultimate place for rock/indie hipsters to be. It coincided with my custom Google map of said area which you can check out via the sidebar.

Revisit the post here.

So, now we have a vital new addition. I was in conversation with someone about Kaixuan Lu. That road is basically below the path of the line 3 light rail system and used to be the route of the original Hangzhou to Shanghai railway in days gone by. It marks the western boundary of my area and is a bit of a non-event. Of course, Yuyintang is there but next to a station and park by a busy intersection. Anyway ...

It turns out that a large music shop just relocated there, one block south of YYT and just below the junction with Xinhua Road. So, today I decided to check it out. It's split level with guitars on the top deck and has a great selection of quality brands. It's all above board and you can use cards there too. In my excitement, I completely forgot to get the complete name and address of the store and the receipt shows only the accountancy firm name. Anyway, I have added it in to the custom map where you can see a marker showing the exact location.

I mentioned a receipt, right?

Joy of joys, I have upgraded to an even more metal guitar. It's so metal I should be referring to it as an axe now. Behold the new Jackson. It even has a reversed pointy headstock. I always wanted one of those. Swoon.

Indietop showcase coming to Dream Factory

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:01:34 +0800

Well, Dan Shapiro was not wrong when he said we were hitting peak season at the moment. The shows are stacking up at an alarming rate.

Lisa Movius just sent me a flyer/tip off relating to Soma Record's new stable of bands. Soma are a new indie label in Shanghai and you can read previous posts on them here and here.

So, the label has an all new brand now Indie Top and is having a large showcase to promote it's upcoming first releases. The materials say that they now represent thirteen acts and are committed to young/new talent.

The show is going down at Dream Factory on December 5th and there's even a discount for buying tickets in advance. You may need to do this as they have Wang Xiaokun playing and he's well known in the mainstream.

Here's the line-up in full:

Zhong Chi

Momo

Crazy Mushroom Brigade

Little Nature

Sonnet

Wang Xiaokun

Qing Ma Dao

I have videos at the channel for most of these. Have a look here, here, here and here. If you troll around the blog you can find dedicated posts and links for all of them too. Feed my web stats.

Pink Berries demo track at Neocha

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:55:56 +0800

I got to like the newish band Pink Berries lately after seeing them a bunch of times at Yuyintang. After talking to the band a little and joining their Douban group I have got some updates.

Firstly, the official way to write and spell the name is actually Pinkberry, although singer Xiao You joked it was a reflection of her English pronunciation.

So, also they have just finished a new demo track and a set of high quality promo pictures to go with it. They have taken the pics and the track Pinkberry 小不点 and opened up a Neocha account.

So check it out: Pinkberry at Neocha

You can learn all kinds of stuff when you actually bother to check the band's page, I have found. Did you know that 0093 Studios have a footy team? Joking aside, there's the language issue for me. I'm stuck between having learned it to a certain spoken level (no so hard) and then pressing on to get all the reading and vocab down (too lazy). Anyway, I'm here to blog the shows I go to really, not be one of those interpret the meaning of China people. Here's a story that has a point about that. Some people may be aware that I speak reasonable Cantonese, learned from friends back in the UK for fun. Well, it went on until one day I found myself able to hold conversations and understand people when they talked in a normal fashion.

So, around that time I was in a Chinese restaurant in Winchester, Charles' House, and suddenly I realised that I could now understand everything the staff were saying to each other. I got a chill down my spine in anticipation of the secret world I was about to enter. Here's what I heard:

Hey, got those noodles for table six?
Siu Mak, refill the tea, would you?

Do we have another menu at reception?

... ah, yes.

How to snub someone right proper

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:36:16 +0800

Update: One of the two posts that I linked below have been pulled by the editors this morning. Shanghaiist have even left a note about it 'pending further review'. This is quite funny from a site that regularly posts up all kinds of offensive trash such as inflammatory far-right nonsense and tabloid stories. I have to speculate that S.T.D. are not happy with someone recommending staying away from one of their shows.

But remember, kids, that's what gossip stories are all about: outrageous speculations.

End Update

Well, we haven't really had any good gossip for a while and it had to come at some point. Does that count as a preface?

Beijing punk rockers New Pants are on their way to Shanghai for a big show at the Dream Factory. It will be put on by S.T.D. and will really be a big show.

New Pants' Myspace page

So, here's the basic gist of the story. Shanghai promoter Abe Deyo, also the music editor at Shanghaiist, has just posted about New Pants and their perceived snub to Aussie band Regurgitator, who were just here.

What do you think: Regurgitator are an established and successful band in Australia who decided to help out New Pants by flying them to Oz and paying for them to do the whole tour in front of sell out audiences. So, one year later the Oz band come out to China hoping to team up with a local act and reach a local audience. New Pants say we're a bit busy, sorry, and decline to get involved.

It should be mentioned that I know nothing about it and I'm basically blogging Abe's two articles on the subject. He mentions that New Pants also bad mouthed The Queers, who Abe is bringing over and messed with another band's show he is involved in. This didn't only prompt him to break the Regurgitator story, it has messed with his cool. People here know that Abe is super-cool and professional. He is very careful not mess with other promoters or say anything negative about bands in general. A nerve appears to be hit this time though.

Here's a quote

Nov 22nd New Pants ... actually after the diss they laid on Regurgitator we don't recommend seeing these douchebags unless it's to throw rotten tomatoes at the f*ckers.

And here's the two articles: Sha-iist and City Weekend

There's a danger here of any press being good press for the show itself but Go Abe. This blog must recommend making your decision based on if you like New Pants' music or not but I love gossip too. Also, there hasn't been a promoter throw down for a while and when there was it was more like people getting mildly annoyed with each other. Where's Brad when you need him?

Other people's Youtube: 5 MinS @ Yuyintang

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:47:13 +0800

Update: The video here is 5 Minutes' support act 2 Oranges. They went on last it seems. You can still see a 5 Minutes official video in the previous post. Check that out too.

Following up on the post below. I'm on a sicky this week and didn't go to any shows. There was the metal night at YYT and the festival up at the SMP skatepark too. I opted to preview the 5 MinS show, to keep it fair to the non-punk community.

Jake Newby who writes for SH Magazine, has come through for the team. Not only did he interview 5 MinS singer/composer Joy Island for the magazine, he went to the show and got the footage. You can read the interview here. And now without further ado ... the vid.

5 Minutes come to Shanghai

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:03:30 +0800

Regular readers of the blog may notice I have a leaning towards punk and garage rock, especially local Shanghai acts. However, I like to think that I pitch in with other genres to keep the balance. Revisit these blog moments for the experimental/electro indie scene: Miniless Showcase, Notch Festival, Neocha Folk release, 33 Island and the Self Party Video.

So, I'm still sick and it's raining so I doubt I'll be able to report on tonight's YYT show, 5 Minutes. They are a Beijing based act who are an important part of the indie scene. Check out their page here (has five full tracks) and watch the video below. If you go to the show, let me know about it in the comments.