Recently in shanghai music scene Category

A lot to get through tonight. Local King 3 went down at Mao - for free - and featured five bands:

Bomb Shelter

Bomb Shelter are an AC-DC cover band and went on last so I wasn't around for them, sorry guys.

So, free. Yes, the place was full and jumping. Great. Although everyone's patience was tested when the doors didn't open until 20 minutes after the first band was supposed to be playing.

First on was Pinkberry. I wrote about them at the recent Yuyintang show and said they were coming back to their best. They were better again tonight and the song 'Live in Live' is becoming their signature song. They sounded good from down front and Xiao You is performing well, although she was sick tonight.

Candy Shop came on with their usual energy and were well received. Unfortunately, their set was broken up. They had to run an on stage promotion for the drink you see in the flyer there. Basically, couples had to get on stage and play charades to win free drinks. Alas, it all came apart when they brought up a couple and a non-Chinese girl had to guess the word 'Ge Noh Mang' from her friend's mime. That's Shanghainese slang for the people who crowd round accidents and fights. So that's like asking me and Jake to take Lebron James and Kevin Garnett in 2 on 2 b-ball. It dragged on and poor Candy Shop's set suffered. They made a good come back with their track 'Wo Men'.

Sonnet were next. They had complex video intros to their songs and all kinds of bridges and gimmicks. They presented themselves like super stars and even did their latest single We all have a sorry yesterday acapella with all the members up front. They had the bassist back in the line up, which was good and to be fair, the crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves. Personally, I like Sonnet when they play tight snappy tunes with dance rock beats. They closed out with their old show closer, a cover of YMCA.

At that point I'd been keeping my eye on the crowd. At free gigs that feature bands who attract young locals you see a lot of new people. I felt they were having a good time, but were apprehensive as they maybe didn't know what the standard was or what it was supposed to be like.

And then BCR came on and told them with authority.

This is no disrespect to the other bands, I like them all, but ... from the first strike of the guitar, Boys Climbing Ropes owned that stage and filled up the venue with their sounds and presence. They got everyone's attention and were a true headlining act. They rocked the place. They were loud, fast and tight, everyone knows the songs and those who didn't were all impressed. Little Punk's vocals were properly mic-ed up and crystal clear, it made so much difference. It reminded me of the Pet Conspiracy gig in that here was a band who properly owned that larger space. 

Can we now have a BCR headlining show at Mao please? Properly promoted, full up and on before midnight, preferably.

Friday night at Yuyintang and an evening organised by newly formed label Zhu Lu He Feng. Here's the line up:

Yin

A mix of styles with the label being represented by Pinkberry and Sonnet. The label has been officially running for two months or thereabouts so it still has another twelve to get a CD out and beat it's nearest rivals. Unless you count the Miniless collective as a true label, that is. 

Yin opened the night. They are a student cover-band who play stuff like Greenday. After that was Manbanpai. They are the full line-up version of Hama. Hama is the singer from Second and this is her side project. They played well composed pop numbers with a folk/bluesy vein at a polite volume. They youngish local crowd especially liked the lead guitarist's soloing.

Next up were the more experienced acts from the label. Pinkberry turned it up a bit and ripped into their pop-punk set. It's pretty much the same set as their first run of shows but with backing from Yang Fu and Lezi from Sonnet. They had good energy and singer Xiao You regained some of her old form in the second half of the set. That left Sonnet to close the night. Sonnet play "post-pop" and pride themselves on being playful and clever. However, they have just lost their bass player and replaced him with samples tonight. With Yang Fu tied up with multiple duties they lost some of the movement and verve of the usual live show. 

Yuyintang seem to be struggling with their new sound desk at the moment and a feature of seven bands I saw in the past two days was muddy and overbearing bass. Let's hope they get it sorted in time for a huge run of amazing shows lined up for the next six weeks that includes Hedgehog and Reflector.

Now, why am I making a point of posting this? 

This is why. Watch this video of the last time they played Yuyintang. They tore the place up and it was rammed. Believe me, stick with the vid and after the one minute point you'll start to see the throng of people going nuts. People love 'em. Great track too.

Jake wrote up the Maybe Mars gig at Mao this weekend and we also shared some thoughts about the scene on the podcast. As far I was concerned the subjects were done for a while.

And then Zack wrote up the show at Layabozi and got everything going again in my mind.

After noticing/being annoyed by the same stuff as us, Zack makes a good point at the end about expectations:

So, on the pod we talked about the scene punching over it's weight. Where did the demand for a larger venue come from? What's the history. The history, that includes ventures such as 4Live, came to a point when a combination of independent promoters started to get regular shows going at the Dream Factory. This included Yuyintang and Splitworks, also people like Abe Deyo, Brad Ferguson and Frank Fen. 

They had just started to creep over the break even line despite many problems and challenges when this happened: 

So, they pulled out again three months later having fucked it all up decided they weren't satisfied with the deal. And then, barely eight weeks after that, SOMA announced they were teaming up with Japanese investors to open an even bigger venue in Shanghai - Mao. This was highly questionable. The progress made at the Dream Factory had still not answered the question of whether the scene could sustain a larger venue at this point, and in this political climate. Even that progress had been set back by the actions of SOMA taking it over then pulling out again.

Soma then came out with re-assuring statements. This would be a livehouse revolution for Shanghai. They would move in their studio and focus on scene development and long term planning. They were aware of the issues and history and wanted us to know that it was not simply a vanity project or an elaborate face-saving plot. But then, after the initial oversight from the partners left them to it, everything has been run on a shoestring and skeleton staff. 

Here's the thing: everyone, me included, wants the venue to succeed, that's why we go there and buy tickets. So why are we so worked up about the shortcomings, especially in the opening stages?

Exactly because we DO want it to succeed and all the signs are pointing towards failure. We have just over three short weeks before the six month point, which is usually a make or break point one way or another. Talk to anyone who worked on 4live: the venue is not big enough to survive on one sell-out show a month. Talk to anyone who worked on 4live again: how do neither-big-nor-small venues with one big event a month get by during the middling/average attendance days - the bar. 

Would anyone like to comment on the bar at Mao?

On the opening day, an extremely nice guy from Mao Beijing told me that they floated the place on investment for two years until numbers went up. Let's hope the same support will be on display here.

Having seen Guai Li at the third Maybe Mars Shanghai showcase on Saturday night, I was inspired to pop back to their Douban page. They don't seem to pay much attention to it but I was happy to see the recent addition of a high quality recorded track there.

It's great and represents the band well so go there and listen now

Guai Li's douban page - "gas"

In other news, Hedgehog are rolling back into town on the 18th supporting USA's The Thermals. That's at Yuyintang.

Were you a one time big fan of Bare Naked Ladies? Do you like indie rock that is funny and at the same time musically rewarding/infectious? Shanghai based rockers Stegosaurus? Are on the verge of finishing their first CD and bringing the genre back into style. Check out four demos at their page here.

Melodic death metal legends Fearless are still my favourite Shanghai metallers. They now have a label listed on their Douban page 17 studio so look out for additions to the two instrumental demos already there. Here's their new logo too.

OK, I'm done for now.

Anyway, a mate of mine just put some of his show pics up on Douban so I thought i'd repost a couple here. They are of Guai Li and Carsick Cars.

At the start of this I was quite happy to see a special article on Dingxi Road pop up on CNN Go's city page for Shanghai. Followers of the blog know all about the area for two reasons:

1) It runs down the middle of Shanghai's downtown music district. 

2) I'm always blabbing on about it.

See the sidebar for the F-via Ghetto page or check out these E-cities maps from my last post on it.

However, knowing it's the site of most gigs in town via places like Mao, Yuyintang Logo,  Anar and Sus2, I was a bit startled to see 'mediocre bands' in the title.

Wait, here's the article in question

There is a special section on Yuyintang from which the idea of Chinese bands not being very good comes from. Now if you had been to Yuyintang "a few times a month" for the past year, you probably would have seen some newer bands who were not up to scratch, sure. But you also would have seen some amazing shows by great bands. Readers of the blog will know, and have been to, legendary shows there by The Mushrooms, Cold Fairyland, Carsick Cars, Bigger Bang, TooKoo, Boys Climbing Ropes, 24 Hours, Ourselves Beside Me, Hedgehog, Chaos Mind, Six Shot, Loudspeaker, Sonnet, The Miniless Collective, Hard Queen ... I'm just throwing names out here. There are many more.

Now, sure, we all have our own opinions and tastes, but why focus on that YYT section and then write 'mediocre bands' in the article title - essentially writing off all Chinese bands as the cream of them pass through the F-visa Ghetto. 

Well, the editor often writes the titles and makes that decision in mainstream journalism. So perhaps the editor is just clueless about the music scene here? But seriously CNN WTF! 

But a local mate of mine codename Johnny Rocker sent me some photos which included this one. Ha. 

Enter an e-mail, from a newly arrived blog fan looking for noise gigs. I direct him to the Torturing Nurse page and the info for the next NoiShanghai meet. I check the page and think it would make a good post to show some of their highly entertaining live show gallery. 

Then I find the real gem. The vids there are mainly recent but right at the back is a classic 2008 gig featuring, in my mind, the classic line up when Jia Die gave them the extra visual/psychological dimension. It's the one with the hot wax SM and the primal screaming.

Really, never mind the obvious stuff like the candle lit SM/nudity (ruined mainly by the flash photographers who would blatantly wet their pants if they saw merely an ankle anyway) - the real high point of this performance is three or so minutes in when Junky smashes the guitar and they go into sustained primal screaming.

In a few hours we'll have the Year of the Tiger. Last night we went to the Yuyintang New Year show, that's the flyer, and here's what Jake wrote about it:

While there we found out that Top Floor Circus were supposed to play, but the man has extended their ban until ... the end of the Expo. Here's the latest of three posts on that story, which links the others:

Finally, the Year of the Tiger is a perfect metaphor for the whole situation with biodiversity and the environment. Culture is full of sayings and symbols featuring animals, especially animals like the Tiger and no one likes to overuse them more than leaders and nationalists. In reality though, animals are sh*t on and these people do next to nothing to halt the assault on the environment.

Tigers are 99% on to not be here for the next Year of the Tiger, there are less in the wild than in captivity: