Results tagged “Top Floor Circus” from Jake Newby

UPDATE: Check out the comments where a couple of people in the know have made up for my ill-informed support act ramblings.

Remember how I wrote about the Xiao He show last weekend? That was fun wasn't it? Well anyway, if you bothered to read the post you'll know that it turned into a kind of impromptu Top Floor Circus show, complete with a new song. That new song was Shanghai Childhood and you can watch it right here. All eleven and a half minutes of it. Watch it now, you never know if/when it might get harmonised...

It's always a bit special when Xiao He comes to town and last night's gig up at 696 Livehouse was a bit more special than most. The man himself was on good form, but what made it truly memorable was the impromptu performance of some Top Floor Circus songs. I wrote earlier in the week that this wasn't going to be the show where Ding Ma would make a surprise return to playing live in the city. That was supposed to be another gig, but Lu Chen confirmed last night that it wouldn't be happening after all. 'Shanghai still doesn't welcome us,' he said before the gig, 'we're the Shanghai band who can't play in Shanghai.' Mei Er added that they were willing to play, but that venues were worried about getting in trouble with the authorities, before joking that they were going to start booking gigs around town just so that venues would pay them not to play. Despite such talk, a few hours later they ended up on stage playing a new Ding Ma song.

Zhi Wang, Lu Chen's other band, had opened the night. Their material is more experimental and involves the use of a Macbook and various computer-generated beats and effects. They've also added a new member following the departure of Ba Fang to Beijing. She's still on their forthcoming album however. They played a short set last night, with only four or five songs in total, although each song was admittedly around five minutes long.

Xiao He came on almost immediately afterwards. His shows are always unpredictable, but always entertaining. He started by playing a couple of his more well known songs, rather than out and out improvisation, which resulted in the crowd singing along to the choruses. the singalongs continued as he diverged into a medley of classic children's TV show theme tunes and other old favourites, before playing some less conventional material. He engaged the audience throughout, inviting their participation and trying out his few words of Shanghainese. At one point he made a few jokes about the Expo and welcomed everyone to the "696 pavilion". He soon invited Lu Chen to take the stage and "sing a Shanghai song."

As Xiao He took to the drums, Lu Chen asked for requests. Despite a few calls for it, he didn't play 'Shanghai Welcomes You', but did play a Top Floor Circus song. He then called on other members of the band to come up and join them. It wasn't a complete line-up, but four fifths of the band was enough for them to play a few Ding Ma tracks, including a brand new song. It was an unexpected but very welcome treat.

UPDATE: Hmm, seems like this won't be happening after all. Venues are understandably still a bit worried about attracting unwanted attention.

Last weekend saw a couple of local favourites playing gigs out of town. Naturally, The Mushrooms playing Beijing for the first time was a big one and it sounds as if it went down pretty well. Congratulations to the band and to Splitworks for getting them up there. Read about the reactions here.

UPDATE: They've just announced a date in Nanjing as well - seems like they're deciding to play everywhere else following the ban in Shanghai. Time to hop on a train...

When you play in Hangzhou of course. Or at least that seems to be the case with Top Floor Circus. If you haven't been paying attention, here's a quick catch up:

Top Floor Circus play Shanghai Welcomes You at 0093's CD release, with new, direct lyrics

Top Floor Circus get called in for a cup of tea with the authorities

Top Floor Circus' Christmas show gets cancelled

Shanghai Welcomes You and all traces of it are wiped from the interwebs

Top Floor Circus get handed a six month performance ban

But now the band have announced a gig in Hangzhou. They'll play Traveller's Bar on the 27th of this month, more details here. Of course, this doesn't take away from the travesty that is their performance ban in Shanghai for voicing dissent against the Expo, but at least they're allowed to play somewhere. I wonder if they'll play Shanghai Welcomes You...

So it's come to this. A second series.

Yup, we're back and because it's been a while, this pod's a special hour long one. Before you get too over-excited, have a quick squizz at what it's all about: we look back at the main story of the long, cold podcast-less weeks, review last weekend's gig action, talk a bit about ch-ch-changes with Hedgehog and then look forward to this weekend. Not only that, but there's two songs included. Yes indeed.

Here's your links then, click 'em while they're hot:

Since We've Been Gone
Top Floor Circus
Harmonisation
Those t-shirts
Minter on Expo

Last Weekend
Good Jive
Good Jive review
Rock Shanghai at YYT

Noise Hit World
Hedgehog's Douban
Hedgehog's changes
B-Side Lovers

Previews
Andy's agony (including that photo)
Melodic death metal night
RESO 10
P.S. The Maybe Mars showcase line-up has changed since we recorded this last night

Despite the hopes of some that 2010 could be a strong year for international music acts in Shanghai, it could be a disastrous one for the local scene. The Beijing Olympics effectively caused a shutdown of local gigs and the Expo is threatening to do the same - the difference being that Expo runs for six whole months. Mao has already been called in for a chat with the powers that be after they organised a Top Floor Circus show that saw the band voice dissent against Expo. They've since had a subsequent TFC gig banned. Yuyintang is now talking about closing down for a few months in 2010. The impact that the closure of these venues would have is enormous and is something to be deeply worried about.

UPDATE: More from Andy on the Expo crackdown here.

And another track to round off your Monday.

This time it's a new song from Top Floor Circus, called 我想为你唱一首顶楼马戏团的歌 (I Want to Sing a Top Floor Circus Song For You). Listen to, and download, it here. It's a comedy pop song referencing some of their other tracks and features vocals from the Curry Soap.

Today is also an important day for other reasons for Ding Ma and could be when we find out if their planned Christmas Day gig at MAO will be allowed to take place. If you haven't read Andy's post about the Expo yet, go and read it now.

Lu Chen's message yesterday was "don't worry, it'll be fine in a bit" but MAO have also been called in for a friendly chat with the powers that be and Yuyintang are already weighing up possible closure for part of Expo. The Olympics was bad enough, but this is an event that lasts six months remember.

UPDATE: According to Brad in the comments, about 300 people were at the ReTROS show. Not a bad turn out, but not good either - last time they were in town there was around twice that many. Given that there was a quality support act in the shape of Boojii as well, you've got to think that a turn out of 300 is disappointing. Of course, promoting events here has never been all that easy, but for this show it seemed particularly poor. 

I didn't make it to ReTROS and Boojii at Mao last night - I wasn't feeling too great. If anyone did, I'd be interested to know how it went so drop us a line in the comments. ReTROS always draw a big crowd, but the promotion for this show had been pretty dire. My feeling is that you can probably just about get away with it for ReTROS because they're one of those bands that people seek out the gigs for, but the fact that Shanghaiist didn't even include it in their music preview last week shows how little marketing had been done. If someone went, I'd be interested to know what the turn out was.

So yeah, I'm feeling a bit crappy, but I'm hoping to make it to tonight's Hollerado show at YYT. I don't usually spend much time on foreign bands on this blog, that's not the point, but I recommend checking this show out. I saw them at Midi back in May and, though I'd never heard of them at that point, I enjoyed their set. Their music is pretty easy to get into, but the thing that struck me about their performance was how genuinely excited they seemed to be playing China. The crowd could see it too and it made for a great atmosphere. They were one of the few Western bands to play that festival who didn't patronise the audience. The fact that they're back within the year shows how much they enjoyed themselves in China and you can read more about them and their love for the country over at Mr Shapiro's blog here.

While you're there, you might want to check out his piece on the year in Soma records and all of their era-defining achievements. That's here.

Dan writes that the label's lack of any releases has been due to a 'restructuring of priorities' and their concentration on opening Mao. And Shanghai's hot shot venue is the subject of an insightful piece over on the Radar. Go read it here. As well as an appraisal of the space, the article talks about how Mao and Soma have changed the game in Shanghai and how promoters who were bringing bands in before Mao opened, are now being cut out when the same bands come back to town. It's a very interesting read.

Meanwhile over at Layabozi, Zack has not only joined the ranks of The Mushrooms admirers, but has eloquently expounded his views on the recent photographers debate. Click here to read his thoughts.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, CNNGo and Shanghaiist have managed to arrive fashionably late to the Top Floor Circus anti-Expo party. I wrote last week about how the band had put a twist on their song Shanghai Welcomes You when they played the 0093 CD release and now, following a translation of the updated lyrics over on ChinaGeeks, both sites have posted the video and regurgitated the translation. Shanghaiist at least realises that it's a new take on what is now a fairly old Ding Ma song and drops a link to this here blog. Anyway, the kids are digging it apparently, sticking it up on their Kaixin wang pages and bbs fora etcetera. The video has been receiving a lot of hits, hopefully helping the song to become a real anthem by next May.

UPDATE: There's another version of 上海不欢迎你 embedded after the jump, Lu Chen being a prostitute here, and more videos from Ding Ma's Mao show here

The sound's a bit dodgy at times, but here's a video of Ding Ma doing 上海不欢迎你 from last night at Mao (note the 不). It also features an announcement from Comrade Mei Er at the start. Plus, if you look closely, there's some dude in the mosh wearing a tux. What's that about?

The curse of the podcast struck again with a disappointing turnout at Mao last night for the 0093/Rock Shanghai CD release. In fact, the curse stretched to the two podcasters as well - Andy was sick and I had to work, meaning I didn't get there until late. Actually the crowd wasn't too bad - it was the sort of audience that would have looked fine in YYT, but that looked poor in the much bigger Mao. Especially after Mono had had the place completely packed the night before.

So I got there pretty late. I'm not going to review the show properly, as I only really saw the one band, but there were a few friends of the blog who I know were there for most, if not all, of last night so feel free to add your own round-ups in the comments.

The one band I did catch and that I'd darted across town to make sure I saw, was Top Floor Circus. We talked a bit on the pod about how you're never quite sure what to expect from Top Floor CIrcus, but they were in full band mode last night and were on top form. It's been a while since I last saw them like that, but they played a great (and hilarious) set. Lu Chen performing air fellatio while acting as a prostitute during 进来白相相 is an image that will be burned into my mind for a while. They closed out with a reworked version of 上海欢迎你 that was given a more negative twist with a chorus of "Shanghai doesn't welcome you, we've got no culture and no renminbi".

After that, I saw the opening few moments of Firefighter, but I needed to head over to Swiss James' leaving thing so only saw a little bit. The rest of the crowd was leaving as well at that point. Someone who did stay on though was Pu Pu, lead singer of The Mushrooms and later, following a message from Lisa Movius, it became clear why. Apparently, Firefighter are a Mushrooms cover band. Lisa had mentioned this to me earlier in the night, but I thought she just meant they sounded a bit like them. Nope, according to Lisa they actually played covers of The Mushrooms' songs. Bizarre.

Anyway, there certainly wasn't 500 people there last night, which means they've still got some CDs left. If you didn't make it along to Mao, head over to 0093 and see if you can get your hands on a copy. 

It's been a while, but this show is finally coming around. You can hear us talk a bit about why it's significant on the podcast by clicking here. You can also read an interview with Jiang Shaoqing, one of the main men at 0093, right here. What I want to focus on here though, is the line-up changes that have taken place since I last looked at the event page.

Perhaps most significantly, Top Floor Circus are no longer the headliners. They're still playing and are still the act with the biggest draw, but they'll be going on second to last. So who is at the top of the bill now? Firefighter. Well, they're billed as the 嘉宾 (support band), but they're going on last. Not really sure why. I'll be honest, I don't really know who these guys are. According to the PR blurb, they're four boys from Shanghai University of Engineering Science. They also seem to have been involved in the early stages of the Pepsi Battle of the Bands, judging by this video. What are they doing going on after Ding Ma? Your guess is as good as mine.

Another line-up change is that extremo band Double Control Where are no longer on the bill. Candy Shop (Tian Pin Dian) are however, which is good news. They may well have been on the line-up for a while and I forgot, but it doesn't really matter - the important thing is that they're playing and that last time they hit Mao, they tore the place up.

Finally, the other addition is Second. As I mentioned on my previous post just now, the girls will be teaming up with Pinkberry again. Overall then, Saturday night at Mao looks something like this:

20:00-20:30 The return of Bang Bang Tang
20:45-21:15 Candy Shop
21:30-22:00 Pinkberry + Second (+ Pinkberry's music video premiere)
22:15-23:00 The always brilliant Top Floor Circus
23:15-00:00 Firefighter

Not bad. Remember: 50 kuai gets you in and a copy of the CD (though they're limited to 500, so be prompt) and this is a big night for the scene. Come on down and support it.

While we're still waiting patiently for the Shanghai Welcomes You MV (come on Mei Er!), the Top Floor Circus boys have released this video for the song Heaven, Here We Come. It's basically a string of clips of them larking about during their tour of the south with the song over the top and subtitles in case you don't understand a word Lu Chen is screaming. Check it out.

Swings and roundabouts. A couple of bands are making comebacks this month, while another local favourite are taking a break.

I mentioned last week that Hard Queen had pulled out of the Layabozi Culture Clash night at Yuyintang. They were also scheduled to appear at NeochaEDGE's Search for Creative City event the next day, but cancelled that too. So what's going on?

The band have had a few line up problems of late. First Zero, the bassist, quit and then his replacement broke his foot. It seems that following these issues Hard Queen will put things on hold for a bit. Sheena has said that they're "on a break" and won't be playing any gigs for a while. "At the moment I'm not sure when we'll perform again," she told me. It all sounds worryingly indefinite, but I sincerely hope they'll be back soon.

Sheena is a great songwriter and anyone who's seen Damen play in Hard Queen or her other bands (Boojii and Duck Fight Goose) knows what a quality musician she is. It'd be a real shame if this latest set back proves the end of the band. For now, Sheena is insisting it's just a break. Let's hope so.

Meanwhile, two other bands who have had a fair bit of coverage on this site are preparing to make comebacks at the end of this month. I wrote before about the Rock Shanghai/0093 compilation CD finally seeing the light of day at MAO on the 28th and the line-up is a really strong one. Top Floor Circus are heading up an all star line up of local acts that also features Tian Pin Dian (Candy Shop). But the night will also be notable for the return of two scene favourites - Bang Bang Tang and Pinkberry.

When Bang Bang Tang were filming their music video I was trying to get Xiao Bai to tell me when they'd be coming back, but at the time all she would say was after the national holiday in October. The Rock Shanghai CD release party at MAO has now been confirmed as their first live performance in months and they're currently rehearsing hard to make sure they come back with a, err, bang.

Pinkberry have had a number of line up changes recently. Toni and Xiao You - the couple who are the major force behind the band - are determined to continue however, and they will also perform at the CD release show with a new line-up.

All in all, that makes the CD release a huge night. Maybe someone should do a call to arms...

Speaking of websites promoting events, the 0093 compilation CD release will be held under the banner of BBS forum Rock Shanghai. You can read about the CD itself here and the night should feature several (if not all) of the bands on the record. Top Floor Circus, Pinkberry and Bang Bang Tang are all confirmed at least, which makes it a great line-up already. The gig will be taking place at MAO, not at Yuyintang as I stated previously, on November 28th.

The week before, on November 20th, MAO will be holding their opening party. I know, I know, they're already open, but that was just their soft opening period, as is often the way here in China. They're now ready to harden up, as it were, and that night will feature Jason Falkner, The Mushrooms, BIZ and, interestingly, a return for Crystal Butterfly.

Crystal Butterfly, who have also just set up a Douban page, are part of the older generation of bands who were formed in the late '90s. They emerged following the split of Lunar Eclipse, other members of whom went on to form The Honeys (playing tomorrow with Yuguo at YYT incidentally). Crystal Butterfly are fronted by Pang Pang - one of the main guys behind Soma and consequently MAO itself.

Since 2005, when they released their Magical Mystery Tour album, the band's appearances have been a bit sporadic (they've had a bunch of trouble with their former record company too) but I imagine being in a band and seeing what the MAO stage is capable of is a hard mix to ignore for Pang Pang. Maybe this is the start of a comeback?

Finally, the gun-toting Dan Shapiro has started doing regular previews of forthcoming gigs over on CW, giving you a more in-depth overview of where to spend your weekend, but while I'm mentioning some upcoming shows, here's a few others I'm looking forward to in the next couple of months:

Oct 31 - 24 Hours release their new album at YYT
Nov 6 - Pet Conspiracy (craziness from the capital) at MAO
Nov 7 - Hanggai (Mongolian folk outfit) at the Dream Factory
Nov 21 - Boojii, Duck Fight Goose, Boys Climbing Ropes, Resist Resist, Triple Smash rock for Roots & Shoots at YYT
Nov 29 - Zhi Wang and Xian (Shanxi duo) at 696 Live Bar
Dec 5 - ReTROS promise some new songs at MAO

I've been a bit ill the last week or so. I only managed to make the Resist, Resist show by popping a load of Tylenol. True story. I'm feeling better now and am hoping to make the Bigger Bang! show tonight. Sonnet are supporting so I thought I'd repost a link to some live Sonnet tracks that I put in the comments of a post a few weeks back by way of a preview. Then I thought it might be good to round up a few other opportunities to listen to some of the bands written about on this blog.

Of course, Neocha's NEXT player is always one of the best places to go if you want to hear some underground Chinese music and most of the bands I write about have Neocha or Douban pages (if not both) where you can stream songs and occasionally download some stuff too.

For Sonnet, if you downloaded their EP for free and enjoyed it, you can download their live set from the Michael Jackson tribute night here. It's shared via RayFile which a lot of the bands seem to use at the minute. You have to download some software first (doesn't seem to work on Macs, sigh) but it seems safe. You can get the Billie Jean and Smooth Criminal covers as tracks on their own from Sonnet's Douban artist page too.

I mentioned a little while back about Five Pointed Star bringing out an EP soon called Awake. The release party isn't until the 29th, but you can have a little preview listen here. All clips rather than full tracks and only available to stream, not download I'm afraid, but isn't that what the kids are into these days anyway?

UPDATE: I just got a bit more info out of Tian Tian. He says there'll be an official launch party for the CD, entitled Shanghai Rock 2009 (I forgot to mention the title in the original post!), at Yuyintang on November 28th. He says he'll be steadily releasing more details about it all from the National Day holiday onwards so stay tuned.

Whisper it, but the long-delayed 0093 compilation album might finally be on its way. A date of November 30th has tentatively been set and there's even a track listing available. Tian Tian and Fanqie Chaodan have both posted messages on Douban stating how hard it's been, but it seems like maybe, just maybe, the record could be about to see the light of day.

Here's the tracklisting:

1. 甜品店 - 我们 (Tian Pin Dian/Candy Shop - Us)
2. 空中花园 - 奇迹 (Hanging Gardens - Miracle)
3. Mortal Fools - 傻X时代 (FoolXEra)
4. 棒棒糖 - 暗战 (Bang Bang Tang - Running Out of Time)
5. 伍角星 - 对白 (Five Pointed Star - Dialogue)
6. 胶壳 - 大公鸡 (Joker - Big Rooster)
7. Pinkberry - Beauty Doll
8. 羽果 - 漂浮 (Yuguo - Floating)
9. 香蕉猴子 - Double Trouble (Banana Monkey)
10. 吴雪颖 - Sweet Night (Wu Xue Ying)
11. 顶楼的马桶团 - 上海欢迎你 (Top Floor Circus - Shanghai Welcomes You)

Andy first reported on this back in January (read his original post here) when a April 1st release was cheekily suggested, but the CD has been beset by delays. The release of a full tracklisting (with some changes to the original lineup) and the fact that Wang Tian Tian and Fanqie Chaodan say they listened to the CD yesterday suggest that, come November 30th, the CD could finally be a reality. Let's hope so.

Glamorous, Glorious whatever you want to call them, 美好药店 are a class act. Check out this video of one of my favourites, 翻唱, from Sunday night. It's partly spoiled by the person in front of me taking photos, but I can't complain - I had my camera in the air too. It's still worth watching though I reckon.

Last night was one of those nights that just makes you really appreciate the Chinese music scene and the intimacy of a venue like Yuyintang - a really quality band performing a great set while being totally approachable and friendly in the process.

The night before had been so packed that any movement more energetic than blinking resulted in you sweating buckets. Last night, it was nicely busy, but with plenty of room to move around freely. Of course, Glamorous/ Glorious Pharmacy are a completely different kind of act to Handsome Furs so it was hardly a surprise that the crowd was completely different too. One similarity that I hadn't expected however, was the 80 kuai door charge. And there was no support act.

It's a measure of the quality and status of the band though that, even at these prices and even on a Sunday night, a decent-sized crowd turned out to see them. Not only that, but they were all dedicated fans too, which made for a really good atmosphere. Headed up by Xiao He, Glamorous Pharmacy are real heroes on China's underground folk scene and deservedly so. Their music is more accessible than Xiao He's solo stuff and their recent Rumbling Footsteps long-player is a good starting point if you're new to their music. It was this album that they played from last night.

The band were at their mischievous best with Xiao He (from Hebei) trying out his Shanghainese and peppering the set with jokes and references to the Expo. This is no doubt under the influence of fellow Expo-lovers Top Floor Circus, most of whom were in the audience and to whom Xiao He dedicated the track Acrobat. There was even an impromptu cover of Beat It, playfully spliced with a classic Chinese pop hit that I recognised but can't name and the patriotic anthem Love My China. The crowd lapped it up.

Is a Shanghai Midi finally on the cards? Rumour has it that there will be a three-day Midi School-organised festival in early November in Shanghai. Plans are for it to take place in Zhabei district's Daning Lingshi Park (the one with the beach near Circus World) on November 7th, 8th and 9th. The line-up will apparently feature several local bands including Top Floor Circus, Cold Fairyland, The Mushrooms, Sonnet and Yuguo. It sounds as if this festival could be a "上海站" ("Shanghai station") for Midi, perhaps in collaboration with other cities/stations around the country. 

Though I've had this information on good authority, this is probably still one for you to file under "I'll believe it when I see it". When a music festival is announced in China (and this one's not yet official) it's never really certain that it will take place until usually a couple of days before - and some times even that's no guarantee. Midi, for some reason, seems to be particularly adept at creating their own melodramas in the run up to their events and generates more gossip and rumours than all the other festivals put together. Just a few weeks ago, the word was of Midi going to Chengdu, the current talk is of it being in Wuhan and there's even whispers about a Midi in Anhui in 2010. Add to that the failed attempt to bring Midi to Shanghai back in May (when it ended up being in Zhenjiang instead) and you've got yourself a recipe for skepticism.

It'd be great to have a festival like Midi in Shanghai, but, if it does come, is Lingshi Park really the place to put it? It hardly seems big enough to be honest. JZ have got their annual jazz festival out in the huge Century Park in Pudong in mid-October - a different breed of festival of course, but a far more suitable venue you'd think.

Then again, Midi Shanghai is still a long way from being confirmed. Don't get too excited just yet.

There's a few things that have caught my eye in the press recently regarding the Shanghai music scene so I want to do a little round up here. Dan Shapiro recently put up a great overview of where to go for your English-language coverage of the scene (he also said some very nice things about this blog, thanks Dan), but the things that I'm going to write about below all come from the Chinese-language press.

One is from Time Out Shanghai about band contests, one is a piece on Top Floor Circus by a swanky upmarket lifestyle magazine and the third is an appearance from the Curry Soap and 8 Eye Spy in XMusic. Unfortunately, I can only link to the Top Floor Circus piece as the others don't appear to be online, but I'll try and give you an idea of the content anyway.

The title of this post is lifted from the headline of Time Out's main music feature for the current issue (the one with the luggage tag on the front cover). My first thought was 'no' followed by 'and what's consumer rock anyway?' If I tell you that this headline is surrounded by photos from a certain soft drink-sponsored battle of the bands, you might get an idea (see the picture above).

The angle of the article is basically a face-off between the aforementioned band contest and the Global Battle of the Bands, as both have their "finals" taking place in Shanghai soon. This is kind of misleading as there aren't any qualifying rounds for the GBOB in Shanghai, but whatever. Despite this premise and most of the article focusing on these two competitions, there's actually some fairly well-reasoned comments in the introduction.

Yeah that's right, I'm coming over all Hypebeast on you. Remember those Top Floor Circus t-shirts I mentioned a while back? They're now available for you to get your grubby little hands on. Some in depth research (i.e. me stopping by The Thing's Wujiang Lu and Changle Lu shops yesterday afternoon) reveals that they're not in the shops yet, but you can get them from Taobao and they were being sold at the Zhi Wang and Xiao He show last night (more on that in a minute).

More supermodels after the jump.

At least that's what Mick Jagger believes. Mick Jagger, university student in Shanghai incidentally, not Mick Jagger, frontman of The Rolling Stones. Mick makes his bold statement in the most recent column from Alex Hoban on The Guardian who writes mostly about the Japanese music scene (a massive thank you to Suzy for flagging this up for me). The other week when PK14 and Carsick Cars hit the Dream Factory with These Are Powers, Hoban was there and his Turning Japanese column has therefore turned Chinese for the week.

Before going any further, check out his article here: 'Turning Japanese heads to China: The Shanghai scene'. You might also want to have look at my review of the same night here.

When I saw the title, my first thought was how refreshing it was to have someone in a Western newspaper write about the Shanghai scene instead of the Bejing one. When international newspapers cover the Chinese music scene, they invariably talk exclusively about the capital and often just about Carsick Cars - other cities don't get a look in.

Alas, before you even get to the text in Hoban's piece on the Shanghai scene, there's a big photo of... Carsick Cars. By the second paragraph it becomes clear that they, together with PK14, are the focus of the piece. That's Carsick Cars from Beijing and PK14, once of Nanjing but now essentially part of the capital's scene too. Oh.

I spent Saturday afternoon with Lu Chen and Mei Er of Top Floor Circus. They're filming a music video for the hilarious alternative Expo anthem 上海欢迎你 (Shanghai Welcomes You). It's a play on the Beijing Olympic theme 北京欢迎您 and is full of great lines. You can listen to the song here (it's already had over 10,000 plays) and read the full lyrics (in Chinese) here. Here's a quick translation of a few of lines to give you an idea:

上海欢迎你 欢迎来买东西
Shanghai welcomes you, welcomes you to come buy things
千万不要忘记带上人民币
Don't forget to bring millions of yuan
上海欢迎你 奥运会有什么了不起
Shanghai welcomes you, what was so great about the Olympics?
让我们在世博会相聚
Let Expo bring us together
上海欢迎你 欢迎来买东西
Shanghai welcomes you, welcomes you to come buy things
我们没有文化但是有人民币
We don't have any culture, but we've got Renminbi

Last time I witnessed a music video shoot for a local band, it was Pinkberry making an MV for their Pinkberry Song. There was a director, a crew, fancy lighting and camera set ups and quality sound equipment for playback of the song. Saturday involved Lu Chen, Mei Er and I walking around town meeting various friends of theirs and Mei Er catching their lines on a handheld camcorder. If they needed prompting by hearing the song, Lu Chen found the appropriate bit on Mei Er's iPod. It was great fun.

Top Floor Circus, the Shanghai band whose name is often prefixed with "the elusive" or "the legendary", have announced that they will play the Daning Music Season event on August 9th. As well as announcing the show, "Attic Circus" (as the Shanghai Daily decided to call them yesterday) have taken the unusual step of saying exactly which songs they'll be playing. The band are currently writing a bunch of new material with a view to recording a new album at the end of this year/beginning of next. There'll be five old favourites as well as five new songs on the Daning set list. The songs are:

     (5 new songs)
　　
　　是男人
　　侬要会做人
　　海螺阿姨
　　小白领之歌
　　假客气布鲁斯
　　
     (5 old songs)
　　
　　朋克都是娘娘腔
　　我有的是钞票
　　卡拉永远ok
　　上海欢迎你
　　你上海了我，还一笑而过

It'll be interesting to see what direction the new material takes. Following a couple of experimental folk albums, Top Floor Circus then went tongue-in-cheek punk on their last record. Recent live shows from Lu Chen and co have been similarly unpredictable ranging from variety show-type gigs to pared down folk sets. So does releasing the set list make this gig more predictable? Don't bet on it.  

The following week will see Lu Chen take to the stage again with his new experimental group Zhi Wang, this time at Yuyintang with Torturing Nurse and Ben Houge as part of the latest Silence or Silence or BrainWave Communication show. Ba Fang won't be playing with Zhi Wang this time around though as she'll be travelling in Germany.

Here's the details for the Daning show:

August 9th, 7pm. Entry: Free. Daning International Plaza, 1898 Gonghe Xin Lu, near Daning Lu (大宁国际中央广场, 共和新路1898号(大宁路口). Map.

And for the BrainWave Communication one, there's more info here.