The other day a good friend of mine celebrated his birthday. One of the presents he received was a copy of National Geographic. He was pretty excited about it. This wasn't just any old National Geographic, it was one with a big old article about this here city in it. Imagine that.So anyway, I was flicking through, skim reading and looking at the pictures as is my want, when my eyes rested on a familiar name in the opening paragraphs: Sheng Jiahui. I decided to read a bit closer and there, opening National Geographic's article on Shanghai, is a piece all about, well, Sheng Jiahui (who you probably know as Sammy from Candy Shop) entering the 0093 rehearsal space. Ok, so the article is about how she's in a band which she's no longer in (Black Luna) and about them rehearsing in 0093 (which has now been shut down) and the whole article plays into the cheesy cliched East meets West thing, but still I thought it worthy of a mention and a link (right here).
I say I thought it worthy, I actually completely forgot about it again until SmartShanghai posted up a thing on it in The Wire, right here. Thanks SmartShanghai.
UPDATE: Pete from weliveinbeijing.com has linked to his excellent preview in the comments. I recommend giving that one a read too. Check it out here. Despite posting previously about what a good weekend it was going to be for live music, I managed to miss all of the shows I listed in said post. Largely it was because I was busy organising and then recovering from this show. It's not often this blog strays into reggae/trip-hop territory, but I have to admit to being blown away by ChaCha's set. She is an incredible singer and is about to go on tour backed by DJ Drunk Monk. If they're in your neck of the woods go check them out, you won't regret it. You can hear more of her stuff here and also see the tour dates to see if she's coming your way.
Anyway, this weekend is big 'un as well. Yep, it's that time of year again - the JUE Festival is back. This time round Splitworks have gone even bigger taking in a whole bunch more acts and shows and venues and what not. It's kind of started already, but musically you're looking at Hanggai's show on Friday at Yuyintang as the real b-of-the-bang. And that's not a show to miss. Why? Because this is what happened last time.
The festival has gotten plenty of coverage in the local media and, while a lot of that coverage has been of the international acts coming in, this being Splitworks-organised means that we can expect plenty of local acts to be involved as well. In fact, they're taking blog favourites The Mushrooms up to Beijing for their first ever show in the capital as part of the festival.
The full schedule is here and one of the better write ups so far is here. It's on CNN-"mediocre bands"-Go, but it's by Ric Stockfis and features interviews with some other friends of the blog so go give it a butcher's. It also has a sneaky mention of a possible return for Yue Festival - the JUE precursor that rocked Zhongshan Park a few years back. That, hot on the heels of rumours that Shanghai might be getting it's own May holiday festival this year in the vein of Beijing's Strawberry and Midi or Chengdu's Zebra. Fingers crossed they don't get scuppered by that weird little blue thing.
Anyway, this weekend is big 'un as well. Yep, it's that time of year again - the JUE Festival is back. This time round Splitworks have gone even bigger taking in a whole bunch more acts and shows and venues and what not. It's kind of started already, but musically you're looking at Hanggai's show on Friday at Yuyintang as the real b-of-the-bang. And that's not a show to miss. Why? Because this is what happened last time.
The festival has gotten plenty of coverage in the local media and, while a lot of that coverage has been of the international acts coming in, this being Splitworks-organised means that we can expect plenty of local acts to be involved as well. In fact, they're taking blog favourites The Mushrooms up to Beijing for their first ever show in the capital as part of the festival.
The full schedule is here and one of the better write ups so far is here. It's on CNN-"mediocre bands"-Go, but it's by Ric Stockfis and features interviews with some other friends of the blog so go give it a butcher's. It also has a sneaky mention of a possible return for Yue Festival - the JUE precursor that rocked Zhongshan Park a few years back. That, hot on the heels of rumours that Shanghai might be getting it's own May holiday festival this year in the vein of Beijing's Strawberry and Midi or Chengdu's Zebra. Fingers crossed they don't get scuppered by that weird little blue thing.
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...
You've probably noticed that posts on this blog have dropped off a bit lately. There's a couple of reasons - one is that I've been insanely busy with other stuff, the other is that it was Chinese New Year recently and therefore the live music scene shut down for a couple of weeks. For the former, I'm afraid that's just going to happen and when it does, you need to go here. For the latter, it's well and truly over now as this weekend shows.Things start on Thursday with Break for Borneo at YYT. That's got Gooda Boys, Mis.Whale! and Stegosaurus? too. Speaking of Stegosaurus?, Andy mentions that they're close to finishing a CD, so keep an eye out for that and go check out the demos that have been popping up on their Douban recently. If you like what you hear, things kick off at 9pm on Thursday and it's free entry so get on down there.
MAO Livehouse have got Taiwanese pop-rockers 1976 both Friday and Saturday nights, but if that's not your thing, Yuyintang have Big Qiang Dao on the Friday. That's Sonnet, Pinkberry, Manbanpai (Hama's new band) and Yinle. That one starts at 9pm and is 40RMB.
Continue reading Post-CNY malaise ends.
This was the second Maybe Mars showcase in as many months and, according to Dan Shapiro's article here, they could become a regular thing in Shanghai, with the label looking to bring bands from their stable down here as often as once a month. Whether that will happen next month, given that a load of their bands are heading off to SXSW remains to be seen, but this showcase was a strong outing for them. At least in terms of the quality of the line up, it was. Birdstriking, not officially a Maybe Mars band but one working with the label, kicked things off. Their set started well, but tapered off a bit and they could do with thinking about the order of their set a bit more. They are essentially a mini version of Carsick Cars, playing very similar music and with a lead singer who even looks a bit like Shouwang.
Guai Li were on second and played a solid set. Wen Jun was on typical female Iggy Pop-like form, swaggering around the stage and drinking constantly. It was a bit of a change of pace from the openers and their greater experience showed. Their use of a VJ to provide graphics in time with the music helped the whole thing as well.
Third were Carsick Cars, despite being the headliners on the flyers etc. They were on pretty good form, especially with the classics He Sheng, Mogu and Zhongnanhai and were joined on stage by mini-Shouwang for the chorus of You Can Listen, You Can Talk.
Finally, AV Okubo closed out the night with an upbeat set. I'm not sure they were quite at their best, but I like this band a lot and I'm pretty sure they will have won some new fans with their performance. Hopefully the album does well.
So that was the bands. But now a few moans.
Continue reading Maybe Mars showcase at MAO Livehouse.
So we mentioned it a couple of times on the blog previously, but last night the show finally came around - Candy Shop and FAF playing a free gig to help promote 81fur.com.That's 81fur.com
I say finally, it actually all came together remarkably quickly. I guess that's what happens when you have a good cause and are part of a strong music community. Oh, and when it's something that Andy has put his mind to. He probably won't like me giving him so much attention, but he deserves a pat on the back next time you see him. Seriously, it's been a few short weeks since he had the idea and last night it came to fruition. He called in favours from people on the scene and put on a fantastic show that really helped promote an important issue. Sure he's a mate and this is his site, but whatever - he deserves a lot of praise.
Because the night really was a big success. It was free admittedly, but it was also a wet Thursday night and yet YYT pulled in a really good crowd. People were reading the flyers and signing up for the mailing lists etc and it's hopefully put these issues into the minds of young people here who hadn't considered such things before.
Musically, it was a cracking night too. Candy Shop were great, they're always good fun, and gave a typically energetic performance. Brad was on the sound so it was all coming across nice and clearly and people were really into it from the off. And FAF... fucking a. Those boys are so good. They just need more songs now but, considering they're still a relatively fresh band, they're really impressive. Definitely a band to keep an eye on.
Thanks and congratulations to Andy and Xiao K, the bands, Tim Franco who took the photos, Splitworks who stumped up for the studio, Brad for the quality sound, all the volunteers who helped out on the door and basically anyone who was involved and came out to support it.
Apologies for the lack of posts recently. Frankly, there's naff all going on music-wise at the moment. Why? Chinese New Year, that's why. Everything shuts down and everybody stays at home and eats lots. Check out Andy's blog if you're here and you're bored, he's got something there to keep you occupied for a while. Things are gradually coming back to life now, but there's not really any gigs until Thursday, when this goes down.Anyway, something to tell you about in the meantime is that Hama, the driving force behind Second and an excellent solo artist in her own right, has made a bunch of demos available for download on her Douban page. There's nothing new there, they've been available for streaming for a while, but the downloadability of them is new and is something to click that link for. Hurry up though, they're only available until midday tomorrow. Go, go, go!
If this was The Mushrooms' last show in Shanghai before heading up to Beijing as part of Splitworks' JUE Festival, then they certainly left on a high note. But then, they don't really know any other way. If you're reading this up in the capital, then go and see this band when they come to your neck of the woods. They might not be as hyped or as artsy as the bands you've got up there, but they sure know how to put on a live show. Even though the regular Mushrooms mosh-set had been decimated by Chinese New Year and even though they were playing with a new guitarist, The Mushrooms didn't miss a beat and tore Yuyintang up just as they always do. Yuyintang had capped the entrance at 400 (or at least said they would), clearly fearing a repeat of the crush at their five year anniversary, but the New Year meant that the fears were misplaced. It was nicely busy, but not so packed you couldn't move. Momo kicked things off and, given that The Mushrooms and Little Nature were both on the bill as well, it felt a little like an old Jiao Ban night for a while. Live, and without the Soma guys in sight, Momo's sound was stripped of all the computerised voices and over-production and was much more guitar-driven. Thank fuck. They weren't exactly the Momo of old (or rather, Happy Strings), but they were much better than the Soma-fied version you get on their Douban.
Next up came Double Control Where, which seemed like a mistake to be honest. They certainly should have been above Little Nature on the bill, but never mind. They had their female keyboardist with them, who added some nice backing vocals and an extra layer to their sound (I'm sure the last couple of times I've seen them she hasn't been there, but I might just be remembering that wrong). They played a solid set, but things didn't really kick off like they could have done. Everyone seemed to be waiting for The Mushrooms.
We still had to make it through Little Nature before we could get to them though. Another band hit by the Soma curse, they seemed a little lacklustre - although in fairness the new sound guy at YYT wasn't helping matters by having the guitar turned right down. By the time they got the sound right, they only had a couple of songs left, but they still didn't really do it for me even then. Luckily, The Mushrooms came on to finish things up and, as always, they didn't disappoint.
Happy New Year! 虎年吉祥！
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