So someone's celebrating their 60th birthday next week and as such we get a few days holiday. The mid-Autumn festival also kicks in to make it a bumper 8 day-long break. I'm adding in some leave to make it a two week long holiday for myself. Why am I telling you this? To let you know posting will be sporadic at best in the next fortnight. There's a whole crapload of good music stuff going on this holiday and plenty of newsworthy events too - starting with Mao's opening tonight, going via the Modern Sky Festival (maybe Festivals?) in Beijing and also including a bunch of high profile gigs in Shanghai. And I'm not going to cover any of it I'm afraid. At least, not directly. I'm heading off travelling for those two weeks on the other side of the country from Shanghai (note to thieves: I have nothing of value in my flat. Seriously, nothing. I wish I did). I'll try and post some stuff if I get the time/there's something worth posting on from t'internet, but I won't be catching any gigs in Shanghai for a little while. Just thought I'd let you know.
In the meantime, if you haven't added China Music Radar, SmartShanghai, CW's The Beat and Shanghaiist to your RSS/reader already, you might want to do so now. Not saying that me not blogging for a couple of weeks is going to leave a gaping hole in your life or anything, just that those sites are worth checking regularly anyway for music news etc.
Before I go, here's a few bits and bobs and links and whatnot:
After the round up of downloads I did the other day, an alert tipster pointed out that Indie Heart Attack (another site to keep an eye on) have been posting up some good live recording MP3s from YYT lately. These are available for streaming from the YYT artist page on Douban as I've mentioned before, but they can only host so many there and the key thing with the IHA posts is that you can download them for keeps. These include recordings of The Mushrooms and Mortal Fools from the Animal Patterns Party, but you can also get Jeff Lang, Yuguo and Guai Li all of whom have been covered on this blog in the last couple of months as well.
Speaking of stuff to listen to, Loudspeaker have also added a few tracks recently to their Douban page - go check them out here. Double Control Where have put up an instrumental track here as well.
You can check out some excellent photos from the Bigger Bang! gig last weekend by Tim Franco by clicking right here and you can also watch a video of them performing here.
Though I mentioned his blog up above as well, I also just want to specifically draw attention to Dan Shapiro's guide to being a DIY indie band in Shanghai. Go check it out. Not quite so worthy of a read (but I'm going to stick a link in to it anyway) is my regular music page in Chengdu's finest magazine, CGrooves. The rest of the magazine is definitely worthy of a read of course - check out the September issue here, while there's still a few days of that month left. If you're struggling to get ahold of the LOS album that I review there and frequently bang on about to anyone who'll listen, you can download it by going here. You'll have to fork out for it, but it's worth it believe me.
Oh, and remember how I mentioned the other day that Bang Bang Tang might be coming back? They are. Should be some gigs after the October holidays.
Speaking of stuff to listen to, Loudspeaker have also added a few tracks recently to their Douban page - go check them out here. Double Control Where have put up an instrumental track here as well.
You can check out some excellent photos from the Bigger Bang! gig last weekend by Tim Franco by clicking right here and you can also watch a video of them performing here.
Though I mentioned his blog up above as well, I also just want to specifically draw attention to Dan Shapiro's guide to being a DIY indie band in Shanghai. Go check it out. Not quite so worthy of a read (but I'm going to stick a link in to it anyway) is my regular music page in Chengdu's finest magazine, CGrooves. The rest of the magazine is definitely worthy of a read of course - check out the September issue here, while there's still a few days of that month left. If you're struggling to get ahold of the LOS album that I review there and frequently bang on about to anyone who'll listen, you can download it by going here. You'll have to fork out for it, but it's worth it believe me.
Oh, and remember how I mentioned the other day that Bang Bang Tang might be coming back? They are. Should be some gigs after the October holidays.
I might abuse my admin status and guerilla guest post on the Mao opening. Mwa ha ha.
Of course, I might not too. Holidays ... yipee!
Thanks for all the stuff to check out while you're gone. You will be missed, of course. :)
I'm heading up to Washington, DC in the morning to see Hedgehog, Casino Demon & QSBS. (THANKS AGAIN for the info on that!!) They're playing at the Chinatown Festival and the first band goes on at 11am. I don't know... seems a little early in the day to get rockin' but we'll see.
I hope you post on the Mao opening, Andy. Enjoy your holiday guys!