July 2010 Archives

0093's 3 year anniversary at YYT

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e262057.jpgYou know 0093, now no longer at 0093, but still supporting the scene and doing what they were doing before - it's been written about plenty on here and on Andy's blog. Last night and Thursday night was their third anniversary and they celebrated with two back to back shows at Yuyintang with a shitload of bands playing across the two nights. I didn't make it to the Thursday show, but I did go last night. The turn out was good and so was the atmosphere.

The problem with having so many bands play is that you have to rattle through them pretty quickly. Some of the earlier bands did four or five songs, but some of the later ones, wary of the time, could only do three. That was a shame, because to my mind the later bands were the better ones.

To be honest, I spent the first half of the night by the bar or out in the garden talking to people and catching up and just generally getting some semblance of a life back after a crazy few weeks at work. It was good. The bands I half heard from that position were Five Pence (Guns 'n' Roses covers and stuff) and Five Pointed Star (energetic shouty stuff).

I forget the order, but the next three bands were New Vector, Momo and Little Nature. I think. New Vector were good, but only played three songs. As mentioned before, I'm a philistine and therefore three songs is not a bad cut off for most post rock bands in my book. I enjoyed their set. Momo were scuppered a bit by missing Ding Jia, their singer. Little Nature opened with a song that had us wondering if it was actually Little Nature - they sounded energetic and good. But then we realised it actually was Little Nature and I couldn't really be arsed to go inside.

Eventually I did go in and watch a band properly though: Runaway Snail. Fanqie has changed his look once again so I barely recognised him when I bumped into him earlier in the night, but once up on stage he was his normal self and the band gave a strong performance. I just wish they'd play more songs and play more often, they're really good. Then Joker finished things off and were brilliant as well. They're another band that I'm a big fan of and never disappoint live. Can't wait to here their new album, hopefully out next month.

Right, see you at YYT tonight then.

Oh, still no photos by the way - still can't afford a camera, so you'll have to make do with flyers and stuff until I can.
e262052.jpgSeriously, that'd be worse than forgetting about Dre. A reminder:

Saturday 31st July, Yuyintang, 9pm. Mark that down. Carve it into the wall above your bed. Tattoo it on to your hand if you have to. This is an event you don't want to miss. Why? Because this is the line-up:

Ren Hang + Boojii + Duck Fight Goose

Ren Hang is going to display some of his incredible photography at Yuyintang and two of Shanghai's best bands, both proponents of 'strange rock' are going to provide the music. It's a real taste of China's avant garde and the whole night will only set you back 40RMB. As if that wasn't enough, DJ Sacco will be there spinning some quality rock tunes as well.

This blog has been accused of hyping certain events in the past, and of course this is something we're organising so we're biased, but seriously, this is definitely something you don't want to miss. There's no hype necessary either - from merely posting the event on Douban, we already have well over 1,000 people interested. Of course, not all of those will turn up, but compare that to your average gig listing on Douban and you'll see the numbers are pretty impressive. It should translate into a healthy crowd, so get there early.

A little background: Ren Hang is an amazing photographer. There's no point in me trying to describe what he does when I can just point you in the direction of his work. Go here and take your time going through all those albums, there's some great stuff in there. Also, remember that Pet Conspiracy naturist shoot? That was for Moon Magazine. Ren Hang is Editor in Chief there.

Boojii are one of Shanghai's leading lights when it comes to 'strange rock'. Their album Reserved is an outstanding record and they are a fantastic live act. Read more about Boojii here.

Duck Fight Goose need little introduction to regular readers of the blog. They are quite simply an immense talent. Read more about Duck Fight Goose here.
flyer1279617394.jpgYou know that big ol' Gibson shop on Hengshan Lu? They''ve got a few people playing some music there tonight. 

I have no musical talent whatsoever, so I'm not going to attempt to tell you what's in that shop. Guitars mostly. Lots and lots of guitars. I don't know, some are like pretty damn pricey and some are more in the 'fuck me, that's expensive' range. But it's Gibson, to say they know what they're doing when it comes to guitars is a massive understatement. Read more about the whole shebang here anyway.

So yeah, starting at 8pm there's a whole host of people playing music, talking about guitars and getting leathered. Hopefully. You see, the nice people at Gibson have stepped in and agreed to put on the 'Your Songs, Your Show' err show that was left in the lurch somewhat by the closure of Fanfare a while back. That means tearing it up (in a nice acoustic-y sort of way probably) will be Ho-Tom the Conqueror, Zhou Yong, Alain & Sushan, Mark Wengel and Andres Barros. So if you're stuck for something to do after Can Can and before Zapatas and Soho really get kickin', why not pop in? Word is there'll be some sweet deals on axes as well. Or something. Here's the details if you kan de dong the zhongwen.

Don't forget tonight and Friday it's 0093's birthday at YYT with loads of bands playing and there's a big folk show at MAO Livehouse tomorrow too. Saturday, it's all about YYT obviously (unless you want to stump up 350 big ones for Panic!)  
smsh1280210352.jpgSo DJ Sacco, who let's face it, is one of this city's finest DJs, does this regular fashion thing at Dada. Basically, once a month he gets some cool as shit local designers to bring a bunch of their stuff to Dada and flog it while he plays fucking brilliant Mod music. It's pretty much the best thing you can do on a Wednesday. This month, he's got San San out of Boojii selling her wares. You'd be a fool to miss it. I recommend getting there fairly late so that I can buy all the stuff I want first and then you're left with whatever I don't want/can't afford - sound good? Ok, see you there then. Here's the details.

Speaking of Sacco and Boojii, aren't they involved in some other super cool event this week? I forget...
DSC06323.JPGHopefully you've been following developments over on Indie Everything recently anyway, but Andy has been very busy. He's set up his only music label, Qu (as in 区 or district) and has been busy recording songs for Pairs and Little Punk with the help of Adam. Naturally, everything is being approached with Andy's strong DIY ethic. The results are outstanding.

The tracks all sound fantastic and Pairs have produced a video for the brilliant song 'Yangpu Qu', which looks incredible. Seriously, you're going to love it. This will all be up on t'internet soon, I'm just making sure you're properly prepared and suitably excited about it all. If the stuff I've seen and heard so far doesn't make people sit up and take notice, I might just retire this blog. That's not supposed to be a good thing incidentally.

Anyway, today I was lucky enough to be involved in a music video shoot for Little Punk's song 'I'm Not in the Mood for Making a Song'. Y'know how I am, I can't resist a cameo. So here's  picture of me in my Little Punk t-shirt - that's her looking like a superhero on it. After filming we went back to Andy's and he did a rough cut of the whole video - it looks brilliant. There's a couple of other (better) cameos too: Super Sophia and Ho-Tom the Conqueror pop up in it as well. But yeah, it's really, really good.

I don't want to give away too much more than that, but just keep an eye on Indie Everything and for a Qu Douban page coming soon. It's all very exciting.

Steve's sweet revenge

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P1000422.JPGGuilty as charged

Stacks of tracks

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coverpeople.JPGIt is, as Mr Best has noted, slow season for the live music world in Shanghai. To be honest, it's the slow season for everything really. Fair enough. It is, as Nina Simone has noted, too darn hot.

Anyway, there's still been a plethora (yeah, that's right, a plethora) of new tracks uploaded in the last weeks. I might have missed a few, but here's my attempt to rattle through them all in no particular order:

First up, some lo-fi folk from Coverpeople. Also, looking at her artist page, she's not played live in ages - what's that about? Let's have a Coverpeople gig soon please. Anyway, the new song is here (the top one).

Laid back folk not your cup of tea? Try Puppets of Distortion on for size instead. They've uploaded a bunch of tracks from performances at Yuyintang last month (the bottom ones) here.

Plastic Chocolate have recently uploaded some tracks, though they were all recorded years ago by the looks of it. It's indie-pop, take it or leave it.

Heading into the trip hop realm, the lovely ChaCha has uploaded a bunch of new tracks. They're her with a bunch of friends and they're great. Go listen here.

Want to know what the new Crystal Butterfly album is going to sound like? C'mon, you do a little bit. Here two tracks from it here.


p547458618.jpgActually that title is a bit misleading - I missed Pairs' set. Fuckrats. I missed them on Friday as well, so was pissed off that I managed to miss them again. I don't know, work shit - you know how it is. I got there about quarter to ten or something and they'd been on already. Nightmare. Anyway, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that they were fucking good simply because they're never any other way.

Despite my tardiness, I did manage to get my hands on one of those rather fashionable Pairs t-shirts that you've probably seen on the catwalks and in all the fashion mags. I got my hands on it by snatching it out of Steve's hands, sorry Steve, but he's getting one saying 'Jake Newby is a t-shirt stealing cunt' or something so it all worked out fairly well let's be honest.

I digress. This was the second time I'd seen Birdstriking since they were last in town and them snuggling up to Maybe Mars seems to be working out well for them - there development has been marked in those two performances. Sure, they sound just like Carsick Cars, but they're starting to add their own personality in a little bit now and last night they were on good form.

Which left Taiwan's Boyz and Girl to close things out, which they did with a strong set. Their music was described by Pete from WeLiveinBeijing as 'fuzzed-out, wandering melodies that coalesce into some amazing grooves.' And who am I to argue with that?

By the way, a little footnote here: my camera is broken so until I can scrape together enough money for a new one (which will be a while probably) I'm just going to be pulling photos off the interwebs, so I take no responsibility for the quality being better than usual. If anyone would like to give me a camera for free, please go ahead - I am not above accepting charity.

I want that one: Pairs t-shirts

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DSC_0396.jpgIf you want one as well, then send Pairs an e-mail (their address is here), just don't take the one I want or there'll be trouble. More importantly though, come and watch them at Yuyintang tonight. They're playing with Beijing's Birdstriking and Taipei's Boyz and Girl and they're so ridiculously good it's not even funny. Do it.

It's all go at Soma

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AD Show Poster.jpgWell, y'know relatively. Yep, there's been a few goings on at our beloved Soma Records. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

First up, the big news: Crystal Butterfly have confirmed the release date for their new album. Calm yourself, you've still got a while to wait. August 28 is the date for your diary, guess where the venue is? Go on, guess. Can we look forward to more self indulgent half nudity? A boy can dream.

Meanwhile, there's been a shake up in the management at Soma. Given the unbridled success of the label so far, you'd have thought such a move was unnecessary, but Lao Yao has decided to bring Zhang Li into the Soma fold. He's the bloke who manages Blue Garden. So that means Blue Garden are going to be a Soma band now too, while at the same time Zhang will manage all the other bands on the Soma roster. Oh, and if you're asking 'who?' when you read any of the above names, don't worry about it, chances are it won't really change much.

But wait, there's more. In another Soma-related development Little Nature, once an alright band, now kind of lacklustre, have lost their drummer Xiao Zhong (not, definitely not, to be confused with Xiao Zhong out of Pairs incidentally). They've replaced him and added a guitarist while they're at it because, well, why not?

All of which is pretty hard to give a shit about, but more worrying is that Soma are apparently sniffing around the actually-pretty-good FAF. Uh-oh...
b6.jpgUPDATE: Listen to the Bigger Bang! programme here.

Shanghai's IDM leader B6 is set to appear on the BBC this week. He's interviewed as part of a series of programmes on the World Service examining China's arts scene. Also featured as part of the three day schedule will be Abe from Beijing's Bigger Bang!, Shanghai-based screen printer Nini Sum of IdleBeats and Sean Leow of Neocha. 

Basically, you can hear the programmes by going to the BBC World Service site and hitting the 'listen now' button at 7am, 10am and 1pm this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. You can check out the full schedule of who's on when after the jump...
e262052.jpgSaturday 31st July, Yuyintang, 9pm. Mark that down. Carve it into the wall above your bed. Tattoo it on to your hand if you have to. This is an event you don't want to miss. Why? Because this is the line-up:

Ren Hang + Boojii + Duck Fight Goose

Ren Hang is going to display some of his incredible photography at Yuyintang and two of Shanghai's best bands, both proponents of 'strange rock' are going to provide the music. It's a real taste of China's avant garde and the whole night will only set you back 40RMB. As if that wasn't enough, DJ Sacco will be there spinning some quality rock tunes as well.

This blog has been accused of hyping certain events in the past, and of course this is something we're organising so we're biased, but seriously, this is definitely something you don't want to miss. There's no hype necessary either - from merely posting the event on Douban, we already have well over 1,000 people interested. Of course, not all of those will turn up, but compare that to your average gig listing on Douban and you'll see the numbers are pretty impressive. It should translate into a healthy crowd, so get there early.

A little background: Ren Hang is an amazing photographer. There's no point in me trying to describe what he does when I can just point you in the direction of his work. Go here and take your time going through all those albums, there's some great stuff in there. Also, remember that Pet Conspiracy naturist shoot? That was for Moon Magazine. Ren Hang is Editor in Chief there.

Boojii are one of Shanghai's leading lights when it comes to 'strange rock'. Their album Reserved is an outstanding record and they are a fantastic live act. Read more about Boojii here.

Duck Fight Goose need little introduction to regular readers of the blog. They are quite simply an immense talent. Read more about Duck Fight Goose here.
p495645993.jpgTorturing Nurse are going to Europe in September. They've been invited to play at the My World IMAGES Festival in Copenhagen by the Danish Centre for Culture and Development. This will be the harsh noise group's first ever performance in Europe. Brace yourselves Denmark.

If the name Torturing Nurse doesn't ring any bells, here's a few old posts to help you get the picture:

Ben Hogue, NOIShanghai and torture (link)
Video: Torturing Nurse at Canart (link)
Bored? Watch Torturing Nurse (link)
Torturing Nurse in The Guardian (link)

To see the group in action in Shanghai, you can check out the latest NOIShanghai event, taking place in a couple of weeks up at 696 (details here). There'll also be a new Torturing Nurse t-shirt released soon (here's the old one) if you want to show your love for the city's premier noise-makers and, naturally, there have a new release coming out soon. Then again, they have a new release about once a week.

New bands, new songs

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p198639810.jpgRight then, time for a round up.

Whaleman, one of the guys from Self Party, has a new band. They're called 扫射局长 in Chinese and Good Looking is Good in English. They profess to be a shoegaze noise pop band and unsurprisingly sound like My Bloody Valentine (one of the songs there is a MBV cover). They're also based in Hangzhou, so not sure when we'll get to see them up here, but they're worth having a listen to if you dig the shoegaze noise pop thing. Click here

Generally, this is a local blog for local bands, but while we're on the subject of out-of-towners, another interesting listen comes in the form of some newly uploaded songs from The Gar. The Beijing band have included a remix of their song 'Hamlet' done by IDM dude me:mo. Interesting stuff. Click here.

Finally, a Shanghai group with a couple of new tracks is Confirm-X (pictured). Two new songs have gone up on their Douban, the bottom two as you look at the player. But have a listen to all of them and look out for the next Mini-E showcase to catch these performed live. Click here.

Speaking of Miniless, they've put up a new label page on the Douban, so if you're on it and you haven't 关注ed them yet, you know what to do...
p458963873.jpgUPDATE: Check out the comments where a couple of people in the know have made up for my ill-informed support act ramblings.

So things are supposed to quieten down here in the summer. Someone forgot to tell the local promoters evidently, as there's a whole bunch of 'shit, I'm really not sure which show to go to' moments coming up this weekend. Here's how it's going down:

THURSDAY

Not Me, FREE! It might not be live exactly, but Sacco's Indie Heart Attack is off. The. Hook. Go, go, go.

FRIDAY

MAO Livehouse, 40RMB. Duck Fight Goose and Boojii bring their Adventure of Strange Rock tour back home with a show at MAO. The Fever Machine are in support so make sure you get there promptly (9pm). As if that wasn't enough, the bill is completed by 8 Eye Spy, the Nanjing experimental rock act whose album Yang Haisong says is the record he's most proud of (he produced it).

Zhijiang Dream Factory, 150RMB. Caribou, the Canadian guy and his band, not the Pixies song, hit town thanks to the good people at Splitworks. Not sure who's in support, but it's a big show all the same.

SATURDAY

MAO Livehouse, 80RMB. By all accounts excellent Beijing bluegrass act The Redbucks come down our way to promote their new album.

Not Me, 25RMB. The latest Mini-E showcase sees Sun Ye take prominence with new material and remixes of his stuff by ZiSTER and MHP, the other two acts to play on the night.

Yuyintang, 40RMB. More Canadian band action as Jets Overhead land at Yuyintang. If you were at Midi in Zhenjiang last year, you probably remember them. The brilliant Pairs are in support, which makes for a nice match up at 40 kuai.

696 Livehouse, 50RMB. 696 haven't revealed the name of the local band that they've booked to play tonight. Wonder why? Maybe they're a bit controversial or something? Who knows? They're promising a (ahem) top (ahem) act though so might be worth heading up to Hongkou for a look...

That lot should keep you busy anyway.

New 21 Grams

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Post-rock band 21 Grams are currently recording for their debut EP as part of Zhu Lu He Feng's big recording push with their bands. It's still early doors, so don't expect a physical record for a while yet, but in the meantime the band have uploaded some fresh tracks to their Douban. You can check out the tracks here, all four of the songs you see are newly uploaded. The video on the right is from a performance at Zhijiang Dream Factory back in January.