Jake Newby

Serial killer targeting Shanghai's livehouses

2010-03-11T13:23:41Z

An electronic tip of the hat in the direction of friend of the blog Stevo, who pointed us in the direction of Nathaniel Davis' playlist on weliveinbeijing.com. Nathaniel is one of the guys behind Splitworks who, as you probably know, are putting on JUE Festival right about now.

Aaaanyway, one of the tracks he chose was by Kurt The Ripper, an electro artist who has a series of songs related to the various live music venues in Shanghai. You can listen to the YYT, MAO and Live Bar tracks by clicking right here.

The tracks form an album, Livehouse Serial Killer (anyone know how you can get your hands on it?), which is accompanied by the following blurb:

"It is said to be inspired by an unconfirmed news that a serial killer has been haunting about the livehouses in Shanghai, stalking and killing young girls after the gigs, especially those who prefer staying overnight in the McDonalds till dawn. At least 13 girls are missing now according to Seaborn Zhang, the archenemy of ShRock. Who will be the next victim？"

This is the original text from the Douban page for the album (here) and I'm guessing that "Seaborn Zhang" is what Google Translate does to Zhang Haisheng (founder of YYT).

Kind of weird, but I kind of like it. Go give it a listen. And yeah, if anyone knows how to get hold of the mp3s or whatever, please let us know in the comments. Ta.

Podcast SE02 Ep Five: Chaos Mind Scream

2010-03-10T17:26:41Z

Download link

So, technical cock up this week, the pod is intermittently buzzy. Believe me, it will annoy you. Don't let that stop you listening though because here's what we've got: reviews of a couple of last week's gigs, a chat about a certain festival going on in the next few weeks and of course a guide to where to get your rocks off this weekend.

Click and be happy:

Reviews

Break for Borneo

Stegosaurus?

Big Qiang Diao

The middle bit

JUE 2010 - official site

JUE preview + highlights on CNNGo

And on weliveinBeijing

Previews

Jehosaphat Blow and the Blah Blah Blahs

(Nanjing's) From the Red

Sammy Sheng at 0093 in National Geographic

2010-03-10T09:25:41Z

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.

JUE is here

2010-03-08T14:27:44Z

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.

When is a performance ban not a performance ban?

2010-03-04T03:33:03Z

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...

Podcast SE02 Ep Four: The Subs The Man

2010-03-02T15:44:42Z

Download link

So you can finally relax (Morgan), the pod is back. As always, we take a look back at recent gigs around town including Candy Shop and FAF's PeTA show and the Maybe Mars showcase at MAO Livehouse. We then have a chat about the growth of the scene and it's current status, before taking a look ahead to this weekend's live action.

The linkness:

Reviews

Candy Shop and FAF for PeTA

The chat

Previews

Dan Shapiro on Dance for Haiti

Hell United one year anniversary

Post-CNY malaise ends

2010-03-02T02:26:16Z

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.

]]> Over at Zhijiang Dream Factory meanwhile, there's a big benefit gig for Haiti following the devastating earthquake there in January. The bands are Duck Fight Goose, Weghur, Lions of Puxi, Monroe Stahr, Wayne's Basement and Studio 188. That one's also at 9pm and will cost 100RMB, with proceeds going to charity.

Saturday gets going early with NOIShanghai 33 up at Live Bar. Torturing Nurse are there of course and their guests this time are Horacio Pollard and Thursday Club. If you like your noise and experimental stuff or are just intrigued by videos like this, then head there for 2.30pm and be prepared to pay 30RMB on the door.

Stick around until 9.30pm and you'll find Red and Firefighter up at Live Bar. The latter are the band who cover The Mushrooms (you might remember them from here), which is a bit bizarre but kind of intriguing. 30 kuai gets you in.

Back down town, you've got Japanese punks Smash Up at YYT with support from Little Nature and the always entertaining Dragon Pizza.

And that is not a bad weekend. The weekend after, JUE starts and it's the one year anniversary of Hell United. Hope you had a good rest over New Year, because things are definitely going again now.

Maybe Mars showcase at MAO Livehouse

2010-03-01T02:15:25Z

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.

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Second, the whole thing kicked off way too late. There were four bands on the bill and we didn't get going until 10pm. If you're going to start late, at least make sure the bands keep their sets down. I know that Guai Li onwards are all pretty big deals, but that's the nature of a four band bill: if you're not in the top two slots, you keep your set pretty short. The first two bands still played relatively long sets and AV Okubo didn't start until ridiculous o'clock. By that point, a load of people had already left.

Thirdly, make sure the equipment works at your biggest gig of the month. Sure, freak accidents happen, but a broken bass drum during the opening act didn't help keep the timing down.

Fourth, if you have one of the best soundsystems in the world or whatever it is, use it. A couple of the bands' sets didn't sound as good as they should have done.

Finally, and maybe this is just me, but I find it kind of weird when you play the bands' CDs before they come on stage. I'm there to see them live, I don't need to hear the CD as warm up music. I suppose it beats the crappy elevator-jazz that was being played at the start of the night, but I'm just not big on it.

Candy Shop and FAF for PeTA

2010-02-26T10:55:19Z

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.

Quick! Hama downloads available

2010-02-21T09:13:17Z

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!

The Mushrooms and others, Yuyintang

2010-02-13T07:53:46Z

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！

New Candy Shop

2010-02-12T00:03:20Z

Candy Shop have put up a new demo. It's for their track Love Song, which you'll recognise if you've seen them live. Listen to it here. If this is your first time listening to Candy Shop, it's possibly not the best introduction to the band, particularly their more guitar-driven live shows, but then this is a band that mix so many genres, they're kind of hard to keep track of at times. Here's how Shanghai's best website described them recently:

"saccharine pop, hip hop, nu metal, pop ska punk, a little thrash -- it's all in there"

Which brings us to the second point about Candy Shop. You might have seen that picture on the right there already by now. It's in this month's Time Out as part of the main Music feature written by someone or other about the band and a locally-organised, community-based event to promote 81fur.com. Shanghaiist also used the photo recently, although they failed to actually mention the event and instead set about attacking PETA and, by association, the gig, but never mind. A bunch of other places have used it too (see below for the links) and have supported an event that has its roots in the local music community here.

It's been set up by Andy (he's the one on the left of that photo in case you're wondering) in conjunction with Xiao K at Yuyintang and the band themselves (all locals). The photos were taken by Shanghai-based photographer Tim Franco, who has been documenting the scene here for a long time and was recently taken to the States by Maybe Mars to cover their tour there. Splitworks, the music promoters who have been involved in the scene for years and have always ensured their international acts are supported by local bands, provided the studio. So basically a lot of people who care a lot about local music are involved and, though we said weren't really going to write about it much on the blogs, the coverage it's been getting warrants a post I reckon. Here's a few of the highlights (other than that Time Out piece obviously, ahem):

SmartShanghai made it the feature event for their MP3 Monday, here.
Layabozi, who recently launched a podcast by the way, have given it their support, here.
It's even gone international, making it on to the Discovery Channel's Planet Green website, here.

Not bad, not bad at all. February 25th is the date, it's at Yuyintang, is completely free, is supporting a great cause and will feature both Candy Shop and one of my favourite new bands, FAF, as well as DJ Sacco. Yes, the DJ Sacco. What more could you want?

RESO 11, Yuyintang

2010-02-09T12:45:15Z

There's nothing quite like a bit of experimental music on a Sunday evening. Well, for some people. RESO, the experimental night set up by Muscle Snog's Mai Mai, is rarely what you would call well attended, but it always makes for an interesting evening.

And so it was on Sunday for the eleventh installment in the irregular series - they're usually once a month, but Chinese New Year has seen Yuyintang scrabbling for gigs a little bit and this was a last minute addition just a few weeks after the last one. The crowd consisted of the performers, a bored looking sound guy, a few people who looked like they'd wandered in by accident and a handful of people who were actually there to watch. Stood at the back of the room, I saw eople with their fingers in their ears on more than one occasion. It's not for everyone.

Unfortunately, those who were there to watch weren't exactly treated with much of a visual spectacle either. Although RESO nights are often as interesting to look at as they are to listen to, this was a "laptop special". Sonically interesting maybe, but visually stimulating it wasn't.

Da Xiao, Mai Mai, Xu Cheng (him out of Torturing Nurse) and Olaf Hochherz did some interesting things with their mouse (mice?) and keyboards, both as soloists and when they paired up later on in the night (Mai Mai performing with Hochherz and Xu with Da Xiao), but it was crying out for a VJ or some sort of animation while they were playing. Oh well, maybe next time...

New Subs, Bang Bang Tang, Da Fresh and Screaming Saviour

2010-02-07T09:07:12Z

Well alright, there's not actually any new Subs that you can listen to yet, but they are recording new material at the moment, which is pretty exciting seeing as how they're one of the best bands in China. They've put up some photos of them recording the vocals for their new album - check out the gallery here. A cursory look around their Douban page reveals no details of when the album will be out, but hopefully if they're doing the vocals it won't be too much longer. A new Subs record is something to get excited about.

New material that you can actually listen to, comes in the form of a new demo from Shanghai's Bang Bang Tang. It's called 异客梦, which I'm going to translate (probably badly) as Traveller's Dream. As always, Xiao Bai's vocals are fantastic and the musicianship is tight - check it out here.

Another new demo has gone up recently from Da Fresh, a Shanghai Brit-pop band. They were quite active a while back, but have been quiet recently. Basically, they've done hardly anything since they started working closely with Soma, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Ahem. Anyway, the song is called 完整夏天 (All Summer) and you can hear it here.

If those two tracks are a little pop for your tastes, then check out the new instrumental demo from Shanghai metal act Screaming Saviour. That's right here.

Podcast SE02 Ep Three: Loudspeaker I Will Be Back

2010-02-05T00:53:28Z

Download link

This is episode three of series two and it goes a little something like this...

There's reviews of last weekend's gigs including the Playful Warrior show at YYT and a CD release from someone or other. We have a good old chin wag about Douban (which is like crack to us) and the impressive numbers being racked up by some local indie folk acts there. Then, we take a look ahead to this weekend by previewing some of the gigs that you can catch around town. Go listen.

You know what to do with these:

Reviews
Playful Warrior write up
Chaos Mind
Loudspeaker
Six Shot
FAF
BCR + DFG write up
Boys Climbing Ropes
Duck Fight Goose

Folk Douban
Andy's post
Coverpeople
Mogu Hong
List of the top artists on Douban

Previews
The last New Vector Show
Video: New Vector's Run Just Run
Jehosaphat Blow and the Blah Blah Blahs
Weghur
RESO 11