Recently in Chinese Music Category

Just a quickie (chortle chortle). 

I'm not sure anyone knows where it will be exactly yet or, given previous years' dramas, whether it'll take place or not, but Midi is inviting bands to sign up for Midi 2010 at the moment. Obviously, they'll pick the big bands themselves, but lesser-known bands (i.e. anyone who is not multi-award-winning Miserable Faith) can sign up now for a chance of playing the festival.

There's even a MySpace minisite where bands can put up a song and have people vote for them. Last time I checked, Shanghai was fairly under-represented, with only Joker and Bremen in there at the minute. I'm not sure how binding the voting system is, but getting exposure at Midi could be a big help to a band, so if you're on MySpace, go login and get voting. The site is here.

A while back, we mentioned the slightly puzzling dearth of music blogs in the capital. Being based in Shanghai, we have to endure constantly being told that the music scene here isn't as good as, or as developed as the Beijing one. Fine, but given the huge amount of international attention the scene up north receives compared to us down here, it's always seemed a bit odd that there was no regular English-language blog covering the scene up there. Incidentally, when I say covering the scene, I mean in a similar way to what we do here - bits and bobs of news, new tracks and gig reviews etc - China Music Radar of course gives Beijing plenty of excellent coverage on their side of things. 

Ok, last Pet Conspiracy post for a while, I promise. But here's a video of them that's spliced together from clips of their live show in Shanghai, a Hallowe'en performance in Beijing and a gig in front of a bunch of people in Hong Kong who are apparently unsure what to do in the event of the lead singer stage diving. Have a look. 

ANOTHER UPDATE: While the debate about gig photographers rages on, Tim Franco has posted some great photos of the bands in the Big Apple. He's even done a write up of it all as well. SmartShanghai has the goodness right here.

UPDATE: Rather than just plucking the comments of some random off of Douban, the Radar has gone and done some research and commissioned a proper review and everything. Check it out here.

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that Maybe Mars are touring some of their bands through the US of A right about now. Here's a bit of background and here's some more details.

Well, it sounds like things are going a bit better than the Modern Sky attempted tour of the same land mass a few months ago. That was where they put Casino Demon and Hedgehog on at a Chinese Cultural Show. You can hear us talk a bit more about it on the podcast here and watch a video of the debacle here.

Word is that the show at The Glasslands, who hosted Xiao He, Carsick Cars and PK14 last Friday (together with These Are Powers), was a sell out with a twenty minute wait to get in. That's a venue of around 300 capacity. According to the same comment on CMR, people threw Zhongnanhais at the show as well.

There's a fairly, umm, interesting write up of one of the New York shows here as well. It's basically a stream of consciousness based on the show and shouting so much to Carsick Cars that his throat hurts, but give it a read. Here's a highlight:

"xiao he was incredible, awesome -- apparently pretty drunk before he even started soundcheck. xiao he lyrics: "YOU WANT CHINESE SONG, I GIVE YOU CHINESE SONG". xiao he lyrics: (chinese national anthem). xiao he lyrics: "i know you, you want to know me -- we are all here together -- FUCK YOU". by the end of the night, xiao he was completely wasted, freaking with random women, attempting to grope two members of these are powers as they were trying to perform on stage, grabbing their stage monitor and flipping it around so that it was emitting sound downward into the stage. he is our new hero."

So what does this tell us? Apart from the fact that Xiao He is an amazing performer (we kind of knew that already), it shows how successful Chinese bands can be touring abroad if they're put on in the right venues. Pet Conspiracy ripped through Europe recently, causing Helen Feng to label it "one of the most successful tours a Chinese band has ever done". By the sounds of things (and yes, I'm basing this on hearsay and a couple of comments - the ayi who owns this site won't spring for flights to the States), the Maybe Mars tour could be set to achieve similar success.

Modern Sky, please take note.

There can't have been too many people who did both the Pet Conspiracy and Hanggai shows this weekend, but if you were to ask anyone who did which was the more entertaining, they'd be hard pushed for an answer. If it was your first time seeing the former, then maybe the stage antics would have sealed it. If you'd seen them before but it was your first time watching Hanggai's raucous traditional folk music, you might be tempted to go with the Mongolians.

Although they're based in Beijing these days, they haven't forgotten their Mongolian roots and, dressed in traditional costume and playing traditional instruments, their music has an authenticity and energy that is hard to match. Apparently, Hanggai had been against having a support act on the bill. They didn't need one. The audience - with a strong Mongolian contingent - were only here to see them. They were called back to the stage for three separate encores, with some audience members blocking the stage exit at one point and pleading with them to continue.

It was no over reaction - Hanggai were simply an immensely entertaining band. It wasn't the only stage invasion of the night either. Earlier several Mongolian girls had taken to the stage to present the band members with white scarves - a traditional greeting. During a song about drinking (so good that they played it twice), a man got up to offer the lead singer a bottle of Mongolian baijiu (ridiculously strong stuff), which he promptly necked. One of the Mongolian girls who'd been showing off their traditional dance moves during the gig, also got on the mic to accompany the lead singer in one of the encore songs - Ulan Bator - and to lead the crowd in saying "Hanggai we love you" in Mongolian. I imagine everyone meant it as well, Hanggai were outstanding.

Savour those naturist photos of Pet Conspiracy. The album has now mysteriously disappeared. In its place though, are a series of shots from a photo shoot for Moon magazine. They're not as funny, they're just gory, but there's some nudity there if that's what you're after. Turns out that's where the one of them holding cigarettes for each other comes from as well. You can download the magazine, which features an interview with the band (in Chinese) here. Or just look at the pictures here.

So a recap then:

Pet Conspiracy tonight at MAO, 9pm, 60 kuai. One of the hottest bands from Beijing right now, this show is going to be crazy.

Boys Climbing Ropes in support. One of the finest bands in Shanghai, these guys are always brilliant live. Check out the latest podcast for one of their tracks.

Duck Fight Goose on the bill too. Take LAVA/OX/SEA's Hans, Boojii/Muscle Snog's San San, Boojii/Hard Queen's Damen and Muscle Snog's Panda and you've got yourself some of the finest musicians in the country. In one band.

Don't miss this.

I'm not affiliated with this show in any way, I just want you all to come because if we can pack out MAO, this show is going to be unforgettable. Be there.

By now you've probably seen the press photo for Pet Conspiracy that features four of the collective's members sat half-naked on chairs and holding cigarettes for each other. If not, don't worry - there's some even better shots below. I've gone with a fairly timid one here so that anyone reading this in the office or in a public space doesn't get weird looks, but believe me, you definitely want to see what's after the jump.

The photos were put up on Douban just now and show members of Pet Conspiracy getting back to nature. Just in case you were too lazy to follow a link to Douban, I've put the photos in the extended version of this post.

Not only are there some incredible photos below, there's also a great video featuring clips from Pet Conspiracy's recent tour. This is their 13 stop European tour that Helen Feng described as "one of the most successful tours I think a Chinese band has ever done" in an interview with Sam Gaskin at Shanghai Talk. Read the full interview here.

These guys, plus Boys Climbing Ropes, plus Duck Fight Goose, plus B6 and the Antidote DJs - this Friday at MAO could be a huge one.

Oh, and in case you're left in any doubt, the photos after this jump are almost certainly NSFW.

Hot on the heels of China Music Radar posting up the trailer for a documentary on Beijing Punk (featuring Misandao amongst others), I thought I'd post about Beijing punk heroine and Subs lead singer Kang Mao being in a documentary of her own.

Kang Mao's blog has been down lately. Every time I've tried to get on it the last couple of weeks, I've been redirected to some photo site or something. Anyway, it's back now so I can finally post about the film. It's called Do You Want to Play With Me? and she recently posted on it and a film festival in Nanjing.

Information on the film is pretty limited to be honest, but it's being billed as a Punk / Performance / Direct Movie, is directed by Liu Yonghong and Liu Zhiyong and, frankly, anything with Kang Mao in is good enough for me.

The plan is for the film to be released online, but not until next autumn. She's not too sure why it won't be out for so long either - apparently there's still a bit of editing and stuff to do on it. Still, another year? Seems a bit over the top. Hopefully it won't really take that long and we'll be able to see it soon.

If you were planning to catch Super VC at Yuyintang tonight then you're going to be disappointed - the show has been cancelled. Beijing has been hit by heavy snowfall and flights at the Capital Airport have been severely disrupted. The band have been at the airport since 6am hoping to be able to get on a plane to Shanghai, but have just been told that all flights for the day have been cancelled.

Here's a video of the boys from Beijing playing their Brit-rock for anyone who was hoping to see them tonight.