chaile 拆了 - Live Reports

Subs in Europe

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 04:31:44 -0400

Once again, Beijing's premier punk rock band is in Scandinavia. And once again, Jon Campbell is touring with them, and blogging about their exploits.

Pictures from Friday's show

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:08:22 -0500

My super-secret spy, aka Red Heart, sent me some great photos from Yang Fan's set with Funny Noise last week. Dig the glasses. It's a shame they only had the two weeks to play together before they had to return to Japan. Yang Fan sent me a recording the did for fun, and it sounds great. Here's hoping she finds a new band to play with. Thanks to April, too, for telling me about the show.

Jon Campbell on the Top Floor Circus

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 09:48:36 -0500

I missed this last week. Jon's latest Foreign Devil column for PopMatters is on Shanghai's Top Floor Circus, reveling in what he calls Post (Modern) Punk:

The set began ominously, with barely a minute of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The song was cut off by an angry Lu Chen (vocals), but with his overly large smirk not far below the angry façade, we knew that this was part of the plan. Next, a brutal death-metal track, cut off, once again, before the real Top Floor Circus gig began.

Over the top? Perhaps. But it was a perfect start to a perfect night of amazingly sub-par music. The drummer could barely keep up. The playing was sloppy; each musician was obviously trying very hard to play at a mediocre level.

But it was glorious.

I'm disappointed; I've never seen the 顶楼的马戏团 (Top Floor Circus). In fact, I've only heard the collaboration with 另外两位同志 (The Other Two Comrades) and 颜峻 (Yan Jun), 上海现场 (Improvisation in Shanghai).

Gegentala from a distance

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:52:35 -0400

While some people might claim that posting an article about a rock festival that occurred two months prior is a bit sloppy, I eschew such thoughts. Better late than never.

Wu Nan and I arrived in Hohhot early morning, hopped on to the bus to Wulanhua, and after fighting the dust and crowds of touts ready to grab the next backpackers, we were finally on the last leg of the first leg of our trip. Destination: the Gegentala grasslands, and the Gegentala Rock and Roll Festival.

We arrived before most of the crowds. The stage was massive, and it loomed over the grasslands. The crew had brought it in on massive flatbed trucks from Worker's Stadium in Beijing; that is not a short or easy trip. We assumed, wrongly, as it turned out, that the turnout would be quite large. At a restaurant in Wulanhua we learned the town was told to expect up to eighty thousand visitors. At Friday's soundcheck, however, there were far more police and army than onlookers.

"Setting up" by RobotAdam

"Cops" by RobotAdam

But it was still early, so there was nothing to worry about. We joined the expanding collection of campers outside the concert grounds near a pond. There was plenty of room, and the weather was fine. The sun was shining, and there was a nice breeze; perfect concert weather.

"The Stage" by RobotAdam

Back at the stage the opening act was setting up: Che Lun, from Mongolia. Three guys with long hair, one bald guy. I knew what this meant: long solos. Yep, it was a metal band. Luckily they didn't stay fully in to hair-metal territory; the singer made excellent use of throat singing to the crowd's delight. The best part of the set was when the guitarist dropped his guitar for a while and switched to the Morinkhuur, the Mongolian horse-head fiddle.

"Che Lun, Horse Head Fiddle" by RobotAdam

Next up was Lan Ye, from Inner Mongolia, demonstrating what would become the recurring theme of the festival: Mongolians love hair metal, Inner Mongolians love Nü-metal. In all fairness, while Inner Mongolian rap metal sounds pretty much the same as other rap metal, the Mongolian language makes it a little more badass. Already my camera was useless; winds had picked up, and I couldn't hold the little point-n-clicker steady to save my life.

Chengdu rockers Ashura followed, trying to cram every style of 90s rock into a single set. My notes say, "We love Chengdu, we love Linkin Park. I think they like MTV more." I apologize for being so mean. They weren't bad, actually, and the crowd dug them quite a bit.

Some noise rockers from Guizhou started setting up next, but the wind was picking up much more quickly. The crew hurriedly pulled down the massive speakers, and Wu Nan and I hurried back to the tent to make sure it hadn't blown away. We found some loose rocks to secure it, but others weren't so lucky; some poorly constructed tents looked ready to break apart at any moment.

"Gathering Storm" by RobotAdam

We made it back just in time to see the last half of the last song. I thought it was interesting enough, but Jon remarked, "I like the idea, but not so much the execution."

The rain was coming in sideways now; I was worried that they would have to shut down just halfway through the night. They pulled some of the larger hanging lights off, and set up some coverings over the monitors. I have to admit—they were as prepared as they could be. Cold Fairyland did a great job, I think. They played pretty much the same set as their last Beijing show at Nameless Highland, including a couple long pipa breaks. The local crowd didn't seem to know what to make of them, but they liked the pipa as much as I did. Plus, I heard a couple of them talking about Shanghai girls in hushed tones.

The big shock of the night was Glorious Pharmacy. How would Xiao He's strange delivery be received? Quite well, it turns out; his improvisations on grassland themes got an incredible response. His band was in fine form that night, especially the accordion player. Who knew the accordion was so universal?

Brain Failure is Brain Failure. No surprises, but no one wanted surprises. High energy.

The rain picked up as some Mongolians with teased hair started their set. Wu Nan and I had no more energy or desire to go through a set of cock rock, so we put our heads down and walked through the wet grass and dirt towards the tent.

The storm was just starting, really.

On the road

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 07:51:24 -0400

I'm writing this from a smelly wangba in Yinchuan (aren't they all smelly?). The Gegentala Festival was amazing and disappointing and fun and troublesome, all wrapped in to one. Pretty much like I expected. I'll write up some more detailed descriptions when I have some more time, but here are a few quick observations:

Inner Mongolians love nu-metal.
Mongolians love hair metal.
瘦人 (Thin Man) - cock rock is cock rock in any language.
Give SUBS a challenge - 5? songs in 15 minutes - and they deliver.
Build it and they will come. Hold it in the middle of nowhere Inner Mongolia and very few of them will come.
The Gegentala Grasslands doesn't really have that much grass.

That's enough for now. I'll be in Xi'an next week - if any of you know anything about Xi'an's music scene, or want to grab a beer, send me an email - adam at chaile.org.

Sonic Beijing #1 Pictures

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:24:24 -0400

Monday's show was excellent, if sparsely attended. Congrats to Jian Cui and Shanshui Records for putting on a great show, and here's hoping there will be many more after this.

Sulumi's music is like a sunshine overdose. Crystal clear game boy melodies high high high in the mix, with all the beats and rumbling noise just below the surface.

Dead J was all over the place stylistically, veering from downtempo to techno with deep deep basslines. Check out the August 4th show - it's a cd release for his new record.

Municiple - from the US; steady steady techno + twisted reggae vocals. Very, very nice.

iLoop was noisy as hell, and that boy can jump. Every one of you should go get his EP Don't Break My Core, part of the Shanshui.zip box.

HardOff - UK via Japan. The picture doesn't show it, but this guy dances more than any laptop musician I've ever seen. I know that's not saying much, but still. And getting an audience here out of their seat and dancing? That's hard work. The music? Absolutely fucking destroys. Somehow he seemed to squeeze every kind of music ever made into 10 seconds.

Double Fish - Awesome. A fine way to end out the electronic music. Now, I swear there was some video game music samples in there - Ninja Gaiden, maybe.

Godot, from Shanghai, were the last act. They play instrumental post-rock in the vein of Explosions in the Sky. Highly recommended, especially for all of you that live down there. They've got a new album out, but it's a shame they didn't have any on them at the time.

Rebuilding news, Subs on fire

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 16:49:11 -0400

Sometimes the 6-7 band shows can be a little tiring; seeing two bands that completely destroy can be very refreshing. Saturday's show was like that. Rebuilding the Rights of Statues were absolutely fantastic - possibly the best they've ever been. Hua Dong had sweat pouring off him halfway through the first song, and Ma Hui and Liu Min were tight tight tight.

Halfway through the show Benjamen leaned over to me and asked if I had their CD; he couldn't believe that a band this good hadn't released one yet. But the wait's almost over! Hua Dong told me that in September 重塑雕像的权利 will finally release an EP. I'll be gone then, but you better believe that disc will get express mailed somehow.

Subs were a little off their game, but still great and as volatile as ever. I didn't see them at MIDI, so I'm curious as to how their sound will translate to the big stage in Inner Mongolia.

Goodbye, Lenin. Hello, Yaogun.

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:26:06 -0400

I posted this last week, but I accidentally forgot to put it on the front page.

From Sunday's show at 13Club:

I didn't catch this guy's name, but the half a set I caught was good.

This was my first time seeing Car Sick Cars. Hua Dong told me they were a bit like Explosions in the Sky, but I think more of a Sonic Youth/Velvet Underground split. They're still a bit rough, but it's definitely a band to watch out for.

This is a bad picture, but I like it anyways.

It's very hard to get a picture of Kang Mao standing still. She doesn't seem to do it very much.

This was my first time seeing Wan Xiaoli. I'm impressed.

幸福大街 (Happy Avenue).

I didn't get any good pictures of Rebuilding the Rights of Statues this time.

Two Tigers: Bedzoo Showcase

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 01:20:22 -0400

Congratulations to the folks at Bedzoo for putting on an excellent show.

Me:mo - who I was excited to see live, since I liked his album and his tracks on the various comps, started out strong. Despite a nagging ground hum, his sound–pleasant, chime-like synths with slight glitches here and there–was captivating. "Fireworks," the most recognizable track from his self-titled CD, was featured in a distinct form, with extra flourishes.

Next up was Jeven; smooth synth lines and endless breaks. Nice.

The oddest entry of the night was 十口几点 (Shikoujidian), with his miniature Casio tweaked to sound like a toy piano paired with a melodica. Is there such a thing as melodica-core?

I might be wrong, but I believe the next act was PNF. Tecno with great beats and wave combinations - very melodic. I could listen to this all day.

I missed this guy's name. He looked a bit bored. Fun music though; not often you hear samples from Lou Reed interviews at shows.

Last night was Yang Tao's first show, according to his friend. Dribble dribble drip drop. Off to a good start.

Yang Tao was joined later by Jian Cui. His was a very minimal style. It's interesting how after tonal washes and drones beats can feel so refreshing. He did answer his phone once, but he hung up right away. Perhaps it was a wrong number.

Last act of the night was label boss ZaOYiN (Liu Wei).

Fantastic. Lots of variety, and the sets were generally short and sweet. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Get It Louder

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 16:38:41 -0400

The performance was much shorter than expected. After last month's marathon at 798, this was just a blink of an eye.

718/Sun Lei opened the show, and all I could think at the beginning was, "This is insanely loud." The nearly pitch black room was completely filled with electronic drones, and it became clear loudness wasn't an esthetic decision–Tango just had no idea how to do the sound. Unfortunately this resulted in 718's set being filled with unintentional distortions, which obscured much of his music's nuances.

But even with the sound problems, he still shined. Elements of pastoral folk were a surprising touch, eventually segueing into a rendition of a Chinese folk tune, complete with erhu. The acoustic guitar backed track brought in overdubbed children's voices to wind it out, before he played some material from Nowise Assault.

Langzhou's Li Jianhong turned in a set of brutal, punishing noise. This wasn't drill-n-bass, this was just drill-drill-drill. The highlight was a period where the distortions were twisted so much that vaguely human screams could be made out. Excellent.

Pixellated, nearly organic sounds made up Wang Changcun's set. Perhaps this is background music for alien probes–dense glitches, clicks + cuts, and water drops and drains. Later, Wang mixed in micro cuts of whistles, then adding voices. Spooky.

8gg finished out the afternoon. Heartbeat bass, then pulses, then back to heartbeats. The pair mixed the warped sounds with live video, starting with scattered still closeups of what was either hair, blood vessels, or who knows what else, before switching to sliced pictures of a sponge, and then to fractal zooms of their Windows software.

But after the bulk of their performance, they played what was the most crowd-pleasing section of the day: cut up, sampled, looped, and and absolutely hilarious remix of CCTV1 anchors Wang Ning and Xin Zhibing.

Excellent show. Perhaps next time they can find a better venue.

SUBS, Ourself Beside Me, and Another Idea

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:26:10 -0400

From Friday's show at 13 Club:

We'll miss you.

What an amazing show SUBS put on. This tour has really been good for them. They fleshed out their set with some new songs, and - if it's possible - even more energy. Even the appearance by the Laowai Asshole Contingent couldn't screw this up.

And there's more good news; SUBS will be playing their first shows outside the country in August, when they will travel to Norway! Congratulations are in order.

Joy Division Tribute show

Mon, 30 May 2005 02:20:36 -0400

Saturday was the Nameless Highland's Joy Division/Ian Curtis tribute show. The club was packed from the beginning, and it didn't let up. There were quite a few people that I haven't seen before, which was nice. I only caught a bit of openers Re-Nirvana and Bad FM.

Joyside was, well, Joyside. These guys are all right, and their Stooges inspired drunken punk has some good parts, but I just can't get into them that much. Saturday's show was one of their better ones, though.

After that was an interesting new act, Xanadu (仙都); this four piece mixed live bass, drums, and guitar with samples. Most of the samples were from Twenty-Four Hour Party People keeping the Ian Curtis theme going. It's a shame that they had only limited success - it definitely sounded like their first time out, especially the guitarist and the unfortunately off key warbling of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by the woman working the sampler. I hope they stick with it, though, and find their direction.

新裤子 (New Pants) used to be a pop-punk outfit. There songs were catchy, and their audiences were always full of college girls bopping their heads. But sometime in the last few months they've morphed into a disco band, of all things. Their drummer has been replaced by a Bono-style sunglass-wearing synth/sampler player and hype man. In between bouts of looking detached he'd grab the mic and yell "Let's go!" while throwing his free hand up in the air. The rest of the band didn't seem to know what to do with this new style; they're not going into all out dancepunk or mutant disco mode, and they seem to be half ironic and half sincere. I can only hope that future shows will include less finger pointing into the audience. Or more.

Finishing off the night were my favorites, 重塑雕像的权利 (Rebuilding the Rights of Statues). While the other bands nobly gave Joy Division covers a try, Hua Dong & Co. were the only ones that could even come close. After four impassioned covers, they went into a set of their own songs. And Saturday might have been the only time I've seen a local band with not even an EP to their name get such a response from the crowd that they played an encore song. Good job, guys.

Ourself Beside Me call it quits

Mon, 23 May 2005 21:27:40 -0400

I got some bad news last week, and confirmed it this week. One of Beijing's best live bands has broken up, before recording anything but a demo.

They'll have one more show in June, they say, and that's it. drummer Liu Bao will continue playing in　新裤子 (Xin Kuzi, New Pants), and bassist Liu Min will stay in 重塑雕像的权利 (Rebuilding the Rights of Statues).

Here are pictures from Saturday's show at Nameless Highland.

More pictures from Beijing New Sound

Mon, 23 May 2005 05:43:35 -0400

Jackson was nice enough to send along these pictures from the last part of the show.

Beijing New Sound Pictures

Sun, 22 May 2005 01:13:48 -0400

Eugene Martynec is frowning.

Marqido has finished.

Wang Fan is twiddling knobs.

The Lanzhou Noise Society is living up to their name.

Li Jianhong is working with a contact mic on a television as a sound source.

718 is almost completely motionless.

C-Drik would like the PA to be louder.

I enjoyed the show quite a bit. I'm sorry I had to leave early, though.