A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Today brings the Bei­jing Gig Blog’s first ever inter­view, with Time Out’s Web & Music Edi­tor Jen­nifer Con­rad. This month Time Out presents its May Music spe­cial, which fea­tures a com­mis­sioned cover by iconic poster artist Chair­man Ca. In addi­tion to pick­ing up the issue to have a look at the art­work, you can also pick up one of some very lim­ited prints, num­bered and signed by Chair­man Ca him­self. Get the details on that here.

Jen­nifer has been on my Gig of the Week mail­ing list for some time now, and very kindly offered to answer a few ques­tions. She also put me in con­tact with Chair­man Ca, so stay tuned for the answers to the ques­tions I had for him. Here’s what I had to ask Time Out’s Web & Music Edi­tor about the May Music issue:

1. What was the rea­son behind choos­ing The Bea­t­les’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover?

We wanted to do some­thing spe­cial to cel­e­brate the Bei­jing music scene–and com­mis­sion­ing an artist asso­ci­ated with the scene seemed like an excit­ing way to do it. Chair­man Ca was an obvi­ous choice because he has a dis­tinc­tive style that’s rec­og­niz­able from his fliers for D-22 and his works that are repro­duced in Sound Kap­i­tal. He’s also a music fan–I saw him mosh­ing to AV Okubo over May hol­i­day weekend–so I think his pas­sion for the sub­ject mat­ter comes through.

We gave Chair­man Ca a few con­cepts to choose from and together we decided to go with Sgt. Pepper’s. It’s an iconic image that’s a lot of fun, and choos­ing this con­cept also let us include a large num­ber of Bei­jing scen­esters on the cover.

2. Who chose the fea­tured artists — Time Out Bei­jing or Chair­man Ca? If you can, elab­o­rate briefly on why those artists were chosen.

We gave Chair­man Ca a list of the artists who were con­firmed for the dif­fer­ent May music fes­ti­vals at the time. I pointed out some that I thought would be most rec­og­niz­able to our read­ers, and he went from there. Since we high­lighted the folk scene in the mag­a­zine, we made sure that folk artists were well rep­re­sented. Hanggai’s trade­mark Mon­go­lian out­fits made them a nat­ural stand-in for the Bea­t­les, who wore psy­che­delic band uni­forms in the cen­ter of the original.

3. What can we expect from the Time Out Music Special?

This year, we decided to throw it down and say that folk is the new rock. It’s not that we don’t like Bei­jing rock ‘n’ roll, but we felt that there’s a really inter­est­ing and inno­v­a­tive folk scene hap­pen­ing. These musi­cians don’t nec­es­sar­ily get the atten­tion they deserve, but they’re mak­ing some of the most orig­i­nal music in China right now–especially the bands that revive tra­di­tional tech­niques in a thor­oughly mod­ern way.

We also take a look back at the Midi Fes­ti­val over the years, cel­e­brat­ing that festival’s his­tory and sense of com­mu­nity. Three artists who’ve been there since the early days Yu Yang (ex-Iron Kite), Xiao Rong (Brain Fail­ure), and Gao Hu (Mis­er­able Faith) share their mem­o­ries from over the years.

And we speak to four Bei­jing music-store clerks. We like to think they’re keep­ing the spirit of the High Fidelity-style obses­sive music fan alive, stock­ing the best of Chi­nese indie music and shar­ing their favorites with customers.

In the music sec­tion, we get to know three of Shanghai’s best bands, Boys Climb­ing Ropes, Boo­jii, and Duck Fight Goose.

4. In your opin­ion, what are the bands to watch out for in the sec­ond half of this year?

I love, love, love Guai Li, and their new album should be out…someday, so I’m excited for that. They’re a great post-punk band that no one ever talks about–definitely one of Beijing’s best. Now that the Rus­tic boys are rid­ing high on their Global Bat­tle of the Bands win, it will be inter­est­ing to see what they do next. The past few times I’ve seen
them, Lucifer has really been com­ing into his own as a frontman.

Hang­gai are so great–with their new album com­ing out this fall, I hope it pushes them in front of a big­ger audi­ence. Shan­ren put on really fun live shows–they’re already kind of buzzy, but I expect that their fol­low­ing will grow in the sec­ond half of the year. And Re-Tros and Hedge­hog have both given great per­for­mances lately, so I’m look­ing
for­ward to see­ing more of them. As far as the younger bands, I have my eye on Lazy Camels and Mr. Graceless.

5. Describe your favorite Bei­jing rock expe­ri­ence: eg, a live show or fes­ti­val, a rec­om­men­da­tion that opened your eyes, your first time at a given venue.…

Hmmm…that I can tell you on the record? When I moved to Bei­jing (March 2008), the only Chi­nese band I knew was Brain Fail­ure. I couldn’t have been in Bei­jing for more than a week when I saw a show listed at Yugong Yis­han and decided to check it out. I was new in town, so it took me like an hour to find the venue.

When I finally arrived, Queen Sea Big Shark were play­ing, and I thought, “Wow, this isn’t bad.” The next band was Joy­side, and when I saw Bian Yuan, I was like, “Holy shit, Chi­nese Mick Jag­ger! Where am I?!” It’s prob­a­bly not fair that I saw two of the best Bei­jing bands the first time I went out, but that’s how it hap­pened. Actu­ally, I saw 24 Hours the first time I went to D-22, and Hang­gai on my first visit to Jiangjin­jiu Bar, so I had really good luck right at the start.