A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Where: Unnamed Di’anmen Space
When: Sat & Sun, 3 & 4 March, 15:00–23:30
How Much: 150RMB (two day pass), 80RMB per day (less for stu­dents)
Who: Soviet Pop, Zhang Shouwang, Xiao He, Yan Yulong and many many more (More Info)
Why: I have to admit that in my heart of hearts, this isn’t my pick of the week. But I can only rec­om­mend Ningxia Nights so often. This is the Sally Can’t Dance fes­ti­val, which only comes around once a year, if there’s any­one game enough to orga­nize it. Josh could tell you about it bet­ter, but it was started years ago by Li Tieqiao, kept up by Subjam’s Yan Jun, and then laid low for a while. With the pass­ing of D-22, Zoomin’ Night’s Zhu Wenbo and Josh him­self have enough time and energy (and con­tacts) to take the reigns. This year, they’re bring­ing some of the best of Bei­jing and China to the stage of an as-yet-unnamed space on the south-west cor­ner of where all the Di’anmen’s meet (Di’anmen East, West, Nei, Wai). It’s dif­fi­cult to pick a day, but I would sug­gest Sun­day, if only for the oppor­tu­nity to see an improv jam ses­sion between some of the coolest exper­i­men­tal musi­cians out there. Plus, the evening rounds out with Xiao He. What’s not to love? It’s a BYO xiao­maibu affair, so bring your bike laden with rat­tling Yan­jing bottles.

As men­tioned, my heart will also be at Dos Kole­gas on Fri­day, with their first Made in Ningxia Night of the Year of the Dragon, 10PM, 50RMB. But before then, on Thurs­day, there’s a send-off gig for some bands going to SXSW — Car­sick Cars, Nova Heart, Rus­tic… — called Bye Bye For South By, 9PM, 100/70RMB. Finally, The Return of The Amaz­ing Insur­ance Sales­men, for those who have been wait­ing for it, is finally upon us on Sat­ur­day at Yugong Yis­han, 9PM, 50RMB. And if you’re down for head­ing to the CBD, Pet Con­spir­acy are play­ing the lit­er­ally under­ground night­club Haze, which should be super inter­est­ing. Starts at 11PM, 80RMB.

Xiao Zhong of Pairs emailed me last week and alerted me to some­thing awe­some they’re doing down there at the end of March: pil­ing a bunch of peo­ple on a bus, dri­ving them to an unknown area and dump­ing them some­where they’ll be able to hear some awe­some bands play. Yeah, don’t worry, it sounds sketch to start out with, but when you know you’ve got the back­bone of Shanghai’s music scene at the wheel of the bus (or at least, behind the guy behind the wheel… those guys can drink), it starts to sound a bit bet­ter. Plus, it’s free!

So if anyone’s plan­ning an April Fools get­away, con­sider Shang­hai. And for any­one in Bei­jing read­ing this blog with a bus and some musi­cian friends… well, if we trust you, con­sider fill­ing up your bus with music fans. When the weather’s warm, get­ting away from the city for some great music doesn’t seem so mon­u­men­tally difficult.

If you haven’t been pay­ing atten­tion to the Split Works lineup for JUE Fes­ti­val this year, you’re miss­ing out. Not only on some great shows dur­ing the offi­cial fes­ti­val time­line (March 9–25), but also this weekend’s show, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. If read­ing the arti­cle I linked to there doesn’t make you want to get up and get to Yugong Yis­han this week­end, take a lis­ten to their stuff at MySpace, which has been behav­ing itself lately. They’re one of the bet­ter exam­ples of indie pop I’ve heard in a while, with a won­der­ful 80s style to them, mak­ing them feel like a curi­ous revamp of The Cure. Plus, open­ing for them is Chi­nese indie pop won­ders, The Life Journey.

Get pre-sale tick­ets in the fol­low­ing var­i­ous ways:
预售热线 Ticket Hotline：1870 113 3908 （Mon.–Fri., 10am-6pm / EN & CN）
预售方式 Pre­sale Avail­able From：
1. 淘宝 Taobao：http://shop34274764.taobao.com/
2. 愚公移山 Yugong Yishan（Mon.–Sun., 5 pm–midnight）
3. 可百尼尼Crêpanini（Mon.–Sun., 9 am–midnight）地址Address：三里屯北路81号那里花园1层酒吧街对面 1/F, Nali Patio, 81 San­l­i­tun Beilu

Just because D-22 has closed shop doesn’t mean the folks at Maybe Mars haven’t been hard at work, which the release of these two albums attests to. Mr. Grace­less’ album “The Tree Ever Green” hits stands (or… the inter­net, more likely) today, Feb 17, though they’re cur­rently tour­ing around the coun­try and won’t hit the cap­i­tal again until early April. They still sound like Blur, of course, but they’re a reli­able band, and hav­ing their tracks to spin when­ever I want is def­i­nitely going to be fun. Bird­strik­ing, on the other hand, are hav­ing a low-key release, with­out any press or promo sur­round­ing it because of its “polit­i­cal sen­si­tiv­ity”. I haven’t lis­tened to it yet myself, but you can pick it up on Taobao or at indie music stores around Gulou like Indie Music on Jiugu­lou Dajie.

If you’re a die-hard Shan­ren fan, you’ll prob­a­bly already know that they are head­ing off to do a tour of the US and Canada next month. Even if you’re not, I hope that news excites you as much as it does me, and that you’re going to send the dates (below the jump) to all of your friends and fam­ily State-side. Of course, it’s expen­sive for a band (any band) to tour over­seas, and while Shanren’s not doing badly for them­selves, they could use a help­ing hand. What they’ve done to raise money isn’t just ask for it — Xiaobu­dian (the adorable multi-instrumentalist of the group) is hand-making eth­nic Yunnan/south-western instru­ments, and there are other give­aways based on your con­tri­bu­tion amount. Check it all out here: bit.ly/shanren-tour (VPN needed).

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