A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Where: XP
When: Thu 26 July, 21:00
How Much: 20RMB
Who: Secret Knives, NMLK, Jiahuizhen (More Info)
Why: A very warm thank you to Brad Siep­pel (aka thruoutin/白面包) of Jing Weir ‘zine for giv­ing me the heads up on this one. Brad and Michael Win­kler (from bands like Yan­tiao, Arm Trick and Dwaas) are going to play backup to Ash Smith, a Kiwi who usu­ally runs around with some other guys under the band name of Secret Knives. I’d never heard of them before, but I was in a pro­cras­ti­nat­ing mood so I checked out their Band­camp and instantly instantly fell in love with their sound. I can’t wait to see it live, and to get back to XP for another visit. They’re joined by local acts NMLK and Jiahuizhen, both of whom are total mys­ter­ies to it. But come on, it’s a 20RMB show, what’s not to love? Check them out on Band­camp (and down­load their albums!), and if you love them as much as I imme­di­ately did you’ll thank me for this later.

Again, there’s not that much going down this week­end, but that’s fine by me because it’s the Olympics, baby! 2 Kole­gas is host­ing an epic kick-off party on Sat­ur­day night, show­ing the Open­ing Cer­e­mony, with The Bei­jing Bea­t­les and spe­cial cock­tails and stuff like that. It should be loads of fun! For my part, I’ll be up at 4am watch­ing that stuff live, but if you can’t make that sort of com­mit­ment, then get to 2 Kole­gas for a great party.

Where: XP
When: Sun 15 July, 19:00
How Much: 60RMB; 40RMB stu­dents
Who: Gal­lops (More Info)
Why: I don’t usu­ally like hear­ing the label “math rock”. I haven’t seen that many exam­ples, it’s true, but the ones I have seen I really haven’t enjoyed that much. But when a band describes them­selves as “A blur of a four-headed machine, weav­ing mechan­i­cally piv­ot­ing struc­tures of sound that evoke imagery of retro videogame dystopias and B-movie hor­ror sound­tracks”, I kind of have to lis­ten. And I wasn’t dis­ap­pointed. Take a lis­ten to their Band­camp, and you’ll see what I mean. The math rock that I’ve heard before has been mainly elec­tronic, and sort of bor­ing, and not really wor­thy of the name “rock”. Gal­lops, how­ever, def­i­nitely have rock and roll in their blood, and while I have to say that messi­ness is one of the biggest things I find attrac­tive about rock, this clin­i­cal, cal­cu­lated approach is still great to lis­ten to. So head to XP for one of their first big shows, and catch the Welsh­men at work.

This week isn’t quite as insane as last week, but there’s still plenty going on to sink your teeth into, and lots of it is local: For a rockin’ good time this Sat­ur­day, hit up 2 Kole­gas, where Res­i­dence A, Nucleus and WHAI are play­ing. Well, if they’re not sound­check­ing for three hours apiece… 50RMB, 10PM. On Fri­day, the newly-formed Kite Orches­tra takes the stage at zajia for some great fusion music, 9:30PM, 30RMB. For more at zajia, their Sat­ur­day offer­ing includes some exper­i­men­tal elec­tronic music from Nos­tal­gia for the Stars, a new col­lab­o­ra­tion between mem­bers of expat groups Nakoma and Not There, as well as Me:Mo, 9:30PM, 50RMB. Finally, next Tues­day, Mark Kozelek is in town. He’s not my cup of tea, but if you like music to slit your wrists to, check him out. Appar­ently, he’s some sort of leg­end. Mao Live­house, 9PM, 120/80RMB.