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.