A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

If you’re on the pangbianr.com mail­ing list, you already know this, but I got some sad news in that email today. Ray­ing Tem­ple is shut­ting down their cur­rent loca­tion. This isn’t the first time they’ve been evicted from their home, of course; as all good music venues, there have always been clashes with the neigh­bors. But it’s sad that they’ll be mov­ing on from this home in par­tic­u­lar, because man hav­ing a music venue at a fish hatch­ery was cool. But you can get there for their “Not Last Party” (which it is; at this home) this Sat­ur­day, which rather throws a span­ner in the works for fans of Ray­ing Tem­ple and Rain­bow Dan­ger Club. It’s not their usual exper­i­men­tal noise art, either, but bands we know and love, like Glow Curve and Kang Mao’s folk side-project, Bye Bye and Thanks For All The Fish. What­ever deci­sion you make, though, this will be the last oppor­tu­nity to get out to Tongzhou, say good­bye to the fish, and catch some good music.

So I heard about this gig a while ago, but I’m only just writ­ing about it (that’s what hap­pens when Chi­nese New Year gets in the way, and don’t even think I haven’t noticed my own lazi­ness regard­ing this blog). I was pretty excited to hear that these guys were com­ing out, because it’s been a while since I’ve heard some good old-fashioned Scan­di­na­vian post-rock. The Post-Rock Fes­ti­val at Mako Live­house reminded me how much I love the genre, and I had these guys on repeat for a while. Now that it’s just a few days away, they’re blar­ing on my iPod again, and I’m super excited for them. Check them out before the show at their Douban.

The gig is this Fri­day at 9PM at Mao Live, and they’re sup­ported by Chi­nese post-rockers Glow Curve. If you’re a Taobao afi­cionado, you can buy tick­ets here, but if not it’s a pretty rea­son­ably 80RMB at the door.

I’m not sure how much this is being men­tioned, but as I spent a large por­tion of this after­noon updat­ing the gig guide, I have only just come across this. The Tiger Trans­late Bat­tle of the Bands 2011. Yes, another bat­tle of the bands. First there was GBOB, then there was that mini-BOB for some­one to tag along to Sum­mer Sonic, only yes­ter­day I found out that Zippo’s host­ing their own, and then this! It’s a lit­tle… overwhelming.

At any rate, you can sign up your band here — the cut-off is tomor­row, though. Or, if you’re just in it to see what’s going on, I’ve updated the gig guide with all of the shows, even though a few of them are off my radar. Head­lin­ers at this show include: Perdel, Pet Con­spir­acy, Twisted Machine, Hedge­hog, Reflec­tor, and XTX head­ing up the finals. Check it out over at the gig guide. There’ll be plenty of bat­tling going on this month…

Yes, you heard that right, I am cel­e­brat­ing the fin­ish­ing of a monthly update… nearly two weeks into a month. Sorry for the late update this time around guys, but life has been and cur­rently is a lit­tle bit insane. Hope every­one else makes it out of May alive! I’ve got reviews backed up but fin­gers crossed I get some time to do them this week. When I’m not dying from my day job.

This morn­ing on Weibo (my new favorite thing ever; check me out here), Multi Ego posted an image of the Straw­berry Fes­ti­val 2011 lineup, along with the days. The Straw­berry Weibo reposted, and then later on in the morn­ing it turned up on Douban. I man­aged to get my ass into gear and updated the few artists I needed to and com­pleted the gig list­ing. Check them all out at the Bei­jing Gig Guide.

As for com­men­tary, there is a dis­tinct lack of West­ern acts on this lineup. In fact, the only West­ern act on the bill is signed to Mod­ern Sky — Arms & Legs. There’s a Japan­ese pop punk group called Mix Mar­ket, and a few big name pop singers from Tai­wan and Sin­ga­pore, but that’s about it for the for­eign­ers. Which is great, because their local lineup is really strong. Up from Shang­hai, we will have con­tro­ver­sial the­atri­cal rock­ers Top Floor Cir­cus will be here (check out lots more com­men­tary at Andy Best’s blog), and the amaz­ing Mush­room will be back. I got to see them last year at Mao Live and they were a hell of a lot of fun.

As for local Bei­jing Mod­ern Sky groups, all the reg­u­lars will be there — Queen Sea Big Shark, Re-TROS, Hedge­hog (as they all stand poised to take over the world), Big­ger Bang, AV Okubo, Life Jour­ney and more. Reflec­tor will be there, as well as some other hard rock groups that I am not imme­di­ately famil­iar with. Rus­tic will be out there, too, between stops on their album launch national tour, which should be inter­est­ing to see on the big stage.

It should be a good one!