A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

The annual bat­tle between Midi and Straw­berry is upon us. Maybe you’ve already seen the line­ups, but if you haven’t, they’re pretty damn solid. If you have to pick just one day to go to the futhest-flung reaches of Bei­jing, though, my money’s on the first day of Straw­berry Fes­ti­val. The lineup is truly epic, with their biggest head­liner Travis tak­ing the main stage in the evening. It’s also got some of the biggest names in Chi­nese tal­ent Mod­ern Sky could rus­tle up: vet­eran electro-pop group New Pants, indie pop crooner Peng Tan, post-punk trio Snapline, Tai­wanese indie pop god­dess Joanna Wang, Dalian post-rock leg­ends Wang Wen, and just… so much more. Do not. Freak­ing. Miss it.

Wednes­day is up for grabs, with seri­ously solid line­ups on both sides of the fence, but Midi’s Tues­day is solid with Chi­nese rock gods Muma & Third Party, Lanzhou folk rock group Low Worm­wood and wild punk rock­ers SUBS. What­ever deci­sions you make, both fes­ti­vals are set to be loads of fun — at least from a per­for­mance point of view.

Trans­porta­tion, how­ever, is going to be a bit of a bitch for Midi pun­ters. Straw­berry will be fine, as always, because with so many years at Tongzhou Canal Park under their belt they have this down to a sci­ence (and so do I; I take pub­lic trans­porta­tion). But Midi is out in Pinggu, at the China Music Val­ley venue of Yuyang Inter­na­tional Ski Resort. Their buses run from the Line 10/8 stop Beitucheng Exit A and cost 20/40RMB (single/round trip). They leave every half hour from 9am-2pm, and return every half hour from 8–11:30pm. My per­sonal rec­om­men­da­tion is find a bunch of friends and the num­ber of a trusty mian­baoche dri­ver, lay down a few extra kuai and be secure in the knowl­edge you’ll have a des­ig­nated dri­ver for the ride home, all the way back to your house. You do not want to be stranded and drunk in the far west of Bei­jing. Trust me.

Where: 2 Kole­gas
When: Fri 20 July, 21:00
How Much: 120RMB
Who: Hang­gai (More Info)
Why: I’m not sure there’s any­thing bet­ter than the 2 Kole­gas lawn, chuanr, beer and get­ting to see Hang­gai per­form. It’s an insti­tu­tion, and it makes me glad that the guys in Hang­gai are such good friends with 2 Kole­gas, because it means that this sort of stuff gets to hap­pen. I know, 120RMB is a bit steep, but come on! It’s Hang­gai in an inti­mate venue, with beer and chuanr. Life doesn’t get much bet­ter than that in the Bei­jing summer.

I have to admit, there really isn’t that much going down this week wor­thy of note. If you hurry, you can snag a chance to see Per­pet­ual Motion Machine tonight at Tem­ple for free, after their rous­ing suc­cess at daze­FEAST. I might just go to pick up a copy of their album… In an artsy type of event, new psy­che­delic elec­tro group Nos­tal­gia for the Stars per­form at Hot Cat Club to cel­e­brate the open­ing of James S. Chen’s “Cos­mic Fan­tasy” art exhibit, Fri­day @ 9:30PM, Free. On Sat­ur­day, Tem­ple cel­e­brates its first anniver­sary, with friends and favourites Rolling Bowl­ing, The Amaz­ing Insur­ance Sales­men and Green Mon­key, 9:30PM, Free. Also on Sat­ur­day, indie vet­eran Franz Nico­lay (of The Hold Steady) takes the stage at Hot Cat Club, 9:30PM, Free.

Now avail­able at an iPhone near you! Instead of look­ing at the web­site on your lit­tle view and pinch­ing the screen to zoom in and zoom out and get all the right info while you’re on the road, just open up the app. Check it out on iTunes and let me know what you think!