A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

I started the year out with Happy Avenue, a band I had heard good things about from a friend. I’d lis­tened to some of their music online, and it was pretty good indie folk-pop, so I was inclined to enjoy it. When we got to Mako, and the beloved Wu Hongfei took the stage, I couldn’t really believe it. The woman was nuts. Cer­ti­fi­able. In addi­tion to wear­ing a dress that was way too short and being caked in makeup, she for­got most of the lyrics and was a com­plete diva about get­ting some water. I still don’t know if I dis­liked her or her syco­phan­tic fans more…

We left before the encore (we only stayed that long because it was sort of like watch­ing a train­wreck), and headed to Dos Kole­gas’ Ningxia Night. We’d missed a bunch, but we got what we came for: re-formed Wu & The Side Effects. With a new (Chi­nese drum­mer), they felt awk­wardly new, but still emi­nently enjoy­able. Props to them, and I can’t wait to see them again.

My last gig of the week pick for Jan­u­ary was Cao Qin & Starry, which didn’t dis­ap­point. I’d seen him play acoustic nearly three years ago at one of the first shows I went to in Bei­jing at SOHO Shangdu’s Tiny Salt Cafe, and this time he played Mao Live­house with his whole band for their debut album launch. It shows you just how long it takes to get to mak­ing an album in this city. The show was great, and reminded me why I had remem­bered his name after such a long time, but the one thing I would have changed was all the thank­ing. I felt like I was watch­ing the Oscars…

Then, finally, it was time to start say­ing good­bye to D-22. I first saw Res­i­dence A at D-22, so when I knew that they were play­ing there just before it closed, I had to go see it. It was a chill evening, but busier than it might have oth­er­wise been, and four bands added them­selves to the lineup. Unfor­tu­nately, they were not bands I wanted to see (though also see­ing White Stripes wannabe band Youxi again was a nice full-circle moment), but I hung out for Res­i­dence A. And they were bet­ter than ever.

The final Zoomin’ Night was, for many D-22 old hands and fans, the real last night of the venue’s reign. Not to say that Mohanik was a bad show, just that Zoomin’ Night was what D-22 embod­ied: a place for any band to come, play and hang out. This was it. Unfor­tu­nately for me, I had already been at my extremely boozy annual din­ner, so I was wrecked by 11 and only saw a cou­ple of bands. This pic­ture is Low Bow col­lab­o­rat­ing with some­one else, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you who.

Finally, it was the last night that any­one would ever play D-22. And it was a night pop­u­lated with out-of-towners. Sen­ti­ment aside, it was a great show. I wasn’t super fond of the screaming-singing of Shanghai’s Moon Tyrant, but Mohanik cer­tainly banged out what was a great set, despite the fact that they were drink­ing some sort of Mon­go­lian moon­shine out of the bot­tle. They were very gra­cious, and amus­ingly spent most of the gig speak­ing in Eng­lish and singing in Mon­go­lian, that just made it more enter­tain­ing for the mish-mash of a crowd. It was a great night for music, but then of course we stuck around for a while. I fin­ished off the bar’s gin, while a friend of mine took the last (and warm) beer. We took pho­tos of the bath­room walls and ran around try­ing to see if there was any­thing we could steal, some part of D-22 we could take. But of course, as the true sen­ti­men­tal would know, the best thing we will take from D-22 is memories.

I have been extremely remiss this last week, mostly due to gen­eral malaise know­ing that the city is about to embark upon another of its famous long and frigid win­ters at the end of this month, but the city has cer­tainly still been pump­ing. Here’s a roundup/highlight reel of some of the awe­some stuff I’ve got­ten to see over the last ten days:

First up, the night before Sep­tem­ber turned into Octo­ber, a gig added to the Dos Kole­gas lineup late (and there­fore not on the site), this turned out to be a spec­tac­u­lar night. By that I mean it was helped by the fact that the show and the alco­hol was free. Funded by Con­verse, this was one of the shows that show­cased a cou­ple of skate punk bands from Amer­ica — Bad Shit and LSDemons. I wasn’t impressed by them (nor by their antics get­ting into fights), but the show was closed out with SUBS, who are always an amaz­ing time. This was a great night with lots of alco­hol, but then — aren’t most nights at Dos Kolegas?

Shang­hai band Pairs were in town over the National Hol­i­day week­end, and I man­aged to catch them with a great lineup at Hot Cat Club on the hol­i­day itself. We turned up halfway through Low Bow — who is too noisy when you’re try­ing to talk to peo­ple — Next Years Love were not my favorite group ever, and I man­aged to sleep through Yan Tiao (I heard they were great; damn Hot Cat’s couches!), but Pairs were great. They’re a bang­ing, noisy duo (joined in Bei­jing by some friends on extra drums) but the great thing about their sets — in addi­tion to a lovely hand-shaking song intro — is that they’re short. Any longer than the half hour they played for, and I fear I would have got­ten bored. Make sure to see them when they’re next in town — they might give you stuff for free!

Ningxia nights this week was expanded to some­thing epic, with a stun­ning seven-band lineup. The Nucleus/Migratory Bird guys were on point as usual, but the rest were bands I hadn’t seen before, even the seem­ingly omnipresent Buyi Band. They were all great — a par­tic­u­lar sur­prise was Sum­mer Band — and I was happy to have finally caught folk rock vet­eran Laoda on stage. And as always, the unan­nounced Skarv­ing at 3AM really rounded out the evening. Get out to a Ningxia night soon — you won’t be disappointed!

For var­i­ous rea­sons includ­ing an extremely adorable bunny rab­bit that now lives in my house but also included the fact that it’s hard to get out to Huairou, I only made it to Day Three of Mod­ern Sky this year. Despite how annoy­ing it was to get out there (and I had a ride), I really enjoyed the venue. There was no sound bleed­ing, even as you walked around, and hik­ing around a ski resort was kind of fun. The only thing I would have changed was the amount of cloth­ing I wore — some­how, I for­got that a ski resort might have been colder than the city. Still, it was a good day, and some of the high­lights were Haya, who had a gor­geous lead singer from Mon­go­lia, and Re-TROS, who I don’t like usu­ally but who seem to appeal at music fes­ti­vals. Also, the food was great — we had yan­grou paomo, a dish from Shaanxi that I absolutely love, and there was plenty to choose from.

So there you have it — my Octo­ber hol­i­day. I hope every­one enjoyed theirs!

I’m going to start this review a lit­tle uncon­ven­tion­ally with a restau­rant rec­om­men­da­tion. Before head­ing to Dos Kole­gas on Fri­day, we went to Baoyuan Dumpling House on Maizid­ian Street. It’s about a fif­teen minute walk from the sub­way sta­tion (either Liang­maqiao or Agri­cul­tural Exhi­bi­tion Cen­ter), and it has the best dumplings in the city. The fill­ing is fresh and dis­tinct, and the col­or­ful wrap­pers are just fun. Next time you’re headed out to Dos Kole­gas, check it out and see if you agree.

Gas­tro­nomic adven­tures aside, this show was thor­oughly enjoy­able. We turned up halfway through Dis­tin­guished Youth’s set, which was unfor­tu­nately mostly for­get­table, but the crowd was already pretty strong. Most peo­ple were sit­ting around out­side, though there was a con­tin­gent inside that made me real­ize that this was going to be a packed out show. That is, if the fact that it was a Shan­ren show wasn’t enough of a give­away already.

When Shan­ren finally took the stage, it was to a com­pletely packed Dos Kole­gas. I don’t think I can remem­ber the last time Dos Kole­gas has been so packed, though it was prob­a­bly at Daze Feast. There was hardly room to move, but my cohorts and I man­aged to wran­gle our way to the front of the pack. And from the first song, the band absolutely lit up the stage. They largely played old favorites dur­ing this sec­tion, which got every­one singing along. Unsur­pris­ingly, their two most acces­si­ble songs — 三十年 (30 Years) and their drink­ing song — were the most ener­getic, and really got the crowd going. They’re such great per­form­ers, and Lit­tle Ou steals hearts and makes merry, and the addi­tion of Sam (who I was schooled about when I called him a “ran­dom white dude” in my last Shan­ren review) makes their show just end­lessly entertaining.

How­ever, the really inter­est­ing part of the show came after the inter­mis­sion. I’d heard that they occa­sion­ally do a conga line to get the crowd in the mood, and this time they did so when they were done with their break. It worked par­tic­u­larly well at Dos Kole­gas, as they started on the grass out­side and pulled every­one inside with the drum beat and the conga line. It was a great way to let every­one know that their set was about to start, and fun! The sec­ond half of their set was a cou­ple of old favorites mixed in with their new sound. I didn’t stick around for a lot of it, because some­how, the crowd started mosh­ing. If there was ever a band I did not expect a mosh pit for, Shan­ren would be it. Nev­er­the­less, there were mosh­ers, and I was flung to the side­lines so care­lessly that I thought I would lis­ten to the rest of the set from outside.

Despite the ener­getic crowd get­ting a lit­tle out of hand, I really enjoyed the show. Shan­ren always has a fun time on stage, and that energy eas­ily trans­mits to the crowd. You should get out to see them soon, because I’m sure they’ll fol­low in Hanggai’s foot­steps soon, and tour the world with their updated take on Yun­nan folk music.

First of all, a big happy birth­day to Dos Kole­gas. They have been kick­ing around longer than that venue every­one talks about own­ing the scene (you know the one I’m talk­ing about) and have long since been a venue for the messy week­end frol­ick­ing only pos­si­ble dur­ing the Bei­jing sum­mer­time. Oh yeah, and they always have some awe­some bands play­ing. Once you’ve been to Dos Kole­gas, it stays with you. It’s the dive bar next to the drive-in where the con­tents of your nights might be lost to your mem­ory but you’ll never for­get the place. I might be mak­ing it sound dirty and weird, but it is, and that’s what you’ll end up lov­ing about it. Last Fri­day was the per­fect cel­e­bra­tion of all that is Dos Kolegas.

To start off with, the bands were amaz­ing. I got there after the unan­nounced first act (some weird Dan­ish lo-fi or some­thing? I don’t remem­ber how it was described) and as per usual, the party didn’t start until it was creep­ing up to mid­night. The first sched­uled band up was Skarv­ing, and they didn’t fail to impress. The only other time I’ve seen them was at last year’s anniver­sary show, and then I remem­ber think­ing that I needed to see more ska in Bei­jing. I still really do. It’s a fun genre, and I should get out to see them more often. Skarv­ing has been around a while (cer­tainly as long as I have, and two years is pretty good longevity for a band in Bei­jing), and they’re a tight band. Plus, half the enter­tain­ment is in see­ing other peo­ple dance to ska.

Next up was SUBS, which is a band I have never fig­ured out my feel­ings for. I’ve seen them three or four times, and each time I either loved them or hated them. I think I need to be in the mood for them — which means, in the mood for loud, yelling, insane punk music — and I guess on Fri­day I was in the mood for just that, because I loved them. Kang Mao is a force to be reck­oned with, and it’s not every day you can just take that in your face. I think the act works bet­ter on a small stage, though, because the effect is imme­di­ate, vis­ceral, and unavoid­able. Which isn’t for me all the time, but on Fri­day I loved it.

After SUBS was Wu & The Side-Effects, who I also haven’t seen since last year’s anniver­sary. As men­tioned on this blog before, they’ve got­ten a new bass player in that space of time. While the new guy is no Checo, he’s still good, and after a year together, the band seems like the solid rock and roll act we’ve always known. I hope it’s not another year before I see these guys again.

Finally to the stage, some time after 2AM, was Buyi Band. I’ve never seen them, incred­i­bly, despite the fre­quency with which they play in my neck of the woods, but it was worth the long wait. I didn’t stay for their entire set (it was, after all, 2AM) but I stuck around for a few songs and really enjoyed them. But by then my ears were ring­ing and my feet were aching, so I took my sorry ass home to recover. I couldn’t take the sec­ond day, but know­ing the lineup I think it would have been just as amazing.

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Dos Kole­gas, for being a very impor­tant part of the his­tory of Chi­nese rock, and thank you for six years of let­ting us riff-raff get drunk on your front lawn every week­end. We salute you!

I have to say that my will­ing­ness to head out to the drive-in in the mid­dle of nowhere and shove myself into the barn that is Dos Kole­gas cer­tainly starts to wane as the cold weather comes in, but it was well worth it this New Years Eve. The venue was packed to burst­ing when we arrived, and it only got busier as things started.

The first band up on stage was Steely Heart, one of my favorite bands in Bei­jing, and they did not dis­ap­point. In fact, I liked them even more than I have the last few times I’ve seen them, because they’ve got­ten rid of that hor­rific synth they’d been adding to every sin­gle song. Of course, they still use it on a cou­ple of their new tracks, but it’s much bet­ter in mod­er­a­tion and doesn’t drown out every­thing I loved about the orig­i­nal tracks. They also played a few more new songs than I had heard before, and while one of them grated a lit­tle, most of the oth­ers sounded like their reg­u­lar fare. I’ll have to give the songs a few more lis­tens to sink in and form a bet­ter impres­sion, but for now I can see con­tin­ued hori­zons of solid rock and roll from them.

Next up, tak­ing the count­down spot, were The Ghost Spar­dac. Unfor­tu­nately for me, they were exactly not what I was expect­ing and noth­ing I like. They’re a mix­ture between metal and pop punk, which is mix­ing two of my least favorite music gen­res pos­si­ble. (Which isn’t to say I don’t like that mix­ture ever, I think Ashura does it really well.) And while I could see their tech­ni­cal abil­ity and how they would be a great band for some­one who is into that mix­ture of gen­res, it wasn’t for me.

After the calls of “Happy New Year” from the band and the crowd, we (and a bunch of unre­lated for­eign­ers) went out­side to cool down and get some fresh air after being cooped up inside. This is, of course, what is great about Dos Kole­gas in the sum­mer­time, but for a while it seemed like the most mis­er­able idea ever. That is, until one of the bar­tenders came out and set up a steel drum and started a fire for us. It was a mag­i­cal sort of moment, with every­one crowd­ing around the flames to get some warmth in the first moments of the new year. It was an easy high­light of the evening, and I think if there was guar­an­teed to be a fire every time I went to Dos Kole­gas in the win­ter, I might go there more often.

We heard the open­ing strains of Re-TROS from out­side and peeked inside, but it con­tin­ued to not be my scene. I think I can offi­cially give up on Re-TROS now; I like one of their orig­i­nals and their cover of New Pants’ “回家Cal­i­for­nia”, but oth­er­wise I don’t really like their sound. Of course, they’re not one of Beijing’s biggest bands for noth­ing, so check them out and make your own decisions.

With­out much of a rea­son to stick around and with the city offer­ing other things, we headed out, snatch­ing up a taxi from the guys from The Amaz­ing Insur­ance Sales­men. I’m a bit sore I missed them and Free The Birds, but there’s the whole of 2011 to make up for that.

Happy New Year, everyone!