A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

The won­der­ful thing about a show at Mako Live­house is that it ends in enough time to get to the venues that start late and end later — namely, Dos Kole­gas. By the time we’d snatched up a cab and got­ten to Liang­maqiao, we caught one song of Candy Monster’s set and were able to get some beers before the dou­ble head­lin­ers took the stage. Thank you, Dos Kolegas.

But let’s get right to it. Nova Heart is the name of the ever-prolific Helen Feng’s newest project. If you don’t already know her name, Helen Feng helped cre­ate Pet Con­spir­acy, and is cur­rently also involved in Free The Birds, who still haven’t decided if they’re called Ziyo or not. Some­where between her involve­ment in artist pro­mo­tions com­pany Fake Music Media, host­ing a Douban-hosted pod­cast based on her pop­u­lar radio show, and a myr­iad other respon­si­bil­i­ties, Nova Heart has burst onto the indie-electro scene with instant buzz. Being a fan of Free the Birds/Ziyo, I was excited to see Nova Heart and how it might be dif­fer­ent. Unfor­tu­nately, I couldn’t really tell the dif­fer­ence. It’s clear that Helen is the dri­ving force behind both groups, and there isn’t much of a clear dif­fer­ence in stance between the two. Nova Heart sounded to me like a more ener­getic Joy Divi­sion with female vocals, which was enter­tain­ing enough to get the crowd into it, but I would have liked to see some sort of dif­fer­ence — styl­is­tic or oth­er­wise — between this and FTB.

Finally, some time after mid­night, and after a deli­cious bowl of Ningxia noo­dles (worth every fen of the 20RMB they cost), Re-TROS took to the stage. I have doc­u­mented here my luke­warm feel­ings about Re-TROS, but to be fair I have only ever seen them at music fes­ti­vals. I say this in defence of the fact that I really enjoyed their set at Dos Kole­gas. I think the more inti­mate nature of the stage and venue made for a great per­for­mance — and one I could actu­ally see and feel involved with. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and buy their album, because I still find their music a lit­tle too monot­o­nous for con­stant lis­ten­ing, but I did enjoy them and I’ll be much more excited to see them if they keep play­ing smaller venues.

Tonight’s Papier Tigre show will be a solo head­liner! Re-TROS’ Korean tour has been bumped up so they will not be at Yugong Yis­han tonight as sched­uled. Don’t worry, the Mod­ern Sky star­lets will be back soon. Check out the French post-rock trio on their own tonight for their third time in Beijing.

Thanks to thebeijinger.com for the heads up on this on Weibo.

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!

The Dos Kole­gas Fifth Anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions were exactly as you’d imag­ine it. If you’ve never been to Dos Kole­gas, it is one of Beijing’s finest dive bars. D-22 might have the name and the sta­tus, but Dos Kole­gas has a com­pletely dif­fer­ent atmos­phere. Dos Kole­gas is tucked away in an oth­er­wise unloved cor­ner of a drive-in movie the­atre com­plex, and has an expan­sive out­door area that is well taken advan­tage of in the sum­mer when the inside tem­per­a­tures are exactly as hot as the music being per­formed on stage. Peo­ple are friend­lier and more open, includ­ing all of the staff, and bands seem far more will­ing to hang out there than any other venue I’ve been to yet. There’s some­thing com­fort­able in the atmos­phere, though I have to admit that you must be in the mood for it, or else extremely drunk.

Per­son­ally, I was the lat­ter over this week­end. I didn’t have as much trou­ble find­ing alco­hol as some peo­ple have sug­gested, but that might be because I spent a good por­tion of my night near the bar rather than on the dance floor. It was very much a social event for me, per­son­ally, though the bands that I did see were phe­nom­e­nal. Instead of a lin­ear review, I’ll a brief overview of what I got to see and what I loved.

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