A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

After Chi­nese New Year was offi­cially over, Feb­ru­ary kicked off at Mao with Swedish post-rock group Immanu El. Glow Curve opened and I loved them as per usual, but Immanu El was some­thing spe­cial. Unlike a lot of post-rock bands, even the really freak­ing good ones (I’m look­ing at you, Sigur Ros), they actu­ally moved around stage and put on a show. They were immensely tall, and it was weird to real­ize that all the bands I’d seen on that stage before were really short. But in short, it was a great show, and I’m glad that there’s some­one out there bring­ing good Scan­di­na­vian post-rock to Beijing.

The next night I did some­thing I never thought I would do, and that is vol­un­tar­ily go see a metal band. It was actu­ally a great show, at least when they were play­ing their more prog-rock sounds. I also dis­cov­ered that the only rea­son I dis­like metal is the singing, because oth­er­wise I can be totally down with it. I just find the growling/screaming/not even really singing just kind of point­less. But on the con­trary, Opeth were amaz­ing, and their lead singer can really sing. Plus, they had a lot of fun talk­ing with the crowd, and there were some amaz­ing head­bangers out that night. Some nearby guys doing wind­mills made me feel like there was a fan on me…

I had a big hia­tus because the next week­end I was slated to go see pop DJ Calvin Har­ris but, well… it was a total clus­ter­fuck. So my third gig in Feb­ru­ary was JUE Festival’s warm up show, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. skip skip ben ben opened and I didn’t much care for them, but that’s mostly because I was excited to see Pains. They were good, as adver­tised; rem­i­nis­cent of 80s groups like The Cure, only a lit­tle softer. The songs did, how­ever, start to sound the same after a while. Still, I enjoyed them and it reminded me to get excited for the rest of the JUE lineup (it all looks amaz­ing okay).

Finally, there was the gig I had been look­ing for­ward to for a long time: Res­i­dence A’s album launch show. I skipped Me Too and poked my head in for most of Glow Curve, and then made a total bee-line for Res­i­dence A. They were on their game as per usual, but to be hon­est, for me per­son­ally, I’ve seen them so many times that I def­i­nitely have other favorite gigs of theirs. I can’t wait to see them when they get back from their ridicu­lous 28-date tour of China’s tier 2 and 3 cities! Their first show back is likely in May, so I’ll have to be con­tent with their album (which you can buy on Taobao for ¥60) for the next cou­ple of months.

To be per­fectly hon­est with you, I hadn’t lis­tened to Boys Climb­ing Ropes before I saw them. I’d caught them acci­den­tally at the Straw­berry Fes­ti­val in 2009, but wasn’t so impressed and so I never both­ered with them again. I didn’t let myself be swayed by that, though, and trusted my friends’ opin­ions and went along any­way. It was, as it turns out, the best deci­sion, because I was very impressed by what I saw, and this was when they were play­ing at 12:30 after four open­ing acts.

Yes you read that right, four open­ing acts. There were orig­i­nally only two, and I don’t know where Thru­outin and Cas­sette snuck in, but they did. It worked out okay, though. I only caught the end of Thruoutin’s set, but it was quite good, and a friend of mine told me he was doing some inter­est­ing things with a sitar.… Sec­ond up was X is Y, who I’d seen at D-22 this time last year, but I missed them being upstairs.

Third up was Res­i­dence A, and while I have said almost as much as I can say about them, I must note that this was an amaz­ing show for them. Their reg­u­lar bass player was back after six weeks off for a hand injury, and the entire band was in fine form. I’m not sure what it was — if it was any­thing at all — but it was clear that they were hav­ing a good night. They inter­acted with the crowd a lit­tle more, showed off a lit­tle more, per­formed a lit­tle more, and it all added up to prob­a­bly the best show of theirs I have been to.

Unfor­tu­nately, Cas­sette after them just felt lack­lus­tre and bor­ing in com­par­i­son. The female vocal­ist was clearly going for the Helen Feng effect, though instead of com­ing off as allur­ing and sexy as she played her synth, she just sort of looked like a pole dancer with a Nin­tendo con­troller. A friend noted that with her long black hair, she looked like some­thing out of a Japan­ese hor­ror film. In any case, that dis­tracted from the music so much I hon­estly don’t remem­ber what they sounded like, but I’m not sure that the first impres­sion will have me back to see them any time soon.

Finally, half an hour after mid­night, Boys Climb­ing Ropes took the stage to a small but ener­getic crowd who had all clearly been drink­ing since the first band. There was lots of crazy hip­ster danc­ing and drinks splash­ing around, but I can under­stand why. Boys Climb­ing Ropes were amaz­ing. The energy of Xiao Punk is com­pletely infec­tious, and their sound is down and dirty indie rock like we know and love it. Their lyrics are also great, and I think every­one in the crowd iden­ti­fied a lit­tle too much with “Grow Up” (“grow up grow up stop fuck­ing around” — sound famil­iar, any­one?), and I think I’ve found a new favorite to spin along­side Res­i­dence A. There’s some­thing inde­scrib­able about what hav­ing a prac­ticed West­ern hand in the music does, but you can hear it in every beat. I loved it, and I can’t wait until they’re back in Beijing.

For now, check out their Douban and enjoy the hell out of them.

It almost goes with­out say­ing, but this Fri­day was a big one. There were some heavy hit­ters play­ing around the city — Chun­qiu were out on Jiugu­lou­jie, Hang­gai hit Mako, and just next door at Stu­dio X in Fangjia 46 Re-TROS was play­ing a Con­verse indus­try event with LA group Health. But I was at the cosy lit­tle Hot Cat Club at a free show with three bands that largely get blank stares when men­tioned in mixed com­pany. But I was there for Res­i­dence A, my love affair with whom has been well doc­u­mented on this site and in per­son if I am in the same room when some­one men­tions their name, and noth­ing was going to pull me away from this show.

Not even the mediocre open­ing acts.

Okay, mediocre is a bit strong. Miss Freak, the first act up, were just really green. They played the style of indie pop-rock that I’m a big fan of, but they have a long way before they can gar­ner as many fans as, say, Super VC, whose style they were very clearly rip­ping off (which is, in turn, a total rip-off of The Bea­t­les, but that’s nei­ther here nor there). I think that if they keep play­ing, and relax a lit­tle about their on-stage image, and play around a lit­tle with their style, they could be great. At the moment, their music is fun and dance­able but as an open­ing act at a tiny venue nobody’s going to bust a move.

I was intrigued to see Christ­mas. Last year, I posted their video and lyrics to a catchy song they wrote called Laji­tong (just say­ing the title gets the song wedged in my head, no joke), and though they play con­stantly around the city, I’ve never found myself at a gig they were play­ing. And really, I can’t call these guys mediocre either. They’re great at what they do, and that is sing catchy indie pop songs in Chi­nese. The local crowd loves them, I think for the nov­elty of hav­ing for­eign­ers singing in Chi­nese, and I must admit… they’re all catchy. The lyrics are sim­ple and easy to fol­low for stu­dents of Chi­nese, and there’s not a bal­lad in the mix to bring down the mood. They’re incred­i­ble per­form­ers and really worked the crowd. For me, though, there was only so much I could take before I had to take a break outside.

And finally, there was Res­i­dence A. I agree with Ruby, the stage at Hot Cat seemed almost too small for them, but I was def­i­nitely more than thrilled to be able to see the per­for­mance up close and per­sonal. Although, I will admit, it did allow his crazy stares to fix on the audi­ence and that was just a lit­tle too creepy. I felt like I was hav­ing a star­ing con­test with a crazy per­son. But the per­for­mance was great, even with a switch up of their bass player (appar­ently from Me Too, who I saw once a year ago at D-22), and I really enjoyed myself. I don’t think I can say it enough: if you haven’t, get out to see them. You will not regret it.

I went to D22 on a ran­dom Wednes­day evening think­ing that I was there for Mr. Grace­less. I’ve seen them before, thought they were alright (the first time I saw them, I com­mented on their cardi­gans…), so I thought I was going to have an aver­age night out drink­ing with my friends. One of whom has been rav­ing about Res­i­dence A for a while. And it’s not that I don’t trust this friend’s point of view, but we don’t always see eye to eye, so I was a lit­tle skep­ti­cal, but hope­ful, that I would like them. Luck­ily, they were absolutely amazing.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

We arrived in the mid­dle of Youxi’s set, which was just as well. Youxi is a duo, a girl on drums and a guy on gui­tar, and they were wear­ing red tops and white and black bot­toms, respec­tively. If that wasn’t enough of a give­away, they cov­ered “Seven Nation Army” as their last song, firmly cement­ing their place as White Stripes wannabes. They dis­played very lit­tle orig­i­nal­ity, and it was over­all pretty dis­ap­point­ing. Which isn’t to say that they won’t grow out of it — they’re a new band — but for now, I’ll give them a miss.

In fact, I almost for­got that they had played by the time Res­i­dence A took the stage. I wasn’t expect­ing a lot, so I was sit­ting up the back with a beer when they played their first song. Halfway through, I couldn’t take it any­more, and I went up to the front where nobody else was stand­ing. Their energy was infec­tious, and I couldn’t imag­ine just sit­ting there stone-faced watch­ing the show from my seat, like every­one else was doing. Admit­tedly, it was a Wednes­day night, but I was sur­prised that peo­ple didn’t start mosh­ing imme­di­ately. I can’t really put my fin­ger on what genre they would be best described as, but they cer­tainly embody the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. Their music is loud, guitar-heavy, and often­times anthemic. Their per­for­mance style is great — the lead singer is crazy in just the right way, star­ing wide-eyed at the audi­ence as well as grin­ning and jump­ing around stage. They are absolutely hav­ing fun on stage, and it’s infec­tious. I enjoyed myself so much watch­ing their set, and it was com­pletely unex­pected. I’m look­ing for­ward to the next time these guys play.

Last up were the head­lin­ers, Mr Grace­less. Last time, I described them as unpol­ished cam­pus rock that sounds like Super­grass and Nir­vana, but I was right in my ini­tial assess­ment: they’re like Blur, only Chi­nese. And don’t get me wrong, I like it. I love Blur, and Mr Grace­less has a great sound. But after twenty min­utes or so, I knew that the rest of the set was going to be the same. I’m will­ing to bet that a lot of the malaise I felt watch­ing them was due to the fact that I hadn’t been expect­ing to fall in love with a new band the way I did with Res­i­dence A, so quickly and unequiv­o­cally, that any­thing before or after just seemed a bit point­less. I’m sure I’ll see Mr Grace­less next time and think the same things, but I prob­a­bly won’t walk out on them.

For me, this time, the stars of the show were Res­i­dence A. Get your­self out to see them, and check out the songs on their Douban. It’s worth it.