A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

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!

Wel­come to Part Two of my review of Max Star Music Fes­ti­val. Part One, cov­er­ing the week­days of the fes­ti­val, can be read here.

SATURDAY 21 AUG 2010

I turned up at Ditan Park on Sat­ur­day after­noon at 5pm, after pluck­ing up my courage to brave the rain (and check­ing that the fes­ti­val was actu­ally still on). I was con­cerned that I had missed the entirety of Laoya and was well into miss­ing Steely Heart. How­ever, in what was to be a very truncated-feeling day, I arrived to catch the last song of Laoya’s set and all of the rest. The rain didn’t keep the rock­ers at bay, but it did make for very tight sets after what I assume was an extended setup process after the hard morn­ing rains.

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Since I was unable to catch the Shang­hai con­tin­gent due to my work being absolute slave dri­vers last week, I hit up Dos Kole­gas on Sat­ur­day night for some of Beijing’s great bands. The night started out with four-piece band Me Too, who have been around the cir­cuit more than a few times but I’ve never got­ten to see them before. At least, I assume that the first band was Me Too. See­ing as most bands here still haven’t got­ten the hang of intro­duc­ing them­selves (except for Candy Mon­ster, who I will now never for­get because they say their name after every song), and Me Too don’t seem to have any per­for­mance pho­tos up, it makes it dif­fi­cult for me to tell whether it really was them or just another band that sounds a lot like them. In either case, they were great. They had a great energy on stage, and worked together really well. They really reminded me that bands who get out there every other week (they’ve per­formed 13 times that I know of since I started the Gig Guide in Octo­ber) might not have as big a fol­low­ing as some, but their work pays off in the qual­ity of their sound and performance.

The next two acts I def­i­nitely rec­og­nized, because I’d seen them before.

Steely Heart is, as every­one read­ing should know, a favorite of mine. I love see­ing them, and will quite prob­a­bly never get sick of their bored rocker act. Their songs are infec­tious and catchy with­out being sac­cha­rine and poppy, their lyrics are totally incom­pre­hen­si­ble but fun to sing along to any­way, and their rock is hard enough to have an edge but not so hard it hurts your ears. Even if you stand right up front. Read more

A friend of mine has this super­sti­tion that what­ever you are doing, how­ever you are feel­ing as one year ticks over to the next, that is the way your com­ing year will be. I’m not sure I sub­scribe to it entirely (though, look­ing back on pre­vi­ous years, it’s been true on more than one occa­sion), but hope­fully this year it will stick for me. This year at mid­night, I was feel­ing slightly drunk on more Tsing Tao’s than I’d pre­fer to admit to, in between amaz­ing live music acts, chat­ting with my new best friends by the bar at Mao Live. If that is a pre­mo­ni­tion of what is to come for me in 2010, I can more than get behind that.

For me, choos­ing a New Year’s gig was a no-brainer. There were a few good line­ups out there, but Mao Live had three of my favorite Bei­jing bands in one place, and three oth­ers I’d only heard good things about. To say that the Y100 was worth it would be a gross under­state­ment; it con­tended for favorite gig of 2009, and only lost the title by a hair.

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As hap­pens with most gigs at Dos Kole­gas, the crowd at this gig was often­times far more enter­tain­ing than the artists. The gig was intended to cel­e­brate the birth­day of the inim­itable owner of Dos Kole­gas, but the party was overblown with the addi­tion of five other birth­days. With the crowd already in high spir­its by the time ten o’clock rolled around, the gig started.

The gig opened with the new­comer punk band Sum­mer Sun­shine, who sounded as though they had just stepped out of the garage and onto the stage. Look­ing at their per­for­mance his­tory, they’ve only been hit­ting venues for the last cou­ple of months, and with only a cou­ple of per­for­mances under their belts it’s no sur­prise that they still sound a lit­tle raw. How­ever, their music showed con­sid­er­able promise — a lit­tle Ashura-lite, with some faint metal sounds in the bass line — and they sound like the sort of band that could def­i­nitely grow to become some­thing bet­ter. They were endear­ingly unfa­mil­iar with the stage setup, play­ing with the sound equip­ment between almost every song. They had a short set — no more than four or five songs, I’d say — until a band who wasn’t on the lineup took the stage.

I’ve got no idea who the sec­ond band to play was, because they didn’t intro­duce them­selves the entire time and the only thing I’ve got to work off of is that they played a punk rock ver­sion of a folk song from a place that sounded like “Qian­hai”, but the lead singer mum­bled and it was dif­fi­cult to tell what he was say­ing. The lead singer/guitarist was quite tal­ented, pulling off some stun­ning solos, and his voice sounded like unprac­ticed Mon­go­lian throat singing — my lar­ynx was hurt­ing for him after the set. Oth­er­wise, the music was quite good — if not what I usu­ally lis­ten to. The beats were heavy and the sound a bit more noisy than I usu­ally like, but it made for a rich sound and some nice, long jams. It’s too bad I didn’t catch the name of the band, else I would have checked out their recorded stuff.

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