10 Questions With Yang Haisong- PK 14 is a Spicy Dish

I can’t claim I’ve been the biggest PK 14 fan over the years but they have definitely grown on me lately.. Much of it might be attributed to reading Dave O’Dell’s Inseparable and learning all about the band’s background. They’ve been pretty much in hibernation over the past 12 months and are coming out to play Friday night at Yugong Yishan along with Rustic and others.

The GAR return: new EP, new sound & old friends

I love The GAR. Let me just get that out there before I even start. I love them so much my entire Oct holiday is planned around leaving the day after their EP launch. BD and I were hoping to get a review up before the show, but due to both of us being crazy busy last week, we managed to listen to it, but not find the time to collect our thoughts and put them together in a review. So this is going to be a combined show/EP review, written in the hours between the show ending and me jumping on a plane for 2+ weeks offline in the west of China.

Grooving in the Grasslands: Behind the scenes at Zhangbei InMusic Festival

Zhangbei, around 4 hours drive from the capital, close to Inner Mongolia, has been referred to as China’s Woodstock, but it commonly known as one of the more chaotic, gritty local festivals on the calendar. I went out there for the first time on the last day of last year’s festival and had so much fun I wanted to head back again this year.

[Book Review] Dave O’Dell’s Inseparable: the Birth of Punk Anarchy in the old P.R.C

I generally consider myself pretty lucky to be here in Beijing at this moment in time, being witness, chronicler and sometime participant to the ever growing underground Rock n Roll scene. These are amazing times and I’d never thought in a million years that i’d somehow be part of it. And While I’m pretty knowledgeable about the current scene, I love getting more information about its past and compare it to what we have now. Good friend Jon Campbell wrote his Red Rock with was nothing short of amazing: a beautifully constructed dissection of Yao Gun and its roots! It’s probably my favorite history book so far.

Interview: BeijingDaze

Badr is the shit, plain and simple. When I first started getting into the music scene here,BeijingDaze was my go-to place as to what to check out – between his hilarious passionate write-ups, to his desire to spark interesting discussion and debate, and his ability to form a musical community that’s open to all – well, let’s just say I hold the man up pretty highly and really, he’s one of the reasons why I got into this gig in the first place. Before things heat up this weekend at Dos Kolegas for DazeFeast 2012, I was able to ask the man himself some questions about the history of BeiingDaze and the music scene here in Beijing. 

Core in China Compilation Released

A couple of months ago, the team behind Rock in China wiki and good ‘daze friends set out to collect samplers from all around China to get a feel for what was happening in the ‘core side of things… by ‘core they meant hardcore, nintendocore and all kinds of other terms i’d never heard off. I also discovered in the process that there was something called Folkcore, I kid you not.

King Ly Chee Takes Mao Live to School – Hardcore Rock n Roll to Blow You Away

I had been hearing about King Ly Chee for quite sometime now but never really took the time to check them out until they were scheduled to stop by Beijing about a week ago. I was aware of their reputation and was pretty darn impressed when they got a shout out from none other than Biohazard during the Intercity Music Festival last year. How would they measure up live, in the flesh?

Do-Over with Jon Campbell: Red Rock, Worthy Perspectives or How Yaogun Can Save Rock n Roll

Like I warned yesterday, you’re not done reading the name “Jon Campbell” on this blog, at least not for this week. I believe I’ve already interviewed Jon before before, albeit more for gigs he was playing in. This time around, it’s different!
He’s in Beijing as part of Jue Festival and the Bookworm Literary Festival promoting his book, Red Rock::The Long, Strange March of Chinese Rock & Roll.
I read the book a while back and I’ve also been following Jon for quite sometime.. this was an opportunity to catch up and get some extra details out of him.

Free Music for the Masses: Beijing Post-Rock Compilation!

For all the Post-Rock fans out there (BD, you’re excluded from this one!) local label1724 records has put together a great little compilation album featuring 6 of the city’s Post-Rock bands: Illness Sickness, pentatonic, The Grinding Ear, Glow Curve, Sparrowand Hualun.

You can grab the download for free, yes, FREE! on their bandcamp here.

Sign your life away: The return of Amazing Insurance Salesmen (Part I!)

It’s been around 8 months since I last saw AIS play, but the long awaited (for me at least!) reunion of last year’s China GBoB winning band finally happened last Saturday at Yugong Yishan, with their friends Bye, Bye Thanks for the Fish and Flaming Heat in support. Even Shanghai’s intriguing performance noise band Torturing Nurse playing a rare Beijing show in my hood couldn’t keep me away from this one!

Double Take on Low Wormwood’s Lanzhou Lanzhou: Soft and Warm, Like a Lanzhou Beef Noodle

Chinese Indie Music Lore goes something like this: Folks from Maybe Mars saw Low Wormwood perform live, they immediately started the Maybe Wood spin off label to sign them up and record their 2009 album, We Can’t Help Kissing Each Other. I’ll have to ask them about this at some point. Anyways, with the band playing Beijing this saturday at Mako Livehouse, I thought it was a great time to delve in and review their latest album:Lanzhou Lanzhou

Re-Tros build, NovaHeart has soul and Candy Monster amuses at 2 Kolegas

It was a busy week for yours truly with 5 shows pretty much, 2 of which on saturday but the one that did stick out was the shindig at 2 Kolegas with Me Too, Candy Monster, Nova Heart and re-TROS. An absolute delight of a gig with great crowd and fantastic atmosphere. I got there a bit late on account of the Low Wormwood gig at Mako and a somewhat messy encounter with 1000 wines at the Hilton wine fair but it was all good in the end. I did manage to miss Me Too yet again but as far as I’ve been told, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Never Mind The Bollocks, Those Are The Beijing Punks

my oh my what a night saturday was! I had been looking forward to the Punk festival for a few weeks now but nothing prepared me for the amount of fun and atmosphere that this was…. easily the best one of the series so far and definitely the most organized

Double Take on Proximity Butterfly’s Reprieve

I’ve been keeping both eyes on this band for a while now as one of the most exciting bands in China that is not based in Beijing. I’ve quite enjoyed their previous records, especially Arcana! The latest one, from 2008, failed to grab me as much despite some interesting sounds. How would the new release measure up?

MIDI 2011 day3: For those about to Rock, We Salute You

Last day was a bit of a tough choice to make with both Strawberry and MIDI having some pretty darn good lineups. Xie Tian Xiao, Rustic, QSBS in Tongzhou and Miserable Faith, Reflector, AK47 over at mentugou. Having been to both, I elected that MIDI would get me for day 3 despite them featuring the same band i had seen on day 2 at Strawberry… Don’t get me wrong, Modern Sky fixed a lot of problems from last year but i just didn’t enjoy their festival as much as i did MIDI and the ticketing issues + lack of alcohol tipped the balance greatly