You better watch your steppe

Several months ago one of my Chinese friends (who is not generally active in the music scene) told me she had been to see a band called Hanggai. It’s a name I’ve seen around for a long time, and their descriptions always mention Genghis Khan and the sound of the Mongolian steppes, so I’ve been curious, but somehow never caught them live. My friend even had their CD, which was given to her by someone else, but she didn’t really like it (said it didn’t sound like they did live) so she gave it to me to check out. I do like it, so I added them to the list of bands I wanted to see.

On Wednesday I finally got my chance. I met the friend who gave me the CD, and we had a pretty good dinner at a restaurant called The Park, which is in the same block as Yugong Yishan (yes, that place again). It being a weeknight, I was hoping the music would start earlier than usual, but no luck: they didn’t start playing till about 10.
For this show, there were seven guys on stage.
The drummer had one of the more interesting kits I’ve seen, and in general there were lots of beautiful folk instruments used.
And there was an electric guitar as well, though it was generally low in the mix and not featured prominently in the arrangements.
The horsehead fiddle featured in virtually every song. It’s pitched in about the same register as a cello, and can be played with one string as a drone and the other for melody, or, as was often the case, with a very percussive attack on the strings.
This guy was also really good at the throat singing, producing an amazing low droning tone at the same time as a higher melody tone from his voice.
The electric guitarist also played the fiddle at times, for a dual horsehead assault. His instrument has the traditional headstock ornament as well as a “tail.”
For one song they had a dancer come out, but with the crowd all around her, I couldn’t really see what she was doing.
When all three of the singers were singing, it was quite an impressive sound.

They finished up around midnight. It was still uncomfortably hot outside for my bike ride home, and it was certainly hard to get to work the next morning, but I’m so glad I was finally able to see this amazing band.

Wondering what sort of rights statues should have

One of the few Chinese bands known outside of China is Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (called ReTROS for short, and occasionally known by their Chinese name, 重塑雕像的权利 ). Their first EP was on Tag Team records, which has distribution in the US, and they even played SXSW in 2007, and have a page in the All Music Guide.

I’ve seen them before, but when I found out they have a new CD, I had to go see them again.

They were playing at Yugong Yishan (愚公移山), which is pretty convenient for me. I rode my bike again.

The opening band was The Offset: Spectacles – or something like that, involving one or more gratuitous punctuation marks.
They’re originally from Hong Kong, but have relocated to Beijing because the music scene here is more suitable to their style.
I’d say they fit right in with this scene. For one thing, they’re a trio with a female member.
They use neither a drummer nor a drum machine, relying on the guitars and keyboard to keep the rhythms going. The use of violin and a very distorted combo organ gives their music some variety, but on the whole I would not rank them near the top of the capital’s bands. They are noisy and deliberately noncommercial, both of which are also Beijing standards.

ReTROS, on the other hand, are near the top.
They are intense, unique, and artistic, and in spite of a complete lack of typical stage presence, are really entertaining. Hua Dong (华东 ) rarely faces the audience when singing or playing guitar, but he is so into the performance that he gets away with it.
Liu Min (刘敏 ) also doesn’t face the crowd. They seemlessly integrated recorded guitar, bass, and rhythm parts into the show, allowing them to play melodica, or concentrate on singing.
They played pretty much everything on their first EP as well as the whole new album, and while their studio work is very good, they are so intense and energetic live that even the memory of it makes listening to the CDs a little bit of a letdown.
After they finished, I bought the new release, which is on Modern Sky, the premier “indie” label in China – I’m not sure what kind of distribution that gives them outside the country. I also picked up another recent Modern Sky CD that they had at the table – Casino Demon’s Teenager.

Don’t you move

After too much time away, last night I dove back into the local live music scene for Pet Conspiracy (宠物同谋) at Yugong Yishan (愚公移山). PC is the second project from singer Helen Feng; her first is a great band called Ziyo (自由). I’ve got Ziyo’s CD and really like it, but I’ve never seen them live. While Ziyo is a rock band, PC is a kind of electronic art punk project started by Feng with Chinese electronic musician Huzi, who has a number of releases under his own name. Definitely gotta check those out.
This band is known for having a strong visual element. One of the members (Yun Yun) is credited with “backing vocals and video.”
They started out with a white curtain in front of the stage. Various graphics, lights and lasers were projected on it while a DJ played a very wide selection of music. I’m pretty sure he played some Tortoise, which makes him a winner in my book. He also included a cut by Ziyo.
Then we got Feng’s silhouette holding a large knife. She held the knife high and the plunged it down...
...and the curtain dropped to reveal the band on stage. They had it all done up in silver, which looked great in the lights. Yun Yun was up on Huzi’s shoulders, their backs to the audience. The three women in the band wore bunny masks.
After a bit, Yun Yun left the stage.
She returned with a big red ball. She bounced it around on stage for a while and then hurled it into the audience. It traveled around the place for the rest of the evening.
In addition to having a wonderful voice, Feng is a very active and charismatic performer.

A few songs into the set, Feng left the stage and returned wearing a top hat and jacket.
She and Yun Yun sang a sexy duet.
Many people in the audience were singing along with the band, so it seems they have some fans.

Later, there was another costume change.
Often music with heavy elements of programming can seem kind of dull when presented “live.”
Not a chance of that here. Between the show’s visual design and the sheer exuberance of the performers, there was no letting up from start to finish. In the last song of the regular set, which had lyrics something to do with money, a machine started spewing out fake $1000 bills.
The music reached a frenetic peak and the band left the stage to the sound of feedback from the abandoned guitar.

During the encore, the band left the music playing by itself and came out into the crowd.
In the end, there were audience members dancing on the stage as well.

When I get a chance, I’ll post some video on YouTube.

After the show, I bought Pet Conspiracy’s five-song CD and an autographed poster. Man, what a night!

Check out their MySpace page for some audio.

And I can’t resist a little language note about the bands’ names. Ziyo(自游) doesn’t really mean anything as far as I can tell, though it is pronounced the same as the word for freedom (自由), properly spelled Ziyou; on their CD the Chinese name is rather inconspicuous. In a similar fashion, while Pet Conspiracy does have a Chinese version of their name ( 宠物同谋 Chongwu Tongmou), it doesn’t appear anywhere on their CD – there’s no Chinese in the design at all. And since Chinese words are very flexible, it could also be translated as “pet conspirators.” The club’s name, 愚公移山 (Yugong Yishan), is “the old man moves mountains,” which is apparently from an old folk tale. It’s an idiom that means “nothing is impossible if you have the will.”

Ears still ringing, head still singing

Carsic Cars & Snapline album release

One of the English-language magazines described this show as “four of Beijing’s seven best bands” and since I haven’t seen the other three, I can simplify and say “Beijing’s four best bands.” My usual concert-buddy RR just returned from the US a couple days ago and couldn’t handle going out, so I went by myself. I’m certainly glad I made the effort – it was by far the best show I’ve seen since coming to China. I’m going to write this as if it was all discovery, when in fact I knew some things about these bands before seeing them.

Yugong Yishan is a pretty cool venue with a nice sound system and a good layout, though there are lots of stairs up and down to watch out for, which is odd by American standards, but pretty typical in China. It’s located in a restored hutong building practically on top of a subway station, making it convenient to get there, if not to get home after the lines close down at 11. One thing always mentioned about this venue, which until recently was located in a different part of town and was described as “grotty,” was cheap drinks. I think maybe they raised the prices when they upgraded the facility, though they’re still reasonable.
Guaili (怪力) started out around 9.45 with a nice set of tunes that combine roughness and complexity.
Roughness in the female lead singer, who screams a lot (but mostly in a good way), and complexity in the interplay between the two guitars. I really liked the way those two guys worked with each other, using contrasting tones and different parts - they were almost never playing the same notes.
The drummer was a little shaky at times, but not enough to ruin things.
Hedgehog was up next. I have their CD and really like it, and as I expected, they were a bit more rowdy live than in the studio. I’ve noticed that trios seem to be pretty common among Beijing bands, this band (bass/drums/guitar) being the standard line-up.
Two things set them apart: the singer/guitarist can actually sing (though he does a great rock ‘n’ roll scream as well) and has enough energy to light a whole village if there was a way to harness it; and the drummer (who from appearances isn’t old enough to be out this late, though I know she is) is rock-solid and has enough energy to make me worry that she contributes to global warming – they don’t call her Atom for nothing.
Plus the tunes are good. And did I mention energetic? All in all, an incredible show, and the evening was only half over.
They were followed by Snapline, and I was pleased to see that this band also featured a female member. It’s another trio, this time bass and guitar/keyboards with a dedicated vocalist and a drum machine.
A drum machine?! Well, yes, but in this context it works pretty well. They are not about thumping programmed beats – the machine is used in more minimal fashion, like an artsy take on early techno. The singer wears nerdy glasses and has awkward movements a little like David Byrne, though aside from the vocals and the general art-school vibe they’re not much like Talking Heads. More like early Ultravox before they went all pop.
The guitar was a combination of more-or-less normal playing and sound effects, but always making sense in the context of the songs. Her keyboard playing was in a similar vein. The bass parts were repetitious and on the mechanical side, in keeping with the general aesthetic. For their last number, a second keyboard player joined them, and from the first two beats of the drum machine I recognized the tune. “Aw, it can’t be!” Followed by, “Interesting and appropriate.” Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark’s “Electricity.” Cool.

While the keyboards were being pulled off stage and the guitar rig was getting rearranged, Snapline’s guitarist went and sat behind the drum kit, waiting patiently for the next set. The bassist left for a few minutes and returned with a different bass (I swear it’s the same one Hedgehog’s bassist used). Eventually the guitarist was ready.
Carsick Cars feature the same kind of line-up as Hedgehog: bass, guitar, female drummer, , though aside from that and the level of energy, they’re not much alike. Many of the songs are catchy, but there is a wave of distortion lurking behind the music that breaks out quite frequently.
Both drum and bass parts tend to be pretty simple, leaving lots of room for the guitar to make noise, which it does, both straight out of the amp and with the assistance of a string of little boxes on the floor. My only real complaint is that by this time in the evening the decibel inflation had hit the guitar so heavily that the drums ended up too low in the mix. Maybe it sounded different a few feet behind me where you get more from the mains than from the stage, but I wasn’t willing to move away.
Of course, the obvious comparison is Sonic Youth, though I wouldn’t push that very far. Carsick Cars are definitely their own band.

On my way out the door, I hit the merchandise table and bought the CDs by both Snapline and Carsick Cars. I looked longingly at the CC T-shirt, but decided no, leaving myself cab fair for the trip home. It took a while to get a taxi at 1am in that neighborhood, but I was still warm enough from the venue that the cold didn’t get to me.