Hello Beijing Cream readers. My name is Josh and I work at this other website called Smart Beijing, where I write tl;dr music articles on a weekly basis. The Tao is outsourcing these Friday Musical Outros to my colleague Morgan, but he’s at Migas or some shit. So I got you this week.
Today we meet Daikaiju. If you haven’t come across them yet, here’s the deal: Daikaiju is a four-piece surf rock band from Huntsville, Alabama, USA that wears Peking Opera masks while playing, and pretends to be a gigantic Japanese B-movie monster in interviews. When I asked them why they wear Peking Opera masks, they responded, “Daikaiju wear Peeking Operation masks when executing peeking operations!!!” Awesome.
Indie industry circle-jerker Pitchfork gives them the thumbs up, describing their sound as a “massive wave of prime surf” infused with “prog muscle,” “skanking dub riddim,” and “a jazz-like sense of how to phrase a solo.” I guess that somehow aligns with Daikaiju’s own description of their sound: “Beautiful radiation of hyper-dimensional springy sound creates divine psychic wind for your special protection.”
In any case, you can expect a pretty crazy live act, if fresh accounts from their trail of destruction around the Mainland are to be believed. In Shanghai the drummer moved his kit from the stage to the floor while still playing it or something. They wrap up their inaugural China tour in Beijing with two shows: tonight at XP (50 rmb) and tomorrow at Temple (free).
Bonus viddy: Daikaiju is touring with Shanghai’s Round Eye, who made one of the best music videos to ever come out of China earlier this year. Treat yourself:
If you want to talk for an hour about musical miscellany you can email me here: music@smartbeijing.com.
Josh writes for Smart Beijing and Pangbianr.
Mr Feola
Old hat my friend.
Get with the plot:
http://kingtubby1.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/surfers-are-back-in-town-part-one/