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JUE | Music + Art is an annual labor of love, a privately run, basically not-for-profit gathering of creatives in Beijing and Shanghai, with live performances, workshops, exhibitions, and talks. Founded in 2009 as a protest against “the big, homogenous mega-festivals emerging in China at that time,” JUE Festival has just concluded its 7th program, featuring acts from around the world.

Host Anthony Tao is joined by Morgan Short, editor of Smart Beijing / DJ-about-town, and JUE Festival organizers Sophia Pederson and Doris Yan, both project managers at Split Works, the China-based promotion company that puts on JUE, to talk about the challenges of organizing the festival, the highlights, and what exactly happened with the high-profile cancellation of Japanese rock band Boris (“sensitive climate”?).

Also, the story of Sontag Shogun, a Brooklyn ambient piano trio that was thrice cancelled: at Club XP (after Acid Mothers Temple lead singer Kawabata Makoto, who is banned in China, was unsuccessfully booked to play a show there), Zajia Lab, and another place. They did play, however, at School Bar and Bookworm; you can listen to a snippet of their performance in the interview below:

Toward the end of this week’s podcast, we preview another independently run, privately funded festival, the Bookworm Literary Festival, which is entering its final weekend of events.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 18 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 16, Bookworm Literary Festival preview; Episode 17, The Female Voice In Contemporary Chinese Art

|The Creamcast Archives|

Some Old Time American porch music this week, in anticipation of Friday night’s big “Roots Rage” show down at Mako Livehouse. The gentleman on the fiddle is Michael Ismerio, visiting us in Beijing from North Carolina. He’s been gigging around town, sitting in with the Yellow Hutong Weasels and others, doing roots music workshops, playing shows, and calling square dances. Serious. He was the caller at last night’s square dance at the Home Plate BBQ Sanlitun preview dinner. Goes something like this. Dare to be square, man.

Ismerio is a pretty interesting guy. With a performing and recording history in Old Time music that goes back to the late 90s, he’s on a slew of records with various acts over the years — check those releases out here – and he’s also a veteran train hopper, zine maker, an ex-record store owner, and a community activist of sorts. Read his full story here. A well-traveled man indeed.

Anyways, Ismerio is on the bill for Roots Rage, which is basically every Americana / Old Time band in Beijing on one bill, down at Mako Livehouse for Friday night — tonight, that is. It’s a bill that should draw out every beard and plaid shirt for miles, stompin’ boots, partying like it’s 1899. Randy Able Stable, Hutong Yellow Weasels, and The Confectionairies. 50 rmb cover. That’s the jam this weekend. Giddyup.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Throwing something a little different at the blog this week. Trance music. Yes, you welcome.

Beijing’s hardest working and ubiquitous Psytrance promoters Goa Productions are hosting an event down at Mao Livehouse on Saturday, celebrating the release of their latest compilation record, Kui 2, which features tracks from a global host of trance producers — Braincell, Audioform, Ohmnidrive, Karna, Blue Lunar Monkey, Black Noise and more.

So. Trance music. If you’re a bit foggy on the genre, Trance is huge heaving swells of spazzoid, hyper melodic synth arpeggios into mid-song breaks, into huge, euphoric, climactic eruptions of exalted sound and energy. On ecstasy. On a shitload of ecstasy. So, so, so much ecstasy. You’ve definitely heard Trance music. Either blaring out of speakers set up outside ridiculous hair salons, pumping out of the tricked-out rides of village gangsters, or blasting out of your German co-worker’s headphones at work. Rock people, you know how you “fucking hate that bullshit techno music”? You’ve probably actually just been exposed to that sweet, sweet Trance music. When it blew up in the ’90s and beyond, the mainstream face of dance music around the world was pretty much Armin Van Buuren (cousin of Dave Van Buuren, FYI) and Paul Van Dyk — two of the genre’s most influential figures.

Anyways, Trance music is something you get or you don’t. Even in dance music circles, Trance is a much maligned genre. The prevailing opinion: it’s cheesy as fuck. And you’ve got to be gacked to the gills to even appreciate it. Taking it a step further, Psytrance or Goa trance, which is more of what you’d hear on Saturday, is a sub-sect of the genre, which sees the general Trance idiom imbued with elements of EBM (industrial), tribal, and psychedelia. Comes from off-the-grid zonked hippies in Goa and is even more of an inscrutable subculture with its own sound, iconography, and… je ne sais quoi.

Hence the video above, which is a great-looking Psytrance party. Crazy tent shit all over the place, day-glo aliens, tie-dye shit everywhere, glow sticks, tweakers tweaking out large, and a thoroughly blissed out crowd in the midst of a big ol’ trip. A real beatific scene indeed. Niiiiiiice.

Anyways, Goa Productions are pretty much the big game in town for this kind of rager. And they put in the real effort to pull it off. Respect. The video is them doing one of their shows in Wuhan. They’re on a national tour behind the release of Kui 2, and they’re celebrating in Beijing on Saturday at Mao Livehouse. 50 beans to get in. Starts 10 pm.

You should go, maaaaaan.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

It’s Friday, friends, and there’s tons and tons of shit on this weekend. Tons and tons. Too much. Too, too much. And on top of all these good lookin’ shows, it’s Halloween as well. Damn. And it looks like it’s going to be Halloween for the next three weeks or so as well. Seems like no one can figure out what day to celebrate it on. (Pssst! It’s October 31, fuckers! That’s when Halloween is! Not the Saturday before! It doesn’t matter that you have to work the next day! It’s on the 31st!)

Anyways, here’s a few shows on this weekend you might want to think about hitting up.  All of these are getting the “Friday Musical Outro Seal of Approval,” a hallowed honor indeed.

Friday and Satuday @ The Post Mountain Space: Beijing Electronic Music Encounter 2013

This one is a pangbianr.com and Metrowaves joint — two days, two stages and all kinds of electronic music with Beijing-based perfomers and a few visiting guests. This looks like probably the best program and line-up for this sort of thing in like… forever. Real solid. Runs 7 pm to 4 am both Friday and Saturday – you should really fit this in. All the info you need — artist info, logistics, links — is right here.

Friday @ Temple: WHAI One-Year Anniversary

Local hard rock electronica act WHAI celebrates their one-year anniversary. Pretty good band this one. They’re pros. And whenever they play Temple they draw a good and game crowd. Actually, if Temple is your thing, the next night, Saturday, looks right-on as well: Illness Sickness are on stage supporting their EP release. Also a real solid band that one. You should give them money and other nice things in exchange for their record.

Saturday @ Blue Stream: Jingweir Vol. 2

Jingweir kids are celebrating the launch of Volume 2 of their zine. They’ve got some stands set up and some locals are gonna play a show. It’s just going to be a righteous time. Here’s the Facebook link for band links and all that shite. Sounds like a good one.

~

Last but not least, let’s all take some time out of our day to discuss something that me, myself is involved in. Next Thurday. Halloween night. YOUR Friday Musical Outro Correspondent is playing at Temple in a MISFITS TRIBUTE BAND. For real. Be there, friend. Don’t fuck this up. Misfits on Halloween. Gonna be WIIIICKED.

~

Video this week is Venom, “In League with Satan” because Halloween is Satan’s birthday and he fuckin’ LOVES Venom. It’s like his favorite band, you know.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Welp. It’s Friday night and… not too much on for live music this weekend. Bits and shits here and there, but looks like a pretty quiet one for the most part.

Incidentally, if you’re not already hip to it, the Live Beijing Music blog does these comprehensive weekend preview articles that are really useful if you’re looking for more of a complete picture of what’s out there and not just some random guy throwing random videos at you Friday night…  Here’s the link for this week’s.

Anyways, here’s a nice little video from XLR8R ahead of the Nite Jewel show at XP this Saturday night. This is her doing a song with G-Funk-and-then-some OG, Dam-Funk. Get to the 10:30 mark — really heats up. Pretty neat. Dam-Funk. That dude is right on. He came and played in Shanghai like four years ago or something right before he blew up and got super famous. You could do worse than following the YouTube rabbit hole down into his own videos.

But yeah, on Saturday night promoters Split Works is hosting Nite Jewel, which should promise to be a sparkling and shimmering evening of warm retro synth tones. Super hip, RnB slash new wave beatific vibes kind of thing. If you’re looking for a more straight-up intro into her music, check this video. This is the hit. Kind of Eurythmics-y. Sound like your bag? Saturday at XP. 70 rmb at the door. Can’t seem to track down the opening band info, so I guess we’ll all just have to be surprised… have a good weekend!

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Lots of neat-o stuff going on this weekend and this one might have slipped under your radar. You should go if you want.

Local DJ/producer Dead J is doing a new night this Friday night at Dada called DARK, which is, as the name implies, mandated towards darker elements of the electronic music spectrum. Expect harsher techno, industrial, atmospheric stuff, breakcore, suicide music, arty bullshit, noisy and dour blips, bleeps, and bloops. In a dance club setting.

Not selling it real well. Hmm. If your tastes stray towards more noisier, experimental electronic music, but you tend to avoid nightclub-type shit, this one may be your jam. You might want to check it out. Music will be darker tones that don’t normally get played out in dance clubs. Because it’s hard to dance to. And people tend not to like it. And it bums everyone out.

Anyways, looking forward to that here’s the Creator’s Project feature on Dead J, which is insight into the man himself and his music and all that. His well goes pretty deep — here’s his Discogs. Most recently, Dead J was just sharing a stage with Monolake AKA “This Dude Invented Ableton” at that Audi Urban-waves-sounds-scapes-metro-whatever thing. He was real good.

Catch him live in the flesh at Dada tonight… No cover.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Here’s some spazzoid computer music this week from Stockholm producer Covox, in fervid anticipation of his set at Dada this Saturday night. He’s back in town for the ten-year anniversary of Shanshui Records, local producer Sulumi’s platform for bananascore electronica music of local, international, and galactic origins.

The Feola already wrote a primer-type thing on Shanshui if you’re not already familiar with the Beijing-based label, so we’ll just use this space to give you a little taste of the featured guest of the night, Covox.  That one’s one of his more bad-ass chiptune/8bit tunes, “Summer Fruit Dance Party” from his album Delete the Elite, which Sanshui released in 2005.

It’s fucking awesome, eh. Huge, cathartic, fist-pumping sweeps and swells. Machine gun rapid-fire arpeggios. Mind-blowing freakout happy, happy, happy emulator music. My god, 0:44! Blaaaarrrgg! Sounds like a Nintendo winning the lottery.

Covox has made the trip over from Sweden a bunch of times over the years, and as one of the key figures in chiptune music in the mid ’00s, he was a big influence on the stuff Sulumi was doing those days — remember Sulumi’s GameBoy abuse phase? — as well as impacting on a few other Beijing producers of the time (i.e. Baifan).

Both Sulumi and Covox (and I guess everyone else) has sort of moved on from the straight-ahead chiptune sound since those days, incorporating other elements into their more recent stuff — big-tent electro and glitch most obviously. Sulumi, in particular, bashes on electro via Ableton these days. Meanwhile, over at Baifan’s SoundCloud, it looks like he’s lately into tech house. Alas…

Here’s a more recent set from Covox — maybe Saturday night will be more like this.

And here’s a video of that first linked song with some gal shaking her ass all over it. Just because.

Shanshui’s ten-year anniversary is this Saturday at Dada bar. Big line-up. NO COVER, YO. That’s pretty right-on.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Once more into the breach, my friends. It’s Friday night and… there’s pretty much fuck all to do in Beijing. Pretty quiet weekend for live music, save for a few bits and pieces here and there. Could be worse though. Hey Beijing, at least there is exactly zero Limp Bizkit and Korn concerts happening in the city this weekend. That’s alright, eh!

Welp. Here’s a bunch of random items of interest:

- PK14′s new album 1984 is streaming right here.

- Skip Skip Ben Ben’s Ben Ben (that was fun to type) is celebrating her birthday on Saturday at School Bar. You should go and say happy birthday to her and tell her she’s in a good band.

- Cock rock band Jacky Danny was supposed to play at Temple on Saturday. They canceled. I met the drummer for the replacement band on the street yesterday and he said they might do a cover of “Take the Skinheads Bowling” by Camper Van Beethoven. That’s righteous.

- Pretty neat mix right here. If you were paying attention back in 2009, you would have seen this massive experimental music comp released out on Sub Rosa – An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music 1992-2008, compiled by HK-based composer / producer / whatever Dickson Dee. Anyways, the mix linked above is a UK via Shanghai DJ who trimmed down the 9,000,000 hours worth of noise on those 4 discs into a slick 50 minutes. Efficiency! Worth a taste.

Also, check out the single Amazon.com review of that experimental comp. One star!

“If you like to hear toast being scraped while a dentists drill screams in the background then this compilation is for you.” How fuckin’ rad is that, eh!

~

Blah, blah, blah. The featured video up there is a music viddy for Shanghai-based house DJ-cum-noise producer Laura Ingalls. (A dude named Laura, yeah.) It was put together by Shanghai-based video artist Tina Blakeney, a very wonderful and talented person herself. This is one of the tracks off his cassette release out now on Shanghai-based bass and whatever music label SVBKVLT. Said label is pretty brand new, but they’ve already have a few cassette releases (beat tapes, rather) and are kicking out their first vinyl releases next month or so. If you like bass music, future music, noise music, strange frequencies, boundary-pushing stuff, bookmark that page and get on their mailing list. Pretty cool shit and worth your time, in my opinion.

Have a turbo sweet weekend.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hello, my name is Morgan. I work for this other online magazine called SmartBeijing.com. It’s a lot like the Beijinger with one exception: people evidently print out our articles on purpose.

Beijing punk rockas get a new HQ this Saturday night with the opening of DMC, a new dive pub / live music venue out in Tongzhou run by members of two of Beijing’s longest running “street” punk acts: Demerit and Discord. In honor of this momentous and historic occasion, here’s a viddy of Discord’s most famous home-town hit, “Beijing Power.” Hat tip to LBM.

Truth be told, that song always made me a little scared.

So DMC is a dive — a real dive-y fucking dive — out in this shanty town in Tongzhou. It’s realness. It’s a courtyard patio with a tiny indoor sit-down pub. It’s done up in red and black and graffittied up with tags like “Cheap Sex,” “Kill Yuppies,” “Fuck Media” and a bunch of punk bands’ logos: The Addicts, D.R.I., Conflict, and, of course, Demerit, Motorhead, Demerit, Motorhead, Demerit, Motorhead.

This is great.

Beers are dirt cheap — 10 rmb. They have whiskey and rum and gin.

Moet & Chandon is also their official champagne brand, so it’s bottles of Moet Brut for 600 rmb on special.

No, just kidding. But they do have lots of varieties of tea. (Serious.)

Anyways, on Saturday night, if you can make it out there, expect a big party with all manner of Beijing punks tithing the latest underground rock venue in town. Bands are Bedstars and Discord definitely. And Demerit maybe. It’s no joke to get to. Myself and The Feola took a cab out there from Beixinqiao — 100 rmb and 50 mins. Damn. But worth it.

Gulou is overrun by a bunch of fucking hipsters these days anyways, EH!

Here’s a shot of Demerit singer Spike painting the D.M.C. on the club’s awning, a la CBGBs.

This is history, punk rocker.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Something a bit different this week. Movie trailer instead of music video. This is the trailer to Dinosaur Rider, a movie “adapted from real events” about Beijing’s “most hardcore punk band,” Bedstars. The grand opening night, film screening, launch, debut, gala party, whatever-it-is, is tonight at 9 pm at XP. No entry fee. You should check this movie out. Greasy degenerate punk rockers on the big screen. Beijing pride.

Kind of strange actually. I gather this movie, Dinosaur Rider, is about Bedstars, staring the band actually playing themselves, but it’s also scripted and staged. It’s a somewhat fictionalized narrative as opposed to a documentary. Anyways, it’s the story of the band and the shenanigans they get up to, rocking and rolling as they do. Judging by the trailer, there’s plenty of smokin’ ciggies, gettin’ into fights, and nailin’ birds who work in record stores. Good times. It was, of course, filmed in Beijing, last year or so, I think. In one scene the band is playing a rock show at Mao Livehouse. They did an open casting call for extras for that scene a while back. Did you go to that? Here’s your chance to see if you made the final cut.

Not sure if Bedstars is going to be performing tonight after the movie, but they’re definitely back on the XP stage on Saturday night, opening for Skip Skip Ben Ben. That should be a good one. Guess XP has forgiven the band for dousing the place with a fire extinguisher a few weeks back.

Hey, the kids are alright…

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hi, I’m Morgan. I work at SmartBeijing.com. Quick announcement: hardcore hesher types all over China HAVE SPOKEN and Metallica is playing a second show in Shanghai on August 14. If you live in Beijing and want to get some tickets, visit SmartBeeeej on Monday and we’ll have an update for you on the ticket status. It’s all being worked out. Seriously, this time though. We got your back. We’ll have tickets for sale…

Another announcement: people are drinking titty milk. Oh wait, the Tao has that covered…

Let’s keep this one short and sweet this week, friends. It’s too damn hot for this article and there’s only about two people left in Beijing to read it. Man, English teaching is looking pretty sweet right now…

Anyways, not too much going on around town for tunes this weekend but a few shows are standing out: Amazing Insurance Salesmen are at Temple, there’s a good one on for Saturday night down at XP with a show from a couple of concerts from Dalian, Doc Talk Shock and Which Park, and School Bar has some local punk rock / d-beat on for Sunday night.

And then there’s this: Zaliva-D at Dada Bar tonight. Zaliva-D has been kicking around Beijing for a while now, dishing out depth charge industrial techno and trance music like a one-man soundtrack to the post apocalypse. Dude is super serious. He has no eyebrows.

You know the scene in every single Blade movie when Blade walks into some secret vampire nightclub and it’s full of vampires dressed in vinyl getting all pervy on the dance floor and then Blade kills them all with his sword and ninja starts and shit? They’re listening to Zaliva-D in that scene. That’s his kind of music. Future pop, EBM, spazzoid nihilism techno. Just real heartwarming jams. And some nice visuals with his show too. Bunny rabbits and rainbows and stuff.

Go see that! Friday night at Dada bar. No cover.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hey, I’m Morgan, blah, blah, blah…

So Saturday is the return of Moroccan sausage Badr Benjelloun’s ‘dazeFeast, the all-day, all0night rock and / or roll party out there at 2 Kolegas. Tons of bands (check out the full line-up right here), some capoeira out on the grass, comedy, roasted animals, beer, dancing, good times, laughs, memories, surprises, and all manner of good things.

Don’t know what else to say really. Do you like local bands? Roasted things? Capoeira on the grass? Surprises? You should go, man. The exact schedule is nowhere to be seen on the internets, but asking around, the main portion of it is SUBS, then Residence A, then Amazing Insurance Salesmen going on about 1 am, and then jamtronica act Not There going on at a million o’clock and playing until a million o’clock. Something like that. But the whole thing starts at 3 pm or so.

You should get there then and gauntlet the whole thing. See it all.

Sometime earlier in the day this band is playing: The Randy Abel Stable. If I had to make a guess, I’d say they’re playing at 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock or maybe even 8 or 9 o’clock. Maybe 10 or 4 o’clock, I don’t know. But here’s a video of them shot by the indefatigable Abe Deyo, promoter of such acts like D.O.A., The Queers, Dead Elvis, and, lately, Pitbull. For serious.

But hey, The Randy Abel cats are alright and they have a new album that’s being released the night of this concert so look for them and look for that.

Congrats to Beijingdaze.com. Looks like a real good concert rain or shine…

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hello Beijing Cream readers. My name is Morgan and I work at this other website called SmartBeijing, wherein we specialize in faking the funk on nasty dunks. The Tao is outsourcing these Friday Musical Outros to me so he can concentrate on… well, hey, look at that… pretty tame week. Human suffering seems like it was somewhat minimal this week… no toilet babies… no… oh. Oh wait. Yep, there it is. Yes!

Lots of rocking and rolling and blah, blah, blah, pppffftthhhpt this weekend on fine stages all over Beijing, my friends. Yesterday marked the return of Fete de la Musique and Beijing Music Day, which I think is actually the same thing. Two names, same thing? Yeah, that’s two names for the same thing. Anyways, here’s the main website for this multi-venue event, and that’s got all the information you need to figure out who, what, where, and when if you want to see some live music.

If I had to throw some recommendations at you for Fete de la Beijing Music Day, I’d hit up Mao Livehouse to catch Djang San, who’s playing earlier on in the evening. (Ed’s note: uh, yeah, he’s already done playing. Sorry.) Real talented dude. He just released a live recording of his performance at last weekend’s Hanggai Festival — check that out right here. On top of that, the Temple Bar show looks like fun, especially with synthwave duo Wanderlust in the mix. I love those kids and this is a rare chance to catch them kicking out their special brand of art-damaged synth fuckery to a roomful of sour faced rock bros. Should be fun.

For the featured video this week, however, we’re jumping right on ahead to a Sunday night show: a rare appearance in Beijing for Shanghai’s greatest underground hope, Duck Fight Goose. This a slick, slick, slick music viddy they made for one of the stronger tracks from their last record, Sports. They’re in town on the heels of some festival in Dalian, tacking on a sneaky Sunday night show in Beijing at XP. Go to it. Trust me.

DFG are also recording a new album in September so maybe we’ll get a chance to hear some new material.

But also hopefully some classics, i.e. “Thayr will be FIII-YAAAH! FIII-YAAHHH!”

Good times.

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hey, my name is Morgan. I work at this other website called SmartBeijing.com wherein we specialize in… Christ, I don’t know, I can’t do it… I can’t do it anymore. Hey, everyone, remember that baby that was flushed down that toilet? Je-SUS.

Happy Friday night, Internet goons – here’s a little something for you to watch and listen to while you’re lacing up your shit-kickers for a night on the town. This week, I’m using this space to plug a friend and colleague’s project because, hey, it’s credible on its own. My conscience is clear. This isn’t Pepsi Cola or H&M or some shit.

(Buy H&M. Every day. All day. Ka-ching.)

Sinotronics is a new Beijing record label founded by local electronica esoterica and ephemera promoters Josh Feola and Markus M. Schneider. Formerly of two other local outfits – pangbianr in the case of the former and Metrowaves in the case of the later – Sinotronics is them Voltron’ing up to fill out another industry side of the music-making equation: actually releasing local musicians’ and composers’ records out into the world. This is called “fighting the good fight,” you know?

This Friday – right now, actually – as well as all day and night Saturday, they’re hosting a pretty stacked line-up of Beijing electronic composers and performers, as well as a few superstar DJs, to celebrate out at The Other Place – here’s the Facebook listing for all the details.

***

The line-up, today:

FREE, noon start

DJs:

3-5 pm: MMS
5-7 pm: TAO
7-9 pm: Mu Xiaohu

Live:

9 pm: FAR∞
10 pm: Dead J
11 pm: Ganjian

Afterparty DJ set from: XLF

Saturday, June 1 – with pangbianr

FREE, noon start

DJs:

3-4 pm: Jerry Chan (The Beijinger/True Run Media)
4-5 pm: Wang Ge (VICE China)
5-6 pm: Compact Dicks (SmartBeijing)
6-8 pm: Damage Blanket Sound System

Live:

9 pm: thruoutin + Chaimi
10 pm: VAVABOND
11 pm: Thin Gaze

Afterparty DJ sets from: DJ Dong Dong Dong + Damage Blanket

***

So the video is by FAR/∞, who’s basically getting ready to go on stage right now. This is his visual composition accompanied by his own live set at School Bar a few months back. FAR/∞ is Liu Yiwei, a Beijing-based ambient electronic musician and visual artist. Apparently for tonight’s event he made this Arduino contraption that connects to all the table lamps in the cafe area of The Other Place and switches them on and off at intervals in tempo with the music. He also has projections going out into the hutong outside the bar that can be controlled by the audience swirling their fingers in glasses of water…

…da fuck?

Guess you’ll have to hit that up to see for yourself in person.

Just quickly, other points of interest is Long Shen Dao reggie crew out at 2 Kolegas tonight, as well as two Beijing dates for awesome power pop / garage rock band M.O.T.O. – they’re at Temple tonight and School Bar. Go to one or both, bud! I’m looking out for you and want you to do cool things!

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.

Hey, I’m Morgan, I ran out of funny things to say for this bit.

Oh hai guys, happy Friday, good to see you all, and I hope you’re all already having sweet, awesome weekends. Super sweet, awesome weekends.

Welp, for this week’s Friday Outro, our man The Tao specifically requested some content relating to this weekend’s INTRO Festival because BeijingCream has to stay relevant with the kids. Random video of people taking a sneaky crunch in the subway are pretty great and all, but we’ve also got to make sure to big up the proper dance music events and soirees. We’re a full service website.

So, yeah, in honor of Beijing’s own INTRO Electronic Music Festival this Saturday at some steel factory, 2-11 pm, I present for your enjoyment “Ecstasy Fail”:

Just seems fitting somehow.

My friends, allow me break down exactly what’s going on right here. This is what’s happening: Basically, when you’re on that much ecstasy, it feels like your fucking face is literally trying to fly right the fuck off your head and into outer space. Your face is literally trying to peel itself off your head, and fly up and away, away, away into outer space, forever and ever. The only way to stop that from happening? Move you mouth around like a psychopath and gnash your teeth as hard as you can because that’s the only thing you can do that will hold it in place. That’s all you can do.

(Hey, it works.)

Enjoy INTRO Festival everybody! All the info you need is right here! When someone says to you that you should probably only do the half, just do the half!

Morgan is the editor of Smart Beijing and fake DJs around town. Suggestions for Friday Music Send Outs and feedback to editor@smartbeijing.com.