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.
If music is an international language, French musician Jean Sebastien proves that Mandarin Chinese is becoming one, also. Although he plays in several bands, the focus of this episode is his "Djang San" persona, a folk artist playing traditional Chinese instruments, singing in the Chinese language, and mixing Western experimental and jazz influences into ancient melodies. See what Chinese music is, and can become, in the eyes of a talented outsider.
Outro time! We're featuring an independent artist from Limerick, Ireland tonight, John Carroll, who has been singing and songwriting for the last decade. It was a tour that brought him to China in 2007, where he married and settled. He's been living in Hangzhou ever since.
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!)
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…
Hello Beijing Cream readers. My name is Josh and I work at this other website called SmartBeijing, where I write hagiographies about obscure noise musicians. The Tao is outsourcing these Friday Musical Outros to my colleague Morgan, but I've been stumping for Genjing all day, so I'll keep it going here.
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.
Meet Andrew Moon, a participant of a growing trend in mainland China’s increasingly sophisticated independent music community — that of the curious outsider whose interest in the country’s creative culture was piqued by pals within and has since gone on to develop deep ties to domestic musicians during trips back and forth from New Zealand.
Sophie Koh's family comes from China, who then moved to Malaysia, then New Zealand, until finally settling down in Australia. From this wealth of cultural influences comes Sophie Koh's unique and striking blend of indie pop. Backed by a crack team of musicians, she spread her jams during a recent national tour (her first) to nearly every city in China, and plans to return in six months.
