D-22 is smallish grungy place full of graphiti and abstract art; I really liked it. I will also mention that they had pints of draft beer for 15 kuai, which, being on a long back-packing adventure, I was delighted to see. Getting in was 40 kuai regular, and 30 for students, and I felt this was pretty reasonable, even though they wouldn’t take my North American student ID. The crowd was about half and half Laowai and Chinese, perhaps leaning a bit towards the Laowai, and the majority of those in attendance, both Laowai and Chinese, struck me as regular attendees of rock shows in Beijing. There was one German who I remember kept yelling “Beer!” and wildly gestuclating at the bartender in that trying-to-use-body-language-to-overcome-the-language-barrier-but-not-yet-very-good-at-it kind of way while the bartender patiently kept shouting back in English “What beer?”, but he that was the exception as far as I could tell.

The bands, I’m afraid, I won’t be able to review with confidence, because, not having seen any of them before, and not having paid close enough attention when they were introduced, I’m not one hundred percent on which band was which. The listing was Snapline, Birdstriking, Speak Chinese or Die, and These Are the Powers, and I believe Speak Chinese or Die was the first one we saw. They warmed the crowd up. Pretty straightforward post-punk indie-sounding stuff, but obviously professionals. I particularly liked their cover of the Carsick Cars’ Rock ‘n Roll Hero at the end.

The next band, I’m not really sure, but by process of elimination, I’m guessing they were Birdstriking. They were my favourite, by a long shot. The band was a pair of white guys (somebody said they were Canadians expatriots living in Beijing), who did a really intense set of noise-electronic stuff. Reminded me of Death from Above 1979, but even more hardcore and far less musical than that. They were really high energy, all over the stage and through the crowd. They got the crowd revved up, though all considered, I think that if they had played the same set in a North American bar, people would have been hanging off the rafters by the end. D-22’s crowd was a bit more subdued, but they were getting into it, and it provided a nice segue into the main attraction of the night.

These Are Powers from Chicago were playing what I think was there first show in China (this is the one band whose identity I am sure of). Their stuff I would also describe as experimental noise rock, but with a dancy edge. Crowd really got into them, even more than the former band (though I felt that it was quite a step down in intensity myself). Even got a bit of a mosh pit going in the front (all Laowai in it of course).

We were a little worn out from the dancing and moshing after the end of These Are Powers’ set, and went to drink some beer, so- I’m ashamed to say, we didn’t actually watch much of the last band’s (probably Snapline) set. Sounded good from the back of the bar though.

That about covers it. I’d strongly reccomend checking out a show at D-22 to anyone passing through Beijing. It seems like they have them pretty regularly. (http://www.d-22.cn/). Thanks again to Steve and Rory for the info, and sorry about the tardiness of my review.

No problem with the links. It’s fun for me to explore each new artist, find videos and websites, check out songs, etc. The fact that you sent them in is the key factor. When we all put our heads (and music knowledge) together, it ends up being quite a collection that we can all share with each other.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2008/07/beijing-photojo.html

Notably, he named a solo improvisation by Carsick Cars’ Zhang Shouwang as one of his top-ten classical music performances of 2008:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2008/12/alex-rosss-ten-best-performanc.html

Also, a few people here may be familiar with the name Michael Pettis – he’s a finance professor at Tsinghua University, and has become a well-known commentator on the Chinese economy. He’s also a huge music fan, and is the owner of D-22. James Fallows wrote about him in The Atlantic a while ago:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/michael-pettis

Sorry it took so long to post your comment. Since you were new to the blog, it got caught up in our spam filter until I freed it just now.

If anyone is in Qingdao, look me up and we can try to put some shows together!

THe Butterfly Lover could have been a great, world class symphony. The movement where it describes how 祝英台 is trying to resist her father’s demand is very emotional. The Violin is 祝英台 and the Brass Section (the trumpet, etc.) is the father and they crash each other leading to the climax when she jumped into the open grave. And the part about the two lovers meeting （樓台會), where the Cello plays 梁山伯 is quite touching too. But it is still not as profound and heart wrenching as Classical Music or Operas. And you have to find one that’s played really well.

二胡 维也纳 中国艺术家 Vienna Chinese artists Wonderful and miserable 二泉映月

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouFvBxbr6lk&NR=1

Serenade 小夜曲 (二胡) with Chinese artist playing a 2 string Chinese violin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okTj98xpPkE&feature=related

Quite similar to 12 Girls Band’s fusion of Chinese instruments playing western music.

It seems every Chinese instrument has a western equivalent. It could be the Silk Road brought the cultures together.

Currently, the music most Chinese actually purchase and listen to is either pop ballads or classical. Eventually, this will expand into new genres and we’re witnessing the very beginnings of that expansion. Every generation wants their own sound, their own style and their own unique singers and bands.

I don’t mean to show off or charm. Just would like to share my ideas. I think if you read through you will find it interesting. I beg for your indulgence.

Music cannot be judged by their complexity nor their quantity. It is a form of arts and arts (such as poetry, painting and cooking) are from the needs of the people. They are subjective. People in different cultures have different needs.

Music is either bad or good but no such things as better or worse. Music is either well written or poorly written, well played or poorly not. That’s all. Of course, music is not just a chain of sounds. The King who just died did not produce music. His stuff is entertainment. It is a exciting show. Not music.

Chinese’ need of music is different from the West. Their cultures and spoken languages are different. The late Leonard Bernstein was excellent when he compared the world’s musics in his lectures at Harvard. He was right about their difference as well as their commonality. The difference is cultural but the commonality is music. In other words, the difference is their sounds, the melodies and the scales. The commonality is they all follow the same music theory. The tone A is physically universal: 440 cps. It is science.

Chinese music are basically pentatonic. i.e., the scale is structured based on Do Re Me So La, and not the Fa and the Ti, the so called half steps. It doesn’t mean we don’t have these half step tones in our music. It is just that they become accidentals. That’s the way we’ve been used to hear for thousands of years. Anything else won’t sound like ours.

Classical Music was folk based too but it came into well developed forms much, much earlier than ours. In the West, music was more democratically available and was developed freely by many artists and musicians. Their materials soon extended to beyond folk tunes. Our music was monopolized by a handful of elites. Tu Fu wrote “此曲只應天上有，人間那得幾回聞”. The 天上 was the imperial court. Therefore they were restricted in development. Until 1949 when the Communist took over, they decided to make a big jump. To jump over a 300 hundred year gap, they employed the Western techniques directly into Chinese Musics. Melodies are still Chinese and folksy but the harmony is all Western. Sorry I don’t want to bore you guys too much now.

Let me just comment on these two switched pieces:

They were bad. The Serenade was written for the violin and the 二泉映月 was written for the 二胡. They were very well written respectively. But when they were written for their respective instrument, the composer knew the tonal quality, the range and the expressiveness of each. When switched, those qualities could not be displayed. 二泉映月 must be played with an 二胡 and it must be a low voice one. When I play it, mine was tuned at A (inner string) E (the outer string). The limited range (there are only 2 strings) forced the musician to slide up and down and that creates a very special voice-like melancholic tone. Like a weeping human. 鞋鞋聲. The Violin cannot reproduce that at all. Same for the other way round. The Serenade is a serious, meditative tune. The 二胡 was limited in its range and too much sliding. The vibratos (the vibration of the left hand) on the 二胡 is not majestic because it is too free. It becomes too sad (like moaning) instead of romantic (like singing). That is the difference.

Of course, a violin can play any Chinese music and vise versa because as I said before, the tone A is an A no matter on which instrument. That’s their commonality.

One piece is an exception. The Butterfly Lover 梁山伯與祝英台 was all Chinese operatic materials but particular written for the Violin. Only a Violin can play and express this piece in full. You can’t use an 二胡 to play it as good. That’s an exceptional masterpiece. But it was not a traditional one. It was written in the late 50’s by two graduate students in the Shanghai Conservatory. They were condemned during the Cultural Revolution. They didn’t write any more. And this becomes the only great Chinese piece in the last 60 years. Here we go again.

Thank you for your time,
Bing Ding

Let me go back to my local library and see if I can find that book again. Rather than do it from memory, I’d prefer to copy the exact passage since it’s been close to 20 years when I read it so I might have some of the details wrong.

Speaking of oil drilling, the ability to drill deep wells was invented in China over a thousand years ago but not for oil. It was for salt! In Sichuan province, salt was very valuable and a state owned monopoly. Because it was buried so deeply, the Chinese developed the ability to drill depths of, if I remember correctly, well over 1000 feet. The advantage they had over the rest of the world? Bamboo! Bamboo sections could be sealed in long lengths and were very strong. The rest of the world was not able to drill to such great depths until the invention of carbon steel pipe.

Hopefully, I can find that book and list many more inventions that originated in China. You’ll be surprised when you hear them!

SKO has a song on the music site Sutasi where they were finalists in their band contest. I also found this clip on YouTube.

We featured Hedgehog and their drummer Atom on a previous post. Here’s a link to their performance at Beijing’s D22 and this official video of their song “Wink”:

I wasn’t familiar with Lonely China Day. You can hear a few songs on their MySpace site. They also had an “official video on YouTube:

Sulumi was another one we had mentioned previously but I’m not sure if we posted a video. Here’s a YouTube clip from the 2008 Blip Festival and a track from their MySpace page.

We haven’t featured Guai Li yet. I tracked down this homemade YouTube video of theirs from the club Logo in Shanghai, taken by a friend of mine. I also found a five parter from D22 of which you can catch the first part here and link from there to the other four.

Please feel free to comment on the bands or singers themselves, link to cool videos like TonyP4 did, or talk about the state of music in China.