ilona pamplona recounts her recent trip to china through words and pictures, where she discovered the local indie rock music scene …
I am a lucky girl. My day job requires me to travel for work, and while most of it is pretty mundane, I have seen some really exciting places. When they sent me to China this past summer, I knew it was going to be great. But I never thought I would one day find myself anxiously anticipating a return. Twenty-two days of intense work and squeezing some local sightseeing was great, but I couldn’t wait to get home. Particularly, because at the time, I still didn’t own an MP3 player. My mind and soul were deprived the type of music that back home nourished me.
Then on the plane ride home, I stumbled upon an article highlighting the rise of Beijing’s live music scene, supposedly solid enough to rival that of our very own Lower East Side. That’s right: Beijing vs. LES. For me, thems were fighting words.
The average mainstream music listener will conform to going to Madison Square Garden and seeing artists they have only heard of. Me, I would constantly scour local and indie music rags to see what new act I may find on any given free night. Not only did I discover some of my favorite artists that way, I am lucky enough to say I personally know some of the artists I have gone out of my way to check out. While Nick And Nora’s Infinite Playlist was not my favorite movie, my heart explodes seeing venues like Arlene’s and the Mercury on the big screen. It would have only been better if the on screen duo would have somehow ended up at Hoboken’s Maxwell’s or one of the many wonderful Asbury Park venues … perhaps we can suggest Kevin Smith to work on a Jersey-based sequel? Pardon me, I digress …
This article had to be put to the test, and opportunity came knocking. My job sent me back to China, and this time I would have only one free night in Beijing. Hoping to make the most of the music adventure, in typical form I scoured the internet to compare the venues I had read about on my 13-hour flight home in June. Unfortunately, the websites in China are not as updated as I would have hoped, and in fact, some of the venues had sites that were not updated in over a year. Then I discovered “The Beijinger,” an English language website with classifieds, events, directories and news. Imagine, if you will, Craigslist meets Yelp, specifically for Beijing.
My heart was set on D-22. Established by an American finance professor and located in the Beijing University district, it was home to local artists like Joyside, Hedgehog and Car Sick Cars, the latter who played South By Southwest in 2010. From the pictures and reviews, it seemed to me a mix of Asbury’s Stone Pony because of the notoriety of its passing local bands, the size of LES’s Mercury Lounge, and the local’s vibe of Hub City’s Court Tavern. However, the site had no new listing and I wouldn’t dare find myself in the middle of China at night not knowing how to get back to the hotel in the event that no one was playing or if the venue was closed. So the search continued.
I eventually settled on Mao Livehouse. I managed to entice two others on my work tour to join me, and at 9:30, we showed up on Gulou Dongdajie. However, we could not find 111, the venue’s actual building number. Even the taxi driver, whose English was nonexistent, seemed hesitant to drop us off. I think we were hoping to find flashy neon lights or some distinguishing sign, but we eventually realized that the venue we were looking for more closely resembled a rundown factory building with the name simply spray painted near the door. Very Brooklyn. It was already living up to my expectations.
Inside, a mix of everyday local people, hipsters, and even some unidentified westerners, were all at the front bar smoking (yes, you can still smoke indoors in China) and hanging out. My ears led me further back where a girl collecting cover and stamping people’s hand indicated to me that the next band was in the middle of sound check. CNdY, the third band of the night was ready to take stage. I was impressed that for a Thursday night, they had about 50 people in a room the size of Mercury Lounge more or less. I was not impressed with the bands mis-matchy look: lead singer with thick rimmed black glasses, keyboardist with a J-pop ’80s ensemble, bassist with sky-blue sweatpants and bleach-blonde hair, and drummer with an unassuming black polo. Their sound did not appeal to me. Mostly nu metal, they seemed reminiscent of Linkin Park. The vocals were poor, and as my colleague mentioned, it was okay until he opened his mouth.
Disappointed, the three of us were ready to leave. Then, the jaded looking door guy made us understand that the next band was worth checking out. And it was. There in the dingy venue was the sound everything the article in June made me believe I would find. Although I didn’t hear the whole set (I was on business remember!), and I arrived at the hotel reeking of cigarette smoke (very ’90s), their look and sound will surely haunt me for a long time. Each member of the four piece band looked battered by their trade yet wonderfully presented in scene appropriate garb. The mix of echo guitars, bass and drums created a sound that flowed from melancholic to violent and ethereal with a graceful ease. At that moment it hit me: the 50 people were there for them, not the CNdY. If they were ever to play the tri-state area, I would book them on a bill with Holler Wild Rose! whose Our Little Hymnal would be a perfect sound match for this unnamed band.
I left my e-mail with the door guy in hopes that the band would send me a link to their page. He suggested I check out Yu Gong Yi Shan next time in town. Although I am still waiting to put a name to this nameless band, I am excited to report that thanks to my time at Mao’s Livehouse I can affirm that Beijing has a scene I would happily support. In a world where globalization and supporting local is hard to reconcile, I conclude that embracing whatever is local wherever you may find yourself is the way to go because we can’t deny that our borders in many aspects are crumbling. So to Mao’s Livehouse staff and artists, I simply say xiè xiè! I could not have learned all this without you.
In an exciting turn of events the band’s drummer reached out to me. The Grinding Ear is a Beijing grunge band with new demos up on their page. While the Google translate tool reveals gibberish like text, what doesn’t need translation are their tracks. I hope you like them as much as I did!
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