Musical Cultural Exchange: Locksley and The Honeys

The upcoming May holiday sees a Shanghai band heading to the US and a US band (not Pretty Girls Make Graves) coming to Shanghai.

We'll start with the band that will be playing in Shanghai, because we are staying in Shanghai over the holiday and we are selfish. Locksley formed in Madison, Wisconsin, and then made an excellent career decision and moved to Brooklyn. They will play 4 Live on Friday, May 4 at 9 pm. (They are in China for the MIDI Festival in Beijing.) Wikipedia says "[t]heir music is very derivitave of early British Invasion bands such as the Kinks, the Beatles, and the Hollies." And, based on what we've heard so far, that sounds about right. These boys even have moptops and matching suits. We think they'd be fun live, but you can make up your own minds. Thanks to this internet thing you no longer have an excuse for going into a concert unprepared: read more, watch more, download more. And, of course, there is MySpace.

On the other side of the Pacific, Shanghai band The Honeys (Tianmi de Haizi or 甜蜜的孩子) will play shows in Los Angeles on May 1 and 3. Their first show will be at 11:30 pm at The Keyclub, part of the MUSExpo conference. On the 3rd, they play 14 Below at 10 pm. This is The Honeys' first gig outside China and the press release says it is "the first ever concert by a Shanghai-based alternative act in the United States." We have yet to see The Honeys live but, yes, you can listen to several of their tracks at MySpace. Check out the English-language song "Hello Bomb," which someone called "Hello Bob" on the MUSExpo site. Read more about the band here.