Last night, we separately witnessed two of the best gigs we’ve seen in a long, long time -- and the good news is that they’re both playing again.

We'll start with Jet Echo, who played GigLive at BonBon last night. Admittedly, when bright-red-haired Ripley sat down, lit an incense stick and started going on about learning the Indonesian drum technique at Burning Man back in 2002, part of us cringed at the thought of being forced to listen to … well, Indonesian-drum-influenced-Burning-Man music -- but dear God, did they take all of us for a ride. Jet Echo is all of a two-man group -- but after watching Kiwi Al Hell (guitar and vox) use the entire front half of the stage, and Ripley’s sweat from beating that African drum like it stole something, it makes sense. They called it “space rock”, but we think that simply doesn’t do it justice (and makes it sound like Jared Leto's shit band). Combine Roger Waters and Neil Peart, add acid and Red Bull and you might touch the surface. They play again on Saturday night at Live Bar. This is simply a show not to miss.

Speaking of Live Bar, Brad (the other GigShanghai guy and new owner of the bar) seemed to be texting “What a fucking show” at the same time we were -- seeing how his venue was graced with the Dirty Three last night. “Packed to capacity and the best night Live Bar has ever had” was the message we got at the end of the evening. If you don’t know the Dirty Three, know that Jet Echo's first words to us were “Can you tell us where they’re playing on Thursday?” That should tell you something. Again -- do not miss Dirty Three's second show tonight.

In other news … ah, fuck it -- it’s not nearly as interesting as the above, so we’ll truncate:

• Tanghui has a music license!!! As long as the band doesn’t have drums -- which, you know, should be easy to find.
• Toote6 brings Chapter 3 to Fabrique

You know what? It’s all right there (points to the right side of this webpage) under Public Calendar. Just use that. Or click here.

Per GigShanghai this week -- no show, seeing how Brad remembered to grab his computer and passport when the fire started, but not that little interface of ours that let’s us podcast from anywhere. Will be back next week.

Photo of The Dirty Three by Sarah Vossler
Photo of Jet Echo by Artic Sounds

We’re keeping this one oh-so-short for a few reasons:

1. We already gave you a preview of what’s coming this weekend
2. We’re hungover from those 20-kuai Jack Daniel’s at Live Bar
3. Our hangover is heightened due to No. 2 causing us to form a band last night with MC Mojo singin’ some gospel blues which went on till 3 am

So, we’ll let the show do the talking -- just hit play and find out all the happenings in Shanghai this weekend:

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Quite a bit happenin’ show-wise this weekend, here’s hoping the rain will get caught up in the pollution and spare the Fuxing Jazz Fest -- regardless, we’ll be there and then back to Live Bar on Saturday night for a (real) blues band.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got to go find a tailor who can make our Lloyd Dobler trenchcoat for next weekend's Halloween Party.

GigShanghai

After a, shall we say, downtrodden month in the music biz, it’s finally looking up. Our PC, however, is currently fucked (free tickets to a show if someone can offer up a good place to get a new processor) -- so we’ll truncate:

Things covered in this week’s show (which will now be released on Fridays):

• Goth group Lacrimosa brings their classical-meets-Bauhausian sound to Shanghai next week
• Live Bar’s new owner, Brad Ferguson, brings more people in his opening night than the bar saw it’s during it's entire September existence
• The boys from Antidote promise to find four hours of goth music (does anyone have four hours of goth music?) for Tanghui’s dark party
• Handsome guitarists grace the YYT stage
• Coco stops by with shitload of previews for next weekends Fuxing Park Jazz Fest
• The guys who just signed over their huge single to Fox Sports to be played after every touchdown join us in-studio to talk about their (ahem) live show at a (ahem) dance venue tonight -- we'll leave the goss behind all of that in another place
• And, of course, shameless self promotion for our GigLive indie shows at BonBon

Press play and be happy:

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All in all -- good stuff.

We’ll see you at a show this weekend -- and go easy on the Antidote boys -- four hours of goth will end up making anyone look like Lou Reed (and not the young one with aviator glasses).

GigShanghai

... also, we embarrassingly forgot to mention anything about Junkie XL's appearance at DKD tonight -- just when we had gotten that Elvis remix he did out of our heads ...