Results tagged “cuijian”

Danwei found this clip of one of the finalists for Super Girl (or, we guess, Happy Girls), Huang Ying (黄英), singing the "Father of Chinese Rock," Cui Jian's, famous anthem, Nothing to my Name (一无所有).

                            

The sun shone on Midi and all was good. And at the end of the first day, Lao Cui said unto the gathered masses, "people say that Western rock music is like a rolling stone. I've always thought of Chinese rock music as like a rolling egg. The stone may be solid, but the egg has the chance of life."

If you're not already suffering Midi-fatigue, the latest installment in this year's festival soap opera series has arrived courtesy of the Midi school - who've done us the favor of posting the proposed lineup for the Zhenjiang festival.

While rock is currently experiencing a revival all over this country, the spirit of revolution inherent in the first generation of Chinese alternative music is noticeably absent.

These days it seems Vice magazine is trying its hand at almost everything. Besides the iconic music magazine and record label they do some interesting web documentaries at VBS. Like every other news organization in the world they decided in the spirit of the Olympics to do a month of pieces on Beijing and China. Since their main focus is music they did a bunch of interesting little stories on bands like PK-14, Subs, Demerit, Mi San Dao and more. Check them out here. This morning we were having trouble loading vidoes on the VBS webpage, try youtube if you have the same problem.

By Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Of how many movies of late, or any time, can you say that "it took courage to make this film"? Summer Palace (颐和园), can be safely said to be one of those films.

Saturday was a very successful day for the festival, drawing medium-sized crowds again in the afternoon and selling out completely the evening portion. The day started with E-Groove, a Shanghainese funk-fusion band who play a popular brand of original instrumental music a la '80s Michael Brecker. These guys play a regular concert series at the Jin Mao concert hall, and can occasionally be seen featured at JZ Club. Following them was Islaja, a Finnish duo who used lots of loop-based soundscapes to support the female folk vocals. She played guitar, and there was a man who played bass, and he played lots more chordal stuff than traditional bass lines. It was a slightly psychedelic, soothing sort of Finnish folk.

The latest news from the former Fuxing Jazz Festival is that it is going to take place up in Jing'an district at the New Factories on Yuyao Lu (余姚路), and will be called the JZ Festival (爵士同乐 in Chinese). It will feature many of Shanghai's locally-based jazz groups including Coco and his band Possicobilities, Alec Haavik's Friction Five, and the JZ All-star big band. Also featured will be major Chinese rock stars Cui Jian and Xu Wei among others, as well as a number of Northern European groups (jazz and otherwise). The festival, put on by the JZ group, Jing'an government, the Jing'an tourism bureau, and the organizers of the NOTCH music festival, will take place over four full days, October 4-7.

September is quickly sliding into history, which means for all us music fans that the orgy of music festivals Shanghai will experience in the first weeks of October is almost upon us. And of course Shanghaiist is here to bring you the latest in festival news.....

Shanghai, typically a live music wasteland, is preparing for a gaggle (Shanghaiist has the hippest vocabulary) of music festivals, all scheduled for the normally dead October Golden weekend. Get ready for 4...yes, count'em....f-o-u-r....music festivals, with some pretty damn exciting bands.

Or more like who won't be performing. We've already told you about Live Earth, Al Gore's 24-hour, 7-continent series of concerts on 7/7/07. Well, lists of performers at different venues (cities participating are: East Rutherford, New Jersey [near New York]; London; Rio de Janeiro; Maropeng [near Johannesburg]; Tokyo; Shanghai; and Sydney) are starting to be announced. First up, the US and the UK.

Lyrics to “Nothing to My Name” (一无所有) were already echoing in our head when we passed through the door of JZ Club on Monday night for Cui Jian's show:

We are told he played to a packed house for two hours straight.

Yes, that Cui Jian. The godfather of Chinese rock. The one some call "China's Bruce Springsteen." The guy they put on the cover of the first Chinese Rolling Stone. The guy who last year shared a Shanghai stage and accompanied (kind of) Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.

Sensing that our caffeine levels were low, we recently made trip to the convenience store at the end of the block. There we saw Christina Aguilera on the cover of a magazine on the bottom of the rack, which upon closer inspection was the new Chinese Rolling Stone. You might recall that we wrote about this back in late March, after the inaugural issue came out with Cui Jian on the cover. They ran into problems with the publications authorites back then, and it looked like that even coming out with a second issue was going to be a problem.

Our guess: two. By now, you have likely heard of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and his run-in with a coconut tree. But did you know he almost suffered what sounds like it could have been a much more serious head injury in Shanghai? On stage? Danwei has the dirt:

Tim Kao, musician

We didn't go to the Rolling Stones concert last night. And we have only heard from one person who did go, second hand at that. Here's the message we received today:

The Rolling Stones arrived in Shanghai yesterday and the media noticed. We read a couple of these stories before we got bored.

As we told you in November, Rolling Stone, the once relevant music magazine, has plans for China. Well, now they have materialized. The inaugural issue, with Chinese rocker Cui Jian on the cover, hit newsstands over the weekend. Pictured is the copy we bought for 20 RMB on Nanjing Xi Lu (price includes a Rolling Stone baseball cap). Based on interviews with a couple news vendors in Beijing, The Times of London has proclaimed the magazine a "smash hit":

The Halloween weekend is coming up, and the indie rock scene is here to answer Shanghailander cravings for unsigned talent with several shows lined up: