Walking the Path

I went to the Queen Sea Big Shark show at Mao Livehouse last night. I didn’t really enjoy the show and it wasn’t because the band put in a bad performance or that the club staff offered shitty service. Both were excellent.

But I found the light show too strong, there were too many smokers and I didn’t want to stand for too long. I left at 11:30pm disgusted with myself. I used to love going to shows but now I just wanted to go to bed.

I might have been a just bit rundown – it was a Friday night after all – but I have a feeling that it’s because I’m focused on other things. I’m spending a lot more time taking care of the house. I spend most of Saturday shopping and cleaning the house.

And that seems to take a lot of me. I was going to go out tonight but right now I want to just curl up with a DVD and go to bed early.

Geez I sound like I’m 80.

J

Celebrated seven years living in China (all in Shanghai) on Saturday. There are good days and bad days but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

J.

P.S. Listening to The Mountain Goats right now at my desk. Their music just fits where I am in my life right now. Check them out.

Yesterday I decided to brave the rain and head out to the 33rd edition of NoiShanghai. It’s a little minifestival put on infrequently by the band Torturing Nurse. Yesterday’s edition was out at Live Bar in Yangpu.

It was quite a trip to get out there -about an hour by subway on lines 1 and 4 – but well worth it. Stepping off a really silent Kunming Lu (and this is with Live Bar being next to an auto shop) it was like I was enveloped by a wall of sound which really reminded me I was in Shanghai – usually my long subway ride would have done this but as it was pissing down rain, most people stayed home and the subway was fairly empty for a Saturday.

The poster for NoiShanghai XXXIII

Due to the weather the crowd was quite small. There were obviously some people who were there for the music and others who had dropped by just to see why Live Bar was open on a Saturday afternoon. Most of the people looked to be Chinese and Foreign students who go to schools in the area.

Unfortunately if you were into the pure wall of noise that was being created there wasn’t much to hold you there. The format was very similar to the last RESO night with Horacio Pollard playing stuff off his laptop that just blew your mind but there was nothing there for your eyes. He was just leaning over his laptop at the corner of the stage and if you weren’t paying attention you could have missed that he was even there. That shouldn’t be a criticism of how he plays as it didn’t take away from the music, it might just been helpful to have visuals or something playing in the background.

Up next were Thursday Club, which offered something more to look at as they played live instruments and they offered more of a free-jazz sound. This was when the crowd was at its biggest of probably 30 people – a decent size crowd for the tiny Live Bar. But it was Torturing Nurse who stole the show -it was their event after all – acting like crazy hiphop mcs while screaming into distorted microphones.

The sets were short and the whole thing was done in an hour and a half, short and sweet and my temporary ringing ears thanked me for that.

J.

Hi

Other stuff has been dominating my life for a while which has forced me to keep radio silence. It’s going to be a while until I put up a proper post, but to fill the void here is what Jake and I got up to last night.

J.

The People’s Republic of China turned 60 yesterday and the country celebrated in lavish style with a three-hour parade in Beijing, fireworks and – best of all – an eight-day long holiday.

Betty and I got out Shanghai and avoided the festivities – something I am very happy to do since the only thing I’d consider staying in town for was cancelled. We’re in LeShan in Sichuan province for the wedding of some of my best friends. The wedding is this evening and it’s going to be a blast, but we’re also enjoying being able to relax and just chilling out in the hotel.

I’m enjoying taking a break from the story on renewable energy that I’m working on for our November issue. I spent a lot of time on it over the last week and a half and I really need to recharge my batteries.  I’m going to be doing some work on it next week during the holiday but I am still going to make sure I give myself enough time to relax. 

And I’ve been pretty successful so far. I’ve finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and I’m really enjoying Sarah Rose’s For All the Tea in China - an account of how Scottish Bottanist, Robert Fortune, stole tea plants from China and transplanted them to India to guarantee a stable supply of the drink for British tea drinkers. 

Musically, I’ve been listening to NPR’s All Songs Considered Live Concerts podcast and filling my time with Yo Le Tengo, Raphael Saadiq and the Tallest Man on Earth – making it a great holiday so far, which is just what I need to recharge my batteries.

J.

In my last post I said I was tired. That’s ventured into full-time burn out at this point. We’ve decided to redesign our website at work and that’s meant that we’ve started doing web-only stories on top of our magazine content (see my first one on Chery’s proposed IPO here). I’m still trying to adjust to the new demands and that has meant I was just slammed this week. Betty, my girlfriend and I were hoping to get away this weekend to Hangzhou to relax (it’s the only way to cope when things get like this), but she got sick and I still had a bit of work to do at the weekend so we’ve had to postpone the trip.

I did relax this weekend though. I went to Boxing Cat Brewery with friends on Friday and in the taxi on the way home to walk Roger, I found a Cuban cigar still in its case and fresh – that almost made the tough week worth it. After walking Roger, I went to Yuyingtang to see Convenience Store and meet up with Jake Newby. I liked the sound but the crowd was mostly young girls there to swoon over Convenience Store’s supposedly handsome lead singer. We left after watching Convenience Store for about 20 minutes and headed to Exit where we met some of the friends from Boxing Cat and I got to enjoy that cigar. Ended the night wandering Xikang Lu looking for a BBQ stand.

Saturday, I spent the day sleeping, reading and watching Star Trek. I’ve started Richard Price’s Lush Life. Price really knows how to write a crime novel and his method of writing dialogue – seen best on HBO’s The Wire where he was a staff writer – is simply superb.

Last night headed back to YYT again to see the amazing Jeff Lang, a blue musician along with Joker, another great up and coming Shanghainese blues band. I was amazed by both of them. Joker cause they’re so young and blues/rockabilly isn’t that popular among Chinese youth and Jeff Lang cause he can combine blues and progressive rock guitar into an amazing live set (he also played for nearly two hours in a felt suit). His amazing live set made me not want to pick up his CDs for fear of not being able to live up to his live sets (unfortunately Joker’s ep wasn’t there). They were also RMB100 a pop which made them a little bit expensive and probably hurt sales. For another take on both nights at YYT check out Jake’s post.

Today was literally a bit of a washed out day. It’s been pouring rain pretty much constantly since I woke up. It made walking Roger tough. Each time we got out it was heavy rain and even with his raincoat on he still got a bit wet. I spent this morning writing this month’s book review and the afternoon reading a bit of Lush Life and sleeping. I had only meant to sleep for 30 minutes but ended up dozing off for more than three hours  - I guess that shows you how tired I am. Going to take it easy tonight so that I’m prepared for next week.

Enjoy the rest of your Sundays.

J.

Well I’d originally planned to hit up Heart Attack at Not Me on Thursday. Got some really good news that changed things — my girlfriend landed a new job which meant I spent the night celebrating. So didn’t make Heart Attack (and hey the celebrating was more important).

Did my second Drunken Dragon Hash House Harriers run yesterday — I found the trail a little tough and it just made me annoyed and with the stressful Friday I had I was just in a bad mood. Was planning to hit YYT afterward for the Mushrooms’ animal patterns show, but got pulled into a round of post-Hash drinking, so never got there – but my mood improved a lot.

I thought about going to YYT for tonight’s Mindless DJ showcase, but who am I kidding rock shows and me on a Sunday night don’t mix — especially when I have a busy week ahead and need my sleep. So for those of you wanting Chinese indie rock news check out Jake Newby’s blog. He’s got reviews of the Channel One Mall music series and the Mushroom’s animal pattern show.

And here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that talks about the Beijing rock scene and Carsick Cars’ new album.

I will get out to a show again some time soon.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend.

J.

Well it’s been a while. Work and just life have kept me busy for the last couple of months. I just haven’t had time to blog. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

• Ended up ending a two-year relationship at the beginning of June and am now with someone else. It wasn’t something I wanted to do at the time, but I realize now that a lot of things in that relationship just weren’t working.
• Roger has completed the application for his dog license and is now on the fast track to being a legal Shanghainese dog. I’m supposed to hear about the license any day now.
• Had a scare with my eye in June. One doctor claimed my retina had detached but it turns out that he had misdiagnosed me and everything is fine.
• Joined the Drunken Dragon Hash House Harriers. You can find me running in the suburbs of Shanghai every other Saturday.
• Have been trying to watch more movies and do more reading recently. I haven’t really succeeded, I keep falling asleep in front of the TV (that’s the problem when it’s in your bedroom). I’m now refusing to watch TV while in bed only sitting. In terms of reading I’m working my way through Prisoner of the State: the diary of Zhao Ziyang
• I’m back going to rock shows again after more than a month-long break. Here’s a review of the show I was at last weekend. Hoping to hit Not Me’s new indie night, Heart Attack tomorrow as well.

That’s a quick update, more substantial posts to follow.

J.

We moved into the new place last Saturday & had a great housewarming party last night – I know this is going to look weird for anybody that reads this in the archives cause the last post was on us finding the house, but whatever. It has taken about a week but everything is finally in a state where I can say we’re settled and I can freely blog again.

It really felt that way after last night’s housewarming party, which we combined with the going-away party for our friend, Ray Shi, who’s heading back to the US on Wednesday. It was great cause we got to see a lot of people we hadn’t seen in a while and everybody loved the place. I need to take pictures as we made one or two small changes from the photos that the landlord posted for the classified. I’ll try to do that soon.

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the area – most of it with Roger, who prefers to now do his business outside rather than using the diapers that he used as a puppy. That means more walks which means more exercise for me. There are lots of great little cafes and shops on Shaanxi Nan Lu and through out the French Concession and it just feels like a perfect combination of Western and Chinese side by side. It’s great to come home at night and just feel like you can relax here.

But other than that there isn’t a whole lot going on. Work is going at a steady pace. I’m busy but not getting overwhelmed. I’ve become addicted to Aric S. Queen’s Rough Sundays podcast and am really enjoying Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon. I sat down today at Vienna Cafe today for brunch and ended up reading about 60 pages and probably will cover another 80 or so before I head to bed.

It’s been a perfect long-weekend.

J.

Well it’s after 10pm and I should probably be heading to bed, but I’ve had such a great last couple of days I had to blog about it first. 

First thing is that we’ll be moving by the end of the month to this apartment in the French Concession. It’s like something out of Lust Caution and I think we’ll really enjoy living there. There are cafes all around the building and it’s close to my office. I’m looking forward to walking Roger in the area.

Secondly things at work are going really well. I think things are finally coming together for me. My cover story in our April issue got a lot of great feedback (the link to the main story is here). The book review I wrote for the April issue was on James Fallows’ Postcards from Tomorrow’s Square. Today I woke up to find that James had linked to the review on his blog with some very flattering comments.

Finally I’ve been listening to a lot of good music recently. I went to the Battles show at the Dream Factory about two weeks ago and then to Hard Queen’s CD release party last week. Right now, I’m listening to the first of Aric S. Queen’s Rough Sunday shows and I can tell that this show will become a big part of my Sunday mornings.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep this space updated with new developments.

J.