On The Scene: Mao Livehouse 02-11-2012

A double-header for me – Mao Livehouse and Modernista rolled into one – and best of all, not having to drop a dime on either. So when some weibo investigating led me to believe that the ever hip Converse was throwing a show hosting some fresh new bands that they were planning to drag around China, along with the always entertaining Queen Sea Big Shark, you know you got my ass over on Gulou Dongdaije.

I made it over to Mao to find the young rap duo GLSNClub throwing down over some beats – fresh, yeah; talented – well I’ll let your eyes and ears be the judge.

Now rap is difficult to judge – it’s a genre where language is everything. So from my perception I’m hearing lazy rhymes, two people who seem almost bored in their spitting skills, and just plain ol’ half-assness. They’re talented for sure – especially working off one another. In fact, I was convinced they were twins for sometime (why aren’t there more twin rap duos out there?) –

but when “Fuck You” sounds as hallow as it does above, one suspects that something is amiss. But hell, this was only the second time that the massive crowd has fogged up my friggin camera so I may be completely off base here.

After marveling at the rampant advertising going on, and biking over to Modernista for my first time to feel slightly out of place (more on that later) – I retreated back to Mao to catch my beloved Queen but instead was treated to the drunken stylings of 炮王 –

To be honest I dig their music – go to their douban page – they have this noisy indie feel down that immediately draws comparison to Hedgehog (which is both kinda cool and scary in its own right, seeing them emulated by newer Chinese bands) and their catalogue on douban ain’t too shabby.

But other than the pretty rad nineteenth century attire, they put in a pretty poor performance, mainly because our lead seems to be completely out of sync with the rest of the band – missed beats, rambling – it looks like our main man has fallen under the spell of liquid courage – which is a shame cause these guys definitely have some potential.

But really my only concern of the night was catching Queen Sea Big Shark again, and though they was a tiny bit of initial disconnect between them and the audience, they delivered the goods.

I said it last time and I’ll say it again, Queen Sea Big Shark love tweaking their own shit. I can’t count how many times it took me more than thirty seconds to figure out what song they were playing. Different tempos, different chords, different emphasis on certain elements – I think QSBS take massive amusement in changing the chemical ingredients of their songs.

Even without that, the foursome still do what they do best – give a rockin fun time. With xxxxxxxxx sporting black hair and a baseball cap, she had the crowd eating up their set. And with a few new songs under their belt one can only hope a new album is on the way. That would be nice indeed. Indeedy indeedyo.